consumed (8 page)

“That’s the great thing about life, Mr. Tremaine.” The way his name rolled off her tongue shot white-hot desire into his system. His member twitched. “You take what’s available to you, and you enjoy it to its fullest.” Her chin wobbled before her grin took his attention. “Live a lifetime in the next twenty-four hours, Sam. Take my breath away, and let me do the same for you.”

As if her words were the key to the lock he kept around his heart, he took her into his arms and slanted his mouth over hers. This kiss wasn’t designed for romance or flirting. He wanted to make Ava aware, in no uncertain terms, that she belonged to him in this moment. She may have traveled across space and time, but he claimed her now.

Forever and always.

When she uttered a growl, grabbed his lapels in her fists, and hauled him closer in an attempt to take control, he fitted one hand to the back of her skull and the other to her rear and grounded her against his body. He plundered her mouth, thrusting his tongue into the warm, moist interior of hers, showing her how he wished he could take her.

The return of common sense broke through passion’s fog. Sam yanked slightly away, glancing furtively about to see if any of the townsfolk witnessed their embrace. If they did, they were well concealed behind curtains or corners of buildings. No one lingered along the street. His chest heaved as his breath condensed in the chilly air. “What now?”

A grin parted her kiss-swollen lips. “Take me to bed, of course.” Her eyes had taken on an animal quality. They resembled more a wolf than human. “My wolf is demanding I drag your polite ass to the nearest private spot and pleasure you until you get enough of a hard-on to have some fun.”

“I can guess at your meaning.” As he held her gaze, her eyes returned to their normal form. “What would
you
like, Ava? From all you have told me, I rather doubt many people have asked you what you want.”

Her chin quivered. “Damn it!” She dropped her gaze to his pocket-watch chain. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before. How could I have been so stupid?”

“Talk to me.” He lifted her chin with a finger, then eased his hand back to cup her cheek. He caressed her soft skin. “This day is for you as much as it is for me. I want to please you, too.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “I want to go home.”

“I beg your pardon?” Of all the responses he expected, this was not one of them.

“I need you to come with me back to Mrs. Altier’s house.” Now that she’d spoken her request, she became highly animated. “Hurry. I think this will work.” Tugging on his hand, she used the other to lift a handful of skirts. The intriguing footwear she’d worn that first day came into view and fired his imagination.

“Can you do me the courtesy of explaining why you suddenly wish to go back?” The question came out couched in clipped annoyance. “I do not want to take tea with your guardian. I want you, alone and preferably naked.” He feared she would think him a petulant child.

“I’m reading you loud and clear. That’s my goal too.” The glance she tossed over her shoulder smoldered with the same passion and blatant desire roiling within him. “Trust me. There’s something I need to retrieve from my room, and what’s more, it’ll help you in ways no amount of heavy petting could ever do. At least one good thing will have resulted from my being sent back in time.”

He allowed her excitement to overtake him, even though he had no idea what she meant. “I trust you.”
With my life and heart.

Chapter Seven

Sam followed her into the house, but argued, in no uncertain terms, about accompanying her upstairs. In that one moment, he was treated to her inability to take orders from authority figures. Ava rounded on him so fast he had no time to react.

She stood toe-to-toe with him, her lips inches from his. “Do you, or do you not, want to have sex with me today?”

“I do, but—” He reached for her, intending to relieve the urge to kiss her. She danced beyond his fingertips.

“But nothing. I have the miracle cure for your problem in my bedroom; now kindly either step out of my way or follow me, because nothing is going to prevent me from keeping you hot and happy long into the night.”

Sam swallowed around a lump of fear and anticipation. “I trust you.” He repeated that mantra as they strode through the parlor to the next room beyond. He even mentally spoke it when Mrs. Altier rose from a settee with a teacup halfway to her lips.

“Young woman, absolutely no men are allowed on the upper level of this house.” She returned her cup to its saucer with such force, amber tea sloshed over the rim.

“Stow it, Mrs. Altier. I’m only here to retrieve something, then we’ll be gone.” Ava stormed up the staircase. “And here’s food for thought. Let me put it into a context you’ll understand. I intend to be thoroughly ruined by Sam today whether you like it or not. How’s that for your delicate sensibilities?”

The dragon’s jaw dropped open and her chins quivered, but she said nothing further.

“You really don’t like people making decisions for you.” He followed in her wake with a grin. Her outspoken ways only endeared her to him further. “I wish you and I met earlier. It would seem there are many layers to your character I will never see.” Despair snaked through his gut, dispelling his earlier joy. Tomorrow, he would leave her forever.

The touch of her hand on his jarred him out of the maudlin mood. “Stop thinking, Sam. I can almost feel you doing it.” She pushed open her bedroom door and pulled him inside. “I don’t want today broken, okay?”

“I will endeavor to follow orders.” When his attempt at levity only brought a flash of tears to her eyes, he sighed. “I’m sorry. Perhaps we can accomplish our task and move forward? I would like to conduct our next conversation in bed.” At this point, he didn’t care if they engaged in sexual activity. He merely wanted to hold her in his arms until his end. With her, he’d found the safe harbor he’d sought, the one woman who would understand his fears and dreams—the one who would tell him everything would be fine. And for the first time, he understood what his father must have felt the moment he knew he’d leave his mother forever. Pain fractured his heart, so great he thought it might be torn in two.

“You’re doing it again.”

“I apologize. Death has a tendency to linger.” Using a huge effort, he shoved the thought away.

“Well, today the Grim Reaper has me to contend with, and I’m not giving you up to him until the very last second.” She crossed the room to a trunk beneath the window. Opening it, she withdrew the mannish jacket she’d worn the first time he’d seen her. “I just remembered that I stowed a couple of pills in my jacket pocket after my last sales call that I’d forgotten to put back in my sample kit.”

“You want me to take drugs?” He waited as she withdrew a small packet from the pocket.

“Not just any drug, Mr. Tremaine. In my time period, it’s the single greatest medical advancement to help males suffering from erectile dysfunction.”

“Is this a big problem in the future?” A world full of sexually frustrated men. Perhaps the coming years were not to be envied.

“A little bit.” She waved the silver packet in the air, then came around the bed. “You swallow this, and in no time you’ll be a whole new man. I guarantee it.”

“I rather doubt a pill has those sorts of properties.” He accepted the water glass she shoved in his hand. When he’d hoped for a miracle, he’d never imagined it would turn up in the form of a square-shaped pill. “How is it possible?” An eyebrow lifted as she popped a blue tablet into his other hand.

“Look, I have zero time to explain how it works in scientific terms, all right? Suffice it to say that in about twenty minutes your limp lizard will transform into a proud stallion, and you’ll love me forever afterward.” The statement was accompanied by a wink. “Come on, wash it down and let’s get out of here.”

Shaking his head at the euphemisms, he placed the pill on his tongue and swallowed it with a swig of water. “How long will this miracle last?” He set the glass on the nightstand and allowed her to lead him back down the stairs.

“Up to four hours, which means you can get in a couple of good lays out of the deal. Not bad, eh?” Ava waved to her guardian. “Mrs. Altier, I’m having a sleepover at Sam’s house. I’ll see you sometime tomorrow. And don’t worry, I’ll keep the scandal to a minimum.”

“You realize she will make your life hell once tomorrow comes.” Once outside, he tucked her hand into the crook of his arm as they strolled through the streets. At least they could make a semblance of observing the proprieties.

“I don’t care.”

“As much as it thrills me to hear of your courage and challenging authority, in all likelihood, you will need to conduct yourself as a lady once I’m gone.” His chest tightened at the thought. “Destiny is many things, but it is not enlightened to your way of thinking, and you will be ruined.”

“That’s my problem. Not yours.” She patted his hand. “I’ll survive, but promise me that for however long you have left, don’t ruin it with talk of your death. I won’t ask again.” Her voice wavered on the last word, and his stomach clenched in sympathy. “I want to remember you as the sexy, virile man who stole my heart when I wasn’t looking, when I didn’t know I needed you.”

“I thought you did not believe in that sort of thing?”

She shrugged as a wash of color stained her cheeks and chest. “I thought I didn’t, but here we are.”

“I feel the same.” He brought them to a halt midway up Main Street. “I hope I live up to your imagination.” Lifting her chin with a finger, he gently kissed her upturned lips. Soft and inviting, he lost himself in the wonder of her mouth. This one strong-willed, outspoken woman had come into his life during his lowest moment and gave him hope for the future. It may not be his ideal future, but he imagined she’d remember him fondly.

Perhaps he would live on in her memories and—

His previously ailing member not only twitched, but pressed against the front of his trousers with an insistent need he’d thought long gone. Wrenching away from Ava, he stared at her as a glorious resurgence of sexual arousal hit him. It roared through his shaft with a curious tingling sensation. “Whatever is in your magical pill, I do believe it is beginning to have an effect.”

When she glanced at his groin, it stiffened further. Heated waves of desire flowed through him, made even more poignant by his awakening cock and the thought of finally being able to bring her pleasure. A far from demure smile curved her lips. “Maybe we should hurry to your house, then.”

“I agree.” He grabbed her hand and set out.

Never had the trip through the streets of Destiny seemed so long. Past Town Hall to Poplar Street, he pulled Ava west another two blocks to his home on Beaver Road. He had no time to admire the fall flowers he’d worked so hard to coax into life in the beds, and even less time for contemplating the painstaking labor he’d put into painting the exterior in an inviting white-trimmed blue. None of it mattered. All the visually pleasing things around him couldn’t hold a candle to the woman whose warm hand gripped his, whose very soul called out for him to claim.

“Welcome to my home.” He’d barely gotten the front door opened and them inside before Ava launched herself into his arms.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure it’s lovely, but I want the tour of your body.” She shoved his suit coat down his shoulders. “Really bad.”

“Good lord, Ava. I had no idea of the passions that drive you.” Throwing his jacket in the direction of a coat tree, he closed and locked the door. “But I understand. At times, a man simply wants to take his woman and mark her.”

“Is that confirmation you’re ready?” Hope and desire darkened her gaze. “Please say you are. I’ve been thinking of nothing else since you left me last night.”

“I believe I am.” The thought of stripping off her clothes and burying himself into her warmth sent a rush of heat to his groin. His cock responded in kind with an urgency he hadn’t felt in years and certainly not with the longing or intensity he had for Ava. “Your miracle has worked.” The marvel of her drugs and the technology behind them was lost in a haze of need. “You’re mine.”

“That’s the best thing I’ve heard all week.” The breath shuddered out of her. She sagged against him, her lips creating a hot trail along his jaw. Seconds later her fingers traced the front of his pants, outlining his length, working his lust into a frenzy. “I knew you’d be big.”

Heat crept up the back of his neck. She’d never know how much he loved her in that moment. “I am adequate; let’s see about getting you satisfied.” She’d given him hope, and now he’d show her how much it meant. In this one slice of time, she belonged exclusively to him like an angel sent to guide him into the oblivion of his final moments. As he pulled her down a hall to his bedroom, he swept her into his arms and trailed his lips along the slender column of her throat. “Thank you for today. It might seem a very small act to you, but it means everything to me.”

“I do what I can.” Tears glittered in her eyes. She blinked them away. “If I have my wish, it’ll be more than just today.”

“You could be right. Leave the shoes on. I have a certain fascination for those heels.”

* * * *

Ava’s system went on a massive meltdown as Sam undressed with record speed. Standing in his bedroom, facing a massive four-poster bed with dark bedclothes, need tumbled down her spine and pinwheeled through her insides as each layer of clothing dropped to the floor. “Wow.”

He’s perfect.
Her wolf ran in excited circles inside Ava’s mind.
Do whatever he asks.

I plan to.
As if she needed her wolf’s prompting.

His broad shoulders gave way to a tapered waist, narrow hips, and muscled thighs. She wondered if riding a horse had sculpted his body. She licked her lips and continued her perusal. A mat of reddish-gray hair spread over his chest in a butterfly pattern and trailed down his lean abdomen, ending with an erect cock that sprang hard and ready for her. “Just wow.”

“Keep your accolades until I put you through your paces.” He stepped behind her and worked the tiny jet buttons down the back of her gown. It sagged and gaped open. She shivered as the cool air hit her skin. “You did not wear the corset?”

“No.” The silk slid down her body to puddle at her feet. She stepped out of the fabric and turned for his inspection in her bra and dyed petticoats. “I thought you might like to see what women in my time wore for undergarments.”

“Excellent choice. What do you call it?” He traced one lacy cup with a fingertip.

Ava sucked in a breath as her nipples puckered. “It’s a bra. They say it’s supposed to lift and separate the girls.”

“The girls?” Confusion lined his face.

“Never mind.” Wriggling out of the petticoats and netting, she kicked them out of the way and stood before him in her skivvies and the requested stilettos. “This is called a thong.” She skimmed a hand over the slip of lace covering her pussy, then spun in a slow circle to give him a view of her ass. “Do you like it?”

“Very much.” He slid a hand along her back, not stopping until he’d stroked her exposed cheeks. Ava shivered. “How do the men in your time concentrate on work knowing that women wear such scandalous attire beneath their clothing?”

“Some of them don’t.” Did she have enough time to tell him about lunchtime quickies? Probably not. It would only lead to more questions. Liquid heat flooded her veins when he cupped her breasts and traced her nipples through the lace. “Sam, I need you.” Her head lolled to one side as he continued his torment. His proudly rampant erection pressed against the curve of her ass. “I don’t want to talk anymore.”

“In a moment.” He kept one hand on her breast, plucking at a nipple, while the other skated over her skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake. He continued his descent, dipping beneath the waistband of her thong, ruffled through her trimmed curls, then slid into her moist folds.

Both she and her wolf whimpered. Ava wanted to kneel before him and beg him to take her, but she stood her ground. She parted her legs to give him better access, which he took, and rubbed his fingers along her wet flesh. “You’re very good at this.” Her knees wobbled when he strummed his thumb against her clit and circled it.