Harlequin Nocturne May 2016 Box Set by Susan Krinard Page A

human figures going about their daily tasks, from harvesting grains to fishing in the river. A woman held a child to her breast, and birds dipped and dived among the rushes.
    Isis followed his gaze. “There are some things I do not wish to forget,” she said.
    Daniel laid her on the bed, staring at the carvings. Isis pulled his head down and kissed him. At once he was inundated by dreams of another time and place, the cool of night on bare skin and the smell of a river as the flower-scented boat glided along, the oars pulled by bronze-skinned men in simple white kilts, singing as he held Isis in his arms.
    Unembarrassed by their presence, he unfastened her gown and untied the sash. She wore nothing underneath. Her wide necklace glowed against the golden skin above her breasts, and her bracelets chimed softly as she stretched her arms over her head.
    There were no words between them, nothing to break the spell.
    Shewrapped her thighs around his hips and sighed as he eased inside her. Her breasts rose and fell with each short, sharp breath. She was smooth and warm and wet, drawing him in, and he began to breathe harshly as the pace quickened and she arched up to meet his thrusts. He kissed her breasts, one and then the other, and licked the warm skin of her shoulder. She pulled him closer with agile fingers and pressed her lips to his neck.
    When her teeth penetrated his skin, he could hardly hold himself back. A different kind of ecstasy gripped him as the blood flowed, though some distant part of him knew that he should struggle, push her away, prevent her from taking what so many of her kind had stolen by force.
    But the blood continued to flow, and he finished inside her with a low grunt of satisfaction. She came a moment later, her teeth still embedded in his neck, her arms holding him tightly against her.
    He opened his eyes, and the fragrant deck was gone, the black arc of starry sky and the cool river vanished. He and Isis were naked, and Isis’s lips were at his throat.

CHAPTER 7
    P ulling free, Daniel rolled off the bed, retreated to the door and stared at her. He had lost himself completely, and he still saw Isis as she had looked in the dream: glorious skin dappled by moonlight, nipples rouged; hair spread across the cushions; kohl painting her beautiful eyes.
    â€œDaniel?” she said with obvious concern, rising on her elbow.
    He touched the side of his neck. There was no blood.
    â€œWhat did you do?” he asked hoarsely.
    â€œI do not understand.”
    â€œYou used your influence. You made me see—”
    â€œI did nothing!” she said, snatching up her robes and wrapping them around herself.
    â€œI saw another place, with a river. An ancient time.”
    Her eyes widened. “I had nothing to do with what you saw.”
    Had it all been his imagination, then? Daniel wondered. An inner vision of another age, meant to distance him from this one, to hold reality and the painful memories at bay?
    But at least some parts of it had been real.
    â€œYou were about to take my blood,” he said.
    She sat straight up. “Do you think I would...unless you asked me, I would never...”
    Daniel grabbed his clothes and pulled them on with short, sharp jerks. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”
    She tied her sash as she rose, her body supple and soft and alluring. “You were always in control of your mind and your body,” she said, hurt and anger in her voice. “Are you saying that the only way you would want me is if I influenced you?”
    Her words froze him in place. The thought that she would need to force him to make love to her was beyond absurd.
    But he had felt her teeth on his neck. She could have licked away the blood and healed him before he emerged from his dream. They had been together long enough that she wouldn’t be able to ignore his blood—the smell of it, the sound of his pulse, the ease