The Pagan Stone Page 0,25

of her hair, dark against white sheets, spilled away from her face while those deep, seductive eyes watched him.

She rose. She opened. She took him in.

In his dreams, his blood beat like a heart, and his heart pounded its fist in his chest. Inside him, joy and desperation rolled into one mad tangle of need. Locked, lost, he took her lips again. The taste, the taste that burned through him like a fever while their bodies raced together. Faster. Faster.

While around them the room began to bleed, and to burn.

She cried out, her nails biting like teeth into his back while the sea of bloody flames rolled over them. And the word she cried as they were consumed was bestia.

HE WOKE, ONCE AGAIN AT FIRST LIGHT. AND THAT, Gage thought, had to stop. He had no particular affinity for mornings, and now it seemed he was doomed to deal with them. There'd be no going back to sleep after the little movie clip his subconscious had drummed up. It was too damn bad such a promising dream had taken a turn so far south at the-ha-climax.

He could pick apart the symbolism, he thought, staring at the ceiling of Cal 's guest room. But then, it was easy to identify the springboard for the lion's share of tonight's entertainment.

He was a guy. He was horny.

Moreover, it suited his fantasy to have her come to him rather than him pursuing her. They'd made a pact not that long ago on this very topic. How had she put it? You won't try to seduce me, and I won't pretend to be seduced.

Remembering made him smile into the dim, dawn light. But if she made the moves, all bets were off as far as he was concerned. The challenge would be to con her into making those moves so she believed it was her idea in the first place.

Then again, the interlude in the dream had ended badly. He could ascribe that to his own cynical, pessimistic nature, or he could consider it a portent. Or, third option, a warning. If he let himself become involved with her-because it hadn't just been sex in the dream, he'd been involved-they could both pay the ultimate price. Blood and fire, he thought-as usual. And it hadn't been her lover's name she'd cried out when she'd been consumed by passion and flame, but bestia.

Latin for beast. A dead language used by dead gods and guardians.

Simply put, the distraction of sex would blur their focus, and the Big Evil Bastard would strike when they were defenseless. Meaning, any of the three options indicated the smart money was on keeping it in his pants, at least as far as Cybil Kinski was concerned.

He rolled out of bed. He'd shower off the dream, and the urges it stirred. He was damn good at controlling his urges. If he was restless and horny, it meant he needed a game and sex. So he'd make it a point to find both. A quick trip to AC would meet both needs, eliminate any possible complications or consequences.

And he and Cybil would use the sexual tension between them as an energy source for the greater good. Of course, if they won, if they lived, he'd make damn sure he found a way to get her naked. Then he'd find out if her skin was as soft as it looked, her body as limber, her...

That line of thinking wasn't going to help him control his urges.

He toweled off, opted out of shaving (what the hell for?), then pulled on jeans and a black T-shirt because they were the handiest. As he started downstairs he heard the murmur of voices, and a quick, sexy giggle behind the closed bedroom door. So the lovebirds were up early and already cooing, he mused. Odds were they'd be at it long enough for him to have a quiet, solitary cup of coffee.

In the kitchen, he started the first pot of the day, and while he brooded, he walked out of the house to hike down to the road and the paper box. Cal 's front slope was a riot of blooms. The azaleas-one of the few ornamentals Gage actually recognized-were in full, showy bloom. Some sort of delicate weeper arched over, dripping pink. All that color and shape tumbled down toward the gravel lane, cheerful as children, while the woods stood along the edges with its thickening green hiding its secrets. Its joy and its terrors.

Birds trilled, the winding