Trapped in Time Read online

  “Richard,” she gasped. “Oh Richard, yes! You’re making me come—making me come so hard!”

  His only answer was to keep licking, keep pressing between her thighs as though he didn’t want to lose a single drop of her sweetness, as though he couldn’t stop himself from tasting her no matter what happened. Caroline had the hazy thought that he would probably have kept licking her even if the ceiling fell in on their heads.

  And then a second orgasm crested inside her and she was coming again—coming so hard against the big Kindred’s tongue she thought her heart would pound its way right out of her chest.

  And so it went. On and on and on…

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Caroline didn’t know how long it lasted—only that it seemed to be an eternity. Finally, though, Richard finished tasting her and came to lie beside her on the bed.

  He gathered her into his arms and held her close, kissing her deeply and sharing her own secret flavor with her.

  Caroline moaned and lapped eagerly at his lips. She tasted good on him—the flavor of her juices on his mouth was one of the most delicious things she’d ever had. Delicious and sensuous and exotic all at once.

  Again, she had the feeling of waking after having slept all her life—and Richard had been the one to awaken her. She knew, in that moment, that she couldn’t leave him. Couldn’t leave the one man in all the Multiverse she had a connection with. Even if it meant never going home and living her whole life in this strange, backwards time where women didn’t have the same rights as men and she had to wear hoopskirts and go to tea and do embroidery, she would stay here to be with him.

  With that realization came the deep need to tie herself closer to the big Kindred—to claim him for her own permanently.

  Breaking the kiss, she looked up at Richard, meeting his pale blue eyes—which were much softer with pleasure and love than she had ever seen them.

  “Richard,” she whispered, “Let’s do it now—let’s fulfill the final part of the Claiming Period.”

  He frowned a little. “What are you saying, Caroline?”

  “I’m saying I want to stay with you—always,” she told him passionately. “I don’t want anyone else—ever. And I don’t want anything to be able to separate us. So…make love to me. Please?”

  He crushed her to him and gave her another long, loving kiss but then, instead of doing as she had asked, he pulled away again.

  “Darling,” he murmured. “You’re speaking of the Bonding Period—where a Kindred male may make love to his bride but it is up to her whether he may bond her to him or not.”

  “Bond? What does that mean?” Caroline hadn’t been on the Mother Ship very long at all when the accident with PORTAL happened. So though she had a vague idea about how the Kindred and their mates came together, she didn’t know any specifics.

  “For my kind of Kindred—a Blood Kindred—it means that I must bite you at the same moment I spill my seed inside you,” he told her. “This will Bond you to me for life and we can never be parted.”

  “Yes—that’s what I want!” Caroline exclaimed eagerly. “Let’s do it now—tonight. That way the other mother—I mean, Ma-ma—can’t tear us apart.”

  He frowned. “Up until a very little while ago, I was under the impression that it was your wish as well as hers that we should part ways forever.”

  “Maybe it seemed like that,” Caroline said desperately. “But…but things are different now. My eyes are open—I see what a good man, er, Kindred, you are—and I know you’re the only one for me.”

  His eyes softened again. “I feel the same way for you, my darling—I have from the very first moment we started Dream Sharing. But I fear we cannot consummate our love tonight.”

  “What? But why not?” Caroline looked up at him, heartbroken. “Don’t you want to Bond me to you?”

  “Of course I do, but I need to know that you want it too,” he told her. “After two years of bitterness between us, I cannot credit this sudden change in your demeanor and desires unless you make your new determination known to more than just myself.”

  Okay, sometimes the intricacies of language in this time were a bit much.

  “What?” Caroline asked flatly. “What exactly do you need me to do to prove how I feel?”

  Richard took a deep breath and looked into her eyes.

  “Tomorrow afternoon at exactly two, your mother is holding a reception in the park to announce the annulment of our Joining. You will be required to state publicly at that time if you are renouncing me…or Joining with me permanently as my Bonded wife. If you are still of the same mind—that you wish us to be together for all eternity—you must say so then.”

  “And then you’ll sweep me off my feet and carry me off into the sunset?” Caroline asked, raising an eyebrow at him. “Why do we have to go through all that rigmarole? Why can’t we just do it now and tell the other—I mean Ma-ma—that we want to stay together? Then we can skip the fancy picnic thing in the park and just go on a nice honeymoon someplace quiet with no fancy balls or formal teas and nobody to bother us.”

  He frowned. “You see—this is exactly the sort of thing that makes me hesitate and wonder if you are quite completely well, my darling. The Caroline I have always known loved pomp and circumstance. She would not have missed an opportunity to make her feelings—one way or the other—known publicly.”

  Caroline bit her lip. Damn it—so her doppelganger had been an attention whore. Not too surprising considering what kind of person she appeared to be. For a moment she allowed herself to wonder how the other Caroline was getting along on the Mother Ship back in her own world. And how would she feel if she knew she was going to be stuck there permanently without puffy hoopskirts and fancy dress balls to look forward to?

  Ruthlessly, she pushed the guilt away. It was her Richard had been Dream Sharing with—not the other Caroline. Her double had treated him like crap—she deserved everything she got. And if she had to stay the rest of her life in another world, well, so be it.

  After all, Caroline herself would be giving up a lot to stay in this one. There was no way she’d ever be able to continue her research and for the rest of her life she’d be treated as a second-class citizen just because she was a woman. But she was willing to put up with all of it just to have the man she loved—the man who loved her, she was sure of it. If only he would consent to show her…

  “Please, Richard,” she said, looking up at him. “Can’t you just accept that I’ve changed? I mean, you didn’t like the way I was before, did you?”

  He frowned. “It would not be gentlemanly of me to comment on my like or dislike of your past behavior, Caroline.”

  “Okay, let’s try it this way then—do you like me more now than before I changed?” she demanded. Her heart was in her throat as she asked it. What if he said no? What if he had liked the way the other Caroline acted? Although, how could he? It sounded like she had been nasty and cruel to him, so unless he was some kind of a masochist…

  “No, I do not ‘like’ you now that you are changed,” he said and Caroline’s heart sank.

  “You…you don’t?” she whispered.

  He smiled at her. “No—for my emotions go far beyond tepid liking. I love you, my darling. Now that you are finally allowing me to love you and returning my feelings in kind, I am happier than I have ever been.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “But I am still wary, I fear. We have, after all, been Joined for two years and you have only changed your feelings towards me in the past two days.”

  Caroline understood his reluctance to embrace the apparent 180-degree change in his wife. But she couldn’t help feeling a sharp stab of irritation directed at the other Caroline who had so abused Richard’s heart that he was fearful to take the love she was offering him at face value.

  For a moment she thought of telling him the truth—explaining that the reason that she had changed was that she was a whole different person from a whole different world. But would he beli