ripple effects on the rest of the universe couldn’t be calculated.
So he would take his brother back to where they both belonged. And Cal would soon forget the woman called Libby. Just as Jacob was determined to forget Sunbeam Stone.
She stirred then, with a soft, sighing sound that tingled along his skin. Despite his better judgment, he looked down and watched her wake.
Her lashes fluttered open and closed, as exotic as butterfly wings in the shadowed light. Her eyes, dazed with sleep, were huge and dark. She didn’t see him, but stared blindly into the flickering flame as she slowly stretched her long, lean body, muscle by muscle. The bulky purple sweater shifted over her curves.
His mouth went dry. His heartbeat accelerated. He would have cursed her, but he lacked the strength. At that moment she was so outrageously beautiful that he could only sit, tensed, and pray for sanity.
She let out a little moan. He winced. She shifted onto her back, lifting her arms over her head, then up to the ceiling. For the first time in his life he actively wished for a drink.
At last she turned her head and focused on him. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
Her voice was low, throaty. Jacob was certain he could feel his blood drain to the soles of his feet. “I—” It was ridiculous, but he could barely speak. “I wasn’t tired.”
“That’s not the point.” She sat up and said crankily, “We’re in this together, so—”
He didn’t think. Later, when he had time to analyze, he would tell himself it was reflex—the same involuntary reflex that makes a man swallow when water is poured down his throat. It was not deliberate. It was not planned. It was certainly not wise.
He pulled her against him, dragging one hand through her hair before closing his mouth over hers. She bucked, both surprise and anger giving her strength. But he only tightened his hold. It was desperation this time, a sensation he could not remember ever having felt for a woman. It was taste her or die.
She struggled to cling to her anger as dozens of sensations fought for control of her. Delight, desire, delirium. She tried to curse him, but managed only a moan of pleasure. Then her hands were in his hair, clenching, and her heart was pounding. In one quick movement he drew her onto his lap and drove her beyond.
His breath was ragged, as was hers. His mouth frantic, his hands quick. Left without choice, she answered, as insistent, as insatiable, as he. A log broke apart, sparks flew to dance on stone. The wind gusted, pushing a puff of smoke into the room. She heard only the urgent groan that slipped from his mouth into hers.
Was this what she had been searching for? The excitement, the challenge, the glory? Heedlessly she gave herself to it, let the power swamp her.
The taste of her seemed to explode inside him, over and over. Hot, pungent, lusty. It wasn’t enough. The more he took, the more he needed. Dragging her head back, he found her throat, the long, slender line of it enticing him, the warm, seductive flavor of it bewitching him. He skimmed his lips over the curve of it, letting his tongue and his teeth toy with her skin. It was still not enough.
As the firelight played over her face, he slipped his hands under the bulky sweater to find her. Her skin brought him images of rose petals, of heated satin. There was trembling as his hand closed over her breast. From her, from him.
With his eyes on hers, and shadows dancing between them, he lowered his mouth once more.
It was like sinking into a dream. Not a soft, misty one, but one full of sound and color. And, as he sank deeper, she wrapped herself around him. Her hands searched as his did, under his sweater, along the ridges of muscles.
As his lips began to roam over her face, she let her eyes close once again. And her heart, always so strong and valiant, was lost.
Love poured into her like a revelation. It left her gasping and clinging. It had her lips heating against his, her body liquefying. Her hands, always capable, slid helplessly down his arms.
Helplessly.
It was that which had her stiffening against him, pulling back, resisting. This couldn’t be love. It was absurd, and dangerous, to think it could be.
“Jacob, stop.”
“Stop?” He closed his teeth, none too gently, over her chin.
“Yes. Stop.”
He could feel the change, the frustrating withdrawal of her while his body was still humming. “Why?”
“Because I . . .”
In a calculated movement, he skimmed his fingers down her spine, playing them over vulnerable nerves. He watched as her eyes glazed and her head fell back, limp. “I want you, Sunny. And you want me.”
“Yes.” What was he doing to her? She lifted a hand in protest, then dropped it weakly and let it rest against his chest. “No. Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Whatever you’re doing.”
She was trembling now, shuddering. Completely vulnerable. He cursed himself. It was a shock to realize that when she was defenseless he was hampered by ethics. “Fine.” He grasped her hips and set her back on the floor.
Shaken, she hugged her knees to her chest. She felt as though she’d been plucked out of a furnace and tossed into ice. “This shouldn’t be happening. And it certainly shouldn’t be happening so fast.”
“It is happening,” he told her. “And it’s foolish to pretend otherwise.”
She glanced up as he rose to feed the fire. The heat still pumped out of the logs. A few of the candles they had left lit were guttering out. Outside the window there was a lessening of the darkness, so dawn had to be breaking beyond the storm. The wind still whooshed at the windows.
She had forgotten all that. All that and more. When she had been in his arms there had been no storm except the one raging inside her. There had been no fire but her own passions. The one promise she had made herself, never to lose control over a man, had been broken.
“It’s easy for you, isn’t it?” she said, with a bitterness that surprised her.
He looked back to study her. No, it wasn’t easy for him. It should be, but it wasn’t. And he was baffled by it. “Why should it be complicated?” The question was as much for himself as for her.
“I don’t make love with strangers.” She sprang to her feet with a fierce wish for coffee and solitude. Leaving him, she marched into the kitchen and plucked a soft drink from the refrigerator. She’d take her caffeine cold.
He waited a moment, going over what the computer had told him. The physical attraction was certainly there. And, as much as he detested the idea, his emotions were involved. It did no good to be angry. She was obviously reacting normally, given the situation. And it was he who was out of step. It was a sobering thought, but one that had to be faced.
But he still wanted her. And now he intended to pursue her. Logically, his success factor would increase if he pursued her in a manner she would expect from a typical twentieth-century man.
Jacob blew out a long breath. He didn’t know precisely what that might entail, but he thought he understood the first step. It was doubtful that much had changed in any millennium.
When he walked into the kitchen, she was staring out the window at the monotonously falling snow. “Sunny.” Oh, it went against the grain. “I apologize.”
“I don’t want your apology.”
Jacob cast his eyes at the ceiling and prayed for patience. “What do you want?”
“Nothing.” It amazed her that she was on the brink of tears. She never cried. She hated it, considered it a weak, embarrassing experience. Sunny always preferred a screaming rage to tears. But she felt tears burning behind her eyes now and stubbornly fought them back. “Just forget it.”
“Forget what happened, or forget the fact that I’m attracted to you?”
“Either or both.” She turned then. Though her eyes were dry, they were overbright, and they made him acutely uncomfortable. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Obviously it does.” It shouldn’t, but there seemed to be nothing he could do to change it. If she kept looking at him like that, he would have to touch her again. In self-defense he stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Maybe we’ve gotten our codes mixed.”
Hurt was temporarily blocked by bafflement. “I don’t—do you mean we got our signals crossed?”
“I suppose.”
