Eden's Spell (3 page)

Mike reentered the forward sleeping cabin, silently observing Katrina Denver. She was still smiling very sweetly, but her eyes were closed, the covers were up to her throat, and she appeared as innocent as an angel.

He quietly reached into the drawer beneath the bunk and dug out a white terry robe. Seconds later he was standing beneath a spray of ice cold water, rubbing his hands over his face and feeling somewhat better, somewhat relieved. He closed his eyes, smiling suddenly as he wished himself anyplace but where he was. He knew that his sexual stirrings were only a side effect of the drug, but knowing it didn't really change things.

Washington would be nice right now, he thought lazily. Late in the evening. Dinner with Tania. Lovely, warm, giving, totally uninhibited Tania. An independent career woman, one who enjoyed her relationships without clinging, who seemed to understand that his heart was buried. Mmmm. Tania would be just right at this moment. Sleek and naked and passionate and—

“What the—!”

His eyes popped opened and his body tensed as he spun to confront the intruder in his shower. He seized the small hands that were sliding along his ribs.

“Hi!” Katrina said sweetly.

“Oh, God!” Mike groaned.

Her eyes were luminous, sapphire, emerald, swimming with soft and guileless seduction. Her lips were curled into that wonderful, wistful smile. He froze. All that the cold water had done for him, the sight of her undid. She had shed her bathing suit somewhere; she was naked as a nymph and twice as provocative. Her hair flared about her like a siren's temptation, and what little the teal maillot had hidden from him was displayed to him now. She was a full head smaller than he, slim, but proportioned. Her breasts were high and full and rounded; her nipples were the color of rich berries and were less than an inch from his chest. Her waist was tiny; his hands could span it. But then her hips flared out, and her rump was very femininely rounded and in a second he was going to give in to the temptation to cradle his hands there and discover their shape for himself.

She pulled her hands from his grasp and rested them against his chest just below his shoulders. “I was dreaming about you,” she whispered, and then she inched toward him. Her lips touched his chest and her belly came in contact with the hard rise of his manhood that he could no longer control.

“Oh, Lord,” Mike gasped out as her tongue, warm and sweet as heated honey, raked over his collarbone.

“I was missing you, and you came to me….”

“Oh, Lord!”
Mike grated out. His pulse had taken on the beat of the shower, and the ice cold water seemed to steam. He was fire; he was throbbing, aching heat. She had moved against him, nipples raking his chest arousingly, sinuous body sliding along his, her kisses touching him; lower and lower, her whispers silken and sultry and yearning …

For another man!

The only thing that pierced the savage tempo of his own desire was the tone of her voice; something in it that hinted of a loss he knew. She had loved once, deeply. And with his drug he had conjured up an image of that love.

Grating his teeth together, he caught her shoulders. He drew her up, he forced her eyes to his. “No!” he yelled at her, shaking her roughly. “No! Listen to me, dammit. I'm not made of stone! This is a drug. You're going to hate me—”

“I couldn't possibly hate you,” she interrupted flatly. “I love you.”

“No, no, no!”

Exasperated, Mike turned off the water. Soaking wet, he lifted her into his arms, and returned her to her bunk. And then he grinned suddenly, looking down at her perfect form, still aching but now aware of the ironic humor of the situation. “Listen, honey, you glance at me, sideways when you're not under the influence, and I'll have you on your back beneath me so fast you'll never know what hit you. That's a promise. But for right now, you've got to go back to sleep.”

She smiled, and her eyes closed obediently.

For a moment he remained standing above her. He couldn't totally resist temptation; absently, he stretched out a hand, feathering through the lush strands of hair that tangled in disarray over the pillow. And then his hand was moving again, over her cheek. It was soft. So soft. His knuckles grazed her breast, and then the pure sleek flesh of her abdomen. So delicate, so lovely …

“Arggh!”

Swearing against the stupidity of the clod who had put him in his present situation, Mike stamped back to the bathroom and snatched up his robe. It further irritated him to discover that not even the robe could hide his aroused physical state.

He tried to keep his eyes averted from her as he passed back through the cabin, but he couldn't. And he realized that she might be cold. Moving carefully, he clenched his teeth and maneuvered her beneath the covers.

Please, God, he prayed silently, let her sleep the drug off this time!

He left her, carefully closing the door behind him. He reminded himself strictly that he was a scientist and switched on the lab monitors. The boy, he noted from the picture on the tiny screen, was very definitely out like a light.

And she … Katrina … was sleeping, too, now. As peacefully as an infant.

Mike sighed and decided on one final shot of Johnnie Walker Black. He deserved it. In fact, damn it, he would snooze with the bottle in his arms, for lack of something better.

He procured the bottle and situated himself in the booth that served as the dining table. With his back against the wall he could see the screens, snooze, and surely awake if there was sound or movement from them.

Mike took a sip of the Scotch. He capped it and set it on the varnished wood table. He leaned his head against the wall, closed his eyes, and saw a rush of pink fog.

He opened his eyes and gazed at the screens again. All appeared well; both mother and child were sleeping.

He closed his eyes again. The pink fog encompassed him.

Sleep took him to a place that was beautiful beyond bounds. The sun glowed softly, mingling with the clouds in swirls of crimson and gold. The clouds embraced him; they touched him with a gentle magic, with a tender peace. He was wandering through the clouds, just walking, as if on air. He could see his bare feet touch the floor, never faltering, for there was nothing to injure him in the clouds. He was smiling, and he could feel his smile, just as he could feel the ethereal caress of the clouds against his flesh. He walked naked and serene, knowing that the clouds were gentle, that they were magic.

There was only one disturbance; something that nagged at him, something that tried to reach him. Some thought. Some logical thought. Yet he felt that he was above it; if he didn't allow the thought to pierce the clouds, then it could not, and he could continue to walk, feeling nothing but himself, his smile, his pride to be free and peaceful and strong and alive….

Something touched him. Something more vibrant than the clouds. Something that warmed and thrilled him, and made his blood race like molten lava through him. And there was sound, a whisper that cajoled him, that seduced him, that reminded him just as the touch did that he was a man….

“Come to bed, my love.”

To bed.

“Yes …”

And he was walking, but no longer alone. She was with him again; the magical pink clouds had brought her back.

“I have missed you so much.” The words tore from his throat, touched with joy, touched with agony. There had been many other women, but none who could still the longing, the pain.

She answered with a strangled little cry of her own. “Oh, yes, I've missed you. It's been so long … and I've needed you, and it's been so, so hard to live alone.”

She was with him. Standing before him. Touching him, her small hands on his shoulders, her eyes, brimming with tears, locked to his. He grinned crookedly; her eyes were blue. The pink fog had given them a touch of sea-green.

He cupped her chin in his hands and kissed her. Tasted the salt tears on her lips. Sampled their delightful texture. Gently, gently, tenderly, with love …

And then it was as if a rush enveloped him, a flood tide of desire. His arms swept around her feverishly; he crushed her length to his, cradling the firm, rounded flesh of her buttocks, lifting her slightly, lifting her to rub her body against the potency of his desire. With hunger he swirled his tongue into her mouth, savoring the sweetness, alive with the tempest of need. She whimpered slightly, but welcomed him, wrapping her arms around him, her fingers playing in the hair at his nape, nails digging into his shoulder at the force of him against her.

He was vital, about to explode. Desperate to love her before she disappeared, yet determined to love her so that she could never forget.

He broke the kiss, allowing her toes to slide back to the floor. Gently he touched her cheeks, and her shoulders. And he bent his head to plant kisses there, to nip lightly at her flesh, to let her feel the graze of his teeth and the moist caress of his tongue. She gasped softly, clinging to his shoulders, and he grinned, the fire inside him growing in heat and wonder with each sweet moan that escaped her throat, telling him of her own need. Her breasts, dear God, how long had it been since he had touched her breasts? He held them, loved them with his hands. Touched one nipple first with a flick of his tongue, suckled the other, tugging at it, savoring the feel and texture in his mouth.

“Ohhhh!” Her teeth, small, delicate, dug tenderly into his shoulders. Her nails skated over his back, raked his buttocks. Each touch brought his heartbeat quicker, the pulse inside him stronger. The need, the hunger, was dizzying. Erotic, wonderful. Stronger than anything he had known in his life. He wanted to lay her out flat and drive into her, to be shielded in her giving warmth, to have all of her with all of him.

“Oh, please …” she gasped out.

He fell to his knees, and the tip of his tongue laved her navel with moist passion. She shook and trembled, and begged him to come to her again. He stroked her thighs and touched them with the heat of his kiss. He slipped his hand between them, enjoying the satin texture of her flesh, questing the heart of her passion, thrilling to the soft cries and moans that shook her. He gripped her hips, holding her still to his hunger and her own, and caressed her with the intimate, intimate heat of his tongue until she gasped out a strangled cry, stiffened and arced like a pagan goddess, and like that goddess, released sweet nectars of love.

He caught her before she could fall and held her in his arms, finding her lips again. She tried to speak around his kisses; she caressed him and touched him. The pink clouds offered them a bed, and he laid her there, coming to her. And again she touched him, exactly where he craved to be touched, her fingers gentle and fervent, her kiss enveloping him, bringing the life and breath of him to thunder….

Then he forced her on her back and rose above her. He wedged his knees between hers; her thighs wound around him in a silken embrace, as welcoming as the velvet embrace of her body, as the cry that escaped her in another startled gasp, as her promise to love and need him forever….

At that moment he knew that he was flesh and blood, that he was a man loving a woman, that his body strained and dampened and soared at a frantic, pulsing beat. Yet the pink clouds were all around him, adding magic.

She, too, was real. Real and beautiful, seductive and sinuous, impassioned and so wonderfully sensuous. She was a part of him, so feminine, so fine, hips fluidly rotating, arching, again and again….

The pleasure, the climax, was an explosion of his being, so good that it hurt, touching the world with a streak of golden light that shattered the clouds. He was drenched; he was sated. He held her, pressing her to him, speaking breathless, soothing whispers as they drifted slowly down from the pinnacle in another silken cloud of fulfillment. He felt that he was with her still, inside of her, a part of her. And indeed, he knew that he had filled her. With himself, with all of himself.

He stroked her hair. He whispered. She whispered. He vaguely mused that her hair had grown quite long while they had been parted.

It wasn't until hours later—hours, or moments?—that he awoke again. Awoke with a painfully lucid mind and perfect reason.

Reason that clearly and dismayingly told him that the hair tangled around his shoulders wasn't just long—it was deep, dark red.

And it belonged to Katrina Denver. Just like the face that nestled against his chest, and the long, slim, naked leg that was cast over his own muscled, hairy, naked thigh.

O
H, HELL.

Oh,
hell.

If this damn situation wasn't going from ridiculously bad to worse.

Mike closed his eyes and cast his wrist over his forehead, praying that he could awake all over again and discover that the petite redhead was a 44DFS illusion.

He opened his eyes again. She was no illusion. Nor had she been an illusion in the night. Only the love had been an illusion, the belief in magic.

Not the act of love, logic warned him. That had been very, very real. So real that he could still warm to the touch of her, remember with aching clarity the sweet, wild things that had gone on between them….

He cursed aloud, then carefully tried to unravel her hair from his shoulders. What would she remember, he wondered. His own recall was perfect, but then he hadn't inhaled half of what she had of the drug. She had acted out a dream, and perhaps she would awake believing only in that dream. He still didn't know all the repercussions of the drug. It had been tested on rats, rabbits, beagles, chimps, and fighting cocks, but never human beings before.

He winced; it shouldn't have been tested on humans now. And sure as hell not in these circumstances!

She'd wanted to see him hanged before; now she'd want to perform the execution herself.

If she remembered.

Oh, God! What the hell had he done!

Carefully, he untangled her leg from his. He stood, then stared blankly at the blackness beyond the porthole. And then he looked down at her again, shaking his head slightly, a soft smile curling his lips.