The Mammoth Book of Futuristic Romance

One

Dani Beckett didn’t believe in aliens or UFOs. Sure, she’d cried when she’d watched E.T.: The Extra-

Terrestrial, and she’d have taken the little guy home, too. But she’d been eight years old when she’d first seen that movie. It had been the feature flick at Lake Machapunga summer camp. She remembered lying in her bunk that night, clutching Beemer, the stuffed elephant she’d hidden under her pillow so the other campers wouldn’t think she was a baby, going over in her mind exactly how she might have hidden E.T. from Aunt Teddy and Uncle Deacon while nursing him back to health.

Of course, given the three of them lived together on a hundred-acre dairy farm back then, how hard could it have been to sneak in one undersized alien dude? But the idea that she’d be the perfect care-taker, should some other poor, celestial creature lose his way and end up on her planet, had captivated her fertile little mind, and she’d spent the rest of the summer keeping a close eye on the woods around the camp. Just in case.

Twenty-three years later, she still had a fertile imagination, but, being a decidedly practical businesswoman and shop owner these days, not to mention a grown adult, she channeled any and all whimsical thoughts into the unique floral designs she created. Unlike the impressionable eight-year-old dreamer she’d once been, adult Dani knew quite well that life only handed out the fantastical to those who went out and created it for themselves.

So, when she watched – wide-eyed and slack-jawed – as a half-naked man slowly took form, particle-

by-incredibly-delectable-and-not-remotely-alien-looking-particle, right smack in the middle of her little coastal Carolina florist shop, there was only one explanation, really. Brain tumor. Possibly a stroke.

Probably both.

The instant the man finished materializing, he quickly scanned his surroundings, then swore something unintelligible under his breath. If she hadn’t been frozen to the spot in shock, she’d have considered ducking as his gaze swung her way. Or screaming. As it was, she just stood there, staring. Okay, okay, ogling. But he looked like a Greek statue, come to life. Besides, it was her stroke, after all, and the least she could do was enjoy it before her brain went completely to mush.

If he’d noticed her, he hadn’t so much as blinked in awareness, but before she could figure out whether she’d be dialing 911 to demand they send a SWAT team to capture an alien intruder . . . or an ambulance to transport her to the nearest hospital for a full neurological workup, he shifted his gaze directly to hers and demanded, “What year is this?”

“What – year?” she repeated, though it came out as more of a squeak.

He strode directly to the work table she was standing behind, his expression so . . . intense, it made her instinctively swing her hands up in front of her in defense, and back up until she banged hard into the shelving racks behind her. Vases and assorted stacked pots and trays wobbled, some crashed to the floor.

She ducked, hoping to keep anything hard and heavy from conking her on the head. Which made little sense if the stroke was going to render her permanently senseless, anyway, but instincts were instincts.

The fight or flee impulse was also kicking in, swaying heavily toward the flee side, but before she could put thought to action, in a move so fast it was more blur than clear motion, he leapt over the table in a single, Superman-like bound, knocked her hand to the side and pinned her wrist to the shelf rack.

“What the hell,” he growled, flinging her hand away as he inspected the thick, clear ooze now dripping from the base of his palm. “What is this substance you tried to shoot me with? Is it toxic? Tell me!” he commanded, pushing his face close to hers.

Her eyes were likely as big as saucers. His, on the other hand, were the most amazing mix of blue and green. “I – I didn’t shoot you with anything.”

He pinned her to the shelving unit with his body, held his goo-covered hand to the side of her head.

“Tell me,” he said again, the threat clear. Tell him or get slimed with the supposedly deadly toxic material.

“Glue gun,” she managed, her throat dry from the sudden threat, and breathless because, well, because she had a big, mostly naked guy pressed up against her very defenseless body. “I – I forgot I had it in my hand. Not dangerous. Just . . . hot. And sticky.”

Dear Lord, she knew all about hot at that moment. And sticky, come to think of it.

His hair was dark, almost black, and clung damply to a forehead and neck flecked with some kind of dirt or grime. He was deeply tanned, which made his bared teeth flash even whiter. Those eerie, laser-

like, teal-colored eyes topped features that looked like they’d been chiseled from granite, including a rather hard-looking mouth and jutting chin.

He was a good half a foot taller than her taller-than-average self, with shoulders the size and width of your average Mack truck, and a chest and set of abs that looked like he modeled as a Greek god in his spare time. He was wearing dirty black cargo-like pants, sporting tears at the knees and thighs that she doubted were a design esthetic, tucked into equally worn, calf-high laced-up military-looking black leather boots. The loose fit of the pants did next to nothing to hide a powerful looking set of thighs that any NFL coach would’ve paid top dollar for on sight. And many women might pay a whole lot of individual dollars for, should he decide to become a stripper at any point in the near future.

“Get it off,” he demanded.

She gulped. Getting off was probably the very last thing she should be thinking about at the moment, given she was either about to be killed, or go into a permanent vegetative state when her obviously rapidly swelling brain tumor imploded. She squirmed, or tried to. “You’re . . . crushing my dahlia hybrids.”

Really, Dani? A guy beams into your shop, like a character straight out of a Spielberg movie, assaults you, appears to be quite ready, willing, and able to finish what he’s already started . . . and the best you can do is whine about your smashed-up floral arrangement?

Maybe it was just as well that E.T. had found cute little Drew Barrymore instead of her, after all.

“No time,” he muttered, apparently changing his mind about . . . whatever he’d been talking about.

Dani wasn’t following, mostly because she was still thinking about what it would take to get this guy off. As for getting her off, well, sadly, that didn’t require any thought at all. It had been long – far too long, clearly – since a man of any size and shape had pressed himself so intimately on top of her. One year, four months, two weeks, and a couple of days, to be exact. Not that she was counting. The date just happened to stick in her mind for other, more demoralizing, cheating-rat-bastard reasons.

So, it seemed a shame, really, bordering on unfair, that when the opportunity for body-to-body contact finally happened for her again, the guy was some kind of raging psychopath, possibly recently beamed down from another planet, and more interested in the glue gunk on his hand than her womanly form, trapped beneath him.

For God’s sake, get a grip! “Right, right,” she muttered to herself, trying to focus on the situation at hand without going into a full-blown panic. In her defense, though, who wouldn’t, really? Well, besides Drew Barrymore? Hence the thinking about hot, sticky sex, instead of . . . whatever the hell was actually happening to her, neurologically or otherwise. And, she had to admit, the guy presently molding his body to hers seemed like a pretty realistic “otherwise” to her.

Take charge, Dani! This is your shop, your business, the livelihood you worked so hard for. The one thing you have left, dammit. He can’t just . . . just . . . beam down and have his way with you.

Okay, well, clearly he could. But still. “Who are you?” she demanded, hoping he didn’t notice how shaky her voice was. “And . . . and how did you get here?” She wasn’t sure if she really wanted the answer to either of those questions, but she had to face facts at some point. Either he’d give her a perfectly plausible, scientific explanation about how he’d magically appeared in front of her, and she’d have to deal with the fact that this was really happening and E.T. had finally shown up, after all, only older, taller, and a hell of a lot hotter . . . or he’d tell her he was Han Solo, beamed down from the Millennium Falcon after escaping Darth and his buddies, and she’d have to deal with the fact that her mind had, in fact, cracked. Not in your right mind, you must be.

She held her breath, trying to decide which response would be the better reality of the two, but he wasn’t listening to her at all. He scraped his hand hard along the sharp edge of a shelf, removing most of the rapidly solidifying glue chunk, then gripped her wrist in his wide palm and tugged her along with him as he headed toward the back of the shop. “You have transport?”

“I – have a car,” she said, answering before she thought better of it. Sure, just tell him you have a car, so he can abduct you and car-jack you. Dear God, she was handling this exactly like an idiot actress in a bad D-list sci-fi flick. She’d never pictured herself as that girl. She’d always wanted to slap that girl.

He pushed through the swinging door that led to the rear storage area, pulling her along behind him, and she finally snapped out of her shocked stupor and dug in her heels. “Wait!” she shouted. “Just—” She flung out her free hand and grabbed on to the handle of the wall-sized refrigerated unit she stored her flowers in, and held on tight. She almost got her shoulder wrenched from its socket for her troubles, but when he did snap around, she said, “Hold on a minute!”

“No time!”

“Then you’re going to have to make some, because I’m not going anywhere with you until you tell me what the hell is going on.” Yeah, she cheered herself, that’s more like it!

He turned on her and, with one simple maneuver, shifted himself in a way that forced her to release her hold on the handle and land in front of him, where he could now pretty much shovel her toward the door.

“No time means no time,” he panted in a near snarl, next to her ear.

She gulped, because he sounded a lot more lethal – which she, frankly, hadn’t thought possible – and, oddly, she realized . . . Australian. Had he had an accent before? Or was this just a sign that her brain synapses were in their final zenith and her hallucination was shifting accordingly?

For a hallucination, his grip on her sure felt real enough. As did the rest of him, hot, hard, and supremely male, pressing up behind her as they stumbled forward toward the door that led to the rear lot behind the shop. “Wait, I need my—”

“Stop talking.” He pushed them both through the door, then kicked it shut behind him. “Where is your transport?”

It was after shop hours, and the sun had set some time ago. For late October, it was still pretty warm on the southeastern coast, but she shivered nonetheless. The small security light didn’t do much to illuminate the area, but the full moon bathed the narrow alley behind her shop in a bluish glow . . . making the whole situation feel that much more surreal. “Right there,” she said, inclining her head toward her green Jeep Cherokee, since he held her hands, crossed at the wrist, behind her back. “But, I was trying to tell you – my purse is in the shop.”

“Purse?” He dismissed that as unimportant. “Uncloak this transport you speak of, and do it now.”

She tried to swivel her head so she could look back at him. “It’s right there,” she said. “But we’re not going anywhere in it without the keys.”

“Keys?” His scowl deepened.

“Yes,” she said, with exaggerated patience – which was a marvel really, considering she had the pulse rate of your average jackrabbit at the moment. “The ones you just locked inside the shop with your Rambo door-slam move.”

He followed her gaze toward her Jeep, then spun her around so she faced him. Literally almost nose to nose. Well, nose to chin. He took care of that by tipping her face up to his, his hold on her chin just the wrong side of civil. “I have no idea what game you think you’re playing, but this is no time to test me.

Now, reveal your transport to me.” He pulled her clenched hands up between them with his free hand, which easily circled both of her wrists. The sudden move had the very special consequence of jerking her hips up flush to his. And . . . oh my. Why, he was no Greek god after all. Because every statue she’d ever seen of those guys? Yeah, not all that well-endowed. This guy? Exceedingly different in that department.

He tipped her chin up further and leaned down until she swore she could see so deeply into his eyes, she—

“Give me the sequence start-up code, sweetheart, and I’ll fly. I’ve no choice but to take it. But, look at it this way. Losing your transport isn’t worth losing your life for.”

Definitely Australian. She’d heard that Aussies were a bit on the wild side, but this guy was taking that reputation to extremes. “The only transport I have,” she said, through gritted teeth, “is that Jeep behind you. It rolls on the ground. On four wheels. It doesn’t fly. I don’t own anything that flies. Or uses a start-up sequence for that matter. If you’re looking for a spaceship-type thingie, I think you landed in the wrong century, cowboy.”

“Thingie?” He loosened his hold on her chin.

“You know. Ah . . . hovercraft. Podracer. Whatever.” She worked her jaw. “Can you tell me what’s going on?” Maybe he was some kind of mental patient, on the loose. Or hopped up on drugs, though his eyes seemed pretty crystal clear to her. Besides, neither of those options would explain how he’d done that whole “beam me down” thing back inside her shop.

Once again, he wasn’t listening to her. He was scanning the narrow gravel and sand alley that ran behind her shop. On the other side was a strip of overgrown weeds, then a drainage ditch. Yeah, don’t look at the drainage ditch. Good place to store dead bodies. Namely hers, since she’d just made herself dispensable to him. “Um, maybe – we could get a helicopter. Would that work?” She knew there was a tourist business that operated down near the waterfront, where a person could pay for a coastal air tour.

Of course, they were probably closed now, but he didn’t have to know that. If she could get the two of them out of this alley, maybe she could figure out a way to get free of him. And check herself into the nearest mental facility.

“At least tell me your name,” she said. “I’m Dani.” That’s right , she thought, make friends with your captor, get him to think of you as a real person and not a disposable nuisance . Besides, since her stroke was taking its sweet time in killing her off, she had no choice, really, but to go with her present reality as if it were, in fact, reality.

She looked back up at him, and was surprised to see that instead of looking all ferocious and serial-

killer-like, his expression had changed to one of deliberation. And, if she wasn’t mistaken . . . fear. Or, at the very least, serious concern. Something about that sudden hint of vulnerability, of . . . humanness, gave her back a bit of much-needed moxie.

“If you’ll just tell me what’s going on, then I’ll do what I can do help you,” she told him, not necessarily meaning it, but she had to get him – them – out of the alley. “At least tell me your name.”

“Jack,” he said, but he said it dismissively, probably just to shut her up. She wasn’t even sure if it was his real name, but at least it was better than “Yo, cowboy.” And, she had to admit, a part of her was relieved it was something normal, and . . . human, and didn’t sound all otherworldly, like it had double consonants and apostrophes in weird places.

“Okay, Jack. If you tell me where you need to go, maybe I can help you.”

He continued to scan the alley, then the sky, then the alley again. She didn’t think he’d even heard her, until she felt a slight lessening of the tension in his grip on her wrists. “You can’t get me where I need to go.” He squinted at the sky. “How did it put me here?” he muttered.

Dani slowly slid her gaze skyward, almost afraid of what she’d find. A huge hovering spaceship?

Three moons and a big blue sun? Something to indicate she was still having her hallucination? She almost wished something would.

Because the dawning reality that he might be exactly what he appeared to be wasn’t nearly as exciting as she’d have found it twenty-three years ago. No matter how much she’d grown up. Or how hot her extraterrestrial space cowboy was.

Two

Jack looked at the woman. Dani. “This is, what, early twenty-first century?” When she frowned and nodded, he looked back to the sky. He couldn’t figure out how it had gotten messed up. He’d made the trip dozens of times. More, even. Time fissures worked how they worked, and all the readings indicated that the one he’d traveled through was still quite stable. Not only did it appear as if he’d missed his target by a couple hundred years, but given her accent and the position of the stars, it appeared he was also off by a continent. Or two.

He’d never gone this far back. Not only that, he had no idea where the fissures were in this part of the world, much less where this one looped back out again, or how long it would take to loop in. More importantly, literally no one on Earth would know where the fissures were, either. It would be a good hundred years or more, from this point in time, before mankind figured out how the time-space continuum could be manipulated for travel, and many more years still before they made successful, practical use of the knowledge.

“How did what put you here?” she asked. “Why don’t you just explain your situation, from the beginning?”

He let out a humorless laugh and looked away. “Sweetheart, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

She took this opportunity to slide her wrists free. But, rather than run, like any smart-minded soul would do, she merely crossed her arms and gave him a good once-over. “Sweetheart,” she said, in a pretty good imitation of his accent, only tinged with that butter-melting-on-biscuits accent of her own, “I just watched you materialize out of thin air in front of me. I’m thinking there’s not much you could say that would surprise me.”

Right. Another reason they never traveled back to any date prior to 2297, the year cellular particulant transport had finally been approved for safe use. No point in freaking out the natives. Especially when that wasn’t necessary. Bodysnatchers didn’t have to risk traveling this far back to do their dirty work.

“Be careful what you ask for,” he told her, in lieu of a direct response. Particulant transport was the least that he could surprise her with.

“Why are you in such a hurry? And you look kind of . . . beat up. Did something happen to you?”

She sounded a lot calmer, which was, he supposed, a blessing. Hysterics weren’t going to help anyone.

But her eyes still held that heightened wariness. Which was smart – very smart – on her part. “I didn’t have time to clean up from the last job before diving – literally – into this one.”

“And your last job was . . . ?”

He was still trying to figure out how an established fissure with solid stability readings had gone so far off, and answered her without thinking. “New Guinea. 2379. Native girls are a hot commodity. None left in my time.”

“Your . . . time,” she repeated, and, in his peripheral vision, he noticed she took a step backward.

He looked at her fully, then lunged to catch her wrist when it looked like she was going to take off running. Not that he needed the extra baggage at the moment, but he definitely didn’t need any loose ends running about, telling people about time travelers, et cetera. Not that anyone would likely believe it.

“Hold on there,” he told her. “Listen, you asked, right?”

She nodded, and held his gaze, but he felt the tremors running through her.

“No running. It’s not safe.”

“What’s not safe about it, exactly? Because you don’t look all that safe to me at the moment.”

“Sweetheart, I’m the best bet you have going right now.”

To his vast surprise, and grudging delight, she barked a laugh. “Well, then, let’s hope this actually is a brain tumor, because otherwise, I really am screwed.”

“Brain tumor?”

“What would you think if you saw someone materialize in front of you? Never mind. You apparently actually do see that.” Her smile faded and she tried to tug her wrist free.

“Just . . . hold on, would you?” He relaxed his grip, but kept hold of her all the same. He tried to smooth some of the tension from his voice, but it was a challenge, given all the things that were horribly wrong with the situation he’d landed in. Not the least of which was whether or not the guy he’d been chasing had also ended up here. Stoecker was a nasty piece of work. And, against that particular threat, the woman in front of him wouldn’t stand a chance. She might not be the exotic tribal type Stoecker was usually after, but she had the height of an Amazonian warrior and just the right kind of attitude to make her irresistible to his sort.

“That must be it,” he muttered, realizing why Stoecker might have broken protocol and gone back farther in time than was legally mandated – as if the law meant anything to a man who made a living snatching women and selling them into slavery. “That must be it!”

“Must be what?”

“Stoecker’s after a new, even rarer commodity. Someone must have paid a pretty penny for him to take this kind of risk, but – how did he do it?“

“Pretty penny for what? Who’s Stoecker?” She tugged at his hand again, bringing his attention back to her. “Are you in danger? Is . . . someone following you?”

He looked at her, really looked at her now. In addition to being significantly tall for her gender, her other striking feature was her hair. It was long, well past her shoulders, and fell in dark waves and curls.

It was the kind of hair that encouraged a man to sink his fingers into it. And those dark curls framed an attractive face, now that he was paying attention, with well-defined cheekbones, and a strong chin.

Stubborn, he thought now, given her brief display inside the shop and out here in the alley. Her eyes were hazel, nothing exotic, except for the intently direct way they held his own. He wasn’t used to that.

Given what he did for a living, the people he ran across usually worked hard to avoid making any kind of eye contact with him. He supposed a woman of her height wasn’t used to feeling threatened or intimidated in any way. Well, he thought darkly, if he didn’t do something, and fast, that was about to change.

“No one is following me,” he said. “I’m doing the following.”

“Who’s Stoecker?”

Jack swore under his breath. If what he suspected was true, Dani here would be the perfect target for one of the best body-snatchers in the business. She was just different enough to get attention at the black-

market auctions, and the key part was that she was from an era in history no one remembered anything about. She’d be well and truly out of her element, without even a rudimentary understanding of how she could escape back to her time. The perfect slave. Tall, dominant in appearance, with all that hair, that stubborn chin . . . and yet completely at the mercy of her new owner. “Let’s pray like hell you don’t have to find out.”

He pulled her toward the door. “We need to get back inside.” He still didn’t know for sure if the fissure had simply flung him through to a more distant time and place, or if Stoecker had figured out a way to manipulate the fissures already documented and cleared for use. This didn’t happen often, if ever. He’d been hunting Stoecker too long, and he was the best there was. He’d know.

“You locked us out,” she reminded him, as he tried the door handle.

Of course, if the continuum had somehow been manipulated to send him so much farther back than it should have, who was to say it hadn’t warped over such a long distance? Maybe Stoecker was no longer in front of him. They hadn’t been that far apart. Jack turned back to Dani. “How long had you been inside the building?”

“You mean my shop? I’ve been there all day. I closed up a few hours ago and stayed late to work on a special order—” She broke off, shook her head. “Why? Why do you want to know? Will you please just tell me what the hell is going on? I think I deserve that much.”

He took a step closer to her, crowding her back up against the locked door. “What you deserved was to be left alone to conduct your business. That didn’t happen.”

“I – uh – well, that’s very true,” she stammered, her eyes widening, but her gaze still holding tightly to his own. It was damn disconcerting, really. “I mean, you intrude right into the middle of my shop, then you smash up the hybrids that took me two weeks to track down in that particular color, and if you had any idea what kind of bridezilla I’m dealing with on all that, well, the very least you owe me is an explanation

—”

He covered her mouth with his hand, stopping her nervous babble. Her eyes went wider, but it was her brows furrowing in a very good show of temper that actually had his lips quirking, just a bit.

“I’ll explain,” he said. “But . . . no screaming.”

He slowly slid his hand away, and was surprised to discover that the slide of her soft lips across his palm was somewhat stirring.

“Why would I scream?” she asked, her voice quieter, but no less intense.

“Actually,” he said, “I suppose if you were a screamer, you’d have already done that.”

“I couldn’t scream then, I was in shock. I thought I was having a stroke, or an exploding brain tumor.”

He couldn’t help it, the smile threatened again. “And now?”

“And now I don’t know what to think. Why don’t you tell me your version of reality? Mine involves lengthy neurological testing, and possible electric-shock therapy, so I’m hoping yours sounds like more fun.”

He outright grinned at that. “I wish I could ease your mind, sweetheart, but, on that score . . . checking yourself in somewhere – anywhere – might be the better option.”

She frowned again. “Why? Who are you? Really.”

He felt her physically tense up, bracing for his response. Something about the way she shifted against him, however, had him thinking he wouldn’t mind checking in somewhere there, either. She felt soft and warm, and, he was pretty sure, possibly inviting – if he could remember how to be charming. It had been quite some time since he’d needed those particular skills. Which was probably why his body was thinking it was on holiday instead of on a mission gone horribly wrong.

Well, he knew one way to snap them both out of that particular hormonal stupor. “When I arrived in your shop, I had traveled a bit farther than from Papua New Guinea.”

She nodded calmly enough, but he saw her throat work. “Like, from another galaxy? Or something?”

His lips curved. “Nothing so exotic as that. I’m as human as you are.”

She sighed and relaxed somewhat, even as the most delightful flush warmed her cheeks. “So, did I just imagine you appearing in front of me like a hologram come to life?”

He shook his head.

“Then . . . ?”

“I didn’t travel through space, sweetheart, just through time.”

She let that sink in for a moment. “So, that’s why you wanted to know the year?”

He nodded.

“Which means . . . what time – year – exactly, did you travel from?” She glanced down between them, ostensibly, he assumed, at his clothing. “Not the past, surely.” She looked back up into his eyes.

And he had the most peculiar urge to kiss her. He shook his head, both in response to her and his own urges. “2563.” While she goggled a little at that, he turned the conversation back to the more immediate concern. “You said you’ve been here all day. No breaks? Did you leave at any time?”

“No, why? Listen,” she tugged at her wrists again, as if just remembering he still had them in his grip.

“What’s going on? The whole story.”

“I don’t know the whole story. Yet.”

“So, tell me the parts you do know.” She tugged again, hard, this time, making him tighten his grip again. “Who is Stoecker?”

Her pupils flared, and her throat worked, which he told himself was fear, but his body was busy telling him that that part of her reaction was based on something else entirely. Which made him a bit more blunt than might have been entirely necessary, because given the fact she had him rapidly growing hard as a rock, maybe they both needed a bit of shock therapy. “Kir Stoecker is a bodysnatcher. He gets paid a very princely sum to travel back through time and capture women to be put up at auction for those who enjoy the companionship of the helpless and truly enslaved.”

“You mean s-sexually?”

He couldn’t help it, he could feel her, soft, curvy, pressed up against him. His gaze drifted to her mouth, and then back to her eyes, pupils so wide and dark he could fall right into them and never come out.

“Sexually, and every other way they might want to wield their newly purchased power.”

He brought his hand up and stroked the side of her face, pushing back those wild, ridiculously luxurious curls. “And you, sweetheart, would be ripe picking for his sort.” He slid his hand across her hair, palm to cheek. “You’d earn him quite a bounty.”

“Me?” The word came out breathy, almost hoarse.

“Tall, defiant,” he said, crowding her further, tipping up her chin. Then, giving into the urge, he pushed his hand deeply into all that silky curl. “With the kind of hair a man can get a good grip on. Oh, you’d fetch a pretty price, indeed.”

She swallowed hard, then her gaze drifted to his mouth, too. “And you?” she said, still looking at his mouth. Her breath was coming in shallow pants now. “What do you do?”

“Keep him from succeeding.”

Her gaze lifted to his. “And do you?”

“Not always.”

She gave a convulsive little jerk at that. “You don’t participate in the trade. Do you?”

A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. “Sample the wares, you mean? There are some who have been grateful to escape their fate.” When her eyes widened, he lowered his mouth until his breath mingled with hers. “I always refuse.”

He could feel her body tighten further, rather than relax. Her voice was hoarse now, barely a whisper.

“So, you never . . .”

“Oh, I didn’t say that.” He slid his hand to the curve above her nape, and tipped her mouth up to his. “I just prefer my partners wanting me out of something other than gratitude.”

She wet her lips. “Like?”

“Spontaneous, mutual desire?”

He looked into her eyes as her chin quivered. “Yes,” she breathed, holding his gaze quite steadily, nonetheless. “I mean . . .”

But it was too late for quantifications. He took her mouth, intending it to be a shock of sensation for her, bringing her to her senses. But it turned out the recipient of that shock was him. Her lips were warm, and tasted both sweet and earthy, beckoning him to explore, to find out what was beneath that surface. So . . . he did. She moaned a little as he parted her lips. Her newly freed hands gripped his biceps, not to push him away, rather to support herself as her body trembled against his.

That should have been enough. Enough to jerk him out of this state he’d somehow succumbed to.

Instead, like some kind of elusive jungle quicksand, it simply sucked him in more deeply. That sweet vulnerability in one so tall and strong made him want to both claim and protect. He ignored those thoughts, thoughts that never interfered when it was pleasure he sought. In fact, thoughts like those had never interfered in any instance. A man like him, a slave-trade bounty hunter, didn’t lead a life conducive to lasting friendships and deep, personal relationships, so he chose his partners accordingly.

Dani here, she wasn’t that kind of partner. In fact, she wasn’t like anyone he’d ever encountered. Not so innocent, and yet so very, very naïve. At least about what was happening to her, or could.

And yet, those thoughts didn’t stop him from sliding his hands from her hair, and down along her torso, letting his thumbs drift in so they brushed along the swell of her breasts. She jerked at the touch, moaned against his mouth. So he shifted her, just enough, to bring his thumbs back up again, only this time brushing them directly across nipples that were hard and plump to the touch.

His body was the one jerking now. Sweet hell, it had been far too long since he’d indulged in this kind of simple, yet primal, pleasure. She moved against him, and he was the one groaning under his breath. She was sinuously tall, so well matched for him, and oh so ripe for the taking. He felt it in her quick breaths, rapid pulse, and the way she shook when he slid his hands down her hips, then hiked her up the wall, so he could press the aching, rock-hard length of himself right where it wanted most to be nestled. “I want to rip your clothes off and sink every last inch of this into you,” he growled against her neck. He didn’t know if he was still trying to scare her or convince her.

Her thighs squeezed instinctively, reflexively, around his hips as she locked her ankles around his lower back. “I – yes,” she panted. “Yes.”

Lost, so well and truly lost, he thought, reeling at a time when he should be at his sharpest. Wrong time, wrong woman, wrong everything. And yet he was undoing the buttons on the front of her filmy little sundress, sliding her higher up the wall, so he could put his mouth on those turgidly plump and oh-so-

perfect nipples. Even through the sheer, pale-pink film of her bra, she tasted dark, and sweet. Her responding moan was a low keening, and she slid her hands to his head, into his hair, holding his mouth where she wanted it to stay. Her scent was sweeter still, and growing increasingly musky. His body all but howled for him to take what was being so generously and openly offered. No harm, no foul, just pulsing, thundering release.

But, before they could make a decision they would surely come to regret, they both froze as the wall behind Dani’s back vibrated, followed by the sound of something crashing inside the shop.

“Shit. Shit!” What in the hell had he been thinking? He scooped her against his chest and ran like hell across the narrow alley, dropping her feet down as soon as they hit the grass on the other side, where it slanted down steeply toward a ditch. “Down,” he commanded, brain back in focus, even if his body wasn’t. Not even close. “Belly flat, don’t look up.”

“Jack—”

There was no time to think now, to wonder, worry, decide. Operating purely on unquestioning instinct now, he crouched down and took her face in his hands. “Trust me, Dani. Do as I say, and live. Look up, show yourself in any way, and I can’t be responsible. You got me?”

She locked gazes with him, in that unnerving, intense way she did, that was so much more than a simple meeting of the eyes, and nodded. Then he did the damnedest thing. He wasted another precious several seconds to lean down, and kiss her. Hard, fast, but . . . dammit. “I’ll be back for you.”

“Right.” Her expression was sober, as if a shield had dropped into place.

“Dani—”

“Just, don’t die,” she said, as seriously as he’d seen her. “You got me?”

He grinned. And something clicked, right into that empty place he’d never thought someone like him could fill. “Wouldn’t dream of it, sweetheart.”

Three

Dani lasted a full minute, which felt like several lifetimes, before she peeked. Not that she hadn’t taken Jack’s warning seriously. In fact, she quite understood that the right thing to do was to scuttle down to the bottom of the ditch, crawl her way to the end of the alley through the muck ( eww), then run as far away from her shop as she could get. Because that was what any person in her right, tumor-free mind, would do.

But, let’s face facts. She was presently lying belly down in gross, damp weeds, hiding, while a hot, time-traveling bounty hunter took on a psychopath who’d apparently also just come through time into her little florist shop, intent on abducting the nearest woman – her, for the sake of argument – for the twenty-

sixth-century slave trade.

Still, why was she lying here? In hopes that her Aussie Greek god of a hero would rush in, save the day, then come back and . . . what? Yeah, what, exactly, Dani? Make mad, passionate love to you in a drainage ditch? Then beg you to join him and go back to his time?

And she’d been shaking her head, trying to decide just what kind of brain tumor would create such a completely involved, highly detailed psychotic break like the one she was obviously having. Something like that couldn’t possibly be operable, could it? Because, if that were true, then what harm was there in waiting for her space cowboy to kill the bad guy and come back for her, because at this point, psychotic-

break sex sounded pretty damn good. What little foreplay she’d had so far had been quite excellent, in fact. Win-win really, if she was going to die either way.

Which was why, when the sky over her shop exploded in a yellow-orange haze of smoke, she’d peeked.

What she saw was pretty damn impressive. Jack was facing the back entrance to the shop with some kind of small gadget in his hand, aiming it at the door, which – more or less – dissolved in front of her eyes. Then he palmed some other sort of weapon from the side of one of his boots and, crouching low, went inside the building.

Did she stay in the ditch and wait to see what happened? Or did she run to get help? Or did she go inside and make damn sure that the man who’d just kissed her like she was the last woman on Earth didn’t go and get himself killed before he could finish what he’d started?

She was up and running low across the alley before allowing herself to really think the plan through.

But then, she’d never been much of a sideline-sitter. Not since Tommy Decker had goaded her into diving into the lake at summer camp, despite the fact that she didn’t know how to swim. But the girls in her cabin had discovered Beemer and were incessantly taunting her, and drowning felt like a potentially acceptable alternative to a summer bunking with a hit squad of mean girls. Plus, Tommy was already showing asshole-guy tendencies. So, she’d dived in. And lived. Take that, Cabin Three bitches!

Of course, she’d been right about Tommy. Turns out he’d just wanted to see her in a wet T-shirt. He’d been all of nine at the time. If only she’d been more focused on that lesson learned instead of shutting up her bunkmates, she might have saved herself from the world of grief she’d suffered one year, four months, two weeks, and a couple of days ago. Because idiot boys like Tommy grew up to be asshole jerks like Adam.

But she wasn’t thinking about Adam, Tommy, or the mean girls of Cabin Three. She was thinking about the flower shop – her flower shop, dammit! Aunt Teddy and Uncle Deacon were both gone now, the family dairy farm long since sold off. Then, sixteen months ago, on that fateful, much recalled date, she’d discovered – as in, before-her-very-eyes – that Adam, her tax-accountant fiancé, was cheating on her with his much younger bookkeeping assistant. Whom he’d happily agreed to marry right away. This, after hemming and hawing over setting a date with Dani for four long years. That news had been capped recently when, while being maid of honor – again – for the last of her single friends, she’d overheard that the blissfully happy newlyweds were already expecting their first child.

Yeah. She was so over all of it now. Except, apparently, the prolonged sex deprivation. Which left her with her little fledgling florist business and not much else. If she lost that, then what?

She ducked behind her Jeep, straining to hear what sounds, if any, came from inside the shop. “Like what, Dani?” she muttered. “Gunshots?” Because, it was doubtful, given Jack had just vaporized the door to her shop without making so much as a whisper of sound, that whatever that little weapon thingie was, it would make any noise either. Of course, the person getting hit by whatever that weapon produced might at least scream. Right?

“Oh, for the love of—” She edged around the front of the Jeep, trying to decide what her best bet was, and what she could arm herself with. When a crashing sound came again, like shelves – many shelves – being toppled over, accompanied by much grunting, and what sounded like old-fashioned fists on flesh, she was on the move again. That they were killing each other was one thing, but she’d be damned if they’d just trash her shop while they did it. She didn’t think her new insurance policy covered destruction by alien invasion. Or . . . whatever.

She peeked around the corner of the door, wincing suddenly as a bite of heat hit her on the shoulder.

She looked down to see that the doorframe – what was left of it – had pretty much melted her shirtsleeve.

She edged inside the building. With the door gone, the moonlight penetrated the back room of the shop and bathed it in a dim glow. She scanned the storage shelves for anything that might help her defend herself and her shop. She wondered, briefly, if this Stoecker guy would fall for the toxic-glue gun thing, but figured it wasn’t worth the risk. Instead she palmed the biggest, heaviest crystal vase she could wrap one hand around, then crept closer to the swinging door that led to the front of the shop. More grunting, more crashing. More of what sounded like fists on flesh. Apparently men didn’t change much over the centuries. Not particularly surprising.

Without a set plan in place, other than to help Jack so the destruction of her shop would end before it was completely leveled, which had the dual win of thwarting the threat against her apparently black-

marketable person – and, well, yes, she hadn’t exactly forgotten that a win against Stoecker would allow them to get back to what they’d started out back by her Jeep – she quietly edged through the swinging door. Was it wrong that it was that last part that had provided the most motivation?

She didn’t have time to ponder that, as she was immediately confronted by two men, locked in mortal combat. Telling them apart was easy, even in the dim interior. Assuming it was Stoecker that Jack was currently wrestling with, the future world slave trader was as pale and blond as Jack was swarthy and dark. Plus, he had more clothes on. What he also had was a good fifty pounds and a few inches in height on Jack. He looked like a Nordic Incredible Hulk.

Neither of the men saw or heard her as she slowly moved toward her work table, intending to use it as a shield. Of course, they could probably just vaporize it, but she didn’t see weapons in either of their hands at the moment. She crouched down, gripping the vase more tightly. She edged behind the table, scanning the area now – in between wincing as they sent another display, then another, crashing to the floor – for any sign of Jack’s weapon.

Then she saw what looked like a cell phone, just out of Jack’s reach, on the floor, and realized it was what both of them were trying to grab at, while keeping the other from getting it first. She was trying to decide how good her chances were to grab the weapon herself, when Stoecker managed to get free from Jack and palm the small weapon. He writhed to his back, and lifted it – aiming it right at Jack, who was lunging at him, making Jack vulnerable for a shot right to the chest.

Dani didn’t even think, she just stood up and drilled the vase directly at Stoecker’s head. Like a perfect spiral pass, the heavy crystal caught him on the temple, just as he pushed the button, sending the violet stream to the left of Jack, where it vaporized half the wall between the front and back of her shop, and a good part of the ceiling.

Stoecker grunted and collapsed, as Jack – after a quick look of shock in her direction – kicked at the slave trader’s hand, sending the weapon out of his reach. Then Jack grabbed it and aimed it at Stoecker.

But the man hadn’t moved. In fact, he was out cold.

Jack looked at Dani. “I thought I told you to stay outside.”

“You were trashing my business. And my home. I live – lived – upstairs.” She glanced up, and felt her shoulders slump, even as the rest of her began to shake as the after-effects of the adrenaline rush kicked in.

“What was that?” Jack asked, as he pulled himself to his feet. He staggered to her work table, looking a bit more worse for wear after the fight.

“Fluted vase. Austrian crystal.” She sighed. “Imported.”

“Lucky throw.”

She looked at him. “Nothing lucky about it. Archery and darts champ, Lake Machapunga, three summers running.” She looked over at the prone form of Stoecker and smiled. “Bite me, Tommy Decker.”

“Who?”

She looked back at Jack. He was holding one arm around his ribcage, and there was blood trickling down the side of his temple. Even battered and banged-up, he was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen. “Are you going to be okay? You should let me look at that puncture wound—”

“I’ve had worse.” He shook his head when she started to come around the counter to check on him.

“Stay back. I need to get him secured.”

“I didn’t . . . kill him?”

“Doubtful, sweetheart.” But before Jack could secure him, the air around Stoecker began to shimmer. It only took a moment or two for Dani to realize it wasn’t the air around the prone giant, it was the giant himself who was shimmering. “He’s – Jack! Look!”

“I can see it.” Moving with surprising swiftness, Jack came around the table, blocking her behind him with one arm. He was sweaty, almost hot to the touch, and despite the blood and the obvious wounds, felt sturdy, stable, and strong. “It’s the fissure. It’s looped back already. Must be a tight bend this far back.”

“So, he’s what? Going back? I mean . . . forward?” She shook her head. “Back to your time, I mean?”

Jack nodded, then turned to face her, keeping her tight in the circle of his arm. “I have to go with him, Dani. It’s the best chance I’ve had, the closest I’ve gotten to stopping him for good.”

“Can’t you just, you know, catch the next – what did you call it? Fissure?”

He shook his head. “This is just the far end looping. No telling if it would ever come back this far again. I still don’t know how it was manipulated to do what it did. I may never know.” He looked at her, searched her eyes. “You should be safe now. At least from Stoecker. I’ll make sure of that.”

“So you’re going? For good?”

He nodded.

“But—”

He framed her face with his palms. “No time.”

She smiled faintly. “You said that once before.”

“Stop talking,” he said, only this time a smile hovered over his beautifully chiseled, if slightly battered, lips.

“That, too,” she said, trying to smile, but hearing the quaver in her voice.

“Come here.” He tilted her head and kissed her firmly, passionately, but there was something else there now. Not simply urgency due to the situation. It was far more elemental than that. When he lifted his mouth from hers, her eyes were glassy and unreadable. “I’ve never missed anyone before. But I’ll miss you, Dani.”

“Jack—”

But it was too late. He broke his hold, and stepped back, into the aura that surrounded an almost completely transparent Stoecker on her shop floor. Then Jack started to fragment, too.

Dani raised her fist to her mouth, determined not to say anything, not to beg him to stay. He had no choice but to do his job, to save those whose lives Stoecker would destroy. Besides, what the hell would a time-traveling bounty hunter from the future do in a tiny, South Carolina tourist town?

She couldn’t, however, stop the single tear that tracked down her cheek as he held her gaze, solidly, intently, until the very last particle of him was gone.

Dani slowly gave in to the trembling in her legs and sank to the floor of her battered and trashed shop.

Funny how the destruction didn’t even seem to matter to her. All it was to her now was proof that the entire night hadn’t, in fact, been a product of an overactive imagination.

It had really happened. Jack was real. His commanding presence and take-charge attitude. His instinctive need to protect and defend. His kisses, so dark and dangerous.

She lifted her fingers to her lips, and didn’t even try to stop the tears. “I’ll miss you, too.”

Four

Nine months (plus one week, three days, and two hours – but who was counting, really) later, Dani was working late, putting the finishing touches to a table centerpiece for the upcoming town-council banquet.

They didn’t go in for the exotic or whimsical, so her thoughts were wandering as she plugged in a spray of lily grass here and a random piece of fiddlehead fern there.

She was proud of herself. She’d gone a whole month now without making up reasons to stay late after the shop closed, till long after the sun had gone down, you know . . . just in case. This evening, she actually hadn’t had to make up an excuse. The council order had been last-minute, to be picked up the following morning, and she needed the business.

She’d had to stay late. Possibly, if she were being honest, not quite as late as she’d ended up staying, but she couldn’t seem to stay focused on the project at hand. It was a nagging problem. Ever since Jack.

She might have stopped waiting for him to materialize again, but there didn’t seem to be anything she could do to stop thinking about him. Even running into Adam and his very young bride as they pushed the stroller with their adorable baby past the floral shop hadn’t distracted her from her, well, moping, really.

There was no way to pretty that up. She missed Jack. Simple as that. And she couldn’t even talk about him to anyone.

The local cops had shown up moments after Jack had vanished. Apparently vaporizing the back door had set off her new silent security system, which automatically alerted the police and fire department, who had also shown up, sirens blaring. She had still been a wreck, which the responding police officers had assumed was a result of her finding her shop broken into and vandalized. That’s how the report had been written up, though no one could adequately explain how the wall and part of the ceiling had been destroyed.

Thankfully, she supposed, her insurance company had settled the claim on most of the repairs and replacements. And the accompanying excitement had driven business her way. For a time. But the cost of repairing what her insurance hadn’t covered, combined with a very slow winter season, had put her business on the brink of closing. If things didn’t pick up fast now that summer was here – well, she tried to keep positive.

She sighed, and plunged another sprig into the arrangement. She still enjoyed her work, it was the one true escape she had from her tormenting thoughts. What would have happened if she’d run to Jack in those last few seconds? Would she have gone with him? What did it feel like, being all particulated like that? Was it risky? Would she have done it anyway, if he’d asked her to go with him?

She shook her head as she picked up the glue gun and started attaching small beads around the exterior lip of the base container. The council wasn’t paying for the extra dazzle, but she had a reputation to maintain, and since her business was going to be listed in the program, it was important to create a centerpiece worthy of a second look.

“Ouch, dammit!” She wiped the hot glue off her fingertip and dipped it into the water pitcher sitting off to one side. Seriously, Dani, get a grip. You’re not doing your best work. And if you don’t snap out of this . . . funk, you won’t be doing any work. Then you’ll lose the only thing you have left. The only thing that matters.

What if there was something else that mattered? Or someone?

She lifted her head and closed her eyes. For the past nine months (plus one week, three days, and three hours now) she had been hearing her own voice in her head, but she hadn’t gone so far around the bend that she’d been hearing Jack’s.

“Dani.”

She swung her hands up, glue gun loaded and aimed. She couldn’t survive him leaving her twice.

“Jack,” she breathed. “Is it . . . are you really here?”

“I’m really here.”

She couldn’t gather her thoughts, it was all so sudden, and real. What came out next was not what she’d envisioned saying to him. “Do they still have flowers in your time?”

He frowned, even as his lips quirked. And damn if he didn’t look way more intoxicatingly sexy than she even remembered. Which was saying a hell of a lot. “We do, yes.”

“Then, I’m good.”

“Dani—”

“Did you . . . come back to see me?”

“I – I came back because of you.”

She tensed and her heart skipped a beat. “Is this about Stoecker?”

He shook his head. “He’s dead.”

She flinched at that.

“Not killed by you,” he said quickly.

“By you?”

His nod was almost imperceptible. “I told you I’d make sure you were safe.”

“So that’s it. You just came to tell me that?” She steadied her stance, glue gun still held out in front of her in a two-fisted grip. “Because, to be honest with you, I haven’t spent any time thinking about Stoecker.”

His expression flickered, but was still unreadable. “I see.”

“I’m glad he’s dead, though. If he did all those things you said he did, then I’m glad.”

“There will be others like him.”

“Are you chasing one of them now?”

He shook his head. “I’m retired. From active duty, anyway.”

The glue gun shook a little, and her composure slipped. “Are you okay? Did anything happen? Was it Stoecker? Did you get hurt, or . . . ?”

“I’m fine, I’m just done chasing bad guys.”

“What will you do now?”

“At the moment, I’m still working on figuring that out. Maybe train a team to do what I used to do. Did.

I can’t . . . I can’t seem to focus, though. It’s not enough, anymore.”

She swallowed. Hard. “And?”

“You didn’t think about Stoecker? No worry?”

“That he’d come back?” She shook her head. “I trusted you.”

“Then why are you holding me at glue gunpoint?”

“I – I don’t know. Self-preservation instinct, I guess. I’ve—” She broke off. He hadn’t given her much to work with, and she wasn’t about to make a complete fool of herself by spilling her guts.

“Dani, put the gun down.”

She looked up, found his gaze, and got lost in it, all over again.

He took a step forward, then another. “Do you still trust me?”

She nodded.

And then he was in front of her, his hand over her shaky one. Or was it his hand that was shaky? He gently pushed the gun down, until she dropped it on the work table.

“Let me ask you one thing.”

Anything. “Okay.”

“Did you think about me?”

She nodded. Every second of every day.

“Come here,” he said, his voice gravelly, but softer, gentler, than she’d ever imagined possible.

“Wait,” she said. “I – I don’t want—” She broke off, not sure what to say. That she didn’t want him to leave her again? Did she think he was back because he was staying? Was he going to ask her to go with him? “Why – why are you here?”

“For you.”

Her heart leapt so fast and hard it hurt. “With what in mind, exactly?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s possible. What you want. Or don’t want. I just know that I don’t want to not have you. Not for another day, another minute.”

“When did you know that?”

For the first time, his expression wavered, and she could see that this stoic act was costing him. “The moment I couldn’t see your eyes anymore.”

She smiled, even as her eyes grew a bit glassy. “I might have you beat on that, then.”

The relief she saw, the quick, sudden sag to his oh-so-broad shoulders, almost leveled what was left of her willpower. “It’s been almost a year,” she managed.

“That’s how long it took to figure out how Stoecker manipulated the fissure. And to make damn sure it would hold up.”

“Hold up to what?”

“Getting me here. Getting the both of us back.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Right now, what I want is to not be standing apart from you like this. So close, and still a lifetime away. The rest can figure itself out.” And the rest of his protective shield came crashing down. He let her see, for the first time, all the anxiety, the anguish, the frustration, and yes, even the fear. “Dani, sweetheart, I just want you.”

And that was all she needed. She literally leapt into his arms, and he caught her, hard and fast against him. “Then phone home, E.T.,” she murmured, smiling against his lips. “And tell them you’re bringing company with you.”