Falling in Time Read Online Free PDF Page B

His smile reached his eyes, the effect positively wicked. “Many
times, it’s been, aye, if I were to count.”
    “I know that." She spoke the
truth. He’d undressed her a thousand times, in her dreams and fantasies. In the
pages of her umpteen times rejected romance novel. And, she now suspected, he’d
also done so in other lifetimes such as the Viking one she’d glimpsed so
briefly.
    She tightened her arms around his
neck, half afraid he’d disappear. “What I don’t understand is how I came to be
here. How did you find me?”
    He glanced at his dog. “Truth to
tell, it was Snorri. He’d gone missing and when I went searching for him, I
heard his barks and followed, knowing he’d be at the cave. I reached the strand
just in time to see you falling.”
    “You didn’t see me before?”
    “Oh, aye." He grinned. “In my
dreams, nigh every night, if you’d hear how it was.”
    He patted his dog’s head,
scratching the beast’s ears. “You can ask Snorri. We keep no secrets from each
other. He knows how I’ve pined for you.”
    “That’s not what I meant." Lindy
hesitated, aware of the heat staining her cheeks. “I know we’ve shared dreams. But
there’s more. I’m certain” – this was so hard to say – “we’ve shared past lives.
That we’ve always been together, but this time something went wrong. I was born
in the wrong place. Somewhere distant and far from here and impossible to reach
you, until-”
    “The cave brought you back to me."
He made it sound so easy.
    So plausible.
    Mindy frowned. “Smoo Cave? So it
really is a kind of time portal? An entrance to other realms as all the lore
and legend claims?”
    She so wanted to believe.
    Rogan was nodding as if he did. “I
canna say if the cave is a time portal. Though, after seeing your clothes, I’ll
own they did no’ come from any world that I know." He stood and started
pacing. “That’s why I left them in the cave. There are cracks and crevices so
deep that no man can retrieve anything that is thrown into them. And” – he came
back to the bed, once more sitting on its edge – “strange as Smoo is known to
be, I couldn’t allow my kinsmen to see such raiments. Your shoes alone would
have caused too many questions.
    “That is why I stripped you." His
gaze flashed the length of her, the look in his eyes burning her as if he could
see her nakedness right through the thickness of the furred covering and bed
sheets.
    “And you’re not curious yourself?"
Lindy had to ask.
    His gaze turned even hotter. “All I
care about, sweet, is having you with me.”
    Taking her in his arms again, he
kissed her thoroughly, leaving her breathless when he pulled away. “You could
have come to me draped in seaweed or glittering from head to toe in twinkly
starlight and it wouldn’t have made a difference. I only want you.”
    “But-”
    He pressed a finger to her lips. “There
are no buts in my world, Lindy-lass. Though I will tell you that, as a
MacGraith, I slipped into this life knowing that there are things we canna ever
hope to explain.
    “MacGraiths are the hereditary
guardians of Smoo Cave. Since time was, we have been here at Castle Daunt,
watching always to ensure that nothing passes in or out of the cave without our
knowledge.”
    Lindy stared at him. “So you’re
fairies?" The plots of countless paranormal romance novels came to mind. “Immortals
guarding the entrance to-”
    “Guarding, aye, but we’re no’
immortal." He laughed, grinning again. “We’re flesh-and-blood men, as rock
solid as any other man." His smile turned wicked again and he pulled her
back into his arms, holding her close. “You should know how solid I am,
Lindy-sweet.”
    She flushed, knowing indeed.
    His solidness was very
apparent, though neither one of them had yet acknowledged the obvious.
    It was one thing to be naked
together and burn up the sheets in a dream.
    Being naked in his arms – for
real – was both a wildly exhilarating thought and