Connor’s arms came around her and held her close as she buried her face in his neck. They lay together like that for several minutes recovering until Emmy shifted allowing him to slide out of her as she rolled to his side and curled up next to him. “Wow,” she sighed at length.
“Indeed,” Connor agreed with a chuckle. He tightened his arms around her keeping her close. “That was even more incredible than the first time.”
Emmy knew why. It was more than a meeting of bodies this time; it was a meeting of souls. It was making love in the truest sense of the term. She had never realized there was a difference before between sex and lovemaking. It made her wish she could go back and erase her past so only he and this remained, but for all her wishing, she realized that her past provided her an even greater appreciation of what she felt now. The comparison allowed her to realize that this experience with Connor was unique and unparalleled.
“Shall we test a theory?” he asked. “That it will improve as exponentially with experience?”
“I’m ready for round two if you are,” she agreed readily as he rolled over on top of her.
Chapter 33
Clad in a dressing gown, Emmy sat on the edge of the bed the next afternoon staring down at Connor. The previous afternoon had blended into evening as they had explored each other into the night. Round two? She laughed inwardly. After bouts of sex, eating from the tray Margo left at the door last evening and again this morning and napping, they had ended at dawn with round five. They’d been so exhausted they had both passed out into a deep sleep that she had only just roused from. She now knew the feel and taste of every part of his body as he knew hers. It was a night beyond imagination and, she hoped, just one of many.
But the complete truth had not yet been told and Emmy knew that she could not continue as she had been. This one last issue needed to be resolved if she were to continue in this relationship with Connor. Beyond gaining his belief in her unusual truth, Emmy feared his reaction to the fact once she gained his certainty in the information. Would he look at her as a freak of nature? As an abomination? Would she become an unspeakable thing that he would view with distrust or worse…revulsion?
She trembled, terrified that he might simply turn his back on her and order her from his house. That he might look at her with disgust? What would she do if he did?
But to never tell him…? Could she stay here for however long was allowed to her and keep such a desperate secret from him? No, she could tell he was already aware that she was withholding something from him. Despite her words, Connor was not an fool. He was intelligent, perhaps intelligent enough to work through the facts and realize that she was still the same person who he loved and whom he was loved by in return.
She squeezed her hands around the iPhone in her hands. Evidence, as it were. While verbal claims and words could prove nothing, while a passport could be considered a forgery, this advanced technology had a foundation in truth. Physical evidence that would be hard for him to deny.
Emmy prayed for his understanding and acceptance.
A while later just when she thought her nerves were about to break, Connor opened his eyes sleepily and smiled up at her. “Good morning my love,” he murmured reaching up to caress her cheek before dropping back to stretch his long body.
“Good afternoon,” she answered though the playfulness she intended did not make it into her words and he looked at her curiously.
“What troubles ye?”
“Do you remember yesterday I said there were several reasons I had not left Duart?” she asked quickly before she had a chance to change her mind and waited for him to nod. “Dory and you? Well, there is another.”
‘Ahh, here it was,’ Connor thought. He had known for some time there was something else she was not telling him. He was perceptive enough to know that while not a deception, as such, it was at least an omission. He studied her subdued face and knew it was an omission grave in nature. In that instant, a portion of him wanted to deny her confession, halt her from revealing whatever it was. Foreboding enveloped him.
She hesitated nervously chewing her lips and staring down at her cupped hands where she kept some item concealed from him. “The other reason I haven’t left,” she cleared her throat, “is because I can’t, or rather, I don’t know how. I came to Duart for a vacation, but how I got here is something else entirely.”
“Here?” he parroted. “I don’t know what ye mean.”
“I’m going to need you to put on your Educated Man hat here, Connor,” she told him, “because there are not many ways for me to cushion the truth.”
“I am yer student,” he replied drily pushing himself up to a sitting position in the bed.
“Maybe I should let you get dressed and eat first,” Emmy suggested starting to rise but he caught her arm and pulled her back down.
“Please continue,” he prompted. “What do you mean when ye say ‘here’ like that?”
“Here, as in this time,” she said at length. When he
