The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance (18 page)

He shuddered as Erica pulled to a stop in front of an old house and got out of the car. Andrew did the same, so Sean followed suit.

“I’ll pick you up in the morning, sweetheart,” Erica said to her son, “as usual.”

“OK,” the boy replied.

“I love you, baby,” she said, crouching down to pull the boy into a tight hug.

“I’m not a baby,” Andrew said as he kissed his mother’s cheek. “I love you, too, Mommy.”

“Behave for Carolyn.”

Even at a distance, Sean could feel the strength of their bond and the power of their emotions. And he realized that it was yet another aspect of humanity that had been lost with the development of Fusion XJ. Love wasn’t a highly valued item in his time. Logic and progress, intelligence and order were the qualities that mattered.

As Erica turned her son over to the smiling woman at the house, Sean tried to sort out the situation. Erica was on her way to work, and she had just dropped her son at a place where he would be under supervision overnight. Now she would go to her lab, and she obviously believed that Sean was associated with her work there. He was not going to disabuse her of that belief until he could figure out what to do. About Andrew.

“Ready?” she asked him.

It must be an idiom, because of course he was ready. She was the one who’d needed to stop. He nodded and got back into the vehicle. Reluctantly. She resumed driving, and he found himself adjusting to the speed, and becoming even more aware of her.

The vehicle’s cabin was small, the seats close together. His thigh was touching hers, and the slight contact made the electrons in his skin switch charges.

At least, that’s what it felt like.

Her scent intrigued him, as did the sway of her hair. She glanced at him, her gorgeous eyes appraising him, looking at him in a way that was completely unfamiliar. Sean wondered if—

No. She could not possibly be showing sexual interest. Could she?

“Where are you from?” she asked.

He swallowed. “Atlanta.” It was the first ancient city that came to mind.

“You don’t sound southern,” she said. She licked her lips and Sean’s eyes locked on to the sight of her moist, pink mouth. He wondered how they would feel against his.

He shrugged as casually as he could. He’d had a lifetime to practise suppressing his libido and he could surely continue to do so now.

“Do you have any family back there?” Her voice was soft, the timbre alluring.

“No, I’m on my own.” That much was true. He had no one here, or in 2743, either. “What about you?”

“Just Drew and me,” she said. “He’s all I’ve got.”

Something in her voice jarred him. If he was not mistaken, it was the sound of complete and utter devotion. She would do anything for her child.

And Sean felt the strangest yearning to feel that kind of dedication. To be the one she cared for.

He pressed his hands against his thighs and tried to focus on the problem he faced rather than the fierce attraction and confusing emotions that were flooding his body and mind, but failed miserably. He wanted to know what it would feel like to touch Erica Gibson-Booth, to link with her in the primal way of humans – body to body, soul to soul. So much for controlling his libido.

“Why did you take food to that man on the street?”

“Poor guy is homeless,” she said. “It’s not his fault he got his legs blown off in the war.”

Sean gave a short nod and realized he had just seen, first hand, a not unusual result of the mid-world wars that had plagued the planet for decades. His era’s info-discs had not demonstrated the human losses so dramatically.

Nor had they exhibited any of the kindness that had been shown by people like Erica, who cared.

Four

He was looking at her as though he wanted her for dessert, but not in the creepy way that the patrons of the Purple Moon Club ogled her. She reminded herself not to scorn those clowns at the P.M.C. too badly, because it was only because of them that Erica was able to pay her bills, and Drew’s asthma meds were expensive.

Her body hummed with awareness of Sean Dugan. He might want her for dessert, but she couldn’t stop thinking of him as the main course. He ran his big hands down his thighs, his discomfort at their proximity palpable.

He was attracted to her, and he hadn’t even seen her dance.

Erica took a deep breath. Dugan was hot, but no matter how strong her urge to lick him all over, she wasn’t going to fall for a big, dumb-ass bodyguard, just because he had a pretty face and a body that could make a virgin beg. She was only a dissertation away from finishing her doctorate in neurobiology, and as soon as the economy improved and she could get some student financing, she was going to quit her sucky job and finish the degree.

And then maybe she’d meet someone – the right kind of someone, and not just some loser who hung around strip clubs.

“Hey, I appreciate Mitch bringing you in,” she said, turning away from his chiselled jaw and that mouth that was made for sin. “I’ve never had a stalker before – that I know of.”

He nodded. Not big on small talk, she’d noticed. And he kept his eyes glued to the road ahead of them.

“Most of P.M.C.’s patrons are pretty harmless,” she said. “Or at least, none of them have ever tried to follow me home.”

“And this . . . stalker?”

“He’s been hanging around the stage door for the past week, and then I saw him near my apartment two days ago,” she said. “He scared the daylights out of me.”

He looked at her as though she’d spoken in another language and she decided he must be new to the bodyguarding gig. Or maybe it was strip clubs in general. That would be something new.

“You don’t look like a typical bouncer.”

“Uh, it’s my first time.”

She looked over at him, her mind opening to a few possibilities. “I guess I’m not the only one trapped by the bad economy. What did you used to do?”

“I’m . . . was . . . a temporal-spatial physicist.”

“Really,” she said, fascinated. She’d known he was no typical bouncer, but a scientist? “I’ve never heard of your field before. Did you lose funding?”

He gave a slow nod.

“Wow. Maybe we could have coffee after the show and you could tell me all about temporal-spatial physics.”

A muscle flexed in his strong jaw and she sensed that he was uncomfortable talking about his lost profession.

She exited the freeway, and started to prepare herself for the night at the club. She’d been in her current line of work for only three months, and dancing half naked for a bunch of drooling lechers hadn’t gotten any easier than the first time she’d done it. One of the other dancers had told her to fix her eyes on one spot near the back of the audience as she danced, and pretend she was all alone.

That had helped, but it didn’t get the sound of the catcalls and whistles out of her head. So she thought of Drew’s asthma attacks and pharmacy bills that dancing enabled her to pay.

Turning from the service drive, she wound her way through the heavy Chicago traffic, then turned on to Kingsbury. She saw that the club was hopping already and swallowed hard, bracing herself for what she had to do. She felt Sean Dugan’s gaze on her.

“You seem nervous,” he said, sounding puzzled.

She gave a quick nod. “I . . . I’m just not used to this line of work.”

He still seemed bewildered by her statement, but otherwise didn’t respond. She pulled into a parking space behind the club, put the car in park, switched off the engine and turned to face him.

“I’m really glad Mitch hired you. Scientists aren’t usually as buff as . . .” She couldn’t believe what she almost said. “You won’t let anything happen to Drew. Or to me. Will you?”

He gave a shake of his head, his gaze roving from her eyes to her mouth. Staying on her mouth. “No. I . . . What does the man – the stalker – look like?”

It was hard to catch her breath when he looked at her like that. She leaned a little closer, hoping to catch the scent of his aftershave. “He’s tall, but not as tall as you,” she said quietly. Sean moved a fraction closer. She could see every one of the thick black lashes that framed his eyes. “H-his head is completely bald, but he has a tattoo on the back of his neck. I think it’s a bird – maybe an eagle – with its wings spread.”

Dugan touched the edge of Erica’s hair with one finger, then slid it down the side of her face. Her eyes closed and she felt her heart speed up as he cupped her cheek. No one’s touch had ever affected her so quickly, so potently.

She felt his breath on her face, and then a soft feathering of his lips against hers. Shivers skittered up her spine.

Erica leaned in. Slipping her hand around to the back of his head, she pulled him closer, meeting his kiss, deepening it. She hardly noticed how chaste a kiss it was until she slid her tongue past his lips and felt his gasp. He pulled away and looked at her, stunned.

“I – I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I never should have—”

He pulled her to him and kissed her, a hard, open-mouthed, hungry kiss, full of promise, full of . . . wonder.

Erica lost herself in it, in the pure, raw sensuality of his kiss. She’d never been touched this way before, with pure sexual heat in tandem with an unexpected sense of something entirely different. Reverence? Astonishment?

He tasted fresh and pure. His passion seemed innocent and safe, but at the same time it was sophisticated and dangerous. Confusing.

She pulled away, touching his lips with her fingers. “I-I have to go, Sean. I’m on in ten minutes.”

“On?” He looked as stunned as she felt.

“Stage.” She blushed for the first time in a long time. “Dancing. You know.”

“But . . . The neuro lab. I thought—”

She looked at him, startled. “How do you know about that? Did Mitch tell you?”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Mitch.”

She put her hand on his forearm. “Listen. This was the only job I could get that pays the bills. As soon as the economy turns around, I’m going to finish my PhD and get out of here.”

Five

Sean was in so far over his head, he didn’t know quite what to do. Erica jumped out of the vehicle and practically flew to the door of the building. Sean didn’t get out right after her, but stayed where he was, looking around for the bald stalker while he tried to gather his wits.

And do something about his unfortunate state of arousal.

Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. He’d never been kissed or even thought of kissing a woman the way Erica had kissed him. Sex in Sean’s time had been downgraded to one of the lower functions, done only when absolutely necessary. And certainly without the kind of zeal Erica had shown.

He jabbed his fingers through his neatly cropped hair and turned his thoughts to M277-CZ-398 in her plain white jumpsuit. The leader of GreenPiece was an even-featured woman without any of the curves Erica Gibson-Booth possessed. She did not make his pulse hammer with desire or his senses shimmer with excitement. The thought of her cooled his fever almost instantly.

He could only assume this physical intensity was a facet of sexual attraction, something he’d never experienced because nothing in his time was even faintly alluring. Combined with devotion and affection, it would be a powerful force.
Love
, he supposed, finally getting an inkling of the emotion referred to by the ancients. It was an all-encompassing kind of caring – something Sean could imagine feeling for a woman, even beyond the urge to mate.

Everything about this era seemed geared towards mating. Most of the huge signs he’d seen were at least subtly sexual in nature, and some were utterly blatant. Females and males in their prime wore seductive clothing that showed enticing curves or strong muscles. Women wore their hair long and flowing. Sensual. Lots of men let their facial hair grow to different lengths, from slightly scruffy to full beards. Primal.

People here had names, not cold, dry numbers that brought no individuality, no personality to their bearers. Sean felt a palpable energy here, and he realized that the lack of verve and liveliness in his own time was due to the loss of sexual drive. And they would never know what they were missing.

At least, not until he dealt with Andrew Gibson-Booth, preventing him from inventing Fusion XJ. The future would change significantly, but Sean had no doubt it would be a much more interesting future than what was in store for them now.

It took a few minutes before he was finally able to exit the vehicle. He glanced around once again for the man Erica was worried about, but the fellow wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Neither was the neuro-science lab that Andrew Gibson-Booth’s mother was supposed to have run, according to the sketchy information they had about her. She had been a scientist, that much was certain. But there was no documentation indicating that Erica had also been a dancer.

Taking one last glance around the area, Sean saw no one suspicious, so he went inside through the same door Erica had taken. The sound of hard, driving music hit him the minute he entered the building – a heavy drumbeat, shrieking chords and a hoarse, male voice carrying a discordant tune. There was very little light in the back corridor, but the air was full of something – some kind of smelly smoke, but nothing seemed to be on fire.