Love Is in the Air (31 page)

She rushed forward, burying herself in his arms. Tyr’s hug was fierce. If it weren’t for him bracing his right side, she’d never have felt even a hint of the injuries that had brought him close to death just an hour ago.

Instead, Tyr lived and made her world perfect.

But then reality reared its unwanted head. He parted their bodies and looked into her eyes. “The beast?”

Sal couldn’t keep eye contact. “He’s badly injured, but I’m pretty sure he made it back to your time.”

“Forward,” Tyr stated absently, his gaze wandering off.

“I’m sorry?”

He strode off, pacing in front of the window. “He used the blood to move forward along the time continuum to our home.”

Shaking her head, Sal backed away. “No. The way you dress? And speak? You came from our past.”

“This is the States of the Americas, is it not?” He paused in his pacing to look at her. She hesitated before she nodded, but he plowed on, “You use Anno Domini for your calendar?”

“AD, yes. This year is two thousand eleven.”

Tyr gave a curt nod, then began his pacing again. “As mine is thirty one seventeen.”

Sal sat down hard, glad that her couch was overstuffed. Every assumption she had made was based on the fact that Tyr and the beast arose long ago, before scientific process had been established.

“That doesn’t make any sense. If you are from…” why was it harder to say he was from the future than the past? Was it any more absurd to her ear? “… further down the timeline, why don’t you understand the science of essence and intent?”

His voice was distant, as if he was only devoting a very small portion of his brain to answering her question. The rest seemed occupied with something far more important.

“The Knowing began near to this decade.”

“The Knowing?” she asked.

“Of essence. Intent. The Knowing of blood and its uses.”

Tyr put his hand to the hilt of his knife. If she’d had any fantasy that he would be thrilled at being stuck in this time, and stuck with her, it was dashed as his knuckles tensed and released. Tensed and released with each step. He itched for a battle. Instead, he was left to explain a history that she could barely believe.

“But the scholars held the Knowing tightly. I doubt it would have spread during your life span…”

She waited for him to continue, but his jaw worked and worked, yet produced no words. “So sometime in the early twenty-first century, what happened?”

Tyr seemed to realize that she was still in the room. “Oh, the beginning of the Age of Descent.”

Sal could imagine that. Look at the popularity of the Secret. Give them Praxis? People, eager for personal power, dabbling in quantum magic. Look how much damage she had caused by sheer accident and under Tyr’s watchful eye. Without him, Sal feared what she might have become.

“Something stopped us from killing ourselves off,” she prompted.

“Centuries of the Harrowing followed. Those that spurned the Knowing fought against those tainted. All that you know…” Tyr pointed toward the Golden Gate in the far distance. “That bridge with the many pictures your peddlers sell will be no more. The battle raged across all continents—until the last traces of the blasphemous science were eradicated.”

Sal couldn’t stand the thought of San Francisco being leveled to ash. It couldn’t be true. “You’ve got to be mistaken. You’re confused.”

At this, Tyr turned to her. “With the beasts routed and their science scattered to the wind, dead bloods fell upon their swords to usher in the Age of Grace.”

“That’s not my definition of grace.”

Tyr shrugged and went back to his pacing. “Nevertheless, the Peace has been kept for over five hundred years. The only remnant of your time allowed to persist is a witch’s hex put upon children to prevent foundering.”

“Foundering?” Sal asked.

In response, Tyr pulled up his sleeve. She rose to inspect his arm. Over his bulging bicep was the telltale mark of a polio vaccine. Sal traced the divot in his flesh. Here lay proof of his words.

Tyr did not come from before her, but after.

CHAPTER 111

Sal didn’t realize she was about to swoon until Tyr’s strong arms were around her waist, holding her up. His attention didn’t seem split any longer.

He cared only for her welfare.

“Does such a thing matter between us?” Tyr asked.

One hand moved up her back while the other wandered south. He used his grip to pull them together. Her breasts were crushed against his firm pectorals.

Hips locked together, Sal found her brain might be fuzzy, but her body’s response was razor sharp. It wanted him. Screw what time he came from. Leaning in, Tyr’s lips found hers, but she resisted.

“Yes, it does,” Sal found herself voicing the truth. Something felt wrong, but she couldn’t verbalize beyond that.

“Why?” he asked in a whisper against her neck as his lips found the hollow along her collarbone. “I am here now.”

That he was.

“Locked forever…” Tyr kissed up to her earlobe. “With you.”

Sal’s knees buckled, but she didn’t drop an inch, his grip was so strong. Whatever foreboding she had evaporated under his touch. She didn’t resist when his lips sought hers again. If the kiss down in the underground passage had been the best of her life, this moment transcended time and space.

Desire was no longer an abstract term, but a verb. Their every movement drove her body to higher and higher anticipation. Somewhere deep in her unconscious, Sal had wanted this to happen since she saw him in that lightning flash. She needed to know what his embrace felt like. What emotions his kiss would release. How making love to him would change her life forever.

Fully healed, Tyr’s strength encircled her. As his hand traced the outline of her breast, she moaned. Her hand snaked down his stomach, feeling each ridge of his muscular abdomen, angling for his belt buckle, when his hand caught hers, holding it, stopping her from loosening it.

At first Sal thought it a game, until Tyr jerked her hand away from his waist and took a step back.

“I’m sorry. I cannot.”

From the flush to his cheeks and the firmness she’d felt in his pants, he very well could. Couldn’t he hear the siren’s song? The beat of the jungle in their pulse? This was meant to be. She took a step toward him, but he backed another.

“It is not allowed.” Catching his breath, Tyr clenched his jaw. “I am dead blood.”

“No, you’re not,” Sal said, hoping for exactly the reaction she got. His eyes narrowed as he scrutinized her, but he didn’t move back when she closed the gap between them. “Dead bloods don’t exist yet. This is your past, remember?”

He blinked several times, trying to take in the fact, much as she’d struggled to process his information.

“Whatever rules you think you must obey don’t apply, because they haven’t been written yet.”

“But—”

Sal put a finger to his lips. “There are no buts. Your only compass is here,” she said as she pointed to his heart. “It alone decides your fate.”

Tyr’s eyes clouded over as he clasped her hand. “I have not… not since…”

She kissed his hand, feeling at peace and trying to share it. “I know, but even that hasn’t happened yet. There’s nothing shameful about how we feel… or what we do about it.”

Without another word, Tyr’s arms swept her up and carried her into the bedroom.

CHAPTER 112

As Tyr laid Sal gently on her crocheted bedspread, she realized he was the first man she’d ever allowed into her room. Ever allowed to make love to her in her inner sanctum. She would never risk a man hurting her here. Never open up to a man in that way in a place where she had to live.

Normally, she’d be worried if the tiny room had too much clutter or if she’d changed the sheets this week, but with his hands roaming up and down her body, none of that mattered.

The only thing that mattered was his unzipping her dress and pulling it over her head. His rough hands ran over her bare skin. He lay to the side of her, trailing his finger down her sternum to her bra, but then went past the garment and stroked her belly.

Under any other circumstance, Sal would have felt self-conscious, but the touch felt glorious, sending shivers across her flesh. She was eager to have his hands range further, deeper.

Her hand went to the bra’s front clasp, but Tyr urged her hand away, forcing it down to the bedspread. There was nothing uncaring about the gesture, but it gave her pause. His firm grip had been more than a little thrilling, yet Sal found herself resenting the action.

Tyr’s lips followed his finger’s path down her chest. She arched, raising her breasts to his mouth, but still he didn’t take them.

As he kissed his way down to her belly, her hand found its way to her bra again. She wanted her nipples exposed. She wanted him to nuzzle them. To feel that stubble against her tender skin was destined to be an eighth wonder of the world.

But his hand stopped her again. Tyr leaned his body weight into her, even more forcibly gripping her.

“Yield,” he whispered.

She did, but haltingly, uncertain how to react. Was he rejecting her?

Then his hand hovered just over her breast. Close enough so she could feel the heat of his palm despite the air between them. He stroked the air with his thumb, and even though they weren’t in physical contact, her nipple hardened so tightly, it almost hurt. But not quite.

Tyr nuzzled her neck, stroking the skin with his coarse stubble. Her hand rubbed up his back, finding his hair, running her fingers through it. He moaned deeply, rumbling his desire against her flesh.

Sal clutched her fingers in his thick black hair, aiming his head down to her chest, but he balked.

“Yield,” he murmured, taking his hand away from her breast.

She didn’t understand what he wanted from her. “But—”

He kissed her lips, hard. Sal resisted until his hand was over her chest again. Her body arched on its own. Her mouth opening, allowing his tongue to probe hers.

Sal didn’t understand his intent, but she didn’t want that kiss to ever end, so she dropped the hand that he found so offensive away from his head.

It landed with a dull thump on the bed.

Tyr pulled away, that smile playing at his lips. “Yield, not die.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. Even his crow’s-feet crinkled in humor.

He kissed her much more lightly, then his eyes sharpened. “Do men of this time have no prowess?”

There was an argument to be made somewhere in there, but for the life of her, Sal couldn’t think of it. Men probably did have prowess, but had she ever let them show it?

CHAPTER 113

If Sal were being honest, with any other man her bra would have been off, and if she was being completely frank, she’d be in control of the situation and on to their second position by now.

Tyr moved her hand back to his head, nuzzling against her. “Salista, your touch is freedom given form… your direction is unto shackles.”

His words stung, mainly because they were true.

Had she ever let a man lead, really lead?

Slowly, she ran her fingers through his hair again. Only this time with no goal or hidden agenda. Only for pleasure, both of theirs. Tyr murmured appreciation as he raked his stubble across her neck. His hand found the clasp of her bra and popped it open. She gasped, but wasn’t sure which maneuver she was responding to. They both moistened her panties.

Tyr cupped her breast, kneading it gently, his thumb stroking her nipple. Her hand flew up to his arm, digging her nails into his flesh, encouraging him to quicken the motion.

“Yield,” his husky voice demanded.

This time she didn’t drop her arm, but released only her nails. As a reward, his thumb circled her nipple faster and faster.

Desire this enflamed had to be vented. How could she respond to his ministrations without guiding? Sal let her nails barely bite into his arm, then raked them down the curve of his bicep. She didn’t want any specific outcome from her action other than giving him one-tenth of the pleasure she felt. While Sal might have worried over his response, Tyr just groaned the deeper she dug.

Finally, his lips found their way down her chest to nuzzle her breast.

If the stubble had caused waves of almost painful pleasure on her neck, against her smooth breast, Sal’s toes curled as he brushed his chin hair across her nipple. It should have hurt, yet she found herself wanting only more.

Each time Tyr ventured near the point pleasure flirted with pain, he’d subside. He started from the outside again, working his way unerringly back to the dark target of her nipple.

Risking another “yield,” Sal slipped her hand to his chest, finding the buttons of his shirt. Surprising her again, with the first button she unfastened, Tyr took her nipple into his warm mouth, licking and sucking in ever increasing waves of yearning.

Once the shirt was unbuttoned, together they ripped it off his biceps, flinging it far from the bed. Her hand went to his belt, but just the look in his eyes told her to yield. Relaxing her grip, Sal allowed Tyr to place her hand where he wished it.

With purpose, he cupped her hand around her breast. She was confused until he took her nipple in his mouth again, nuzzling it, forcing her to hold her breast as she had never held herself before. Suddenly, Sal realized if she squeezed at exactly the moment Tyr nuzzled, she could elicit a whole new level of pleasure. Her compliance had an added benefit, it freed his other hand to roam south.

CHAPTER 114

Tyr’s tongue never stopped working as he tugged off her panties. How Sal wished she’d put on a sexy thong this morning, but the garment was gone so quickly it wouldn’t have mattered.

Her naked leg snaked up his thigh. The leather felt so good against her skin that she was glad he’d kept his pants on. Tyr’s arm wrapped under her waist, pulling her tight against his excitement. If it weren’t for the leather, they would have consummated already.

Between his lips, his tongue, and those hips of his, Sal was so ready. He must have thought so as well as he gave a final kiss to the taut nipple, then withdrew, standing at the foot of the bed.

His gaze studied her every feature. Sal found herself squirming under his inspection. She tried to roll onto her side, playing coy, avoiding his scrutiny.