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She stared up into his eyes, adoring him for his brazen cheek. "I can scarcely believe this," she whispered.
"It is magnificent. Your talent for design is like a beacon showing the way to the future."
It wasn't what she meant, but she went with his flow. "You made it happen."
He raised his eyebrows. "I get to share a little of the credit?"
Humility was not something she was used to him showing, and it made her heart swell. "A little. Come now, Dominic, it's yours as much as it is mine."
He fixed her in a glance. "And you? Say you will be mine."
"Perhaps." Nina smiled and rolled her hips against his, delighted when she felt him harden again.
"Nina Ashford, you will be mine," he stated gruffly.
He claimed her mouth, not waiting for her to reply, but Nina didn't care, because this time she didn't want to disagree with Dominic Bartleby. He'd built her machine to win her back, but her heart was already his.
THE TENDER TRAP
Tara couldn't recall how old she was when the sleepwalking began. What
she did remember was that her hands didn't reach very high when she awoke and found herself holding the iron railings of the graveyard fence. As time passed and the sleepwalking continued, her growth was marked more by that measure than any more normal record.
When it happened, the sudden awakening was akin to being slapped. Tara would inhale sharply, and the icy night air stung her face and lungs. The scent of the undergrowth quickly swamped and intoxicated her, creating a sensory memory that would call to her over and again.
Often she sensed a presence, as if she was being watched, and she glanced about. Behind her, where the path through the woods led home she saw nothing. She clutched tighter still to the railings and peered into the graveyard. Life pulsated somewhere deep and hidden in that place, and in the stillness of the night she felt it call to her. But young Tara was afraid, and she turned away and ran.
During her childhood years, that was as far as the nocturnal walk took her. She would leave her family's cottage in a sleep trance, drawn by a powerful allure that carried her body in its spell. That force drew her down the sloping garden path and out into the lane. The graveyard was half a mile from the cottage, yet her journeys went undiscovered by any neighbor, or passer-by. When she awoke, she would once again find her thin arms entwined in the cold metal trellis of the railings. Confused and afraid, she would tear her hands down from the strange restraint and flee, back to what was familiar.
Only once did Tara's mother catch sight of her from the upstairs window in the cottage. Tara was on her way home. She looked up and saw her mother at the window, peering out into the night, into the forest, with a wistful look about her. When Tara approached the cottage her mother jolted, then turned from the window and emerged from the cottage a few moments later. Running to her, she arrested Tara in her wandering, held her tightly in her arms, soothing her, then returned her to her bed.
Tara's father appeared and stood in the doorway of the room where Tara slept on a narrow wooden cot. By the candlelight Tara could see that there was a dark and brooding expression in his eyes. "Where did she go?" he demanded.
"I do not know," her mother replied, fretfully. But she did not look over her shoulder to meet her husband's querying glance.
Even in her state of fear and surprise, Tara could feel the tension between them.
"If she goes there," her father muttered, "she will be lost to us."
"Don't say that."
"If it had not been for me, you might have been lost."
Tara's mother closed her eyes and pressed her lips together. She shook her head. "It is a childish fancy, that's all." Smiling down at Tara, her eyes glistened. "You went on a fae night wander, that's all." she whispered.
"Let us pray that she does not have fae blood."
Tara's mother frowned. "God willing, she will outgrow it."
She stroked Tara's forehead, soothing her, and Tara drifted to sleep.
* * *
At all other times her family slept through Tara's nocturnal journeys and remained unaware of them. Hence her body would regularly drift out on the night's aura to follow that unheard call, unhindered. No physical or mental effort was demanded of her, the spell that had rooted itself inside her would effortlessly take control. It lifted her unconscious body, and bore her forth into its domain. Sometimes, in the morning, she would only be aware that she had again been called by the weariness in her bones and the dried mud on the soles of her feet, evidence that she soon learned to hide. But when she brushed the caked earth from her skin it only made her want to walk barefoot through the forest again, to feel the damp ground clinging to her once more.
Tara didn't know or question why this happened to her, for it seemed as if it had always happened. It was part of her life, part of her essential nature.
As she grew into young womanhood, so her night voyages altered. She became more conscious during the sleepwalking phase, and her awareness of sensation and travel increased.
