Heart Dance (23 page)

Dufleur found herself smiling as Fairyfoot sniffed sulky agreement. Spirits lightening, she leaned back against Saille. He’d already given her comfort. Perhaps she could trust him.

“One. Two. Three.”

And they were in a spacious sitting room, scented lightly with lavender and the underlying earthy fragrance of Saille. A large bouquet of colorful flowers rose from an exquisitely shaped porcelain vase.

“Lights,” ordered Saille.

The room looked like him, biscuit-colored walls, bookshelves,large leather sofa, armchair, and twoseat in dark brown.

“Rrow.” It was soft and unassuming and came from a cat trottingthrough the open door from the bedroom. A cat that was even less distinguished looking than Fairyfoot. Bigger and scrawnier, though.

“Good evening, Myx. Dufleur, this is Myx, my FamCat. Myx, this is my HeartMate, Dufleur Thyme.”

Tingles ran up and down her spine. She wondered if she’d made a bad mistake, giving in to his sweet talk. His dazzling offer.His tantalizing body.

The cat slipped in, then stopped outside reach of a kicking foot. That saddened her.

Myx wrinkled his nose, stuck out his tongue.
I know your smell.

Dufleur blinked.

The tomcat cocked his head.
Same smell as odd place near little white round temple. Interesting smell-feeling-air.

Her pulse leapt. Thyme Residence! Or the ruins of it. Near Brigid’s Temple. The interesting smell-feeling-air must be the lingering motes of time that had tended to gather around the Residence as she and her Family worked. Or the soot of the fire and explosion.

“Oh.” Now her spirit was weary again.

Fairyfoot
, Myx said neutrally, then grinned.
Fairyfoot had to apologize to her FamWoman. I heard my FamMan say so.
Myx made a cat snicker. He lifted his nose.
Fairyfoot was not an acceptableFamCat.

With a growl, Fairyfoot shot toward him. He leapt nimbly aside, then headed out of the suite through a cat door low in the wall. Fairyfoot followed.

Saille rubbed his hands up and down Dufleur’s arms. “I think that will put an end to any misbehavior by Fairyfoot.”

“I’d imagine so,” Dufleur murmured, but her words nearly stuck in her throat. She was all too aware that he hadn’t released her. Heat generated between their bodies. He was aroused, and that knowledge kindled yearning in her, reminded her of all the times they’d met and mated in dreams. Her breath came faster.

“Anything you need, Dufleur,” he repeated.

Had anyone ever offered her anything without expecting payment in return? She didn’t think so. Didn’t want to think what Saille might expect from her.

“Everything,” he murmured. His tongue slid down the curve of her ear, his teeth closed gently over her lobe, and she quivered. “Everything for you. Everything from you.” His hands, loosely clasped in front of her, flattened against her.

She wondered if he would trail fingers downward where her need stirred, but his palms flattened against the slight curve of her stomach, slid upward. He cupped her breasts, thumbs slowly caressing the nubs of her nipples, sending a rush of pleasurethrough her to her core. Her head fell back against him.

He kissed her neck, soft brushes, a touch of his tongue as if he tasted. His lips pressed against the corner of her mouth. “Lover,” he whispered. “How I’ve wanted you with me. Finally, with me.” She turned her head and opened her mouth to his probing tongue, as she knew she’d open her body to his. As she wanted to feel him with her, in her.

Standing this way wasn’t enough. She turned, letting her body rub against his, feeling the muscularity of his thighs and chest, the thickness of his erection, until they were together front to front. She twined her arms around his neck, played with the hair at the nape of his neck, and smiled when his body arched into hers.

His eyes were wide, only a rim of blue showing. Color flushed his cheekbones.

Nice.

She tipped her head back, licked her lips, which seemed hot and swollen, needing his kiss again. She put her mouth on his, traced his lips with her tongue, penetrated his mouth so she could draw in his wonderful taste again.

He groaned, and she sucked on his tongue, and he grabbed her bottom and pulled her tight, and she gloried in the heat and the tide of delicious sensation that swept her mind away.

She shifted so her aching sex would cradle his hard length and moved against him. They moaned into each other’s mouths.

He lifted his head, breath ragged. “No clothes,” he ordered and a cool breeze whisked around her, and she was naked.

So was he.

Skin to skin. And it was very, very fine, the slide of their bodies together. His rough velvet, hers smooth.

Their mouths met, parted, tongues tasted, probed, duelled. Her hands roamed the planes of him, the curve of his thigh, the hard roundness of his backside. She slid a leg up around his waist, locked it, moved so that most needy part of her could welcome the heated length of his erection.

“Hot, wet,” he said, setting his teeth in her lower lip and arousing her to the edge of ecstasy, until only fulfillment of her driving need mattered. She whimpered.

He shifted and thrust, and she gasped as pleasure speared her.
I want
. . . it was hardly a thought, more a demand from her body, her heart, her soul to him. There was a change in space, in position, and the cool leather of the couch met her back, and he came down on her and into her, and it was hard and good.

Then fast. He pumped, and she writhed, wanting, yearning, needing. Too fast. The slick slide of him took her too high, too quickly, unbearable.

One. Last. Thrust.

She screamed her completion, and it echoed through her head and her heart and through time itself.

He grabbed her close, arched, shuddered, and his groan was but a whisper that wrapped around her and pulled her into madnessonce more. Shattering. Falling.

Resting. Damp, fragrant skin against damp skin. Warm entwinedbodies.

"HeartMate,” he said, and it was the last thing she heard beforelush sleep claimed her.

She awoke, then realized it was the sense of time passing while she was in a cocoon of comfort and safety. Tiredly, she understood that she didn’t trust comfort and safety, had gotten used to being wary, even in sleep. What did that say about her, and was she becoming like her mother? She sincerely hoped not.

But Saille still held her in his arms, between the back of the sofa and himself. Surrounded by him.

She didn’t know how to escape. And she had to, because she wanted him so much. The scent of him, of them, promised everything.

So much different than being at Winterberry Residence, or before in her own home. Love. She was afraid of it. A huge emotion that changed everything.

Here in T’Willow Residence she was safe—as long as she was the embroiderer, not the time experimenter. The Residence around them pulsed with life. It was strong itself and housed no less than fifteen other Willows—not to mention the FamCat, Myx, sleeping on Saille’s bed, or Fairyfoot snoozing in the lush verdant air of the conservatory.

None of those entities would want her working with time. Saille opened his eyes and snared her with his gaze. Awake, though she’d known he’d been sleeping a moment before.

His arms tightened, and he frowned. “Do you always run away?”

She flinched. “I’m still here.”

“You were thinking of leaving, would have if I hadn’t been holding on to you.”

“I don’t know what I was going to do, would have done.” Her mouth flattened. “Such pretty words for a morning after . . .” She couldn’t finish the sentence with “sex,” which is what she wanted to say but wasn’t truthful. She couldn’t bear to call their coming together “loving,” which was what settled in her mind. That was too scary.

“You’re right.” He brushed her lips with his mouth, fuller from kissing. “I should have pretty words for my HeartMate the morning after we finally made love in the flesh.”

He slid his body against hers, and she became aware that his flesh was hardening and stirring and her own body melting for his.

When he slipped inside her, she was ready, the sheer thicknessof him pleasured her. Fulfillment.

His thrusts were slow and measured, and he looked down at her with bright blue eyes, and she couldn’t escape his gaze, couldn’t hide.

Intimacy.

They climbed to the pinnacle together, and he held on to her when they fell together.

The aftermath was fully as lovely as the first time, so differentfrom her other limited experiences, when either she or the man left soon after sex.

Several minutes later, Saille pushed her hair away from her face. This time his gaze wasn’t demanding, but concerned.

“I looked for you as soon as I arrived at the Aspens’ ball last night. What happened?”

She wanted to ask why he hadn’t come at the start of the ball, wanted to know, but actually saying the words would revealtoo much—that it mattered whether he’d been there. That she wished to know more about him. That she might even probe into his secrets.

She was still formulating a reply when he said, “Passiflora D’Holly heard that you had been the object of unkind words. She was concerned when she couldn’t find you. It became obviousthat you’d left.” His voice was rough from sleep.

She pushed up. This time he didn’t hold her, but let his hands slide down her arms. He followed her to stand beside the sofa. Now she felt mussed—hair sticking out in different layers, damp with perspiration. Not at all attractive.

He squeezed her hands a little. “Stop that. You are beautiful. And you’re looking everywhere except at me.”

So she met his gaze. It was unwavering, but didn’t seem as judgmental as his first words. Straightening and pushing her shoulders back, fighting down a flush, even though it was too dark for him to see, she said, “I owe Passiflora another apology. I shouldn’t have allowed my hurt feelings to dictate my actions.” Though she still shuddered at the thought of facing down a lot of strangers of the highest noble class who judged and gossipedabout her Family. She grimaced. “I hate doing something stupid.”

“Everyone does.” Once again he squeezed her hands, and a gleam came to his eyes as he smiled. “But loving—and being together like this—is far from stupid. It’s simply right. Don’t you feel it?”

Their link was wide and the feelings he sent—wonder, affection,joy—wrapped around her like a blanket. So hard to deny her own feelings. So difficult to step away, but she did, and he followed. She took another pace back, tugging on her hands, and he let them slide from his own.

“I’m not running away.”

“No? It seems like you’ve been running from me since I first started visiting Dandelion Silk.”

Her chin shot up, she swept a hand around the room. “Look at you, a FirstFamily GreatLord, and me, a lower-class noble. Tell me whose life will change the most if we . . . if . . .”

“If you HeartBond with me? I can promise you that I’ll do everything I can to make your life change for the better.”

“Ha.”

He tilted his head. “I’ve been poor, and now I’m rich. I like rich better. You’d have your own suite of rooms—”

“—and expectations of fulfilling responsibilities of GreatLadyWillow. D’Willow.” The idea of taking the title of her enemycaused a ripple of disgust to go through her. She raked her fingers through her hair. Her brain hurt. “I can’t do this.”

“We can talk about responsibilities,” he paused, “expectations.” He strode to the undraped window, glanced down, then back at her. Hands on hips, he said, “A year ago if I’d been offeredthe title and the status and the wealth and a good home and a loving Family and my HeartMate, I would have known all my dreams had come true.” His jaw hardened. “That should be true for anyone. What dreams do you have that can’t be fulfilled by those things? By whatever I can give you?”

Suddenly cold, she picked up a throw and wrapped it around herself. “You want honesty?”

“Always.”

“Me, too. I prefer honesty.”

“That’s progress.”

“I don’t care about titles. Much. I want to be D’Thyme. That’s important to me, and it will come to me eventually. But now it is not a very respected name, because of both my father and mother. I want to remove the tarnish from that name.”

“I can help.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, but we can find a way.”

She sighed and sat and rubbed her face. “I only know one way to restore the name.”

She heard him pace to the window and back again, then felt the slight shift of the couch when he sat beside her. He didn’t slouch.

He didn’t touch her. “You mean the continuation of the experimentationwith time.”

Eighteen

Deciding he was right, she’d been cowardly, she turned to face him. “Yes. The illegal experimentation with time. And to clear my father’s name, I need to prove that my—our—studies are valid.” She laughed harshly. “Provide something of value to the FirstFamilies at least, if not all society.”

He set his hands on her shoulders. “You can do it.”

“I think I can. But not without working, illegally, with my Flair.”

“How dangerous is it?”

Her heart started thumping hard. “You’re the only one who’s ever asked me that.” She swallowed. “Everyone else just believesit’s unsafe.”

His hands tightened, let go of her. She missed his touch. “I can’t say that I want you doing anything dangerous. But I can understand why.” She sensed he fibbed there. More like he might try to understand why, but even that was something. And there was no feeling from him that he’d betray her in any way. Only enough emotional support that it made her want to weep.

“I don’t know what happened in my father’s lab,” she said baldly. “He didn’t often work at night, and none of our projects were dangerous.” She lifted her chin. “The Family has worked with time since our founding. It’s our specific Flair that brought us the title. Nothing like this has ever happened. Because of one tragedy ...”