A Sexy Time Of It

She felt the shock of the penetration and need slammed into her like a fist. She arched upward, straining for release, crying out when he withdrew his fingers. “Don’t stop.”

“This time I won’t.” He slipped between her legs. She felt his thighs spread hers apart. He thrust into her in one smooth stroke. She surrounded him, gripped him, absorbed him. The pressure was huge, and the pleasure teetered on the edge of pain. For one timeless moment neither of them moved.

Look at me.

In the warm light of the Tiffany lamp, she studied him through slitted eyes. His were dark and hot and totally focused on her. They were fused together. One. Neely tried not to move, wishing she could hang there on that delicious and dangerous edge forever. But her greed built outrageously. When they finally moved, it was in unison. Her first orgasm was violent, and she held on to him, digging her nails into his skin. The second one built slowly. She kept her eyes on his, knew some of what he was feeling, even as he stoked her own desire a little at a time. She held on, gripping him tightly to her—mind and body.

Come. She wasn’t sure which of them had said the word, or thought it, but he increased the speed of his thrusts. Harder. Faster. This time she took him with her into the madness.

MAX WASN’T SURE how long he’d lain there on top of her before some measure of sanity returned. When his mind cleared enough to hold on to a thought, it was a simple question. What in hell had he been thinking?

The answer was easy. Good thing, considering the state of his mind. He hadn’t been thinking. At least not about consequences. He’d stayed on the bed with her, knowing full well that he shouldn’t. Then he’d compounded the problem by kissing her. Not satisfied with that, he’d had some kind of mental intercourse with her. Those were the facts as he saw them. What he wasn’t sure of—and what annoyed the hell out of him—was whose idea the sex had been.

Oh, he’d been a more than willing partner, but it was clear to Max that Neely Rafferty had some kind of power over him. Not only couldn’t he control his body’s response to her, he couldn’t seem to keep her out of his mind. Raising his head, he glanced down at her and found her blinking up at him, her eyes as innocent as a newborn babe’s. Was it real or just an act?

“What exactly just happened?” she asked. “We both still have our clothes on, but I was sure we…”

“Had sex?”

She swallowed. “Did we?”

“Mentally, yes. Physically, no.” But he couldn’t help wondering if their physical union   would be able to compete with the pleasure he’d just felt. He now had a very vivid idea of what it was like to be inside of her—to have that tight, wet sheath surrounding him, pulling at him. And he wanted to experience it again.

Good going, Max. He rolled off of her and sat up on the edge of the bed. It was huge, with four posts, covered with a quilt they hadn’t even mussed. Time to remember that he was a TGS security agent with a job to do.

“Do you do that often?” She sat up, too, and edged a little away from him.

He turned, met her eyes, trying to read her. “No. Never. You?”

“Have mental sex? I’ve never even heard of it. You were in my mind.” Her tone was growing accusatory.

“You were in my mind, too, sweetheart.”

She shook her head as if to clear it of him, and another little ripple of annoyance moved through him.

“You walked into my bookstore earlier today and you nearly kissed me then. In fact, I felt your mouth move on mine. I suppose you call that a mental kiss?” Pausing, she pointed a finger at him. “Don’t deny it.”

“You wanted me to really kiss you. And if I had, you wouldn’t have resisted.”

She lifted her chin. “Well, I didn’t make the move in that London alley.”

“You certainly cooperated. Fully.”

Heat flooded her cheeks, but she kept her eyes steady on his. “The point I’m trying to make is that I think my questions should be answered first. You know my name. You came into my bookstore. You’re the stranger. You were on my stoop, then in London with me.” She glanced down at the quilt. “And now this. I want to know who you are.”

He grabbed her hand, drew her up and urged her into a chair. “I think this conversation might go better if we’re not both in your bed.” He backed up and sat on a leather footstool.

Heat flared in her cheeks again. She was either as innocent as she appeared or she was a very accomplished actress.

“Don’t come into my mind again.”

“Same goes, sweetheart.”

For a moment, they sat there studying each other. Neely noted that he looked all business now. His mouth was grim, his eyes unreadable. It was the same way he’d looked when he’d walked into her shop. He reminded her a little of the cops she’d seen in TV shows.

“Why don’t you start by telling me your birth year,” he asked.

“What?”

“When were you born?”

She frowned at him. It was such an odd question. Unless…She blinked and studied him more closely. “I know that I look younger than I am, but if you’re worried about statutory rape or something like that, I’m twenty-five. I was born in 1983.”

“I’m not worried about rape charges. Technically, we didn’t do anything.”

In her opinion, they’d done a lot. She’d never experienced anything like it. Even worse, she wanted to do it again. And she didn’t even know this man. Obviously, he didn’t feel the same. The tightening around her heart had her lifting her chin.

“Who are you?” Again they spoke the question together. Then silence stretched between them.

Neely folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not going to say another thing until you tell me who you are. I’d like to see some ID.”

“Why don’t we start with what I already know about you. You’re a psychic time traveler. And I want to know your real birth year.”

Neely leaned forward in the chair. “A psychic time traveler? Then it is possible to do that? It wasn’t a dream? We were really in London in 1888?”

“We were in London, and from the condition of that woman’s body, I’d say we were in the late summer of the year 1888.”

“August 31, 1888, 11:00 p.m. That’s what I was visualizing. Wow.” She rose from the chair and began to pace. “I need a minute here.”

“Take all the time you need. Just tell me your birth year.”

“I already told you—1983.”

Max frowned. “That’s impossible.”

Neely turned to face him. “Look. I was born on May 1, 1983. The date’s on my driver’s license if you want to check it. They have my birth certificate on file down at city hall.”

His eyes narrowed. “If you’re not from the future, then how were you able to transport both of us to London and back?”

“I pictured where and when I wanted to go in my mind. I’ve always had these very vivid dreams about visiting places and events in the past, but it wasn’t until I began researching Jack the Ripper for one of my discussion groups, that I started having them more regularly. Lately, I’ve been trying to have the dreams on purpose and I’ve been working on directing them to an exact time. Like tonight. I wanted to go to the place where Jack the Ripper killed his first victim. And I did. Only I got there too late.”

“Too late for what?”

“I wanted to get there in time to warn Mary Ann Nichols. Or at least to stop the Ripper. I mean, I must have been given this power for a purpose. Maybe I’m meant to save the Ripper’s victims.”

Max simply stared at her. He’d known that Neely Rafferty was going to complicate his life and his job. He just hadn’t anticipated how much. “You can’t interfere in the past. It’s against the Prime Directive. If you disobey it, they’ll neutralize your gene.”

Now she was staring at him. Her face had been glowing when she’d been talking about her travels, but now all he could see was wariness and distrust in her eyes. He was blowing this, big-time.

“What Prime Directive? What gene?”

Max had a sinking feeling—a certainty—that everything she’d told him was the truth. “The Prime Directive strictly prohibits psychic time travelers from changing anything in the past. If you were really born in 1983, you’re an anomaly. There are no documented cases of anyone being able to travel through time in the twenty-first century.”

“Well, there must be something wrong with your documentation then. Because I’ll bet that my grandmother Cornelia Rafferty and my great-great-grandfather Angus Sheffield had the same power that I do. They both had the vivid dreams. The ability seems to run in my family, but it skips a generation. Neither of my parents was able to have the kind of dreams that my grandmother and I have had.”

Max considered. What she was describing about her ability agreed with what scientists knew in 2128. He’d ask Deirdre to look into her family background when he reported in. “Why the interest in the Ripper?”

Neely moved slowly to the back of her chair, her expression even more wary. “Don’t you read the newspapers?”