Timeless. Daisy Banks
Then Franklyn looked around the door to her office. His broad smile raised her hopes.
“Well?” she asked, and held her breath.
“My darling rosebud, my inestimable treasure, once more your creativity astounds me. I love it. Wild, sexy, all of it so very you. I mailed it to Niko, and I’ve called Richard in at eleven today for a meeting regarding the logistics.” Franklyn winked, and she grinned back with a relieved sigh.
“So, would now be a good time to talk about vacations?” she asked, only half joking.
“You would leave me to languish without you, my creative muse?” Franklyn’s brown eyes flashed wide. When she didn’t respond to this teasing, the expression she recognized as serious replaced his sham gasp of horror. “I’ll give you two weeks, when the Timeless shoot is over. Right? And dinner with me before you go?”
Pleased he understood she wouldn’t fall for his fakery as easily as once she had, she smiled back. “Yes, boss, all very satisfactory.”
“Good. I want you to contact Johansson and set up a date for the tech guys to take a look at the electrics and lighting. I also want another visit arranged with you and Richard. Tell Mr. Johansson I’ll email him with the financial settlement by the end of the month.”
“Okay, but…” She was glad today he was in one of his most approachable moods, but needed to phrase this right. “Franklyn, could you come out with us when we go? There’s something about the guy. Richard will run a mile.”
Franklyn stared, the indulgent smile she remembered from her teens spread across his face. “Don’t tell me, my lovely Galatea has met her match?”
“Don’t be silly. It’s only, well... He’s weird, and I think he’d prefer to deal with someone other than me or someone quite as cutesy pie as our darling Richard. Mr. Johansson and I didn’t exactly hit it off.”
“No, he’s not weird, my sweet. He’s just European, or has some other kind of disorder.”
Certain his mood could take it, she tossed a small eraser at him. “I’ll say. It sure is some kind of disorder.”
Franklyn dodged the eraser, blew her an air kiss and gave her a grin. “Honey bun, stop trying to make him normal and deal with it. Think of him as some kind of reclusive aristocrat with all the hang-ups possible from about a hundred years ago, and you’ll be close to the mark.”
“Maybe. Anyway, he can’t bite me with an email, can he?” She opened her laptop.
“If he does, rosebud, you come for a cuddle and tell Uncle Franklyn all about it, and I’ll knock a thousand off the price we’re prepared to pay him.”
“Would you, really?”
“No, not a ghost of a chance, not if I thought I’d lose his house for the shoot. Now, email away, there’s a good girl.” Franklyn sauntered off.
Johansson, an aristocrat? No way. Likely he was just a bad tempered individual, or totally reclusive. Well, he’d have to be to live in a place like his. She’d let him get under her skin. Stupid.
Next time they met, she’d make sure he understood her interest was purely professional, and no matter how he stared, the gaunt, hungry expression wouldn’t haunt her into doing anything she didn’t want to. Mr. Johansson needed to learn this was the twenty-first century, and women didn’t go for his soulful stare kind-of-thing anymore.
Chapter 3
Magnus woke to splashes of rain down the window, and the terrifying realization he’d traveled. His head ached and thumped. His body lusted painfully in the depths of his groin, and she’d escaped him. Delicious as she’d appeared in the dream, the shock at finding her there shook through him, and that he’d scented her, a dizzy explosion of delight tortured his wolf senses and left him trembling. How had it happened?
He closed his eyes and enjoyed the memory of her hair sweeping over her shoulders, the odd golden splatter of a freckle on the expanse of lusciously scented milk-pale skin. Mmm... Blissful. The dip of her waist had beckoned him to lay his head on her, the ripe fragrance she’d exuded had urged him to get closer, and he’d pressed himself tight up against her. To experience the touch of her skin had nearly been enough to send him over the edge, he was so hot for her. Now, that would be an expense of spirit he could ill afford.
Reining in the rampant lust, he tried to force himself to analyze events. He’d not traveled in that way since...
Apparently, his best effort to dismiss her from his thoughts hadn’t worked. He’d not intended to go to her in sleep. Shock washed over him in steady, rising ripples. She’d entered his dream, called on him for his attentions. Just like that, with as little as a flick of her painted fingernails, she’d commanded him to appear. Impossible. Only Julia had ever been able to lure him to her in such a way.
Unlikely, improbable, but no matter what he thought about it, the dream had happened. And he’d gone to her in his alter form, as the beast, a thing unknown before. The girl had been terrified. Her sheer fear told him she’d no clue what she’d done to call him. Unlike Julia, Miss Armstrong unwittingly dabbled in dangerous waters. Yet even Julia hadn’t dared to beckon the beast he hid within. He rose from the bed, walked into the shower and stood beneath it.
But he’d scented desire, power, need, and the unmistakable lure of a female he’d obey. He could scent her still. Fragrant, sweet, beckoning him to take her, fill her, follow her every command. Running his fingers through his hair, he fought to forget the dream, and flipped the shower on. He had to be honest with himself, if with no one else. Miss Armstrong was the sexiest woman he’d met in decades. No one, not even Julia, had offered him the hope of so much.
He poured some shampoo and lathered his hair. Centuries had passed since anyone had aroused the need to mate as Miss Armstrong did, or as Julia once had. Closing his eyes to find her again, he leaned his head against the shower wall while the hot water coursed over him.
Her smooth rounded buttocks...her skin, glistening, satiny and pressed tight against him, the aroma of female, ripe and lush, raised the once-familiar sweet sensation. The delicate beauty of her body had teased at him as she’d slipped away in her fear, and he’d weaved and undulated, slid around her to grab another dose of the exquisite torture. Soft smoothness he dared to lick, cool yet warm, and the scent of her had filled his senses to the breaking point. All of it flooded back through him, and the shackles of control broke. A guttural cry tore from him and orgasm took him.
Once his breathing slowed, hanging his head, he let the water pour over him, cleanse him, and tried to still the image of her in his mind. The pleasure she brought, unlike so many of his past experiences, wasn’t from the enticement of her fear, nor his temporary moon-stoked lust for blood.
No, it was her sheer force of will. How? He draped a towel around his waist, rubbed another over his hair. Who and what was the delicious Miss Armstrong? He could eat her. What will did she have to overcome his?
Perhaps she was another Julia.
Impossible. Maybe he’d simply gotten lazy. Or desperate.
He dressed, his skin so sensitized the shirt rasped at his nipples. Holy gods, what had this wench done to him?
Down in the kitchen, he made coffee and sipped as he sat at the massive table. When he set his cup on the white scrubbed board, the sound echoed. There were two possible routes he could go in dealing with Miss Armstrong. Leave, and wait until no scent of her called to him anymore. Alternately, he could follow where she led. Dreams would do; he’d no need for this to become flesh on flesh. Their dream world offered the perfect venue, where he could take up her challenge in his own form. He’d enough control to make sure he didn’t return to her as the beast, surely. The old impossible question nagged, tore, clawed at him and as ever, any answers could not be found.
From his earliest youth, he’d known he was a being apart. How many had he watched grow, age, wither and die?