VirtualDesire (3 page)

“Regardless of how he got into the shop, we can’t leave him
lying on the cold floor. And if he’s from the agency, I can’t exactly turn him
over to the police either. The agency would never supply another event for me.”
No matter how imprudent it might be, she decided to help the stranger. She rose
to her feet. “Let’s get him upstairs to my apartment.”

“Are you sure?” Neil asked. “He could be dangerous. He was
reckless enough to break in here.”

Gwen took one more look at the man. “You know, Neil, I think
he just needed somewhere to sleep. Maybe he was broke and couldn’t afford a
hotel room.” She put her hand on his forehead. It was cool. She grabbed his
arm. The same zing of heat pulsed through her hands, but this time she ignored
it.

Neil jammed his hands on his hips. “Are you sure?”

She tugged and pulled. The man did not budge. “I’m sure.
After all, the ball’s tonight. What’s a few hours? Come on. Help me.”

As Neil continued to catalog his protests they hefted the
man to a sitting position. “Yikes,” Gwen said with a gasp, “he’s a deadweight.”

“Smells dead, too,” Neil quipped.

The man’s eyes rolled in his head, then seemed to focus on
them. “I was…not…quitting. I was just…resting,” he said through perfect white
teeth.

“Anything you say.” Gwen grabbed one arm, while Neil grabbed
the other. After several false starts, they succeeded in hauling the man to his
feet and propping him against the railing of the game platform.

She was five-foot-seven. The man was almost a foot taller.

“I’ll unlock the back door to your apartment.” Neil dashed
from the chamber, leaving Gwen in sole possession of a very large male.

Her hands planted in the center of his chest, Gwen took a
deep breath and staggered as the man’s weight sagged forward. “Hurry, Neil,
he’s heavy,” she shouted, looking up at the man who now towered over her. He
began to list to the side. “And huge!” She wrapped her arms around his waist.

The man opened his eyes and stared down at her. Gwen could
not have looked away if ordered. His beguiling blue gaze swept over her face
and hair.

“I dreamed of you.” His hands stroked up the column of her
spine. His long fingers slid along her neck.

Hurry, Neil
, she thought as the slow caress of his
fingers wandered to the hair at her nape. The zing had settled to a warmth that
flooded her system.

“You…disappeared.” He closed his eyes and began to slide.
She accepted the inevitable and tried to ease his collapse to the floor. He
fell to his knees, his arms loosely clasped about her waist.

He nuzzled his face against the soft fleece of her top and
sighed. In moments he was snoring again.

Gwen buried her hands in his matted hair and pulled his head
back. His eyes fluttered open. She swallowed hard. She had never seen a man so
dirty—or so handsome.

“I dreamed of you. Your…taste. Your scent.” His hands moved
over her hips. Heat pooled where his hands journeyed. A memory of long-buried
sensations coursed through Gwen’s body as the warmth of his hands penetrated
her jeans.

Drunk gamer or warrior wannabe, he was providing an unwanted
reminder of how a man’s hands felt on a woman’s body. His hands stroked down
her legs.

He gasped.

His fingers gripped her tightly just above the knees and
shoved. She squealed at the pain and landed on her bottom.

He lurched to his feet, stumbled backward, and gripped the
game platform. He swayed and stared down at her.

An expression of confusion crossed his face. The cut on his
cheek oozed bright red blood. Then his features settled into the haughty lines
she recognized from the
Tolemac Wars
poster. Disbelief filled his voice.
“You are a boy!”

“I’m not a boy!” Gwen stifled a laugh. Then heat swept up
her face. Maybe it wasn’t so funny to be mistaken for a boy. She scrambled to
her feet. “Who the heck are you? How’d you get into my shop?”

“Shop?” The man’s body tensed. He swept a trembling hand across
his brow.

A wave of sympathy made her soften her voice. “Yes,” Gwen
said, “my shop. How’d you get in here? Who are you?”

“I crossed the ice fields?” It was a question.

Gwen sighed. He was going to act out the part for which he’d
dressed. He was definitely into
Tolemac Wars.
She’d met all kinds. From
the small—she perused the war gamer from his black leather boots to his matted
hair—to the tall. “Yes. Yes,” she said, playing along. “You’ve crossed the ice
fields. You’re in Ocean City, now.”

“Ocean…? The place of legend with sea creatures three times
the size of dragons?”

She pressed her lips together to remain as serious as he
was. “Yes, that’s the one. Now, who are you?”

He straightened to his full height and stared down his
perfect nose at her. “Vad.”

Of course. If she looked so much like the Tolemac warrior,
she’d call herself Vad, too. “Okay, Vad. How’d you get in here?”

A look of real consternation settled on his face. “I do not
remember.” He staggered. His hand shot out to the game platform.

“No. Don’t touch that!” Gwen lunged for his hand. She
grabbed his arm and jerked him away. He’d come dangerously close to leaning on
the game controls. “I don’t need any accidents. Do you understand?”

“Uh, Gwen?” Neil spoke from the entrance to the game booth.
“Your back door’s unlocked, but Mrs. Hill and some friends are lined up out
front.”

“Gwen?” The man said her name very distinctly. In fact, he
sounded as though he belonged on the public television station, maybe in one of
those British mysteries she watched on Thursday nights.

“Come on.” She tugged at the man’s arm. “Let’s get you out
of here. If the women outside see you, they’ll strip you naked in a minute.”

A look of sheer terror crossed the man’s face. Gwen grinned.
“Yep. Less than a minute. Maybe in ten seconds.” He scooped up his fur parka.
She wrinkled her nose. “You’d better get your coat to the cleaners, pronto.”

He swayed. His hand settled heavily on her shoulder. Slowly
he removed it and forced himself upright. “Forgive me. Perhaps you might take
me to your master.”

Gwen opened her mouth to make a sarcastic remark, then
realized he was just staying in character. “Sure. Right after I rescue you from
Mrs. Hill.”

He jerked his arm from her hand. “I do not need a
pathetically small female to rescue me.”

Gwen settled her hands on her hips. “Look, Vad. You’re on
thin ice here. You broke into my shop. Play all the games you like, but keep
your insults to yourself.”

She did not wait for him to follow her. She hurried from the
game booth. If he wanted to be attacked by Tolemac fans, that was up to him.

Behind her, Vad slowly straightened.

He felt as weak as a spring lamb. He took a cautious step.
Then another. At the chamber doorway he staggered. Lights and sounds and smells
assaulted him. Drums pulsed and beat in his head. Pain shot from one side of
his skull to the other. Bright colors burned his eyes. He bumped into a table.
A slither and clatter of glittering objects made him jump. A man grabbed him.
He pulled away.

The man, garbed in all black, had no arm rings or visible
weapons, but this was the land beyond the ice fields. Vad did not know what
laws applied here, nor what enemies he might encounter. Legends told of strange
people, strange customs, and stranger weapons to be found if one could but
cross the ice fields.

He went on guard. His burning eyes swept the long chamber
he’d entered. Colors warred with light bouncing off glossy surfaces. Nothing
looked familiar. Glass windows, impossibly large and clear, ran with rain. In
sharp contrast to the room, the world outside looked strangely washed of color.
He stifled a moan as the pain in his head rose with the crashing sounds that
pulsed through the chamber, drums and cymbals. They came from nowhere and
everywhere at once.

Vad forced himself to concentrate on where the immediate
danger lay, the dark-haired man. He gripped the hilt of his knife. The
double-edged blade was sharp enough to sever a man’s arm from his body—even snake-protected
arms. The man might be a slave without arm rings, but he wore a symbol of evil
and temptation about his upper arm. What significance the symbol carried here,
in the lands beyond the ice fields, he did not know. But in Tolemac, the snake
was feared. It struck swiftly, its poison deadly. His blurry vision settled on
the symbol on the dark one’s shirt. A death’s-head, wielding a strange weapon.

The little female jerked him from his thoughts. “Vad, meet
Neil. Neil, meet Vad. Vad’s a little under the weather.” The woman touched the
snake man on the shoulder. “Do you mind getting the shop ready while I take him
upstairs?”

Unbelievably, the snake man nodded and silently went to
stand behind a long table. The woman gave orders to the man? Vad watched warily,
but the man made no threatening moves.

“Yo, bud. Are you going with Mrs. Marlowe or not?” The snake
on the young man’s arm writhed as he leaned surprisingly strong-looking hands
on the table. “The shop will be opening in a few minutes.”

“Sh-shop? Msssmrlow?” He glanced around, bewildered by the
man’s words.

“Make up your mind.”

Make up his mind. Vad felt as if his mind had slipped into
madness. He found nothing familiar on which to anchor his senses.

He closed his eyes and groaned. A sharp blade of pain
twisted through his skull. He could not let it gain control of him. He opened
his eyes and sought the only familiar thing in his sight—the woman.

She stood in a rear doorway, held out her hand, and beckoned
him to the strange gray world outside—a world with the comforting scent of the
sea.

She had beckoned before, called him to her. His bone-deep
fatigue warred with the hot pulse of desire that surged through him. The ice
woman had invaded his dreams—and his reality. The image of her seemed burned
into his mind. The woman before him could not be her. He raked the boyish
female with his gaze from gold-capped head to blue-clad legs.

The wind pressed her men’s garments against her body. How
could he have ever doubted she was a woman? In his mind, her garments dissolved
into white gossamer robes draping lush, female curves.

Vad concentrated on the pain behind his eyes and followed
her. He had no time to study his surroundings. The woman held open another door
but a step from her shop. He had no strength to do more than follow her up a
narrow set of stairs.

It took most of his remaining concentration to ignore the
woman’s buttocks in the tight breeches as she climbed the stairs before him.
His thigh muscles ached with fatigue from the endless time of trekking across
the ice.

At the top of the stairs she opened another door and stood
back so he could enter. Her master must be poor, he thought, to live in such a
place. The chamber was long and narrow. A thin rug covered the center of a
wooden floor. The only furniture was a tall wooden cupboard, a padded bench
with a high back, and several straight-backed chairs about a round table. All
looked old. Dishes and bright fabrics were piled on every surface. Didn’t her
master require her to keep his chambers clean?

“Where is your master?” he asked her, edging slowly from the
doorway, one ear cocked for male footsteps.

“Sit down. Relax.”

He ignored her invitation and paced the long room. The
ceiling was low. It would be hard to fight in such a space. Two other doors led
from the chamber. One, amazingly made of glass, faced a small balcony and the
gray world outside. He rubbed his eyes. Even the roiling waves were gray. They
should be dark purple in a storm such as this one. Staring at the dazzling
white of the ice fields must have damaged his eyes. Slowly he moved close to
the glass door. It looked pathetically weak, the glass fragile and thin. He
could be through it in an instant and gone, should danger threaten.

“Where do those doors lead?” He pointed to the far end of
the chamber.

“My bedroom and the bathroom.” She flitted about, grabbing
the scattered, colorful rags from the padded bench and the dishes from the
chest, then swept a curtain aside and disappeared. Ah, he thought, a hidden
chamber. He peeked inside. The room was very small and cramped, naught but an
alcove, too small in which to even swing a sword. It was filled with cupboards
and a white basin into which she dumped the dishes.

“Out of here.” She pushed him—pushed him!—one hand flat on
his chest.

Outrage surged through his body. He gripped her wrist. “A
female should not touch a man without invitation.” He emphasized the final word
so she would know he held her in contempt. Only women of pleasure were so bold.
He held little esteem for women of pleasure.

Her face flushed. She wrenched her wrist from his grip. He
stared as pink colored her cheeks. The urge to touch her face made him whirl
away. Many a warrior had used a woman to lure his enemy. Alone, a woman offered
little threat. Women might lure a warrior to destruction, but a man would
deliver the death blow.

The memory of how seductively she had called to him from the
ice made him redouble his efforts to steel himself against temptation now. How
he had conjured her into his dreams he did not know, but until he met her
master and took his measure, he could not let down his guard.

In a careful inspection he studied everything in the room.
His mind flooded with questions. But a warrior did not reveal his weaknesses to
a possible enemy. With every footstep, pain throbbed in his head. His cheek had
begun to burn.

The woman came near. Her flowery scent came with her. He
shook his head.

“Why don’t you sit down and explain to me how you got into
my shop? Are you here for the war conference?”

Vad stiffened. Her words confused him. “War? Conference?” A
conference meant a discussion. A war conference meant planning and strategy—and
other warriors. “What conference?”

“The one in Atlantic City.”

The wan light from the glass door gleamed off her short cap
of hair. “Why are you disguised as a boy?”

“Why are you disguised as the Tolemac warrior?”

He sneered. “I
am
a Tolemac warrior. No man may claim
to be
the
Tolemac warrior.”

“You stink, you know?” She wagged a finger at him.

He felt chastised and ashamed. Never in his life had he been
accused of uncleanliness. Never had his skin crawled so with the urge to
scratch. “There are no bathhouses on the ice fields,” he spit back.

She giggled. The sound, lighthearted and sweet, sent a
shiver down his spine. Her amusement annoyed him.

“Suit yourself.” She sank onto one of the wooden chairs.

Suddenly his stomach felt none too steady. Would he shame
himself before her? He forced himself to breathe slowly and carefully, to
remember every lesson he’d learned about control from his awareness master.

His mind became acutely aware of the many discomforts of his
body and the strange world around him. The stormy sea churned so close by, and
yet it was all but silent. He heard the continuing sounds of drums and strange
instruments beneath them in her shop of many colors.

The woman’s soft scent of summer flowers filled his head.
“Why are you garbed as a man? Where is your master?”

She bent her head—to hide a smile, he suspected. Indignation
overshadowed his pain. When she looked up, the smile she gave him was kind, not
mocking.

“Look, Vad. Here, beyond the ice fields, we have no masters
or slaves. I can dress any way I like, and I feel very comfortable in men’s
garb.” Boldly she met his eyes. “Could I fix that cut on your cheek?”

“No,” he snapped.

“Have it your way.” She shrugged and bit her lip.

He regretted his abruptness, but something warned him to
maintain a distance from this unusual female. His stomach shamed him by
growling loudly in the silence that followed his words.

She shot to her feet. “You’re hungry. Why don’t you tell me
how you got into my shop after I make you some soup? Sit down.”

He remained standing. She disappeared behind the curtain. As
soon as she was gone, he grasped the knob of the glass door. It wouldn’t turn.
He shook it. As frail as the door had looked, it held fast beneath his hand.
The sea—and escape—lay beyond a wide, wooden road that stretched as far as his
eyes could see along the shore. Wind and rain lashed the wooden boards. He
caught a glimpse of a man, or possibly a woman, hurrying along, wrapped in
bright yellow. He did not relish going into the storm in his weakened state.

If he stayed with the woman, he would be fed.

He must prepare a satisfactory answer to her question. If
only he knew what was satisfactory in this place. Turning, he dumped his fur
cloak onto the long, padded bench and circled the room until he came to one of
the closed doors. Did she pleasure her master in her bedchamber? The woman was
humming behind the curtain. He gripped the hilt of his knife and eased one door
open—a bedchamber.

The space was gloomy, the curtains drawn. A raised bed stood
against one wall. Decadent amounts of lace pillows and covers lay in disarray
on it—a bed of pleasure. Garments were strewn on every surface. He grazed his
fingers on the dust on a standing chest. He’d sell a slave who kept such a
slovenly place.

Delicate slippers littered the floor. He shoved them aside
with his boot as his eyes fell on a flowing white garment draped across the
disheveled bed. Giving in to temptation, he lifted it and pressed it to his
face.