Page 17 of Pure Magic
“I know.” I saw him there last night. While I dreamed of a hot bath in a bubbling brook, he stood in the wooded shadows.
At the entrance to the park, he pulls me off the path, and we stand behind the gate’s stone pillar. “What would you have done if I’d joined you in your imaginary spring?” He leans down, and his lips are an inch from mine.
“It was a dream, Adam.” I back as far as the pillar will let me. “There is no truth or reason to it.”
Though he makes no move to close the distance, I feel him all around me. “You were so perfectly beautiful in that dream. I woke quite aroused.”
My own need was painfully acute when I startled awake. The fact that he was only a wall away made it difficult to keep from resolving my desire, and even harder to keep from asking him to do so. However, I held back and stayed in my own bed while the floor creaked in the room next door. “You should stay out of my dreams.”
He lowers his head until our breath mingles. “It makes me wonder if it wasn’t my dream you entered. Perhaps we dream as one, dear one.”
“Don’t call me that.” I mean for it to sound harsh, but it’s breathy and full of desire.
Closing his eyes, he takes a long breath, and steps back before turning back to the path.
It takes me a beat or two to gather my wits and move beside him. The path meanders through wide grassy spaces where people sit and take lunch or flirt. A stream runs through the woods. When we reach the little wilderness, the evergreens are lush around us.
As soon as we are away from the prying eyes of Windsor and in the shadows of the trees, Adam takes my hand and threads his fingers through mine. “I know you said you don’t wish me to touch you, but I sense your words do not convey the truth.”
I sigh out my frustration. “It might be better if we consummated this madness. Then, perhaps, then we might get over it.”
Adam stills and his grip on my hand tightens.
Chapter
Six
ADAM
My shaft is at full attention. Even if her comment was meant to tease or make light of the desire roiling between us, my body thinks it is a grand idea. “I wonder why you say such things when they only torture me.”
She pulls my hand and steps to a large oak. Putting her back against the bark, she narrows her gaze. “Is this not what you want? You might just take me against this tree and be over it. Then you’d feel no sense of not being able to have something you want. You could move on to the next woman whom you fancy.”
Anger rolls off her in waves and sears my soul. Someone else chuckles. I shake my head to rid myself of the laughter. “What is that?”
Cupping my cheeks, she looks into my eyes. “You hear her?”
It starts again and gets louder. I hold my ears, but it’s a cackle now and only gets worse. “Sara Beth, what’s happening?”
“I’m sorry.” Stepping back, Sara Beth raises her hands and casts.
My world turns black. The woman’s laughter eases but doesn’t go away. I’m floating in a dark abyss. I call out, but no one responds, and my voice is hollow and will not carry. I scream, and the laughter begins again before something muffles the sound.
I may have died, and this is where I wait for Goddess to decide my fate. Yes. This lack of anything must be death.
“Adam?” Sara Beth’s soft voice penetrates the emptiness.
Searching the darkness, I long to find her. “I’m here.”
And then, so is she. In a white dress that flows around her, Sara Beth stands before me. “It’s time to come back now.”
“Back? Where are we?” I reach out and touch her soft cheek.
Pain lances across her eyes. “I had to put you in a trance. My mother… It’s complicated, but Prudence has blocked her power in our world. She’s trying to protect me, but it is wrong, and I’m more sorry than I can say.”
“The cackling was your mother?” I’m trying to put it all together. “You put me in a trance in the park?”
“I had to get you away from her. Then I had to call for help to bring you home. Now we can’t wake you, Adam. Come back.” Desperation rings in her voice.
