Stolen Dreams (10 page)

 

Harder.

 

Faster.

 

He
heard her pleading with him, but couldn't sort out the words. He needed
more and nothing would stop him from having it all. The level of
pleasure at which he normally peaked had passed and still his body
strained higher. When the shattering release finally came, he felt as
though he had gone through another time-hop. He was breathless and
dizzy. His head throbbed and his body felt battered.

 

And he
wondered how long it would be before he could do it again.

 

His
selfish thought replayed in his head and awoke his conscience. What had
come over him? It was almost as if he'd completely lost his sanity for
a few minutes.

 

Shara gave him a nudge. "Please. You're very
heavy."

 

As
soon as he shifted them onto their sides, she shimmied upward and out
of the pouch. He watched her pull a long-sleeved bodysuit out of her
bag and slip it on. What had happened to him was so unusual, he didn't
know quite what to say.

 

Had he pleased her at all? She wasn't
acting
like a sated woman. Had he left her unsatisfied, then? Perhaps he had
even hurt her in his energetic pursuit of his own elusive release. He
instantly rejected that possibility. He had been with females who were
too small for him, and it had been noticeably uncomfortable for both of
them. Shara had effortlessly taken in every centimeter he had to give
and enveloped him as if nature had created their body parts from one
mold.

 

Why the drek had she been in such a hurry to get away
from
him? How could he have been so strongly affected and she remain so
aloof?

 

Perhaps her Terran genes did make her different. He had
always heard that Terrans were excessively emotional, sometimes
volatile people, and he had assumed their sexual passion would be
heightened as well, but that didn't seem to be true in Shara's case. He
told himself to let it go. Her lack of response was her problem, not
his. And yet his ego refused to accept the fact that she hadn't enjoyed
their coupling in the least.

 

He couldn't see her eye color the
way
her lashes were lowered, and she was obviously not planning to offer
him any insight, since she sat down and began reading some papers she'd
pulled out of her bag. His fingers touched the jammer on his ear. For
the first time in years, he was tempted to remove it to hear her
thoughts rather than any words she might choose to say if he asked for
them. He knew that invasion of privacy was unnecessary, however, when
all he had to do was make her look at him to learn the truth.

 

Sitting
up in the sleeping pouch, he considered the best way to approach the
problem and decided to follow her lead by getting dressed.

 

Shara
concentrated on steadying her hands and her breathing as she stared at
the papers in front of her. Too bewildered to rationalize what had just
happened, she tried to block it out with cold, logical work—something
she had had a lot of practice doing over the years.

 

She forced
herself to break the tense silence. "If I had any idea what year we
arrived, I might be able to figure out what I did wrong."

 

"I
think I
can help with that," Gabriel said, sitting down in front of her.
"Assuming we didn't change locations, the last time this section of
Norona was this cold and covered in snow and ice was during the Frozen
Era. Besides that, those animals I killed were wartbulls, a vicious
species of carnivores that became extinct about one million years ago."

 

"A
million? I was trying for ten thousand." She picked up the tempometer
belt, opened the crystal, and peered at the workings as if it might
tell her the answer. "And why couldn't I reverse the time-hop?" she
asked herself aloud.

 

"The cold?" Gabriel suggested.

 

"I
suppose
that's a possibility. Lantana made no mention of external temperatures
having an effect, but he also never performed any actual tests on the
device."

 

Gabriel's eyes widened. "You mean it was all theory
before
today?"      
 

 

Shara frowned. "Not entirely. He did make it back
to us."

 

"Great,"
he said with a smirk. Since it was too late to change his mind about
accompanying her, there wasn't much to be gained by sarcasm. "So how
can I help?"

 

"I've spent the last few weeks studying these
notes and
schematics, but you're welcome to go over them. Maybe, between the two
of us, we'll get it right on the next hop."

 

He nodded and took
several sheets of paper from her. After scanning the pages quickly to
get an idea of the information covered, he went back to the beginning
and started reading, but his mind and his gaze kept wandering to Shara.
Although he believed he was doing a fine job of hiding it, his body was
still vibrating with the aftereffects of the most incredible climax
he'd ever experienced. She, on the other hand, seemed totally engrossed
in comparing the inside of the tempometer to one of the Lantana's
drawings. Was she truly unaffected by what they had shared, or was she
also hiding her feelings?

 

Again he was tempted to remove his
earcuff, but he was now close enough to analyze her eye color, so he
felt obliged to try that method of reading her first.

 

"Shara?"
She
glanced up at him. Her eyes were hazel, but more brown than green. As
her natural hazel color was more green, he wondered if some traces of
desire might still be lingering. "Do I owe you another apology?"

 

She
returned her gaze to the tempometer. "Of course not."

 

"I can't
explain what happened. I really meant to please
you."      
 

 

"I'd rather you forget about it." Gabriel took the
tempometer
out of her hands and set it aside. "I can't forget about it. Did I hurt
you?"

 

She cocked her head at him. "Not at all."

 

"Were
you left unsatisfied? I'm not normally so inconsiderate—"

 

"What
is this? A test?" Shara shed her cool facade. "I'm trying to be casual,
the way I might have reacted if I hadn't been raised by a Terran
mother. But I can't sit here and dissect our coupling as if I do that
sort of thing with strange men all the time. I don't! I have been with
exactly two men, both of whom I thought I had an emotional bond with.
And neither of whom ever caused me to behave the way I just did with
you. I don't understand what happens when you touch me, but I don't
seem to have much control over my . . . my . . . biological urges once
you do. And that does not please me in the slightest!"

 

The
thought
crossed her mind that he possessed a power he had denied having, but
this time she held her tongue. "Now, I accept this incident as being
partially my fault, but in the future I'd appreciate it if you did not
take advantage of my weakness."

 

Gabriel tried to sort out
everything
she'd just confessed and correlate it with her eye color. If she had
been lying, the color would have been drab olive rather than hazel.
Thus, he deduced she was being honest, but the truth embarrassed her.
She reached for the tempometer, and he moved it behind him. "You didn't
answer my question."

 

Looking down at a drawing, she murmured,
"Which question?"

 

He leaned closer and touched her chin with
his forefinger. "Look at me." She frowned, but raised her lashes. "Were
you left unsatisfied?" He watched with fascination as her eye color
altered to a rich, warm brown.

 

"Why is it so important?" she
asked in a breathy voice.

 

"I
don't know," he admitted. "I'm just trying to understand what happened
to me. I offered you a gift of pleasure, and it was very ungentlemanly
of me not to be certain you received it. Shara, you're not the only one
in this tent having trouble controlling your behavior. You say my touch
disturbs you, yet I can't seem to keep my hands off you. I have coupled
with enough females that I can't claim inexperience, as you have. And
yet I don't remember ever losing myself so completely in the act that I
didn't know if I satisfied my partner."

 

She turned her head
away.
There was no way she could admit that, even unsatisfied, he had given
her the most moving physical experience she'd ever had.

 

He
stroked
her flushed cheek and urged her to face him again. "I could do better
.. . whenever you wish." He closed the slight gap between their mouths.

 

"No!"
Shara exclaimed, scooting backward. "You're doing it to me again. What
happened between us isn't some mystery that you have to work to
understand. It's called lust—a strong chemical attraction—and that is
not something I want in my life. Giving in to it is against everything
I believe in. We are not going to do any more kissing, and that's my
last word on the subject. Now, if you don't want to help, at least
don't hinder me. I want to get out of this time while that heater still
has energy in it."

 

He didn't agree to her declaration, but he
accepted the subject change for the moment. "It's solar.
Unless there's an extended eclipse, we'll stay comfortable enough.
Also, the ice and snow should provide us with plenty of water.

 

"Food
could be a problem, however. I only brought enough compressed meals to
last a week for two people. I have a protective suit for poisonous
atmospheres, but it wasn't meant to protect against cold this extreme.
Nor do I have anything else that would allow me to remain outside long
enough to hunt for fresh game. The wartbulls have probably been
devoured by other animals, so we can forget that. Unfortunately, one of
the reasons they and other creatures faced extinction at this time was
an extreme shortage of food."

 

Once again Shara was relieved
that he
had forced his company on her. She hadn't thought to bring food, had
nothing in her bag that offered protection from the raw elements they
had encountered, and even if she had brought a weapon, she wasn't sure
she could kill anything, even if it meant her survival. Dealing with
adverse situations was apparently part of his normal routine. For his
experience, she was grateful enough to forgive him for almost
everything else.

 

To herself, she admitted that concern for
their
well-being was not the primary reason she wanted out of that time. She
was anxious to escape to a time where she could keep a safe distance
from him—a time with lots of open, warm space and plenty of people.

 

The
scientist in her attempted to analyze what had happened. Though she had
previously felt attraction, even strong desire, mindless lust was
completely unfamiliar to her. She hadn't known it could strip her good
sense and turn her into a wanton without
her conscious approval. In a way, though, she wished he had satisfied
her more fully. Then perhaps she wouldn't be even now righting the urge
to move closer to him.

 

She should not have been aroused at
all.
There had been no gentle foreplay or coaxing of her desire. There were
no words of admiration, let alone devotion. Now that she gave it more
thought, there had been few words of any kind ... with the exception of
his straightforward offer and her unhesitating acceptance.

 

She
should have been able to warm his body without being overwhelmed with
desire. She should have been able to resist satisfying the need to feel
him inside her.

 

He'd been aggressive, somewhat rough, and so
hurried
that she should have been disgusted. There were a lot of shoulds and
none of them had mattered at the time.

 

At least he had
admitted to a
certain bewilderment also. She hoped he would accept her decision not
to explore the attraction between them any further. As soon as she had
the thought, she felt a twinge of regret. Her scientific curiosity
wanted to examine it until she understood how it worked. She knew
instinctively, though, that she lacked the ability to impersonally
study the feelings without involving her heart.

 

The sharing of
one's
body should have more meaning than a biological release, and coupling
without an emotional bond went against her personal morals. There. She
felt better after repeating her beliefs to herself. She would remind
herself of those beliefs whenever the weakness came over her.

 

If
that didn't work, she would recall the fact that he
was only with her because of her tempometer, and not due to any sincere
personal interest, which put him in the same category as her other two
lovers. She was simply the available body to him.

 

If that was
still
not enough, there was the most important reason of all not to give in
to the weakness. He intended to stop her from completing her mission.
Her one foray with him into the halls of lust let her know she could be
controlled by her own passion, and she didn't put it past him to use
any method available to achieve his goals over hers.

 

If he
tried to
kiss her again, she would force herself to refuse and hope he was
convinced that seduction was a waste of time with her.

 

The
future of Innerworld depended on her remembering that Gabriel Drumayne
was her enemy.

 

 

The
contents of Gabriels satchel continued to amaze Shara as the day wore
on. The compressed meals he referred to looked like thin crackers and
could be consumed in that form if necessary. However, the addition of
melted snow and a few seconds in his collapsible cooker turned the
crackers into tasty vegetable omelets. He also had a choice of several
powders to mix with more melted snow to make soups and drinks. He
explained that he had the equipment to create a limited supply of
water, but that it wasn't necessary to waste what he'd brought under
the circumstances. And, of course, they had his seemingly endless
supply of Caresses.