Dream Bound (21 page)

The basement was the only place where they’d been able to install an indoor pool. If he’d been thinking, he would have added direct access to his rooms on the top floor.

Right now an elevator sounded particularly practical. He’d always intended on building a fully equipped gym in the basement beneath the lodge, but the lap pool had been more of an afterthought. Of course, once he’d decided on installing one, he’d wanted it Olympic sized.

He’d had to settle for a short course—twenty-five meters instead of fifty—but a hundred laps put him at a little over four and a half miles. The crappy shape he was in, it felt like one hell of a workout.

For now, it was the one thing keeping him sane. He’d discovered that swimming was as close as he could get to sensory deprivation. For some reason, as long as he was pushing himself really hard, he didn’t seem to pick up on the random thoughts of the others on the site—the sound of the water churning by his ears with each hard stroke seemed to block everything else, and the gut-wrenching effort of finishing the full hundred laps left him too tired to care.

And, for the last three hours, it had kept him from thinking about the blasted protestors, too. There was no excuse for those idiots blocking his front gate. It really pissed him off that they’d harassed Meg earlier in the day. He didn’t want to lose her and Ralph because she was afraid to leave the place. The sheriff was doing what he could, but it wasn’t enough.

The fact that Ralph had heard men outside the perimeter last night didn’t set well, either. It was enough to make him crazy. Crazier.

Day two and he was already worried about his sanity? This did not bode well for the coming months. Mac stepped through the double doors from the staircase and headed through the main floor of the lodge. Thank goodness it was empty.

Or was it? The top of a dark head showed over the back of one of the big overstuffed chairs by the front window. Cam? He hoped so—he wondered what the artist thought of his painting now hanging over the big fireplace. Ralph had gotten the thing hung in record time, and Mac had quickly discovered he couldn’t walk through the lodge without stopping to stare at a world long gone.

It wasn’t Cameron, but Kiera sitting alone, staring out at the array marching across the plateau.

It appeared she’d discovered the supplies for gin and tonic, if the fresh lime and ice cubes in her tall but otherwise almost empty glass meant anything. Mac stopped beside her chair and checked to make sure the towel around his waist hadn’t slipped. “Got enough to make one of those for me?”

“Mac?”

She jerked around so quickly he apologized. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.” He tightened the towel around his waist and parked his butt on the coffee table. “How’d your shift go?”

She held up the drink and then took a swallow. “I plan to tell you all about it, as soon as I have at least two more of these.”

He raised one eyebrow. “How many have you had?”

She laughed. “Not nearly enough, and this one’s empty. Stay here. I’ll make one for you.”

“You don’t have to ...”

She held up a hand to stop him and shoved herself out of the chair. “Yeah, I do. It’ll be a lot easier to talk to you if I know you’re half lit, too.” She glanced at the white towel around his hips. “Especially knowing you’re probably buck naked under that towel. Oh. My.” Grinning, waving her hand in front of her face as if to cool the heat, she stood, swayed, and then blinked rapidly when Mac grabbed her arm to steady her. “I’m okay. I think it’s more a reaction to the dream shack than the alcohol.”

With that enigmatic comment hanging in the air, she turned smoothly and headed across the large room to the kitchen. Mac waited impatiently, curious to know what had caused this kind of reaction in a woman he thought of as both totally pragmatic and entirely unflappable.

“Here ya go.” She handed Mac a cold gin and tonic and sat down with a fresh one for herself.

Mac took the drink and tapped her glass in salute when she held it out. After a couple of swallows he smiled at Kiera, more curious than he could imagine. Something pretty extreme must have happened to her, that she’d be in here drinking alone. Her shift had ended barely an hour ago.

“You gonna tell me?”

She nodded. “One more swallow.” She smiled back at him, took a couple of huge gulps of her drink, and then set the glass on the coffee table beside Mac.

And then she told him everything, or at least, Mac decided, as much as she was comfortable discussing. She didn’t appear to have many inhibitions, though, and he figured he got the whole story. “Do you have a problem with what happened? With the fact that the guy might have been real?”

She let out a deep breath and shook her head. “Not that so much. I think what bothers me is the fact that he might know me better than I know myself. I keep wondering—how could that be?”

“What do you mean?” Mac tightened the towel around his waist. Rules for the pool were clothing optional, and he’d been the only one down there this afternoon, but he didn’t want to shock her any more than she’d been shocked already. The last thing he needed to do was lose the towel.

He watched her face as she so obviously thought about his question. Always thoughtful and practical by nature, Kiera was a striking woman. Tall and lean with beautiful nut-brown skin and mesmerizing almond-shaped dark eyes. Right now there was a definite frown wrinkle between those eyes.

She picked up her drink. This time she merely sipped, as if the act helped her think. Holding the glass in both hands, she stared at the contents for a minute. She was still frowning.

Mac bit the inside of his cheek when the image of a gypsy staring at her crystal ball popped into his head.

Kiera raised her head and studied him. “It’s difficult to put into words.” She laughed. “I know. Dumb thing for an attorney to say, but I’d always considered myself bisexual, at least until a really ugly breakup with my ex-husband.” She shrugged and rolled her eyes. “You know, the kind that requires calling the cops, a trip to the emergency room, and a subsequent restraining order?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I knew you were divorced. I had no idea it was that bad a situation.”

She shook her head. “Water under the bridge, but yeah, that kind. Anyway, since we split, I’ve only been with women. I’d convinced myself that maybe the marriage and the other het relationships didn’t work because I wasn’t bi at all. Maybe I was a hundred-percent into girls, ya know?”

He nodded and resisted putting his arms around her for a hug. That probably wasn’t what she wanted right now, at least from him, but she certainly looked lost. It was more than obvious something had shaken her foundations.

“The only one I’ve talked to about their experience in the dream shack is Rodie, and she said something to me while we were hiking around the plateau today that really stuck. I know she’s already told you about her fantasy, or I wouldn’t say anything.” Kiera rolled her eyes. “I think she wanted to crawl in a hole when she realized everyone could see what she was thinking, but she told me how she’d fantasized about sex with two guys, that one of them was Morgan but the other guy was a complete stranger. He, just like the guy in my fantasy, showed up without a conscious invitation. In fact, she was totally surprised because she said she’d hated the idea of a ménage, especially after what happened with her old boyfriend.”

Mac chuckled. “I’ve heard about that episode.”

Kiera flashed him a bright grin. “I think anyone who’s connected to the Internet has heard about it. Poor Rodie.” She took another sip of her drink before setting it on the table. “What she said, though, was that her fantasy was such an amazing sexual experience, so unbelievably good, that she couldn’t help but wonder if maybe that was a secret desire she was hiding even from herself. If maybe she’s wanted to try sex with two guys but couldn’t admit it. Makes you wonder, ya know?”

“Why? What about your experience makes you think that?”

She looked him in the eye, and he knew it took a lot for her to face her own demons as well as a relatively strange man. She hardly knew him, and yet she was spilling some pretty personal stuff. It couldn’t be easy for her.

“Because as soon as that guy showed up in my fantasy, not in the beginning, because he’d just sort of barged in the first time, but the second time he came on with a lot more finesse, as if he’d thought about it and decided the subtle approach was better. Anyway, he came on so gently, with so much tenderness, that I didn’t even care when the imaginary visuals of Rodie and Liz disappeared. I only wanted him. Everything about him, from the way he smelled to the way the calluses on his hands felt against my skin.”

She paused and took a deep breath, then slowly let it out. Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. “Mac, you want to know what convinced me it wasn’t a fantasy, that the guy was real? That he was an alien? It’s because it’s impossible for me to imagine what he did to me. I wouldn’t know how to dream a gentle male lover, because every man I’ve ever been with has been a jerk. They’ve done nothing but take. This guy just gave, and it made me wonder if that’s what lovemaking is supposed to be like. Is it supposed to be gentle like that, so sweet it makes your body sing? Because if that’s the way it’s supposed to be, I’ve been cheated my whole life. Until today.”

Silence hung between them, and Mac made sure his thoughts were totally shielded from Kiera, because he was afraid that what he was thinking could destroy her. She was so damaged by the bastards she’d known. So open to love and yet afraid to believe that any man could actually be gentle and loving toward her.

He’d like to take every single guy out of her past and beat the crap out of them, if only to prove to her that she was worth gentleness. That she deserved kindness and love.

And maybe she deserved a Nyrian who knew how to treat a woman like a queen.

Kiera laughed and grabbed her drink again. Took a big swallow and crunched on an ice cube, effectively ending the moment. “Anyway, it’s got me wondering now if I’ve been totally wrong. That I was right when I thought of myself as bi, because as much as I like women, that guy left me feeling way too good.”

“I take it your first day on the job was okay, then?” Mac had to bite his lip to keep the stupid grin off his face as he stood up and grabbed his drink.

“Oh. My. Mac, I am so glad you picked me for this. And I’m so glad the lawsuit those idiots were trying to lodge against you didn’t fly, though if they hadn’t tried, I never would have heard about this. I swear it’s gonna change my life—for the good.”

“Well, you know how it is—we want our employees satisfied.”

She took his double entendre for what it was worth and doubled over laughing. He could still hear her chuckling as he headed up the stairs to his room to dress. Damn. They were all making contact, sooner and more intimately than he’d expected.

He wondered how Morgan’s shift was going. Wondered if the guy who seemed to have a permanent chip on his shoulder could open up enough to contact Zianne’s people.

Zianne. Damn it all, where the hell was she? He hadn’t felt her presence at all today. Hadn’t had any contact at all. What if she hadn’t made it? How would he feel about rescuing everyone but the woman he loved?

Sighing, he set his drink on the bathroom counter, dropped his towel on the floor, and stepped into the shower to wash off the chlorine. He stood beneath the warm spray, thinking of all that had happened to get him to this point. Of what he still had to do, and he realized it didn’t change anything.

Not in the long run. He’d made a promise to Zianne, and he always kept his promises. He’d do everything in his power to save her people, even if she was no longer among them. Except she had to be out there, somewhere. She had to be alive.

He refused to accept an alternative.

Morgan’s head felt muzzy, as if he’d had too much to drink, and his body still throbbed with the remnants of that last climax, but he turned and managed a smile when Rodie walked in. She made eye contact, and there was nothing in her appearance that made him suspect she’d been aware of his fantasies.

Nothing at all. She seemed perfectly relaxed, not at all nervous or uncomfortable seeing him. As open as Rodie was, she wouldn’t be able to hide it if she’d been there with him.

It took everything he had to see her up close and personal without getting hard. He couldn’t get that look on her face as she’d climaxed out of his head. Even so, what he was feeling, what was making him hard all over again, wasn’t all Rodie. No, damn it. It was remembering that guy’s dick shoved up his ass.

Fuck.

He couldn’t let himself think of that. Not and make it out of here without Rodie guessing something was up.

Like him.

He got out of the chair and put his sensor cap back in the drawer. Rodie dropped her tote bag on the floor beside the chair and took her seat. Morgan leaned over and gave her a quick kiss. “Sweet dreams and good luck.” He turned to leave.

“Did anything happen?” Her voice sounded a little gravely, like she might be coming down with a cold. He hoped not, but she smiled at him. Open. Honest. Cute as ever.

He gazed at her smile and his mind’s eye saw the stretch of her lips around his cock, the bright twinkle in her eyes as she relaxed her throat muscles and took him deep. He looked closer, and her eyes were indeed a swirl of gold and green and darkest brown, with amber highlights glistening.

He wondered if she wore black bikini panties. Almost asked. But then he took a deep breath. “Not really,” he said. “Hope your night goes well.” Then he gave her a quick wave and closed the door behind him.

He hoped she didn’t realize he’d been lying, but he wasn’t quite ready to tell her what he’d experienced.

And there was absolutely no way in hell he could explain the fact that his ass burned like blazes, just as if some guy hung like a bull had buggered him really good and hard.

Rodie didn’t let out her breath until Morgan had shut the door behind him. How the hell could she explain the past four hours? She’d grabbed some lasagna Meg had left for them before she went to town, took it back to her cabin, and nuked it in the microwave. Kiera was just getting off and Morgan had reported in, and no one else had been around.