Kiss Across Time (Kiss Across Time Series) Read online

  “What’s yer name, miss?” one asked, with a distinct Australian accent, letting her arm go.

  “Taylor,” she said.

  The other security guy let her other arm go and waved forward. “This way then.”

  “To where?”

  They both looked surprised. “Backstage,” the Aussie said.

  “Why?” she asked.

  The other guy, the non-Australian, stepped back close to her and she shivered.

  “Brody wants to talk to you,” the Aussie said.

  Well at least his name wasn’t Breandán.

  “You’re not a Nocturnal fan, are you?” the other one asked.

  Taylor rolled her eyes at the Aussie. “I came with a friend. He’ll be worried if I don’t go back.” The implied warning and the male gender were security stoppers of her own.

  “The eighty pound runt next to you? We’ll make sure he gets home safely,” the non-Aussie said.

  So much for security. Taylor sighed. “Okay. Where do I go?”

  They took her through a series of plain cinder-block and linoleum passageways, passing dozens of people who wore either jeans and black tee shirts, or gaudy variations of death metal fashion. Hangers-on, groupies, hopeful wanna-bees. There were some bored-looking media people, obvious by their equipment and normal street clothes. Eventually, the security guys opened a gray metal door and showed her inside. There were a few chairs and a coffee table. Mini fridge, coffee machine. Magazines. Very little else. “Please wait here,” Aussie said.

  She stepped in and they shut the door. She had a feeling that if she tried to open the door, she’d find them right outside it and she wouldn’t get too far beyond it.

  Taylor took a breath, organizing her thoughts. She’d wanted to get backstage, to speak to Gallagher about that song. Well, now she was here. It wasn’t the way she’d wanted to get here but she may as well capitalize on the opportunity.

  She would just ignore the unwelcome whatever-it-was that had happened out there when he had kissed her. After tonight, she never had to deal with this death metal world and this Brody person ever again.

  Her decision made, she found it easier to perch on the edge of one of the uncomfortable chairs and wait. The laced up sides of the skirt creaked as she sat and she kept her knees together. The skirt wasn’t an aid to modesty.

  After forty minutes by the clock over the door and twenty minutes after the throbbing music stopped, the door opened again and Aussie stuck his head in. “Taylor,” he said softly. “Come this way.”

  She got to her feet and took a shaky breath. Aussie walked a pace in front of her, leading her through more passageways. They were far more crowded now, telling her she was closer to the center of power. Eyes followed her.

  Aussie opened a door and ushered her into a room full of people. She looked around. There was at least one of the band members here, but not Gallagher.

  Aussie was still moving though, leading her through the room, around people who Taylor knew were measuring her and mentally stripping her as she stepped between them. She longed to be back in her apartment and dealing with just the ordinary problem of being suddenly unemployed. She didn’t belong here.

  Aussie tapped on another door, paused, then pushed it open and jerked his head, indicating she should go in. He made no move to enter himself and she knew she’d reached the inner sanctum.

  She stepped in and he shut the door behind her. The door was sealed against noise, for the conversation on the other side instantly dropped down to a quiet murmur.

  The room was empty. Dark colors on the wall, a bookcase in dark wood in front of her and low lighting from two lamps made it seem elegant and completely out of place compared to the concrete and linoleum decor she’d seen so far. A wide, comfortable sofa took up the width of the room to the left, and a rose-colored wooden coffee table sat in front of it. There was a club chair pulled up beside the table. A suit jacket had been thrown over the arm.

  Another door led off to the right and there was the sound of running water. A bathroom. The water cut off as she listened.

  Taylor tried to tug her skirt into place but the leather stayed obstinately where it was.

  The bathroom door opened and Brody Gallagher stepped out, wrapping a silky-looking bathrobe around him. He halted when he saw her, his eyes narrowing.

  “It was you,” he said flatly.

  Her heart squeezed. It was him. Breandán. In the vision, dream, whatever it was that she’d had when this Brody had kissed her. Long hair and everything.

  “You even have a scar on your chest,” she said and lifted her hand to touch, just under her own left breast. “Just like Breandán did.”

  His eyes widened. “Jesus,” he breathed, staring at her. After a second or two he stirred. “I guess I don’t have to ask if you experienced what I did out there, then.”

  She licked her lips. “That isn’t…usual, then?”

  He gave a low laugh. “God, no!”

  He came toward her and stopped just in front of her. He lifted a hand to her face but hesitated just before he touched it. “May I?”

  She appreciated his sensitivity. “Yes.”

  His thumb stroked her cheekbone. “Your name is not really Toiréasa, is it?” His voice was low.

  She shivered. He’d been there. He’d really been there with her.

  “Taylor,” she said.

  “I want to kiss you again, Taylor. I want to see what happens this time.”

  She focused on his full lips and she remembered him sliding his cock into her. Even though it had been a dream or a vision, or whatever it had been, she recalled it like it had actually happened. She could feel it. Her clit throbbed.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  Curiously, she believed him. She nodded.

  His mouth touched hers hesitantly and she knew there was a pocket of fear in him, too. That made her believe, more than anything, that this…whatever it was…was just as strange and weird for him, too.

  Then his lips grew firmer. More demanding. His tongue thrust into her mouth.

  Taylor forgot about visions and daydreams and simply enjoyed the kiss. Brody was a damn fine kisser and she hadn’t been kissed like this in a long, long time. She threw herself into the kiss, letting herself be seduced by its power. She pressed up against him, enjoying the pleasure of simply being held by a man, the scent of a man. She wound her arms about his neck and rubbed herself against him with a soft little moan.

  He gasped and lifted his head up, looking at her. “No visions,” he said softly. “But both of us experienced it, the first time.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. Then she realized that she was draped against him like she was a willing participant.

  Worse, his cock was beating between them, signaling his arousal in the most obvious way.

  She tried to stand up but he held her still. “Wait,” he said. “There’s no rush, is there?” His hand was stroking the back of her thigh, making it quiver.

  “I have to go home.” She tried to make it sound convincing. But she really wanted to stay right where she was and continue kissing him.

  She had no idea who he was beyond his name and profession. But she already knew what his cock looked like and what it felt like to fuck him. If the vision they had shared had any sort of truth in it, he had loved her once.

  Before she had been fired two days ago, Taylor had been within half an inch of being a tenured history professor. She hadn’t believed in past lives and all that sort of bullshit. But right now she was willing to grasp it in order to give herself enough justification just to fuck the brains out of this man because kissing him felt so damn good. But that wouldn’t make her feel any better tomorrow morning.

  She bit her lip. “I can’t stay,” she said regretfully. “I would love to. I would. But that isn’t a good enough reason.”

  Brody held up his hand. “Before you go,” he said. “Would you do me one small favor?”
/>   She stepped away from him. “It depends.”

  “I want you to kiss my friend. I want to see if it…this…whatever it is when we kissed the first time…I want to see if it works on him.”

  Taylor laughed. “Why on earth would it?” Then something in Brody’s expression registered on her. “Oh…he’s your lover, isn’t he?”

  Brody lifted a brow.

  “A very long-term lover,” Taylor concluded with growing wonder. She tilted her head to study him. “What is his name?”

  “Most people call me Veris, because they can’t pronounce my real name.”

  She whirled around to face the voice.

  He was sitting on the arm of the chair where the suit jacket had been a few moments before. Blond hair, blue eyes, six foot two inches of self-assured, very broad-shouldered male.

  “You!” Shock made her struggle to recall his name. “Dr. Gerhardsson. You consulted with me last week, about the Domhnall plays.”

  “Jesus, you son of a bitch,” Brody said behind her. “You went and did it after all.”

  Veris smiled. “I did.”

  Brody brushed past Taylor and threw himself into the lounge chair. He looked at Taylor. “You’re a history professor?”

  “I nearly was,” she said flatly.

  “You don’t look like one,” Brody commented.

  “Neither does he,” she said, pointing at Veris. He looked nothing like he had when he had first appeared in her university office. Right now he was wearing leather pants and a sleeveless white cotton overshirt that made the most of the tanned, rounded caps of his shoulders and the bunches of muscles of his arms. Veris crossed his arms over his chest, which just seemed to multiply the amount of tanned muscle on display. His blue eyes twinkled.

  Brody seemed more than mildly pissed about Veris’ consultation, which had been utterly professional in nature. He had not indicated by so much as an inch that he even recognized that Taylor was a woman.

  Even so, Taylor had been left feeling edgy and weak-kneed after the evening consultation and had fallen into bed and indulged in a rare session of masturbation that featured Gerhardsson and his blue eyes and broad shoulders and various parts of his magnificent anatomy, over and over again.

  Brody glared at Veris now. “I can see now why you came home in such a muck-sweat that night…the seventeenth, right?”

  Taylor jumped. That was the night.

  Veris just shrugged a little. No pride lost there. “I have no objections to kissing the lady now, if that’s what you want.” He smiled a little but his eyes were dancing with merriment.

  Brody glared for a moment longer, then gave up. Taylor knew he had tabled the argument for later. He sat forward on the seat and spoke to Veris. “I told you what happened during the concert. I want to see if it happens to you when you kiss Taylor, because of our bond. If it does, then we’re going to have to tell Taylor.”

  Veris glanced at Taylor. “And that won’t have tipped her off at all,” he said.

  “Like consulting her about the Domhnall plays won’t have?” Brody shot back.

  Veris grimaced. “I see your point.” He got to his feet and walked toward her and Taylor knew that the equivalent of a nuclear explosion would have to go off before she would move from the spot.

  Veris stopped in front of her. “May I?” he asked. He seemed to tower over her five-foot-nine frame, even with her spiked boots.

  She thought her knees would give out. “Yes,” she said, her voice hoarse.

  He slid his hand around her waist and the other under her hair. This close, his blue eyes were mesmerizing and she could feel her heart thundering. It hurt as it slammed against her chest. She gripped Veris’ shirt almost convulsively, suddenly afraid.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered, his lips brushing hers, his breath fanning her. “I have you.”

  He kissed her.

  His lips were surprisingly soft. But just for a moment. Then his mouth hardened against hers and his tongue thrust inside, sweeping against her tongue and teeth, exploring.

  Taylor moaned. She couldn’t help it. This was better than she had imagined in her lonely bed last week. She spread her fingers over the cotton shirt to feel the muscles beneath, as she had longed to do all through the meeting. But instead of cotton, she felt leather.

  She opened her eyes. The room was round and there was a hole in the middle of the roof. That was for venting smoke from the fire, she knew.

  Veris lifted his lips from hers, trailed them to her ear and thrust his tongue inside. Not Veris. Vidar. She groaned, her whole body blossoming with arousal. Vidar was home for such a short while. But they were preparing for all-out war. Even now the longboats were being prepared for the journey over the sea to Britain.

  She thrust her hands into his hair, hiding her fear. “Kiss me again, my husband,” she demanded, fumbling with the buckles on the leather chest plate he wore.

  “There’s no time.” He brushed her hair from her temple and stroked her neck. His hand fell to her breast and stroked it through the material of her dress.

  “There will be enough,” she told him, sliding the second buckle undone, as the sweet pleasure from his hand transmitted to her clitoris and made her body begin to tremble and throb with desire. She was moist and ready for him.

  She slid the third buckle apart and he tossed the breastplate over his head and onto the floor with an impatient shrug. He pushed her up against the wall, his blue eyes snapping fire. “You are ever an inspiration, Tyra,” he growled. He grabbed the scooped front of her white dress and tugged. The fabric tore down to her knees and he pushed on it with his boot to get rid of it, pulling the sleeves off her arms as he did so.

  Tyra stood naked before him, her breasts rising and falling rapidly, telling him of her excitement.

  Vidar removed his shirt and tossed it onto the breastplate. As he turned away, she saw a long, writhing scar along his back, high up under the shoulder blade. Then he turned back and unfastened his trews, revealing his pulsing cock. He stroked it as he approached her, letting her see the tip of it in his hand. She began to tremble with anticipation.

  “Hurry,” she whispered.

  He shook his head. “No.” His voice was a rumble. He pressed up against her. “Not now.” His eyes danced. “Ooooh, no.” He dropped his head and licked her collarbone, sliding his tongue along the depression to the nape of her neck, making her catch her breath.

  Then he slid it down to her breast and sucked the tip into his mouth and began to play with it.

  Tyra cried out, her hands slapping against the wall, as the pleasurable sensations bombarded her. She was melting into a puddle of joy. Dimly, she felt Vidar’s hands around her waist, holding her up, as his mouth switched to her other breast and continued the medley. She was gasping and trembling and aching to have him inside her. She reached for his head, twining her fingers in his hair, trying to coax him to rise, to press against her.

  It was like trying to move a rock. She was hazy and weak from the pleasure he was giving her, anyway.

  “Vidar…fuck me,” she said hoarsely. It was the wrong word, she knew that. But it was the only word she could think of right now. It would have to do.

  He straightened and his hands around her waist lifted her like she was as light as his spear. She wrapped her legs around his waist, eager for his possession. Looking deep into her eyes, he thrust his long cock inside her with one deep, slow thrust. He groaned as he came to a halt, his swollen balls resting against her ass. “My woman,” he growled.

  “Yes,” she said, as he thrust inside her. It felt so good, she was melting around him. She clutched at his shoulders. “Harder,” she begged. “Faster.”

  He gripped her hips and thrust harder and faster, his pelvis kissing her clit, making her feel faint and swoony. Her climax was building, rushing at her. Her breath caught in her chest as the first convulsions of her climax washed over her. Vidar was slamming into her, driving her pleasure with his heated shaft.

>   Then she felt him spasm and his seed spill into her even as she shuddered against him. It touched off another powerful climax, one so deep and wrenching that she let her head fall back as she cried out, her eyes closing in ecstasy.

  “Tyra. Taylor.” Vidar’s voice. Breathless. Close by her ear.

  She snapped her eyes open at the use of her name. Her real name.

  The room. The square room. Veris’ face was a bare inch or so from hers. He watched her warily. “Do you know where you are?”

  “San Bernardino,” she said. “And you’re Veris again.”

  He licked his lips. “And you’re Taylor again.”

  Her heart was slamming in her chest, she realized. Then she grew aware of even more. She was pushed up against the wall. She was naked. So was Veris.

  And his cock was buried inside her.

  Chapter Four

  Taylor moaned in desperate embarrassment and horror.

  “No, no, no.” He rested his forehead against hers. “Shhhh….”

  “Let me go!” She began to struggle.

  He withdrew from her. There was little else he could do under the circumstances. He lowered her to the floor and she found she still wore her boots. That made it worse, somehow. She pushed past him and came to a halt. Brody was still sitting on the lounge chair.

  “Oh god…you were watching?” She didn’t bother trying to cover herself. If he’d been watching, he’d already got a good eyeful.

  Brody didn’t bother looking embarrassed. “I didn’t know what was going to happen,” he said evenly. “When I realized, it was too late. After that, I thought it wise to simply guard the door. You two were blind and deaf to this world.”

  She felt something fall around her shoulders. Terry cloth. A robe. With jerky movements, she thrust her arms into it and tied it shut.

  Veris brushed past her again. He was wearing his pants once more. He sat on the sofa. Like Brody, he seemed completely unembarrassed. Well, these two were lovers, after all.

  Somehow, their complete lack of shame helped to stabilize her. She took a breath and looked at Brody. “We were…acting it out in front of you?”