Dare to Believe

She smirked, feeling incredibly sexy all of a sudden. “Erogenous zone?”

“Oh, very much so.” He opened his eyes, a sensuous smile curving his lips. He stared down at her barely covered breasts, the sensuous smile heating. “How do you like my fantasy?” She raised one cynical brow, loving it when he chuckled. “At least you’re wearing clothes. I’d have preferred you naked.”

“I almost am!”

“Yes. Operative word: almost.”

“Pig.”

“That’s Lord Pig, thank you very much.”

“How are you doing this?” Ruby rested her hand on his shoulder, brushing at it to see if the gold sparkles came off in her hand. They didn’t.

“It’s called glamour. What you see around you isn’t actually here. It’s…all in our heads. A shared fantasy, if you will.”

“An illusion?”

“Not quite. If someone were to take a picture of us right now, it would show the two of us still in the hayloft. To you, however, everything feels real. I could take you outside, place you on my stallion and ride off into the desert with you, and to you it would all seem incredibly real.”

“And this is your fantasy? To be sheik to my houri?”

He brushed his thumb across one of her taut nipples. “Can you blame me?”

She stared up at him, that wicked sense of humor starting up again. “Man, you must have had some incredible jack-off material when you were a teenager.”

He blinked, stilling above her. “What?” He sounded like he was choking on something. More than likely it was his own laughter.

“Picture this,” she waved her hand around, encompassing the tent, “but with a naked Playboy bunny in my place.”

“Um, it doesn’t quite work like that, and I’d rather picture you naked.”

“Oh? How does it work?”

“I can’t really craft a fantasy and project it into my own mind. For me, it would be a daydream, just like anyone else’s.” He smiled, the expression crossing his face slow and wicked. His thumb caressed her bottom lip. The butterfly touch left her wanting more. “I can craft a fantasy of my own making and project it into our senses. Sight, taste, touch, all of them would respond to the magic as if everything were really there. Or…”

Ruby wasn’t certain she liked the speculative gleam in his eye. “What?”

“Or…”

The lights began to swirl together in a kaleidoscope of color, whirling sickeningly around them as the tent, and everything in it, disappeared. She closed her eyes against the sudden onslaught of her senses as everything, sight, smell, even taste became hypersensitive.

When the maelstrom of sensation died down, Ruby opened her eyes. She blinked and gasped. She was staring at her deepest, darkest sexual fantasy, the one she wouldn’t admit even on her deathbed. “What in the world?”

She stood at the street corner near the old deli where she’d grown up. Traffic was non-existent. It often was late on a Sunday night. The chalkboard sign just outside Dooley’s Bar and Grill proclaimed it Suds n’ Spuds Sunday. Ruby felt herself relax, the fantasy taking over her body and mind. She stood under the glare of the streetlamp, totally secure, totally safe, knowing that he would be riding up any minute now to pick her up and take her away.

She wore tight leather pants, so tight you could almost see the cleft of her pussy. Her black leather halter top left her midriff bare and made the most of her cleavage. Her navel was pierced with an electric blue stone. On her feet were high-heeled leather boots. She was dressed to kick ass. She knew, if she took her clothes off, there’d be no underwear to get in the way of whatever he wanted to do to her.

Her hair was pulled up in a cascading fall that drifted over one shoulder. At her throat was a diamond collar. Something about the collar felt strange, different from her usual fantasy, but she didn’t move from under the streetlamp to check it in the window of the deli. If she did she’d lose the safety and security the light provided. She knew, without having to look in a mirror, that her makeup was smoky, her lips blood red. Her nails were painted the same crimson color, and if she took off one of the ridiculous high heels her toenails would be the same.

She looked over her shoulder and blinked.

Behind her stood every single man she’d ever felt slighted by, including Bobby Pencil-Dick. Each and every one of them stared at her with a yearning expression.

But she didn’t belong to them. She belonged only to him.

A strange rumbling sound pierced the darkness of the night. She turned back and looked down the road. She could see the bright headlight break through the damp fog and felt butterflies begin to dance in her stomach. The sensation was so intense she pressed her hands to her middle. The motorcycle came purring up to a complete stop at the curb right in front of her.

The man on the cycle was to die for. Rich leather covered a lean, muscular figure that had her mouth watering in reaction. He swung his leg off the bike, pulling the leather taut over the firm globes of his ass.

He reached up and pulled off the helmet and set it on the seat. He seemed to flow into the light. He stopped before her, leaned down and gave her a swift, hard kiss that rocked her back on her heels.

When Leo pulled back, his gaze went straight for the diamond collar at her throat. With a smile of satisfaction and possession, he took her hand and started to lead her to the cycle.

“Don’t even think I’ll share you with any of the figments, kitten. You’re all mine.”

She blinked and shook off some of the effects of the glamour he’d woven around her. That part of the fantasy hadn’t even crossed her mind. Picking and choosing between the panting suitors at her back, leaving them all in her high-heeled dust as she rode off into the night with her fantasy lover, no longer had any appeal.

It seemed Leo wasn’t taking any chances, however. Apparently he’d decided to skip straight to the riding off portion of tonight’s entertainment.

With the bold recklessness this particular fantasy tended to inspire in her, she asked, “How do you know I’m ready to leave them behind and have only you?” Of course, she was ready to ride off, but who said she couldn’t play a little too?

Leo stopped and turned. He hooked one finger in the diamond collar and pulled her towards him in a move that screamed possession. “You’re mine, kitten. You wear my collar. Or didn’t you notice?”

Her fingers flew to her collar, tracing over the design on the front. Unhooking the clasp, she removed the collar and turned it to look at it.

It was different from the collar she usually pictured. Four strands of diamonds still made up the collar.

The difference? In the center of the collar, in ruby chips circled in emeralds, were the letters LD. He’d collared her with his initials.

Gently taking the collar from her hands, Leo moved to fasten it around her throat. One black brow rose in challenge when she started to move back a step. “I wouldn’t do that, kitten.” He moved closer to her, crowding her smaller frame with his, surrounding her with his strength and warmth, subtly threatening her with his blatant sexuality. “You know you’re meant to ride off with me. You belong to me.”

When he reached out to clasp the collar around her throat once again she stood still, watching his hands. A flash of gold caught her attention. When he lowered his hands, she grasped the left one, turning it so that she could see the ring that gleamed there on his finger.

The gold ring was on his ring finger, right where a wedding ring would rest. The black onyx was slightly oval, like Leo’s pupils. Engraved in the face of the onyx were the initials RH. Without words, he’d told her that he belonged to her just as much as she belonged to him. Wondering, she looked down at the ring, touched beyond belief. In a gesture that was pure instinct, she pulled his hand to her lips and kissed the ring.

His eyes flared brightly, their green glow intensifying. If she hadn’t known before that he wasn’t human she’d certainly have known it now. He’d lost control over his personal glamour. She could see the points of his elfin ears through the strands of his hair. The gold dusting of his skin glimmered under the lamplight. With a rough, inarticulate sound he bent down to capture her lips in a searing kiss that claimed her as thoroughly as his body had