Wings of the Storm (33 page)

"I see. No, I don't."

She hugged him, laughing into his shoulder. Every-thing was going to be all right. She knew it. Life was going to be hard. It was going to be terrible food and itchy clothes and cold rooms and no medicines and skirmishes to fight off and sieges to withstand and every other inconvenience she couldn't begin to think of. It was going to be short, brutish, and nasty. But she didn't care. She had David. What more could a woman ask for? Especially when she couldn't have it anyway. She'd make the best of what she had and be deliriously happy.

It would be all right. They'd be together. Forever. What a concept!

But first, to correct his little misapprehension. "It's been three or four months for me, David," she

point-ed out, speaking slowly and clearly. He was listening, studying her face carefully. "You never knew Jane Florian in 2002," she went on. "But you got a crash course in what she's like in the here and now. Time changed you, but it hasn't had a chance to get at me yet. And I know and love you. You. Not the twenty-year-old who's responsible for this mess."

The wind was setting up an unholy howling out-side. Inside, in the romantic glow of the candles, David Wolfe pulled her into a tight embrace. "Three months. True. Hard for me to conceive, but true. You haven't had any time to change. You are just Jane. You are an amazing woman, Jane Florian."

"Yes," she agreed, and fluttered her eyelashes at him. "I have an ego, too."

"You're beautiful," he answered. "And absolutely right. Time." He sighed. "Time is a very confusing concept. For example," he went on, "the last forty-eight hours have taken at least ten years to creep by."

"For me, too."

"Happily ever after?" he suggested, tracing her lips slowly with the tip of a finger.

She considered very briefly, then shrugged. "Oh, why not?"

He swept her up in his arms and began to carry her toward the bed. She flung her arms around his neck.

"Is sex all you ever think of?" she questioned with a delighted laugh.

"Yes," he answered. "Since I met you."

He set her on the floor next to the bed and they undressed each other slowly. It was a complicated process, and they made a long, sensually teasing game of it. They fell slowly onto the bed as they explored each other gently this time, trailing soft kisses and feather-light touches across naked flesh.

Jane knew she had all the time in the world. She savored every instant, every new discovery, as she learned the places where she could give him the most pleasure. He purred like a big cat when her tongue found just the right spot at the back of his neck, as it flicked across the palms of his hands, slid teasingly along the musculature between navel and thighs.

She worked her mouth along the hard length of him. He was smooth and hard and salty and sweet all at once. The smell of him excited her, as did every texture she encountered. The eroticism cleared every last doubt from her mind. She knew she'd never be able to give up the sensations making love to him brought her.

He groaned with pleasure, and she lifted her head to look at his face. Their eyes met. It was a transfer of heat, a jolt as powerful as the lightning dancing out-side the window. He took her hand and drew her up the length of his body. She came, moving with slow sensuality, skin sliding over sweat-slick skin.

He turned her onto her back, taking his turn, his time, to explore her. She closed her eyes and gladly gave herself up to the heady sensations. He touched his fingers to her breast, stroking lightly. Excitement from his merest touch shook her. He suckled one nip-ple, then the other, turning them into hard points of fire. Then he moved down her body, moving slowly and thoroughly. Within a few minutes she was ready to scream with desire. She was so hot and throbbingly wet she didn't think she could stand any more.

When his head moved between her eagerly open thighs, she did scream. Scream, and arch hard against

the tongue probing and lapping at the heated, swollen flesh. She screamed again, quivering body stiffening as a climax took her.

His mouth left her. She lifted herself to him, legs

wide and welcoming, needing him deep inside of her. He came into her, filling her as she strained upward to meet him. Their mouths met. She tasted herself on his tongue. His strokes were slow and steady, build-ing the rising passion to a slow, devastating crescen-do that took them together.

The world went away for a long, delicious moment. She soared. Coming down from the height of pleasure was a slow, sensuous glide.

Eventually she opened her eyes to look into his. He was a big, gold cat, looking smug and sated and thor-oughly pleased with himself, the world, and her. She knew he was reflecting everything she felt.

They shared one more gentle kiss. Then she curled up in his embrace, content just to be with him and drift in and out of light sleep while wind and rain continued to batter the castle walls.

33

Hours later, the rain was still pouring down,the wind howling just as strong. Lightning and thun-der played across the sky. Jane lay on her side, tracing her finger down David's strongly beaked nose. He lay on his back, eyes half-closed, a contented smile tug-ging up his lips.

"You look like you need a dish of cream," she told him. "Big old tomcat."

"That's me," he agreed, and propped his hands behind his head. "What are you doing with my nose?"

She rested her finger on the slight kink just below the bridge. "I've been trying to remember what you looked like."

"It was only three months ago," he reminded her. "I was young, but hardly dashing."

"Promise me you won't shave your head again."

"It's hardly the current fashion."

"Thank goodness," she agreed. "If we'd been stranded earlier, you might have been stuck with the silly Norman soup-bowl cut
.
Of course, I would have

looked great in the tighter-fitting dresses of the peri-od. The long line would suit my figure better than the drapery in style now. And it's only going to get worse."

"The woman's a clotheshorse," he complained to the ceiling. He held her face cupped in his hands.

"You're going to be expensive to keep, aren't you?"

"Yes." She turned her head to kiss his left palm. "Unless you prefer a dowdy wife locked up in the bower in rags." She sighed dramatically. "Whatever my lord chooses, of course." She lowered her eyes in mock humility. Then she went back to stroking his nose. "This bump," she went on. "I don't remember it at all. It looks like somebody broke your nose."

He lifted her chin so they were looking eye to eye. "Someone did," he told her. "And I deserved it."

"Hmm." From his tone and serious expression, it sounded like quite a story. She ventured a guess. "King Richard when you turned him down?"

He shook his head. "Cold."

"Someone's boyfriend?"

"Not even close."

"Father?"

"Warmer."

"Who?"

"Your mother."

She stiffened in surprise. "What?"

"Your mother," he repeated. "Colonel Elizabeth Florian, U.S. Army, retired. Quite a woman." His arm came around her, keeping her half on top of him. "I think I had better explain a few things."

There were things he hadn't explained. She eyed him nervously. "All right." What more was there to tell?

"Explain."

"It's a long story. How I found you is a long story. I think you're under some misapprehensions. Where do I start?" He caught his lower lip between his teeth for a moment, then cleared his throat. A crash of thunder punctuated his first words. "The explanation that was given for your disappearance was that you must have been lost in the earthquake. I kidnapped you on a Friday night. No one reported you missing on Monday. You and I were the only ones who knew you worked late the night of the storm."

She tried not to be angry. All this happened a long time ago. "What about my car?" she asked, trying to stay objective. Trying to get the facts. It was really very interesting, in an uncanny, macabre kind of way.

"I drove it into Chicago and left it in the Grant Street parking garage. This was after I sobered up enough to realize the equipment hadn't functioned properly and that I only had a general idea of your location.

The garage was under Lake Michigan a few days later. If there hadn't been an earthquake, I doubt I would have managed to get away with what I did. If I hadn't known you were alive and that I was the only one who could get you back, I would probably have admitted what I did to the authorities.

Eventually."

"Eventually." She was very tempted to hit him. For the boy he'd been. She decided to forgive him and pretend they were talking about a mystery plot. "How did you know I was even alive?"

"The tracer sewn into your headdress was still registering body temperature. It was the only thing working correctly. Unfortunately, I lost contact with it. Also due to earthquake damage. It was two years before we had the apparatus up and running again. By that time. Time Search was a major gov-

eminent project, with me in charge. I was the only one with the expertise to run the project. Nobody knew my ulterior motives for the intense experi-mentation."

"You didn't jump in right behind me, then?"

"No." He stroked her temples lovingly. "No. It was two years before the bloody thing was working well enough to use test animals. It was around then I met your mother."

"Oh, yeah?"

He nodded. "I went to her. I wanted information about you. Photographs. Anything. She asked me quite a few insightful questions. She guessed some-thing was wrong. She thought I killed you. I told her what really happened."

"She broke your nose."

"She broke my nose."

"You have to watch out for her right."

"It was a left. But, yes, she's very good at unarmed combat. And armed. And ancient combat tech-niques."

"Better be." Jane laughed. "She was one of the founders of the Medievalist Society. She thought I was weird when I took her hobby as my profession." It occurred to her that it was her mother who'd turned him into such an efficient killer. Her mother. The efficient soldier. The one who sent people into battle and had taken life herself. David had had a job to perform. She'd given him the tools to perform the job. Jane discovered her throat was tight with emo-tion. She almost started crying. She was so proud of both of them.

He ran his fingers lightly down her cheeks to her throat. She didn't think he noticed what he was doing.

His eyes were looking inward. Somewhere far away. "The colonel was not pleased with me. She took a lot of convincing. But when I told her my plan she helped me all she could. Making my life hell in the process."

"So the colonel taught you to fight?"

He nodded. "Eventually. There was a great deal more to learn before we got around to even basic training. Language, customs, history. History for me was just energy readings. Time an elegant concept to manipulate. I had to learn about people, what I could and couldn't do to keep time flowing the way it ought. It was quite an education. In the meantime," he went on, "the Time Search Project became more and more refined. Five years ago a volunteer made his first trip back to the target area. To Anjou.

Fontrevault."

"You?"

He nodded, his eyes full of old pain. "You weren't there. I returned again and again. I finally took on the Daffyd persona and spent most of my time back here. While I conducted my private search, carefully keep-ing the project in my control, we began the other work we'd been funded for."

"Weapons research?" she guessed. "Spying?"

He gave a sarcastic bark of laughter. "Nonsense. We can't expand the field beyond the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Not yet. But it doesn't mat-ter. We can get everything we need from this time period."

"And just what do you need?" she asked, almost frightened of the answer. What kind of exploitation was her time—

"The world's barely inhabited back here. We've

been able to find samples and bring them back with-out disturbing anything."

"Samples of what?" she demanded.

"Plants. Animals. Extinct and endangered species. Not the animals themselves, either," he hastened to add. "We just stun them with anesthetic darts and take cell samples. We're repopulating rain forests at present."

"Cloning?" she asked.

"Yes. Quite a big business these days. I'm consid-ered quite the environmentalist." His lips curled in a sneer. "They've given me medals for it. I'm a hero. If only the world knew. You aren't going to tell them, are you?"

"Them? Them who?"

"The media, the world, whoever. Take your pick. If going back's what you want," he added.

She looked at him in confused shock. "What?"

"Though you might prefer Lilydrake and Daffyd." He kissed her. She was suddenly cold all over. His lips warmed her a little. "Your call, Jane," he whis-pered into her ear.

She stared at him. She saw the earnestness, the honesty. The willingness to give her whatever she wanted. "Are you crazy?" she demanded angrily.

"Just an average mad scientist," he responded.

"You'll make me chatelaine of Lilydrake?"

"If you like."

"Keep me as your lady fair? Be my champion? Wear my colors at tourney? Sing me troubadour poems?"

"All that. Promise." He was looking at her as if he thought she were about to break into mad hysterics.

Was he crazy for real? What kind of romantic, idi-

otic notion did he have in his head? This wasn't the Medievalist Society .. . this was the bloody thirteenth century!

]ane grabbed the wavy gold lock lying on either

side of his face and hauled his head up until they were

nose to nose. "Get me out of here!"

He flinched from her angry shout. "Yes, ma'am." "Right now!" she demanded, shaking him. He eased her Fingers out of his hair. He got hold of her hands. "Not just yet," he said soothingly.

"I want a hamburger. Without onions. And choco-late. And coffee. Lots of coffee." -"That's not good for you."

"I don't care. And a shower. A lovely, long hot shower. A dozen. Books. My stereo. Every Mel Gib-son movie ever made. Central heating. Bug repellent.