Ancient Ties (17 page)

their performance was spellbinding. The villagers were enthralled—silent and tantalized.

Janney’s eyes snapped open. Surely, she couldn’t be surprised that he was right in front of her. She’d been dancing like this to entice him. It had worked. It had worked very well.

He was here. Making a fool of himself. Chasing a woman like an utter damned fool.

He let his passion for her show. He tried not to, but he was too lost in her sharp, calculated gaze as she glided toward him.

Marek’s feet were rooted to the ground. He couldn’t move. Not a hand. Not a muscle. Janney reached out. After a breathless moment, time suspended, she didn’t touch him. He was spellbound by that hand.

A slight smile appeared on her face, dreamy and sensual.

She raised her arms above her head and stretched sinuously. His gaze never wavered from hers. He was acutely aware of everything about her right up to and including the moment she touched him and brought her hips against his.

“Damn you to Hades,” he muttered, pleased at the surprise in her eyes. It was too much. Marek swept Janney up in his arms and strode away into the trees, away from the light of the fire and the prying eyes of the villagers.

Janney writhed in his arms. She moaned his name, her breath pulsing, warm spurts hitting his neck. Out of sight of the others, Marek slid her purposefully down his body, making sure a tree blocked any view the villagers might have. Primed to ravish her, he pressed her against the bark, noticing her wince at the roughness of the tree trunk.

Janney instantly rubbed herself against him, murmuring,

“Make love to me, Marek. Long and hard. I know you can.” Her fingers crawled around his waist and slipped down over his buttocks as she pulled him against her.

“I’m not cold…or frigid.” Her voice took on a sobbing quality. “I know I turn you on. I can feel it.” She ground her hips over his stiff, throbbing phallus.

The sounds from her throat, sad, heartrending moans, shocked him. One minute she was climbing all over him, the next she sobbed pitifully. He didn’t know what “turned on”

meant. Not exactly, but from her actions more than her words, he had a good idea that it meant aroused.

“Ed said I was cold. Wasn’t exciting.” One of her hands remained firmly on his rear but the other slithered up his side as she caressed his chest. She kissed him wetly through his tunic, biting at the firm skin.

Ed? Another man?
His head spun with her wild rambling.

“You find me exciting, don’t you? You want me? You said you did,” Janney’s voice trembled.

“Janney,” his voice raspy. Marek lifted her chin, cupping her face in his palm. Her cheeks were wet with tears. “Oh, yes
.
By the Gods, I want you.” He rubbed his thumb across her lips.

Suddenly, she shivered in his arms. Her lips quivered, and she buried her face against his neck, sobbing. “Oh, God, I’m so scared. Hold me.”

He wrapped both arms around her. He spread his legs, pulled her away from the rough tree, and drew her into the shelter of his body. One hand over the small of her back pulled her in tightly. The other cupped the back of her head. Marek recognized hysteria when he saw it. Janney clung to him and wept. Marek had no idea what was wrong with her. One minute she was ready to bed him, the next she collapsed in this fit of hysterics. He still wanted her, and pressing his aching erection against her sobbing body did nothing to alleviate his desire.

Holy Hades.

“Sssh,” he murmured into her hair. “It’s all right.” Marek held her shivering body and whispered soothingly. She finally stopped crying and lay limply in his arms, offering up her tender neck. He only waited a second before brushing his lips over the soft skin under her ear, suckling her earlobe gently between his teeth. His heart thundered and his groin throbbed in tandem.

“Janney,” his voice throaty even to his own ears. Marek, believing she was finally giving in to him, slid his hand down

over her hips, under her tunic, his fingers nudging it up. The skin of her thighs, so soft and sleek, led to the tangle of drenched curls.
Oh, yes.

“Yes, yes. Mmm,” she sighed, opening her eyes and flexing her hips into his hand.

Marek dipped his head to smooth his tongue across her lips.

Their connection was possessive. Janney tasted of sweet wine and salty tears. This felt right. His, she was his.

A
nd she thought I wouldn’t like kissing.

“Janney,” he growled, his fingers greedily caressed her intimate folds, his thumb played with her stiff nub. He thrust his knee between hers and angled his head to deepen the kiss.

Finally, she would be his.

Pushing at his chest, Janney sobbed, “You won’t just do this and then dump me, will you?”

“What?” Mystified, Marek feared he was once again losing control of the situation.

“Ed! He left me. He cheated on me with that bleached-blonde bimbo.” She clutched at his tunic.

“Ed’s an idiot for leaving you. Sssh. I’m not going anywhere.” Marek continued petting and stroking her plump mound. Blood thundered in his ears. He’d never wanted anything as much as he wanted to plunge his fingers into her sheath whether she was hysterical or not.

Marek shushed and cooed, trying to soothe her. Janney squirmed, but didn’t try to pull out of his grasp. Her womanly folds were hot and slippery, temptingly drawing his finger into the entrance to her body.

“Yes,” she wept.

“Please don’t leave me.” She clutched his tunic. “He said he didn’t love me anymore.”

“It’s all right, sweet. I won’t leave you.” She was perfect in his arms. He wanted to protect her, to save her from her anguish. His finger drove further inside her slick, lush passage.

Her inner muscles gripped it. “Zeus.” He could barely breathe the word.

“Oh, God, I’m so sick.” Her body slid sinuously down his front, his finger pulled out.

He watched her eyes close, the pale lashes falling to lie on her cheeks. Her mouth opened as if she was going to cry out.

Marek knelt in the grass beneath the tree and held her unresponsive body. She’d passed out. A giddy chuckle escaped, and he leaned back against the tree trunk, cuddling her in his lap, nestling her head against his chest.

He’d had such plans for her. He was supposed to be seducing her. Why did it always go wrong? Was this what it was like in the Twenty-first Century? All tease and no reward?

Marek sighed and tightened his arms around her. In his lap, her soft curves were limp and accessible. Besides the fact that he wasn’t so pitiful, he had to take a woman when she was unconscious, he knew Janney would kill him if he did.

His phallus wanted what it wanted. He adjusted her against his thighs so that the pressure of her hip kindled his flame. He’d take what he could get. Maybe if he concentrated on the names of the emperors or on the pantheon of the Gods and their order of importance, he would survive the night. Smiling ironically, he guessed that there wasn’t much chance of that.

Mt. Olympus

“Hades! What a waste of time!” Mars’ expletive distracted Venus from her careful observation of the couple far below them. “Hush. The poor girl had too much drink and fainted.”

“We do not need to be quiet. They cannot hear us.”

“Hush,” Venus repeated. “I want to watch this.” She settled onto her side, peering over the edge of her couch.

Venus was elated at what she believed to be progress in this amour. The Marek that her celestial husband Mars had mentored in the arts of war was now totally unsettled by this woman.

Marek had lived with his warrior ways for so long that he’d

forgotten how to love. He’d forgotten that there was more to life than fighting and killing, and pain.

Venus knew exactly what she was doing when she nudged the woman, Janney Forrester, through the villa entryway. The young woman was in need of a man who believed in her, would fight for her. Marek needed to reawaken his passion, his love.

Oh, these two people were delicious to watch. They were not just a man and a woman falling in love. Each of them had to go beyond the different world circumstances they found themselves in and take each other seriously as a lover.

Venus spared a look at the glowering God of War.

Sometimes she wasn’t quite sure why she loved him. Loud, domineering, demanding, but occasionally vulnerable. Very occasionally. Those rare times were the ones that kept her here—by his side.

Janney uttered a prayer of gratitude that Marek was nowhere to be seen this morning—late morning. Clapping a hand over her eyes—barely able to see straight in the sunlight piercing through to the peristyle—she crawled out of her bed chamber to collapse gingerly onto a stone bench deep in the shade of a grapevine arbor. Breathing shallowly and trying not to move her head too much, she managed to peruse the garden. She anticipated that Marek would show up any moment and…and what? What would he do? What had he done last night?

“Oh, God,” Janney groaned. “What did I do?” She had no memory of coming home. She remembered the dancing. Oh, yes, she’d danced up a storm.

Her head snapped up. “Unh. Dizzy.” Then she

remembered. Oh, God, she had thrown herself at Marek. She’d told him about Ed. That was about as pathetic as a girl can get.

No wonder he wasn’t here.

It doesn’t matter
. There was nothing between them—except a bit of lust. Well…a lot of lust. Janney shook her head.
Ah. Sick.

Don’t do that.
Resting her head on the back of the bench, she closed her eyes and hoped her queasiness would pass before she died.

“There you are.” The velvety growl.

Oh, God.
Janney stiffened, but didn’t raise her head.

“How are you feeling?” The sound of his voice resonated through her fluttering stomach. His sensual voice curled around her, heating her skin, her cheeks, even her eyelids.
Maybe it’s just
the sun.

Janney slowly, very slowly, opened her eyes and turned to Marek. His body, with its broad shoulders, blocked the sun, throwing his face into shadows. She felt her face heat up even more with the memory of where her hand had been last night.

Before she could stop it, a look of horror froze her features. He shifted, and her heart almost stopped when she saw the recognition shimmering in his eyes, his lips quirking up on one side. The damn man was laughing at her. Then, surprisingly, a red flush appeared over the bridge of his nose and across his cheekbones.

“How are you feeling?” he repeated, his voice low and intimate.

“Fine,” she croaked, tried again. “Fine,” she declared with more conviction. “How are you?”

“I’m apparently more used to the wine than you are,”

Marek laughed.

Janney harrumphed and closed her eyes again. She couldn’t believe that she’d grabbed his…his penis. God, he was big. She shuddered. Well, the wine did have something—okay, a lot—to do with it. With the dancing, too. The breakup with Ed had thrown her. Made her insecure. If she wasn’t exciting enough for dull, old Ed, then who would want her?

Well, apparently Marek did. She wanted him, too.

“What were you doing?” He waved his arms in the air.

“It’s called dancing,” she grimaced shyly. “I love to do it, but I need to be a little drunk to do it well.”

“You were doing it very well.”

Janney looked up, startled. Was there a twinkle in his eyes?

Was he flirting with her?
Mmm
. She’d been afraid that he was disgusted with her performance last night. Dancing, groping, crying.

Come on, Janney. Crying, yes, but what man wouldn’t be turned
on by dancing and groping?

“It was…ah…interesting. What do you call it?” He obviously was trying not to grin and failing.

“Rock and roll.” She was embarrassed, but had to smile at the way the conversation was going.

“Rock and roll? Women from your world have so many unusual habits. And words.”

“Guys dance, too.”

“Guys?”

“Men. You could dance.”

His laughter boomed out.

Hers soon followed. Janney imagined a dimly lit dance floor, Marek’s knees bent, hips swaying. His hands on her waist.

She imagined being pulled into his arms for a slow dance. Could see him doing what she vaguely remembered he’d been doing when he took her away from the fire and the dancing. Could feel his hand cupping her mound, fingers dipping inside her, sliding through her hot, sticky folds.

Janney stopped laughing. As if they were thinking the same thing, their gazes caught and held. Marek was set to join her on the bench if Eligius hadn’t, at that very moment, interrupted, telling him of some problem at the pottery. Janney wasn’t sure how she felt about him striding away. The look of pure lust and regret of the loss of possibilities that he’d given her before he left went straight to her heart. She was shaking, she didn’t know if it was from the hangover or from how close they’d come to making love. Marek had wanted to. She’d wanted to. Shivering from thwarted desire, Janney squeezed her eyes closed. In truth, she still felt so bad that all she wanted was to find her bedroom again, curl up, and sleep the day away.

The next morning, Marek greeted her with an invitation.

“Come for a ride. I want to show you something.”

His voice, sexy, deep, and velvety, always squeezed the breath out of her. Janney had never been one for surprises, believing that teaching third graders afforded her enough surprises in a day. Her personal life was organized and orderly, but nothing was normal now. Her structured existence had been

bounced on its rear end, and she had no other option than to just go with the flow.

She’d have to teach that saying to Marek. Go with the flow.

Was that something he ever did? Maybe that’s what he was doing now.

This was a strange situation for him, too, except, he was working like the devil to get her into bed. Unusual woman—