Fantasy Lover

Chapter 4

Julian cocked his brow at her wholly unexpected, wholly crude analogy. But even more surprising than her words was the amount of bitterness he heard in Grace's voice. She must have been badly used in the past. No wonder she was skittish of him.

An image of Penelope flashed through his mind, and he felt a stab of pain so ferocious in his chest that only his staunch military training kept him from wincing.

He had much to atone for. Sins so great that not even two thousand years could begin to compensate for them.

He hadn't just been born a bastard; because of a brutal life of desperation and betrayal, he had truly become one.

Closing his eyes, he forced those thoughts away. That was literally ancient history and this was the present. Grace was the present.

And he was here for her.

Now, he understood what Selena had meant when she'd spoken to him about Grace. That was why he was here. He was to show Grace that sex was enjoyable.

Never before had he encountered anything like this.

As he looked at Grace, a slow smile curved his lips. This would be the first time in his life he'd ever had to pursue a woman for his lover. No woman had ever turned his body down.

What with her wit and stubbor

Yes, he would savor this.

Just as he would savor her. Every sweetly freckled inch of her.

Grace swallowed at the first true smile she'd seen from him. A smile that softened his features and made him even more devastating.

What on earth was he thinking?

For the umpteenth time, Grace felt her face flood with warmth as she thought about her crude words. She hadn't meant to let that slip out. It wasn't like her to betray her thoughts to anyone, especially a stranger.

But there was something so compelling about this man. Something that reached out to her in a most disturbing way. Maybe it was the thinly masked pain that flashed in those celestial blue eyes when she caught him off guard. Or maybe it was just her years of psychology training that couldn't stand the thought of having such a troubled soul in her home and not helping him.

She didn't know.

The grandfather clock in her upstairs hallway chimed one. "Goodness," she said, shocked that it had become so late. "I've got to get up for work at six."

"You're going to bed? To sleep?"

Had his mood not been so dour, the stu

His brow drew together in…

Pain?

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"Well, then, I'll show you where you can sleep and-"

"I'm not sleepy."

She started at his words. "What?"

Julian looked up at her, unable to find the words to tell her what he felt. He'd been trapped in the book for so long that all he wanted to do was to run, or to jump. To do anything to celebrate his sudden freedom of movement.

He didn't want to go to bed. The thought of lying in darkness another minute…

He struggled to breathe.

"I've been resting since eighteen ninety-five," he explained. "I'm not sure how long ago that was, but by the looks of things, it has been quite some time."

"It's two thousand and two," Grace supplied for his information. "You've been 'sleeping' for one hundred and seven years." No, she corrected herself. He hadn't been asleep.

He'd told her that he could hear anything said around the book, which meant that he had been awake and locked up all this time. Isolated. Alone.

She was the first person in over a hundred years that he'd been able to talk to, or be with.

Her stomach tightened in sympathy. Even though her prison of shyness had never been tangible, she knew what it felt like to be somewhere listening to people and not be a part of them. To be on the outside looking in.

"I wish I could stay up," she said, stifling a yawn. "Really I do, but if I don't get enough sleep, my brain turns to Jell-O and I can't think for squat."

"I understand. At least I think I get the gist of it, though I'm not sure what this Jell-O and squat is."

Still, she could see his disappointment. "You could watch TV."

"TV?"

She picked up his empty bowl and rinsed it off before leading him back to the living room. Switching on her set, she showed him how to flip cha

"Incredible," he whispered as he surfed for the first time.

"Yeah, it is kind of nifty."

Now, that should keep him busy. After all, men only needed three things to be happy-food, sex, and a remote. Two out three ought to satisfy him for a bit.

"Well," she said, heading for the stairs. "Good night."

As she started past him, he touched her arm. Even though his hand was light, it sent a shock wave through her.

His face impassive, raw emotions flickered in his eyes. She saw his torment, his need, but most of all she saw his loneliness.

He didn't want her to leave.

Licking her suddenly dry lips, she said something she couldn't believe. "I have another TV in my room. Why don't you watch that one while I sleep?"

He gave her a sheepish smile.

Julian followed her up the stairs, amazed that she had understood him without his speaking. That she would consider his need not to be alone while she had her own concerns.

It made him feel strange toward her. Put an odd feeling in his stomach.

Was it tenderness?

He didn't know for sure.

She led him into an enormous bedchamber with a large four-poster bed set before the middle of the far wall. A medium-sized chest of drawers was set opposite the bed and on top of it was, what had she called it, a TV?

Grace watched as Julian walked around her room, looking at the pictures on her walls and dresser-pictures of her parents and grandparents, of Selena and her in college, and the one of the dog she'd owned as a child.

"You live alone?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, moving to her Je

Sure you could.

No I can't.

Please?

Hush, self, let me think.

She still had her father's pajamas in her parents' bedroom where she kept all their possessions enshrined. Given the breadth of Julian's shoulders, she was sure the tops would never fit, but the bottoms had drawstrings and even if they didn't fit in length, they would at least stay up.

"Wait here," she told him. "I'll be right back."

After she darted out the door, Julian walked over to the large windows and pulled back the white lace curtains. He watched strange boxlike things that must be automobiles move past her house, making strange droning noises that ebbed and flowed like a tide. Lights lit up the street and other buildings all over, much like torches had once done in his own homeland.

How strange this world was. So oddly similar to his and yet so very different.

He tried to associate the sights with all the words he'd heard over the decades, words he didn't understand. Words like TV and lightbulb.

And for the first time since his childhood, he was afraid. He didn't like the changes he saw, the swiftness with which they had come to this world.

What would it be like the next time he was summoned?

How much more different could things become?

Or even more terrifying, what if he was never summoned again?

He swallowed at the thought. What would it be like to be trapped for eternity? Alone and alert. To feel the oppressive darkness closing in on him, squelching the breath from his lungs as it lacerated his body with pain.