All Through the Night (8 page)

“Teach me how to shudder, the crash course?”

She laughed at that. “We could put it on video, the companion piece to ‘Discover the Secret, Sensual You!’”

“You’ll do it then?”

“Honestly, Jean, I don’t think that can be taught.”

There was pride in the lift of his head, pride and sadness. “Then show me the way back to my soul. Isn’t that where shuddering comes from?”

She tugged on the comforter, trying to cover herself, but there was nothing she could do. He was sitting on the other end.

“The crash course sounds easier,” she admitted.

“What makes you shudder, Kerry? How does it happen?”

You
, she thought.
Don’t you know? Can’t you see
?

“It’s cold in here,” she told him. “I should probably get some clothes on.”

“Can I help with that?”

Again, Kerry found herself staring at him.
I gave him the wrong name
, she thought.
He isn’t Jean Valjean from
Les Mi.
He’s
Starman
from the movie
. She had her own personal starman. He thought it was just fine offering to help a crazy naked lady get dressed. He was from another planet.

“I’ll stick with the comforter,” she said, “but it would be nice if we had some light in here.”

She half-expected him to point a finger at her table lamp and zap it on. Instead, he walked over and began to tinker with it while she gathered up the comforter and created her own igloo. She watched him expectantly, waiting for the moment when light flooded him and she could finally see the details of his face. She was dying to know what he looked like in the flesh, how he dressed and carried himself.

The shadows gave him a graceful, fluid presence, but she was very aware of his height. He was a good-sized man, and as darkly gorgeous as the winter night. She had an instinctive feel for the dimensions of her bedroom, and she could just make out the substantial contours of his hand as it worked the switch of her antique table lamp. She could also remember how it felt on her arm, how much area it took up, how commanding it was.

A slave bracelet encircling pink satin skin… a slave bracelet, his hand.

Warmth rushed up Kerry’s throat. She loosened the comforter, and had a momentary flash of him reaching for her, lifting her out of her igloo and into his arms. He could do it easily, she realized. He was tall enough that her feet would never touch the floor. Tall enough to curl your bare legs around and ride like a wave to its crest.
Tall enough to bounce your head in the clouds with every rip and swell
.

Wooooooo… where was she going with that one?

She lifted her head and felt the dizzy weight of her own eyelids. The warmth had flooded her face and gone straight to her brain.

“I think you’ve blown a fuse,” he said.

She didn’t dare laugh. “I have candles somewhere.” They wouldn’t need light the way she was glowing. She was steamy enough to throw off the comforter and start fanning herself. It was an odd thing having a strange man this close to her in a darkened bedroom. She wondered if he knew how intimate it was, or the effect he was having on her.

If she could find a way to have that effect on him, she could free him from any old curse in a matter of minutes.

The candles were in her closet. She rose from the bed to get them and wondered what he would do. The answer might have frightened her if she hadn’t sensed from the first that his purpose was not to do her harm. When she turned, he was there, standing behind her, close enough to feel his heat and breathe in his male scent. It startled her, but he seemed to anticipate her concern.

“Shhhhh,” he whispered as he took an armful of votive candles from her. “It’s okay.”

He began to arrange them in small circles around the room and light them.

For some reason it pleased her to watch him do that, but she wondered about the matches in his pocket. Where did a cursed man who lived in a computer get those? You’re having a dream, Kerry, she reminded herself. A revelatory dream. That’s why you’re going along with it, and that’s the
only
reason. Your unconscious is trying to tell you something, and you’re going to listen, even if it makes you want to squeal and hide under the bed.

Her questions vanished as she realized he was gone. She looked around the room, bewildered, and saw him returning from the living room, absent the blue aura. He’d turned the TV off, but he was carrying the one remaining candle, and she was finally able to see him. The sinuous flame played its tricks, but she was certain this was the same man she’d seen on her screen.

She wondered if the sexy dark curls on his head had been cropped short to tame them. His lashes were equally dark and feathery. His mouth was even moodier and more sensual than she remembered, given its width, the curvature of his upper lip, the tilted corners. He was better looking than on the screen.

“You bring a word to mind,” he said.

“I do?”

“Beauty. You have so much of it.”

“I was thinking that about you,” she said.

“How difficult is it?”

“Shuddering? It’s not hard at all. There are so many ways. Your voice,” she said. “Your voice makes me shudder.”

He took in her flushed features, obviously pleased. God, how he made her heart beat and the blood hum through her veins. It felt like her body was making music, trying to sing.

A circle of candles flickered from the mirrored dresser, setting fire to the glass.

“Can you tell me how it works?” he asked.

“Your voice touches nerves. I can’t explain it, but if I could touch you in the same way, you’d shudder too.”

He was wearing a black sweater shirt that buttoned up the front. She slipped a hand through an opening in the comforter and touched the material. What was she doing? The room was so quiet you could hear her fingernails click against the bone buttons as she began to undo them. Her heart was beating unnaturally hard, but it seemed the right thing to do, the only thing. Moments later, the silky material fell away from his torso, letting the firelight reveal him. His abdomen was hard and smooth. Above it, sienna-colored nipples peeked through glossy dark hair.

He caught a breath as she touched his midriff.

Rippling muscles tightened torturously.

“There,” she said. “See? See how easy it is? You’re a free man.”

He laughed and threw back his head. “God,” he whispered.

“It worked, right?”

“Oh, no, Kerry,” he said, nearly as breathless as she was, “no, I’m still cursed. I’m more cursed than ever.”

Kerry was crushed. “That wasn’t a shudder? It was a quiver maybe?”

“I don’t know what it was, but it was unbelievable.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

He pressed a hand to the fluttering muscles. “It’s an amazing feeling, but I don’t think it’s the one I’m missing.”

“Really, are you sure? I guess we should try something else then. How do you like to be touched? Lightly? Firmly?”

His lips melted into a smile. “Are you my guide now?”

It was impossible not to smile back. “I could be. Would you like to go on a tour of Jean?”

“Lead on,” he said.

“This is just a dream, isn’t it?”

“It feels pretty real to me.”

Well, of course, she thought, what else would she expect a dream character to say? He wasn’t the one under stress and popping amino acids. This was her learning experience. Who cared what he thought?

She solved the problem of her comforter by tucking it in like a bath towel and wearing it like a cape. After that she eased open his shirt to allow more access. The silky material slid off one shoulder and dropped down his arm. It was an incredibly sexy accident. She didn’t want to think about how sexy.

A river of muscle, sinew and bone, that’s what she was dealing with. His belly button was the only reasonably soft thing she could see. She could start there, but like the apex of a wheel, it would only lead to things that were hard, no matter which way she went. She drew a little circle, keenly aware of the taut heat beneath her fingers, of the sensitive puckers and tucks, and the bull’s-eye at its center.

“How’s this?” she asked.

He shook his head as if to say “Nice, yes, but still not the right one.”

But she had seen the way his muscles sucked in and his shoulders lifted.

She tried those same shoulders and his neck next. There were some irresistibly tawny cords and tendons that actually quivered when she touched them. Now
that
could make a woman want to die, it was so thrilling. What must be going on inside him, she wondered. The same exquisite sensations that were stirring in her? He had such a marvelously responsive body.

“I don’t think so,” he said.

An idea came to her, but was it too reckless?

“This is only in the interests of helping your cause,” she told him. “It’s nothing personal.”

She tilted up and pressed a breathless kiss to his mouth.

Air jetted from his nostrils, but his expression barely registered the impact.

“Anything?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“No? Really? Are you sure?”

She brushed her mouth over his again, only this time she let her fingers glide down his body, over his hardened abs and across his crotch. Just so very lightly, she brushed him and felt him turn into a girder beneath her fingers. He was certainly built like a human.

A groan shot through him and his whole body quaked.

She stepped back with a secret rush of pleasure. “Congratulations,” she said.

“Whoa,” he breathed, “I’m still vibrating. What did you do to me?”

She wasn’t sure herself. “It was just a touch, and barely one at that. Maybe it was what I
didn’t
do.”

It seemed as if he needed to sit down to get his bearings. He stepped back and ended up on her bed, but when he looked up at her, he was shaking his head.

“You’re not going to believe this,” he said with the huskiest of voices, “but I don’t think that was it. No, I don’t think so.”

“What? How could it not be? Your stomach muscles were practically in spasm.” She really was at a loss—and then lightning struck again. God, the creative process. She loved it.

“Do you think it could be that you need to touch
me
?” she asked.

She was still bundled inside her igloo, and he looked her over as if to say that he couldn’t see how much touching was going to get accomplished with only her face showing.

“Here,” she said, “I’ll just move the comforter off my shoulder. See, like this.” She touched her fingertips to bare skin and quivered. “Oh! Try that.”

His fingers brushed her flesh and her igloo fell away. It dropped to the floor, revealing her tank top and bikini panties. She stood there, staring at him, wanting to gasp, gasping deep in her soul where shudders start. That was the moment she knew that something momentous was going to happen to her tonight. He was going to touch her in ways she’d never been touched before, redefine the very word, touch. And not only that, she wanted him to. Let the journey begin. It was only a dream, after all.

And she hadn’t shuddered this way in such a very long time.

Chapter Five

Contents
-
Prev
|
Next

Whatever you secretly desire in life has already imprinted itself on you. All you have to do is recognize its existence…

Kerry heard his voice as if he’d just whispered the words, but he couldn’t have. He was doing something much more thrilling and terrifying with his mouth than whispering. He was showing her what she secretly desired. It was the only part of him that touched her body, his hot, whispering mouth.

“Oh!” she cried as he rolled her nipple between his teeth. She felt the sharp edges against her aching flesh, and nearly swooned with pleasure. It was sweet relief. She was stretched so taut that even a nip would have felt good. Anything that released the pressure. How she wanted his hands on her! How she wanted to be touched and squeezed and fondled until she did swoon. She would fall into unconsciousness, aroused only by each nip, by each sharp, unbearably sweet thing he did to her.

It’s a dream… it has to be
…
I couldn’t do this if it weren’t
.

She had fleeting thoughts of turning away from him, of trying to cover herself, but that was impossible… and this was perfect. In some way, it was perfect.

She was naked and wantonly displayed for her dream lover
….
The comforter had fallen away at his touch, as had her tank top, and she couldn’t remember how it had