Wilderness of Mirrors (39 page)

She stilled and he turned to face her, their circle of flesh unbroken.

“Not with you though. Never you.” His apology met with freckled forgiveness and contented green eyes.

“I fight similar demons.” She smiled and raised a finger to his parting lips. “Not you though. Never you,” she mimicked softly before adding, “Perhaps it is wanderlust from which we suffer. We are, both of us, cut from the cloth of gypsy folk.”

He chuckled and took hold of her neck, enveloping jaw and skull in his hands’ embrace. Then his tongue parted her lips.

“I’m going to fall,” she murmured. But when she did, he did as well, onto the sheepskin rug.

She was disrobed before they landed, her richly embroidered gown unclasped and shed with one stroke of his hand. The same could not be said of him. Still clad in breeches, he struggled against their grip. She laughed and covered his flesh from thigh to mouth with her own.

He skimmed across her, fingertips and tongue traveling her terrain with jerky unevenness.

“Gypsies we are, even unto each other,” she noted distantly.

“Give me your mouth.” He flipped to his back, dragging her with him, nudged apart her knees and thrust upward. The sound of her gasp echoed off the room’s stone walls.

Rolling once more, he twisted erotically against her unguarded hips. Her fingernails skated across his back, crested his shoulders, and were beginning their descent when he jailed them. Jamming them over her head, he pinned them to the rug with interlaced fingers.

She cried out, green eyes flashing lust, and he jerked hard.

She wrapped her long, elegant legs around his hips, drawing him deeper. But he had already released her. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I…”

“Shhh.” She shook her head, blue-black streams of hair twisting upon the pillow. “War has been your bedfellow of late, my love.”

A troubled tint cast his blue eyes, but he thrust his palms into the fur beside her shoulders and plunged until their hips kissed. His eyelids dropped, blond lashes framing Norse features drawn with concentration. Sweat beaded his face. His breath was ragged, his movements no longer smooth. Then he dropped his head, brushing his chin across her lips once before his posture broke and his hips bucked against hers.

“Miss?”

Fiona woke, curled on her side, her chair still fully flat.

The flight attendant looked worried. “My apologies, miss, but we are preparing to land.”

A blush warmed Fiona’s face. “No, fine. Sorry.” Fiona glanced numbly at the hands of her watch. Six hours had gone in the blink of an eye. The man beside her was staring. She raised the seat and turned toward the window, humiliated.

Who were the man and woman in her vision? There was a love, an incandescent lust, between them that she’d never believed possible.

Were they part of her memory? A half-remembered dream?

Impossible. Fiona didn’t have pleasant dreams.

Before she could come to terms with her latest vision, the seatbelt light was switched off and she was disembarking.

Jostled along the boxy corridor, Fiona felt as though her strings had been cut and she was floating away. Except for a wretched weekend on Nantucket with her father’s suspicious sister, Fiona had only been away from Boston one time.

She’d flown to Quebec for a wedding and been captivated by the city and its castle-like hotel. Perhaps she could find a similar inn - one that had a window-seat.

She remembered that sheltered spot. Remembered curling there in the not-a-bed and watching the stars glitter over the darkened St. Lawrence Seaway, until she’d slept.

It had been a dreamless, restful sleep that Fiona longed to duplicate.

Only the airport in Quebec had not been this large. It had been easy to navigate the one terminal, sprinkled with racks for skis and the heel prints of snow.

Fiona glanced down at her bare feet, glad there was no ice at Heathrow. She needed shoes, so she walked on. The day was soot gray, but she didn’t think anyone had followed her.

Maybe after a few days, Sean would tell her a blond foreigner had been arrested for harassing restaurant patrons. Then she could go home again.

Only, it wasn’t home, was it? Not the impersonal Brownstone decorated by her late mother. Not the city of Boston, which though lovely, felt about as comfortable as six-inch heels.

Perhaps she should find work in London or Oslo. She’d often taken holiday brochures and lost hours staring at pictures of Scandinavia. Something about the stave churches and deep fjords spoke to her soul. But then she’d recall that harsh whisper of Danish. Those cruel eyes and ruthless hands.

What if she ran into one of her captors there? Fiona shuddered. No, definitely not Scandinavia.

The corridor was ending, and she turned the corner, careful not to bump any jostling elbows. It had been bad enough that the man on the plane had brushed her knee each time he reached down to take something out of his briefcase. But to be touched by so many people at once…

Fuck. A vision fired like a muzzle flash.

Twenty feet ahead there was a woman, elegant and blond, vanishing through a private mahogany door. Her posture was impeccable, her clothing couture. She radiated force and something else. Something so terrifying it stopped Fiona dead, panic squeezing the air from her lungs.

Only it’s not really there, is it? she tried telling herself. The door. The woman. It’s only a knot of people.

Forcing herself onward, Fiona fought off dizziness and nausea. Jet lag. Exhaustion. It must be a combination of the two…

She froze an instant later.

There, just ahead. It was the door from her vision - behind real people - visible only now when the throng parted. Only there was no woman. Just the lingering scent of her unmistakable perfume. Dear God, I need help.

Suddenly, the memory of Christian’s voice was her only lifeline. She would go to Scotland. Had to. Thirty minutes later, Fiona had purchased a ticket to Lerwick and boarded the flight dressed in new jeans, a sweater and boots.

In the confined space, cell switched off, free from her stalker, free from the woman behind the door, peace enveloped her, and, finally, she slept.