Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The duke morphed before Haven. His black eyes, once filled with accusation and anger, flashed fire and undisguised desire. The temperature in the room rose from warm and inviting, to searing hot and arousing, and the duke’s tense body throbbed with inaction, his powerful legs twitching.
Biting back a groan, she shifted.
The duke's eyes narrowed at her movements, his piercing gaze straying not a single centimeter from her. It held her ensnared—and she was a willing captive.
“Sounds like a very...stimulating dream,” she rasped.
He quirked an eyebrow and a glint of wicked humor flashed through his eyes. “It was.”
“So, um, what does it have to do with me?” She was scared to ask, but something akin to a ravenous craving gnawed at her. She couldn't help it.
Her heart stuttered in her chest when he stood.
All six plus feet of him towered over her.
She sucked in a fortifying breath, and peered into the pools of black lust beneath his dark brows.
Craning her neck, she watched as he dragged his fingers through his hair.
When his hands fell to his sides, she followed them.
Air froze in her chest when her eyes caught the large and growing bulge in his trousers.
She gasped, and rose to her feet, nearly falling back when her calves hit the edge of the cushion.
He grabbed her shoulders, and husked, “It was you. The woman in my dream was you.”
Desire boiled in her chest. He dreamed about her?
He slanted his head to the side, his face holding a look of amazement.
“Your eyes...I should have realized sooner. When we first met, I should have known then.”
She had no time to register his words before his mouth crashed onto hers.
Twin bands of hot steel pressed into her lips.
His hands slid up from her shoulders to hold her face firmly in place beneath the sensual onslaught.
Her legs turned to rubber, but she kept from falling by grabbing his coat.
The chest below her trembling fingers was hard, and the rapid thump-thump of his heartbeat danced through her fingertips, rushing like a flood of erotic ripples to her core.
She squeezed her thighs together in a pathetic effort to stem the flow of hot wanting.
He deepened the kiss, his hot, heavenly tongue was a velvet pry bar, pushing through the last of her meager defenses to lay siege to the heat of her mouth.
She moaned.
His tongue slid in, running along hers, enticing it to dance with his, to entwine with his, to mate with a hot, mind-blowing thrust. Holy shit! If this is how he kissed, how would it be to have sex with him? To give into that hellish desire spreading through her?
With a growl, the duke plunged deeper. His hands dropped to her breasts, where they circled the roundness of each one and squeezed.
Her gasp escaped from where their mouths fixed together.
A deep, wicked laugh rumbled from his chest. He deepened the kiss and grazed his thumb over the spot where her painfully engorged nipples pressed against the fabric of her damned dress.
Loud crashes, followed by loud voices in the hallway saved her from demanding he pull down her bodice, and take her aching nipples into his mouth.
Stepping back like he’d been struck by lightning, the duke blinked, his nostrils flared, and his hands balled into fists.
The rapid rise and fall of his chest proved how involved he’d been in their vertical lovemaking.
The joy of being desired turned to cold rejection when he failed to meet her gaze.
“Haven, I think it would be best if you retired for the evening.”
Though he claimed to want her gone, the cockstand in his pants said otherwise.
Anger fired through her. How could he pull away so quickly, and act so unaffected?
She gathered her dress in her hands and fled from the room.
The door to her bedroom vibrated violently when she slammed it behind her and thumped her head against it—twice.
Unbelievable! She’d just experienced the most pleasurable, erotic kiss of her life.
So good.
So damn wrong.
She banged her muddled head against the door one more time for good measure, turned, and dragged her feet to the bed. Her body, bereft of physical energy, ran on emotional fumes that continued to ignite the blistering fires of desire exploding within her.
The fluffy, crimson coverlet billowed up around her as she fell backward onto the bed. Recalling the hot, sensual, spine-melting scene, she groaned—first in pleasure, then in shame.
“What the hell?” She rolled to her side; the brush of the bed covers against her taut nipples aroused more detailed memories.
One second, he thrust his delicious tongue into her mouth and did decadent things with his hands on her breasts, and the next he pulled away like she'd just lowered her voice an octave and confessed to him that her real name was “Steve.”
“Jerk! I know it was a mistake, but I didn’t make it alone. I didn’t give myself a scorching kiss or caress my own tits.” The objects of her outburst began throbbing at the aftershocks of desire her memories evoked. “Ugh! I didn't turn myself on.”
And boy was she turned on. Even though the duke no longer stood tall, sexy, and hot before her, she still felt his heat. She smelled his scent—sandalwood and manliness—on her where he'd touched her.
She closed her eyes, and moved her hands, tracing the path his hands took.
While it was nowhere near as amazing as when he'd done it, she didn't care.
Pleasure warmed over her, flowing from the soft skin of her neck to the very tips of her breasts, and downward to the already wet and aching folds between her thighs.
She moaned as her fingers rubbed harder over her straining nipples.
She did the work, but in her mind, it was his large, talented hands slowly smoothing their way from her breasts to her belly.
The fabric of her dress was rough beneath her fingertips, but she moved them further down, her body eager for her to pull the skirt up over her belly, and leave her sex nearly exposed beneath her Regency underclothes, greedy for the weight of her hand on her sensitive mound.
Before she could appease her physical hunger for release, albeit by her own hand, the air around her thickened, and a wave of pulsating heat rose over her. Her desire forgotten, she flattened against the bed.
A palpable intensity pushed against her chest.
Beside her, a hot whisper flitted along her ear.
“Open...see.”
The voice drifted over her, choreographing a slow and tantalizing dance with her nerve endings.
It was the presence from the watch.
Shivering, she sat up and reached for it where it lay among the random items spilling from her gym bag.
Again, she was surprised by its warmth. Wasn't gold supposed be cold?
It was like touching flushed, living skin, and it was creepy.
This watch was definitely magical, and she still couldn't get her mind around the fact that this thing pulled her through time.
Time travel was real, the watch was alive, and she was attracted to a man who, if she considered the 208 years between 1817 and 2025, was more than 200 years older than her. But damn, for a relic, he sure was sexy.
Goosebumps crept along her flesh when the timepiece in her hand purred, thrumming as it vibrated. Had it responded to her?
Once more, a soft, heated whisper caught her attention, “Open...see.”
Shudder.
She switched hands, drawing the right one along the coverlet to wipe away nervous sweat. The anxiety overwhelmed her. Hell, she was as nervous as a virgin at a Roman orgy.
She took a fortifying breath and pushed the button atop the crown. A soft click sounded in the tense silence.
“What am I doing?”
Breathing a sigh laced with anticipatory dread, she pulled the cover open far enough to peer down at the glowing face. It was so beautiful. Unable to stop, she ran a finger over the glass and almost pissed her pants when the whole thing pulsed.
It liked that!
She shook her head, astonished. Curiosity overrode common sense, and she slid her fingers over the watch face again. This time, the numbers began to glow in response.
“See....”
Dizziness slammed into her, throwing her against the bed.
Flashes of images raced through her mind.
Whispered words, nearly incomprehensible, rushed through her ear.
She saw fractured pieces of memories—not her memories, someone else's.
Vivid, deep, and painful. Images of a beautiful young woman, and another, and another.
Flashes of bright fabrics, a blazing bon fire, and golden skinned, dark haired men and women laughing, dancing, and singing.
The Rom.
The realization was quickly followed with disbelief and more images. Fragmented reflections of a tall, dark-haired man. Gorgeous, confident, and sexually aroused. An image, quick and sharp, of a naked girl lying beneath him, and then breath-stealing pain. Agony, condemnation, darkness, silence.
A summoning.
Behind the overwhelming physical sensations of loneliness and fear was the undeniable push to obey, to do as commanded.
“Sorores tres deae...Ahmi...fulfill….”
A man's deep voice, raspy and halting, radiated from the empty room, pouring a flood of anticipation down Haven’s spine.
The presence inside the watch was a man?
If the images and memories she'd experienced were anything to go by, he was flesh and blood with flesh and blood desires.
He'd been naked and thrusting vigorously when something horrible happened.
Unable to make sense of the blasts of image fragments, she assumed he'd been hurt. Who, or what, hurt him, and why? Nothing was clear, and the dizziness was doing a number on her stomach.
Fighting the bile rising in her throat, she closed her eyes and groaned.
Done with the nearly paralyzing visions, sensations, and spectral voices, she threw the watch, and it landed on the carpet beside the armoire where it continued to hum and glow. After what seemed like forever, the glow dimmed, and the humming stopped.
No matter. She'd gotten the impression it had done what it intended to do.
A message was hidden somewhere in all of that mental debris.
Deciphering it would be difficult, but at least the presence gave her a clue.
Through the flashing images, burning memories, and murmured pleas, a single word stuck out.
Ahmi.