I frowned, not recognizing the name. Was it one of Gretl’s friends? “I don’t think I’ve met a Heinrich.”
“You were running down the road in your underthings, and you ran directly into Heinrich, knocking yourself senseless.”
I looked down at myself, shocked at the idea of running anywhere in my undies. “I was running around in my underwear? What the hell was I doing that for? Who’s Heinrich? And who dressed me again?”
“Yes, I have no idea, one of my carriage horses, and we did not find your gown, let alone put it on you. Now, you will cease—”
“Wait a minute, I think we’re talking at cross-purposes,” I interrupted, holding up a hand to stop him.
He looked thoroughly outraged that I’d do such a thing. “You will not interrupt me!”
“I just did, didn’t I? Thus, I will. Er…did. And someone must have put my dress back on, assuming that I was, in fact, running around in my undies, because I’m wearing it now. My dress, that is.” I waved toward my torso. “This is really a bizarre conversation, you know that? Like, on the level of reality TV sort of bizarre.”
He glanced down at my dress, his eyes lingering on my breasts in a way that had me tightening my fingers into fists. “That is your gown?”
“Yes, and I’ve asked you once to stop staring at my boobs. Keep it up and I’ll make you one very sorry little cowpoke.”
His gaze shifted up to mine, genuine confusion visible in his pale eyes. “You speak words that I do not know, and yet my grasp of English is excellent. What is a cowpoke?”
“It’s someone who’s going to be sorry if he doesn’t stop staring at my breasts.”
His gaze flickered straight back to my boobs. “Why? You present them for male appreciation, do you not?”
I looked down, found the first button on my sundress had slipped open, and hastily rebuttoned it. “No, I wore this dress because it was hot and I wanted to stay cool while I… I…” I frowned again as I tried to concentrate. Vague images seemed to flicker just out of the range of my vision, dark, fleeting images. “I can almost see it.”
“Your breasts? You will if you undo those buttons again.” His gaze was frankly appreciative, but I had learned my lesson. I crossed my arms over my boobs, giving him a quick glare.
“No.” I turned my attention inward again. “It’s just…there. I can almost see it. I was doing something important, something…profound.”
Trees flashed passed my unseeing eyes, trees that were first richly green, then inky black in the night, the tips of their pine needles kissed by sunlight and moonlight alike. And something else hovered just beyond my awareness, something big, something important that I could almost reach out and touch….
“The swirly thing!” I exclaimed, seeing it again when it came into mental focus, the blue-white light twisting and turning back upon itself in that strange fashion. “I was taking pictures of it, and of the creepy forest, and I put my hand through the swirly thing….”
I remembered again the feeling of static in the air when I leaned forward into the twisting light. I swayed, suddenly as light-headed as when I had fallen through the strange smoky object, but this time when I pitched forward, I fell right onto a warm, hard, very solid shape.
One who smelled faintly of lemon, leather, and something slightly earthy that had me turning my head into his neck in an attempt to capture more of it. A sudden urge flared to life in me, one that swept through my blood, making it impossible to resist. Before I could even weigh the consequences of my action, I opened my mouth and gently bit the tendon in Nikola’s neck.
It was as if I’d lit a match to a bonfire. He froze for a moment, and I knew I’d shocked him, knew I was guilty of a far greater form of harassment than merely ogling my breasts, but before I could do so much as to pull away from him, I was on my back on the bed, Nikola covering my front, his eyes darkening even as I stared in complete astonishment. He didn’t say anything, just dipped his head down until his lips burned a brand on my neck.
I was so shocked by what I’d done, I didn’t think to push him off me so I could apologize. On the contrary, I slid my hands up his arms, my legs moving restlessly as his weight made me sink into the soft mattress of the bed. All sorts of wickedly naughty erotic images danced in my head as his teeth scraped on my neck. I knew he was going to give me a love bite in return, knew I should stop it by apologizing for biting him, knew I should get far, far away from him, but apparently my brain had ceased to function, because the second his teeth bit my flesh, I arched back against him, writhing in ecstasy.
“Oh my god, do you know how to do this,” I moaned, clutching his hair and squirming at the sensation of his mouth on my neck. My entire body seemed to be made of fire. “But really, I suppose…oh, lord, yes… I suppose we should stop because this really is way over the line, not that I’m blameless since I bit you first, and dear god, you’re not going to stop, are you?”
He pulled back from me, his eyes now a pure sapphire blue, his lips suddenly holding an unholy fascination for me. They were red, as if he’d been kissing me, all gently curved lines, and so enticing I almost pulled him back down onto me.
A morsel of common sense remained to me, however, and I’m proud to say that even in the full onset of a massive lust, I managed to keep from kissing the breath out of him.
“I must stop, or you would die,” he said in answer to my question, giving me an odd look before sliding off me.
For a few seconds I lay in a boneless, quivering mass of want and need and too many other emotions to untangle. “Well, that was probably the best hickey I’ve ever had, but I don’t think it would have killed me.”He frowned as I sat up, rebuttoning the top button of my dress, which had popped open yet again. “I do not know this word ‘hickey,’ either.”
“It means a love bite. Kind of a passionate one. Look, I’m sorry I bit you. I don’t know what possessed me. I’m not at all a bitey sort of woman, and especially not with strangers. I’m mortified that I was just yelling at you about ogling me and then I went and bit you—”
“I enjoyed it. No one has ever bitten me before, not even my wife. She was always afraid to. She was afraid she would become like me.”
A blush unlike any other washed up from my chest, burning my face with shame. “I am so sorry. I didn’t know you were married. There’s no excuse for my behavior—”
“I am widowed. My wife died several years ago.” He eyed me as I put my hands on my blazing cheeks. “If you are not a whore, as you claim you are not, then who are you?”
“I’m just me,” I said with a little frustrated gesture. “I’m a former secretary. I like photography and traveling, although I haven’t done much of either. I’m spending the summer in St. Andras with my cousin Gretl. And I don’t normally bite men, especially strange men, and really especially not men who are as handsome as you are. So no, I’m not a whore, although I admit that after what I did to you, you’d be justified in questioning that statement.” I couldn’t stop reliving the feel of his mouth on my neck. It was the most sensual thing I’d ever felt.
It will only get better.
I froze, a dull feeling of worry filling my gut. What had I done to myself that I was hearing voices?
“I told you that I enjoyed it. You will cease blushing over it. Who were you running from?”
“No one. At least, I don’t think I was.” I stopped worrying about having to go to the hospital for CAT scans and the like, and tried to remember what happened after I had fallen near the twisty light.
“Not near it…through it,” I said aloud, my eyes widening as the memory came flooding back to me of the daytime that had turned to night, of a dirt road where a paved one should have been, and of a carriage and horses looming up out of the night as I raced toward the town and safety.
A horrible, horrible idea started to dawn in the dim recesses of my brain, something so fantastic that I didn’t even want to consider it.
“Through what?” Nikola held out a hand for me, and without thinking, I took it, allowing him to pull me to my feet. I stared at him, my brain seizing up and refusing to process the idea.
“It was… I don’t know what it was. A big swirly thing in the middle of the woods. Made up of light. I know this is going to sound really odd, but what’s today’s date?”
“Woods? What wooded area? Near here?”
“I don’t know where here is, so I couldn’t say. It’s the place that all the people in St. Andras say is haunted. It’s like halfway up the hill to the ruined castle. You didn’t answer me about the date.”
“Andras Castle is not a ruin,” he said, his fingers still holding mine. “The east wing needs some repairs, but I will attend to them now that I have returned from settling my son at university in Heidelberg.”
The horrible idea my brain refused to cope with grew even stronger. “What’s the date?” I asked again, holding my breath against the answer.
He frowned. “Today? It is the twelfth of July.”
“And the year?”
His beautiful eyes, now back to pale, glacier blue, narrowed on me. “You do not know what year it is?”
“I thought I did, but I have a magnificently horrible feeling I’m going to be wrong. What year is it?”
“It is 1703.”
I closed my eyes for a second, my stomach lurching when the room spun. Nikola’s fingers tightened, pulling me toward him.
“Are you swooning?”
“No, just…oh, boy. You’re kidding, aren’t you? You’re playacting that it’s 1703? Or…or you’re with some reenactment group or living-history place, right?”
“I am not jesting, no,” he said, still frowning, and I could feel the truth of what he said.