Whispers on the Wind (17 page)

She shivered.

“...and now on the lighter side of the news,” the announcer said, a definite chuckle in his voice. “A pair of otherwise sober Minnesota farmers have reported the strange appearance, and then disappearance, of a naked man who first showed up in the middle of a field of winter rye. He was picked up, covered in nothing but goose bumps, a ratty pair of coveralls he’d stolen from a scarecrow, and a ‘real pretty necklace’ according to the couple. He claimed to be a truck operator whose rig had been hijacked.

“When the woman attempted to report the crime to the local authorities, the man simply ‘winked out of existence,’ she says, leaving behind nothing but that old pair of greasy coveralls. She lamented his not leaving the necklace, saying it would have been better payment for the huge breakfast he packed away than an old scrap of den—”

“Stop!”

Lenore whirled as Jon all but leaped into the kitchen.

“Can you make it go back?”

“Back—” She stared at him, then at the bread that had slid out of the toaster. “Make what go back? Back where? Are you talking about the toast? You want it darker?”

He shook his head distractedly as he stared at the image of the broadcaster who had now moved on to commenting on the latest announcement from the Weather Control Bureau. “To the man with the necklace. Was there an image?”

“I wasn’t looking,” she confessed, then suddenly understood. “Do you think it was one of your...Octad?”

“Yes. It must have been.” There was not so much as a tinge of doubt in his tone. His green eyes, alive with excitement, with hope, glowed.

“Why?”

“Because he translated...disappeared from where he was. And left behind the garments he wore.” He drew in a deep breath and puffed it out quickly. “We cannot translate solo in atmosphere,” he said, “unless we are naked.”

Lenore swayed and clutched the back of a chair, mind flashing on that moment when she had been inside the cave with him, and the next instant when the two of them had been outside, still fully clad, standing beside Mystery, whom he had brought out of his closed stall in some...well...mysterious manner.

“You translated...” She swallowed hard. It was difficult to use the word in that context, but she knew no other for what he had done. “You translated solo out of the cave with your clothes on.”

He laid his hand over hers on the back of the chair. “No, Lenore. I did not. We translated. Together. You and I. And I was not wearing clothing. I was wearing the illusion of clothing. As I am now. It is a minor talent of mine, creating illusions. In my Octad, Zareth is the real master of it. An Octad is carefully chosen, each for a special faculty which will enhance those of the others. When we are together, with Fricka to maintain our surround, Zareth can create the illusion that we are not there, though we might be within a crowd of many.”

She reached out to touch the shirt-sleeve she could see—and her fingers met with skin. She remembered the way his body had felt outside in the meadow when they were embracing, kissing. “Are you telling me you’re naked? Right now? That I only think I see you wearing clothes? You’re
making
me think that?”

In less than an eye-blink, his clothing was gone.

Her head grew light and her vision blurred. “Sit down,” he said, easing her onto a chair at the table. “I did not enter your mind in order to link with you. The link was already there. Physically. When I moved, you naturally came with me.”

She gazed up at him and shook her head, numb, disconcerted, chaotic thoughts flickering here and there and everywhere. Then she pulled herself together.

“Naturally,” she echoed. “Oh, yes, of course. This has all just been a perfectly normal, natural four days for any woman who’s completely out of her mind.”

Jon stroked her hair. “Toor-a-loor-a-loor-a,” he sang. “Toor-a-loor-a-lie...”

Before Lenore’s fist caught him in the solar plexus where she had aimed it, he caught it in his hand. With his other, he tilted her face up and kissed her until she had no thought, sane or otherwise, left in her head. Only feelings, sensations, easily as chaotic as her thoughts had been, circulating through her blood.

She hungered for more. Kissing was not nearly enough. It was, though, all he seemed willing to give her just now. He held her away from him, eyes roving over her face, before he bent and touched the tip of her nose with his lips. “You mentioned food?”

“I’ll have soup and sandwiches ready in a few minutes,” she said the moment she was able to speak coherently. “When we’ve eaten, we’ll access the newsie-site and get a replay of the item.”

He seemed to shake himself, as if deliberately forcing a return of his normal impassivity. “Can we not do it now?” His tone was quiet but insistent, his stare intense.

Shrugging, she complied, seeking a replay, and let him watch it as she buttered the toast, spread it with chicken-flavored nutrient paste, added lettuce and tomatoes, then slapped the sandwiches together. She unzipped two cans of soup and while the heat strips worked, cut the sandwiches, put them on plates, and set one before Jon.

“Nothing,” he said, his face bleak. “There was no picture of the man—only the woman who was reporting the incident.”

“I’m sorry, Jon.” She touched his hand. “You’ll find your people. There must be a way. But first, you need to get stronger.”

She served the soup in thick bowls. Without being asked or urged by more than the lost expression in his eyes, she picked up his spoon, filled it with soup and held it to his lips. When he had taken the mouthful, instead of using her bowl to feed her, he lifted the spoon she had set beside her soup, dipped it into his own bowl and offered her his food.

Sharing like that, turn and turn about, bite for bite, until his bowl was empty and they began on hers, feeling his lips brush her fingertips when she held out a sandwich for him to sample, tasting the unique flavor of his skin when his finger rubbed against her lips, made for the most erotic meal she had ever eaten.

When the meal was finished, he rose, towering over her. “I wish to thank you properly for sharing sustenance with me.”

He took her hand in one of his and lifted her to her feet. She rose willingly, too willingly. With his other hand, he tilted her face up and kissed her. She didn’t fight it. Kissing Jon was far preferable to thinking anyway. Especially kissing a very warm and extremely naked, and totally aroused, Jon.

When the kiss ended, she rocked back on her heels and stumbled toward the counter, breathing ragged, pulse erratic. Her insides quivered but she fought for control. She stared at him. He was fully erect, ready for sex. An erection of that nature was not something she thought even an alien male could fake. “You...I...” She swallowed hard as she realized that, she, too, wore not a single stitch of clothing. Nor was it visible anywhere in the kitchen.

“What happened to my clothes?” she shouted, taking refuge in fury.

“They are not far away. I merely put them out of our sight.”

“Well, you can damn well put them back in our sight! Back on my body!” She wrapped her arms over her breasts, hugging herself tightly to try to remain intact, knowing she was in grave danger of flying away into a million shattered shards of...of what, she couldn’t begin to imagine.

“Please,” Jon said. “Do not cover yourself. My
Kahinya
will keep the temperature in a comfortable range. If you do not find it so, you need only tell me. I like to look at you.”

She swallowed hard. Dammit, she liked to look at him, too, and he was right. It was plenty warm in the cabin now, though dusk was creeping in and the outside temperature had surely dropped.

She made a harsh sound. “Don’t bother with idle compliments, Alien. They aren’t necessary. I’ve already said I’ll help you. And I’ll do it without the expectation of any kind of reward.”

“I do not make idle compliments,” he said, relaxed and under apparently complete control, though his erection had only partially subsided. “I do enjoy the sight of your body. And its scent—the textures of your skin and hair.”

Lenore sighed, then dropped her arms from her breasts. “I’m thirty-seven years old, Jon,” she said. “Pushing hard at thirty-eight. I faced reality a long time ago. My body is just that—my body. It’s nothing special. And gravity has certainly taken its toll.”

“It pleases me.” He was suddenly behind her, without her having been aware of his moving, his hands on her shoulders, turning her to face a mirror hanging in the hallway across from the kitchen. “Look at yourself, your body, try to see it as I do. You have straight shoulders, a tapered waist, feminine hips and perfect breasts and—”

“Hair!” she squealed, one hand flying upwards to brush back the long hair that hung down over one of those ‘perfect’ breasts. “My hair is short. I keep it that way because it’s practical and now look at it. How the hell long have we been here, anyway?”

“How long were we in that damned cave?” she demanded when he didn’t answer. “How could my hair have grown to such a length in what seems only hours to me?”

Jon reached out and drew her against his chest as he rocked her back and forth, sideways, his arms folded across her naked middle. “Toor-a-loor-a-loor-a...”

She wrenched herself free, spun and faced him, hands on her hips. “Dammit, Jon! How long have I been with you?”

“Since the beginning of time,” he said, and his expression suggested he actually believed it. His tone made it a truth she came all too close to accepting. She shivered, not with cold, but with something she couldn’t quite identify. Less than fear, more than apprehension, much too pleasantly mingled with...anticipation.

She forced herself to concentrate on what was immediately important: the collection of information so that when she made a decision, whatever kind of decision that might eventually be, it would have a chance of being a rational one. “When, exactly, did I find you in the cave?”

“By your reckoning, less than forty-eight hours ago.”

She tilted her chin high. “And by yours?”

“I do not measure time as you do.”

“Fine, but that doesn’t explain my hair.” She tossed her head and felt the curled locks sweep across her back. She shook her head again, just to be sure. “It would take two or three years for it to reach this length.”

“Your hair is the way you want it to be.”

“It is not! Change it back.”

“I cannot,
letise
. It is your hair. Only you can change it back.”

“Arrgh!” With a growl of pure frustration, Lenore glared at him. “That is impossible!”

“Obviously, it is not. If you can make it grow to please yourself, you can make it short again—if that is what you truly want.” He smiled and cupped his hands over her shoulder, pulling her into him for another of those kisses that took her on a wild emotional roller-coaster and left her dizzy, incoherent, scarcely able to stand.

“What are you doing to me?” She wanted to scream the words at him, but they emerged as only a faint, plaintive murmur.

“Only what we both want to do.”

“No we both do not!” she denied as she spun from him, and as she did so, felt her hair sweep across her back, caressing between her shoulder blades in a strangely erotic manner. She gasped, reached up, and grabbed two fistfuls of it, dragging it around to the front. One long tress curled around her left nipple. She stared down at it, then whirled and faced him again.

“I cannot believe this!” she cried. “Just look at it! It’s positively decadent. This is not like me at all. My father would disapprove very, very strongly. It’s...not becoming in a professional environment.”

“You are not at present in your professional environment,” he pointed out so reasonably she wanted to clout him. She didn’t need to hear that. Of course she wasn’t. What she was—was caught up in another bizarre dream in which she stood naked and long-haired, staring at herself in a mirror with a bronze-skinned cross between a Viking and a Greek god standing behind her, his large hands loose on her waist. They made it look impossibly small. Over her shoulder his beads of light winked and twinkled and tempted her to touch them, to follow wherever they—and he—might lead.

“Your hair is very beautiful, Lenore. It is the like of the inside of a
florentia
shell, filled with moving lights and secret shades from brown to copper to gold to red that reveal themselves only as you move.”

“You’re out of your alien mind!” she shouted, raking her hair off her face. “My hair is brown. Unadulterated, plain-Jane brown with no hidden highlights of any description.”

“I enjoy looking at it. I see all those things in it.” He lifted a handful of it and let it filter slowly through his fingers to trickle back over her shoulder. “I enjoy even more touching it, smelling it.” His breath warmed her ear, his lips skimmed the sensitive skin just below it.

The memory surfaced of a dream in which he was tangling both his hands in her hair. But...was she remembering a dream, or something that had happened only moments before? As if he might do just that again and destroy whatever frail self-restraint she maintained, she edged away from him.

When she was sure she had enough distance between them that he could no longer draw her like a magnet, she rushed into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her. She even locked it, not that she thought for one second it would do any good if Jon really wanted in. Locking herself up would be as effective as Jon’s locking up Rankin, should he ever catch him.

Then, leaning with both hands on the sink, she stared long and hard at her hair. Again, she rocked her head slowly from side to side, tilted it back, and felt the fall of it caressing the bare skin of her back. You can make it short again—if that is what you truly want...

“All right, hair,” she said, “shorten up.”

It did nothing. Once more, she willed it to go back the way it had been before that damned alien had messed with it. Of course it did nothing of the sort. Maybe he could will his—and her—clothing on and off, but she could will nothing, not even her hair to be as she wanted it, and certainly not her body to stop wanting him. Unless he was right, and she really wanted her long...and curled...and sexy hair to tickle her nipples and make them pop up into hard, aching beads...