Angel's Touch (23 page)

“Please,” Kira whispered, gripping her arms and lifting her hips.

Megan captured her with her mouth, tasted her.

“Oh!”

Kira’s thighs clenched. She trembled and Megan was right there with her, moving with her, matching her increasingly erratic rhythm, synchronizing with her energy. Instinctually, she pushed her up, up, higher, higher, getting her ready to crest a stronger, more powerful wave than anyone had ever shown her. She sucked on her, no longer controlled. Her awareness filled with the hard, desperate pulsing of Kira’s arteries and the answering heat building in her own core. They were both quivering with need.

“Megan…” Kira groaned.

She knew just what to do to trigger her release.

Kira came with a shout.

***

God.

Kira clung to her, molding their bodies together, stunned at the fire that had ripped through her.

“How—”

Megan kissed her into silence.

“Oh God,” Kira moaned against Megan’s mouth. The best sex of her life, and she had no idea what Megan had done to her.

She had a wicked talent. She’d known exactly what to do, almost as if the two of them had done this before. But no, that was
her
dream—not Megan’s. Megan hadn’t memorized the body of the girl from her dreams and then met her in person fifteen years later. Megan was just good.

Very, very good.

Either that or Kira was so crazy about her it didn’t take much to make her lose it.

Certainly possible. Her arms fell limply to the bed and Megan pulled back and smiled down at her.

Dazed, Kira smiled back. “I don’t know how I’ll ever move again after that, but I absolutely intend to return the favor very soon.” She nuzzled a spot between Megan’s shoulder and breast, the closest part of her she could reach. Oh, God. So soft. Anything she did to make love to her would be inadequate, but she was going to try her damnedest.

As soon as she could move.

She took a breath and tried to prop herself up on her elbow, but halfway up she collapsed. Not yet, then.

Megan didn’t appear to be in any hurry. She raised her fingertips to the side of Kira’s face and combed through her hair. It felt great.

“You have the angel’s touch,” Megan whispered.

“I have what?” Kira mumbled lazily.

“Your gray hair.” Megan touched the spray of silver at the center of her forehead, just at the hairline. Only that one spot had gone gray. “In the Middle Ages, black cats were killed unless they had a tuft of white fur, even just a single white hair. They thought the angels branded the ones who refused to work with Satan. The black cats with a scorch of white—the angel’s touch—were spared.”

Kira raised her hands to her chest, forming paws, and looked up at her, trying to look pitiful. “Meow?”

“Don’t start.”

Kira rolled onto her side. This could be fun. She ran her short fingernails up her pistachio’s back and made her shiver. “So I’m marked?”

“Hmm.” Megan pretended to think about it. “No consorting with Satan, I take it?”

“He
is
male, from what I hear. So that would make it a no for me.”

“You’re worse than Gwynne.”

“Hey,” Kira protested. “If I have to be a cat, the least you can do is make me a smart lesbian cat who knows better than to consort with that scum.”

Megan smoothed Kira’s hair and smiled. “I should’ve known. I’d recognize that attitude anywhere, even if you were a reincarnated cat.”

“Reincarnation. You believe in that, don’t you?”

Megan nodded.

“Of course you do.” Kira kissed her collarbone to show it didn’t affect how she felt about her either way. “
Do
you recognize me?” It was suddenly imperative to know. “Am I in any of your past lives?”

Megan’s eyes clouded and Kira knew she’d been shut out. Something about that question had scared the shit out of her.

“You don’t believe in past lives,” Megan said.

“I’m open to the possibility.”

“It’s not some joke.”

“I know.” Kira pulled Megan closer and rubbed her back, pouring her heart into the gesture, wanting desperately to soothe away the defensiveness that had crept into Megan’s voice. She didn’t ever want to see that coldness in her eyes, especially not when they were lying naked together. “That’s why I asked. It seems kind of important, don’t you think?”

“I guess I’m the one who started it with the cat thing.”

Megan mirrored Kira’s earlier move and traced her collarbone with the tip of her tongue. If this was her way of distracting her from the question, she’d take it. At least for now. Anything that brought back their closeness—
anything
—was good.

Megan tasted her way up her neck and mumbled something against her jaw.

“Say what?” Kira said indulgently, not understanding a word.

“No past lives with you.”

“What?” Kira was so taken aback by Megan’s answer that she pulled away before she could think better of it.

“Past life? No,” Megan repeated.

Like that explained anything. Kira pressed for more clarification. “No, you can’t remember? Or no, no way?”

“I don’t get that feeling about you.”

Kira’s heart sank.
But
I
get that feeling about
you.
Does that count?
She tried to sound casual, or at least not freakily obsessed. “Does that mean you’re going to leave me one day and go searching for your soul mate?”

“You think I’m meant to be with someone else?”

“Well, yeah, isn’t that what past life people are always talking about? Being reborn to be with each other again? The love that transcends time?”
The face that you recognize from your dreams, even though you know you’ve never met before?
She had hoped so much that Megan recognized her too, that day they first met. Guess not.

“I don’t believe in that One Right Person stuff,” Megan said.

Great. Leave it to her to fall for someone who wasn’t a romantic. “Aren’t you worried that one day maybe there
is
someone you’re going to recognize from a past life? Some woman you were best, best friends with while you were both married to men, and now’s your chance to finally be together?”

“Best,
best
friends?” Megan smiled like she could not believe Kira’s G-rated word choice. She swung one leg over Kira’s hips to straddle her and bent to kiss her neck again. She ran her tongue over her skin toward her next quarry. “What is that, exactly?” She captured one of Kira’s nipples in her mouth.

Kira closed her eyes from the shock of it. Megan played with her gently, sweetly, until she was so tight she could barely breathe.

Megan was the One Right Person for her. Warm and gentle and unbelievably sexy, able to melt into the tight places in her heart and break her open. If Megan didn’t believe they should be together… She did not want to think about what would happen then.

She writhed under another flick of Megan’s tongue. The dream was…a dream. If even Megan, who believed in past lives, didn’t think they had a past-life connection, then why was she herself—a lifetime member of the seeing-is-believing club—so fixated on needing more?

“I can’t believe there was no karmic explosion for you when we met,” Kira said. “Are you
sure
?”

Megan lifted her head to reply and Kira’s body protested her own stupidity. The next time Megan’s mouth was anywhere near her naked body—which ideally would be in the next few seconds—she would be sure not to ask her any questions.

She didn’t expect that would be a problem.

“I wish I could give you a romantic answer,” Megan said.

“You’re not going to make something up?”

Megan sat all the way up, still straddling Kira’s body. “I’m actually glad I don’t recognize you from a previous life.”

“Come on.” If that was supposed to make her feel better, it wasn’t working.     

“Why are you so stuck on this? You don’t even believe in past lives.” Megan bent her head with more distraction in mind. “Who cares if this is the first time we’ve met, or the tenth, or the hundredth?”

Kira cared. Because she thought Megan would care. Because despite what Megan said, she was afraid that if Megan’s soul mate did show up one of these days, Kira wouldn’t stand a chance.

She pressed one hand against the center of Megan’s chest to stop her from kissing her. God, she’d promised herself not to do that, like, less than a minute ago. But she needed this to be more than a one-night stand or even a short-term affair. “Touching me isn’t going to reassure me.”
Although I’m sure it would feel fantastic, and I must be an idiot to stop you.
Kira cleared her throat and tried unsuccessfully to stop fantasizing about what Megan had been about to do. “Nothing’s going to reassure me except you telling me where I fit in with those past-life women in your life—because I know there must be some—and why you won’t even pretend that I’m your soul mate.”

Megan sat more firmly on Kira’s hips, pressing her slick heat into her. She gazed at her intently with her head slightly tilted and her hair falling across her shoulders. “I like you. Can’t that be enough? No explosive past-life connection?”

“No.” Kira tugged on Megan’s arms and pulled her down. Megan caught herself with her forearms on either side of Kira’s face, their noses an inch apart.

“How about if I tell you I think we have an explosive present-life connection?” Megan suggested.

“That’s something, I guess.”

“I offer you a compromise and that’s all you can say?”

“That was a compromise?”

“Yes.”

Kira flipped her over and reached between her legs. Megan was so wet.

“If a present-life connection is all you’ll give me, okay, but that means we’re going to make it count. Starting right now.”

Megan moved her knee up Kira’s side and locked their bodies together and shook.

Kira’s voice dropped lower. “I’m going to make you explode when you’re with me. I’m making that my mission in life. And it doesn’t rule out future lives. I’m going to be here inside you for this life and the next life and the next…”

Megan got wetter.

“Just like this,” Kira promised.

The screaming was the worst part of the dream.

Megan never saw the woman’s face, only her hands, which clutched at her with a desperation that echoed in her own gut. She really didn’t want to see the anguish in her face. Feeling it and hearing it were bad enough. Because as bad as it was to know something terrifying was about to happen, it was worse knowing she wasn’t the only one who would be hurt.

She loved her. And the woman must have loved her too, loved her enough to defy those men, to grab her hands and order them to let her go. But the men were stronger, and her hands slipped free. As they dragged her away, the woman’s angry, combative shouts mixed with sobs of fear and despair.

Her vision tunneled, blocking out the townspeople. The last thing she saw was the woman’s face.

Kira’s face.

Megan sat straight up and screamed.

Kira jolted awake and reached for her, her face full of worry. “Are you all right? What’s wrong?”

Megan’s heart pounded with a combination of residual adrenaline from the dream and a new rush of adrenaline that came with the realization of who Kira was. She was
not
doing this again. She was not going to date someone she’d been in a past life with. She’d made that mistake with Amelia and she was not making it again.

“You’re hyperventilating,” Kira said sharply.

“Nightmare,” Megan explained. She forced herself to take a deep breath. “Sorry I woke you.” She hadn’t woken up screaming like that since she’d been a kid. Not that she didn’t still have the dream. But she was used to it, and the death-by-fire thing didn’t scare her the way it once did. At least not usually.

“Want to talk about it?” Kira prompted.

“Must have been all that talk about soul mates,” Megan said.

“
That’s
what made you scream like someone was trying to kill you? Dreaming about your soul mate?”

Megan sank back and buried her head in the pillow.

“Must have been pretty real to make you scream.”

Kira was actually taking this seriously? A sob rose in Megan’s chest, but she refused to let it out. “Used to freak my parents out,” she mumbled into the pillow.

“What? Waking up screaming? Of course it freaked them out. They were worried about you.”

Kira gently rubbed her back with a touch that felt calming and safe—safe enough to talk about it.

“For years my mother wouldn’t let me watch TV because she assumed I’d seen a fire on TV and that was why I was having these nightmares about dying in a fire.”

Her mother did try. She taught her to crawl on the floor if there was smoke. They practiced Stop, Drop and Roll. They planned escape routes.

“What if there’s fire at the front door?” Megan would ask, worried her mother’s escape plan was sorely lacking.

“Then run out the back door.”

“What if there’s fire at the back door?”

“Then run out the front door.”

“What if there’s a fire and I can’t run, Mommy?”

“Sometimes in our dreams it’s hard to move our legs, but in the real world that doesn’t happen, okay? The fire is just a dream. It’s not real. If you’re scared and you can’t run, tell yourself it’s just a dream and wake yourself up.”

Megan knew what she meant about not being able to run very fast in your dreams, but that wasn’t what she was talking about. She wasn’t talking about running in slow motion. She was talking about her legs not being able to move at all. Because they were lashed to a stake.

“Change the dream,” her mother said. “Dream that I pick you up and carry you out and you’re safe, all right?”

But she couldn’t change the dream. She couldn’t change the fact that in her dream, she always died. They tied her up and she couldn’t escape and the fire was everywhere and she died.

“You’re still having the same dream?” Kira said, her hand warm and solid on her back, somehow managing to reach through time to comfort her child self.