Sexual Healing #5
His mouth was on hers immediately, his hands sliding across her back and down to her hips, pulling her against him.
Erica’s lungs felt as though they would burst if she didn’t get her clothes off and feel his skin against hers.
She yanked at his sweater and pulled it over his head, then started on the buttons of his jeans as they fumbled their way to her bedroom.
The light from the street lamps was faint, but she could see, could admire, the thick bunching of the muscles in his arms and shoulders, the densely sculpted surface of his abs. He pushed her coat from her shoulders and it fell to the floor, just as he sat down on her bed and pulled her to him.
Seven
Sean set his tempis-disc on the floor, thinking he would explode before he even got his jeans off. Erica was absolute temptation, wearing the slip of a garment that barely covered her. She peeled the straps from her shoulders and let the thing fall to her waist.
He groaned when he saw her full breasts free of the shimmering white cloth. Touching a finger to her nipple, he pressed his lips to it, circling it with his tongue. She made a low sound and then he felt her hand at his head, bringing him closer.
“Take these off,” she whispered, reaching down to his jeans. She stepped back as he stood and divested himself of the rest of his clothes.
He had mated before, in a completely clinical fashion, with women who wanted his DNA in their offspring.
This was something entirely different. Each of his cells burned with awareness of her, and his olfactory and tactile senses were overloaded.
His eyes could barely take in her spectacular features, from her gorgeous eyes to her soft breasts and enticing legs.
“Touch me, Sean.”
He felt like a primitive beast, wanting to devour and worship her all at once. He kissed her hungrily, dragging his hands down her back, rubbing against her smooth belly.
She slid her hands up his shoulders and to the nape of his neck, making him cry out with desire. He could not imagine living without this, without her, in some distant, sterile future.
He came down over her, bracing himself on his hands, lowering his head to her breasts, giving attention to each one in turn. Moving lower, he swirled his tongue in her navel, then followed his instinct and slid farther down.
She sighed when he kissed her there, and whimpered as he licked her. Then he shifted position and entered her in one quick thrust.
The thought of leaving her, of leaving the bounty of sensation in this world, was impossible. From the moment her attacker had grabbed her, Sean had known he would do anything to keep her safe. Keep her happy.
He moved then, sliding with her in the rhythm that had been created at the beginning of time, and lost with the advent of Fusion XJ. He would correct that aberration, but not by doing anything to hurt Erica’s son, even though he knew GreenPiece expected it.
He heard her rapid breaths and she wrapped her legs around his waist. Her orgasm drove him to his own peak and he held the backs of her thighs as he plunged deeply one last time and exploded inside her.
He couldn’t move when it was over.
Somehow, he’d managed to pull them on to their sides, but he was still inside her, still contracting with the most intense sensations of pleasure he’d ever felt.
“Wow ,” she whispered.
He swallowed.
And he knew he couldn’t go back to his own time . . . unless Erica came with him.
She looked up at him. “I . . . I’ve never felt like this. Meeting you, making love . . . amazing.”
Sean could only nod. It wasn’t just the sex.
It was as though she had opened another dimension to him, a dimension that had been hidden away all his life.
He and the rest of humanity had become so accustomed to the monofilaments of their world, and he suddenly understood the diverse filaments that were possible.
There were colours and textures and smells that had been lost over the centuries.
Even the sounds of their language had changed.
They no longer used names for each other, but cold, raw numbers.
They did not relate as human beings, but almost as machines.
“More than amazing,” he said. “I’ve never experienced anything like this day.”
She nodded against him.
He withdrew from her body, closing his eyes and relishing the sensation. He tucked her against him.
“Have you ever been in love?” she asked.
“No. Not until now,” he said bluntly, and she lifted her head to look at him.
“I wouldn’t have believed it, but yeah. Me, too.” She spoke with wonder in her voice, as though she were stating the impossible.
He needed to talk with her, to make his proposal and discuss what he hoped they could do. But it could wait until the morning. For now, he just wanted to hold her until she slept.
Then he would use the tempis-disc to send Sandino and his vehicle to some distant place where he could never bother Erica again.
Eight
They got up early every day for a week, making love in the morning before Drew woke up, and sipping coffee together in the intimacy of her tiny kitchen.
Erica didn’t know what the future would bring, but she did know that she would have to return to the Purple Moon at some point.
Sean wasn’t going to like it, but she couldn’t let him pay her bills, and Drew’s inhalers were almost empty.
Drew liked Sean, and the two of them got along amazingly well.
Both of them seemed to enjoy their jaunts to the park and the occasional quiet hour watching Nova or the History Channel on television.
Erica’s heart contracted with cautious optimism.
There hadn’t been much that had worked out for her in the past few years and she was afraid to count on this.
“You always look as though you’ve never tasted coffee before,” she said, casting off her doubts and worries as Sean savoured each sip. She finished spreading peanut butter on toast and set the plate on the table.
“I haven’t,” he said, slipping his arm around her waist and pulling her close. He breathed deeply, as though he could inhale her with one breath.
She laughed, enjoying the intimacy of the morning.
Idiot that she was, she’d fallen in love, and it had happened overnight.
Or rather, it had happened in the span of about five minutes.
She’d looked out at him that first night from onstage, and wanted to dance only for him.
And when he’d carried her away from the stage and out of the club, she’d been hooked.
“I know you’re from Atlanta, but they’ve got coffee there!”
“I’m not actually from Atlanta.”
“I didn’t think so.” She laughed, completely unconcerned that he hadn’t been honest. She knew there had to be a reason for his little deception, maybe something embarrassing.
She didn’t care. He was strong and utterly male, yet sweet and thoughtful. He’d savoured every kiss and every caress they’d shared, and yet everything, everything seemed new and different to him.
He wasn’t very forthcoming with information when she asked him about himself, always turning the conversation to her or to Drew. Erica wondered if maybe he’d been in prison. Or raised in Tibet or something.
He raised his eyebrows and then shrugged, a gesture she’d come to love during the past week. “My home is so different from everything I’ve encountered here.”
Sensing that he was ready to open up about himself, she sat down next to him at the small dinette table in the kitchen. “Where are you really from?”
He reached under his sleeve and removed a black metal disc from a strip fastened around his upper arm. Placing it on the table, he turned it so that she could see small silver markings on its surface.
“What is it?”
“We call it a tempis-disc,” he replied.
“Tempis . . . temporal? It has to do with your profession?”
He nodded. “I am part of the team that works on wormholes, time shifts, spatial distortions.”
“Time travel? It must be top secret.” She picked up the disc and looked at it more closely. The metal was unlike any she’d ever seen before, but she was no geologist. It could be highly polished . . . anything.
“Careful,” he said, and she set it back on the table.
“What does it do?”
“It brought me here. To this time and place,” he said. “Which turned out to be an error.”
“What do you mean?”
“I came from another time.”
Erica gaped at him, incredulous. She was a scientist. She knew what was and was not possible. And time travel? Not possible.
“I know it must be difficult for you to believe.”