a a a Michael grabbed the door and slammed it shut. "Sit down already."

"d.a.m.n you." Ian stared at the flat panel in the apartment he'd once thought he'd have to give up. Michael had been bossing him around for an hour, and despite his half-witted comeback, Ian didn't have anything better to do than pick a fight.

Michael plopped back on the couch. "I said sit."

"No." For all that happened the week before, a year could have pa.s.sed, and Ian not have known it. He paced to the window, where the late afternoon sunshine sifted through.

"Your pacing has got to stop." Sound ceased from the television.

Ian spun to his brother. "What do you want me to do, Michael?"

"Anything but this. This-" He waved his arms up and down Ian's form. "-isn't you." Michael stood and marched toward the kitchen, rifled and returned. "Look at this." He held up a blue, b.u.t.ton-down dress shirt.

"What about it?"

"It was on the counter. The counter, Ian. You don't leave stuff like that out. You're meticulous. You're a.n.a.l retentive." Michael shrugged. "You value your stuff, respect it, take care of it. You're who I aspire to be, but man, today? You've been thoroughly distracted. And wrinkled. And ... and just not you. Why?"

I've been thoroughly distracted for almost two weeks; you just weren't here to see it. "I need to get away." Long strides took him to the door.

Michael jumped into Ian's path.

"Move," Ian said.

"No." Michael crossed his arms over his chest.

Ian tried to step around his brother.

Michael moved into his way again, his chin lifted. "It's Sat.u.r.day. It's sunny. You can even smell the disgusting hot dog vendor on the street as he clogs up all the arteries I'm gonna have to fix one day."

"I said move." Ian forced firmness into his tone. The head shake from Michael broke Ian's resolve. He stepped to Michael, wrapped his arm around his neck and tugged him into a headlock.

"s.h.i.t, man." Michael's hands grasped at Ian's forearms.

"You gonna let me leave? That was your recommendation last time I was trying to get some blonde chick off my mind."

Michael chuckled. "And look how that turned out."

Ian tightened his hold.

Michael's foot slipped between Ian's legs. A second later, the two crashed to the ground.

Ian let go, scrambled to Michael's upper body again until he ended up within Michael's clutches. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h! When did you get so strong?" Ian pulled at his brother's hands but didn't succeed in moving either of them.

Michael's body flailed until he managed to flip them over. "I wrestled in high school. Don't you remember, or have you gotten too old?"

At Ian's snort, Michael relaxed his hold just enough for Ian to grab his leg and tug at it. If anyone saw them, they'd have to wonder at the contorted mess of limbs the two of them created.

Michael's squeeze pulled at Ian's hamstrings. "Too much for you, old man?"

One knock and both turned their heads to the door.

A grin crossed Michael's features. "Cry uncle, and I'll let you go."

"No." Ian stretched his arm, capturing the hem of Michael's jeans.

Michael zipped his foot away, bending into a position Ian couldn't even describe. Another knock forced them both to look up, though Ian's position made it difficult to do so.

"Gonna answer that?" Michael asked.

"No," Ian said.

"Well, we need a tie breaker, so whoever is on the other side gets dibs." The doorbell chimed through the apartment, and Michael drew in a breath. "Come in!"

"The door is locked." Ian lightened his hold, intent on rising.

Michael grabbed and tugged him into a crouch. "Oh, no. You're not getting away that easy. Come in!" he said again.

"Why-"

The door creaked an inch. A foot. It opened wide.

Taylor stood in the empty s.p.a.ce, her hands over her lips. "Well, well, well." She jangled a key, pursing her lips as if to hold back a grin. Neither Ian nor Michael let go, though Ian's heart did a flip-flop. "This isn't quite the welcoming committee I was expecting."

"Oh no, don't you stop." Michael's grip tightened around Ian's arms.

Chuckling, Taylor closed the door behind her and dropped to the arm of the couch. "Need a ref?"

"Yeah," Michael said as Ian said, "No."

More laughter came from her. "You two have reputations to uphold, and I didn't think wrestling on the floor was going to fit it, but now I see it suits you both." She angled a finger at each of them in turn.

Even in her half-mussed clothes and with the tendrils of hair falling around her face, Ian wanted her.

"So, how might one win this game?" A slender finger tapped her chin. "I believe it requires one opponent to pin the other, right?"

"Yes," they both said at the same time.

"And, this could go on and on and on and on at this rate, right?"

"He's going to get tired faster than I am since he's so old and decrepit and celibate." Michael's snark had Ian snaking his hand around Michael's wrist.

In one tug, Ian yanked his brother around to the flat of his back, tugged up his knees, twisted and had Michael's face against the floor.

"Ooh," Taylor said. "Sorry, Michael, but I'm pretty sure Ian wins."

Ian let go, and his brother fell flat to the floor. He stood, wiped at his pants, rubbed his hands together and stared at Taylor. "Your turn."

a a a "What?" Her shriek came fast as Ian moved toward her.

He reached her before she could even rise from the couch, laying his palms against her cheeks and his lips against hers. Her arms snaked around his neck, squeezing his body closer. Softness reached the edges of her lips, trailed across to the opposite side and returned. She opened, letting her tongue dance with his.

"Ahem."

She pulled him nearer, wanting more, desperate for the touch of his skin against hers, for the roughness of his chin's shadow against every inch of her body.

"Ahem."

Their kiss-an experience that tied together centuries of a past with the singular presence of that moment-never faltered.

"A-hem!"

Her smile broke Ian's touch. "I think Michael's trying to tell us we're in a public s.p.a.ce."

"It's my apartment," Ian said. "He can leave."

"You wouldn't do that to me, would ya? I came all the way up-"

Taylor snuck a glance at Michael.

He jiggled keys in his hands without adding any sound, his head angling toward the door.

She closed her eyes.

Ian stayed silent, rubbing his forehead against hers as the door opened and closed again.

"Your brother's a good man."

Another touch to her lips. "I know. He wouldn't let me leave today, even though I told him I didn't really want him around. Or want to be here. He knew you were coming, didn't he?"

She nodded with her head still against his. "Yeah. Lexi and Emma ... and Tripp put him up to it."

"d.a.m.n them." He pulled away.

"Don't you go now, Ian Sands." Taylor tugged him back.

He relaxed against her again, melding her to his body, his arms wrapping behind her. His lips caressed her neck. "G.o.d, I missed you."

"It's only been a couple weeks," she said. "Ish."

"It felt like years. Decades. Centuries. Like I had you in my hand and someone took you away, and then I got you again only to have to leave you."

She trailed her fingers up and down his neck. "Well, if our powers of deduction are right, that's exactly what happened."

He stiffened within her hold. "It's going to end badly."

"Maybe. But, what if it doesn't? What if there's a p.a.w.n to our rook?"

"If the psycho lady-"

"Psychic, Ian. Actually, she said all she could do was communicate with the dead. I'm not sure what that makes her if she can't see futures. Lexi, on the other hand, seems determined to prove we're meant to be without telling me how she knows."

He chuckled against the skin of her shoulder. "And, she's supposedly always right."

Taylor pushed at his chest so she could stare into his eyes. "Different time. Different place. And, what if you kill me ... say ... when I'm ninety? I'd have lived a long and happy life by then. We have no conclusive data on me in the previous instances, right?"

Ian spun away to the mantle. "How can you look at this so calmly?" One hand rested against the wall.

Taylor shuffled over to him. "I don't feel it, Ian. I don't feel like you're going to hurt me. I had three really long dreams while I was ... incapacitated. I only told you part of what I experienced. Each was amazing and full of life, a love so strong I could barely breathe when I was around you-"

"And, they ended, didn't they? Just like last time. Both of us dead. That wasn't an unsolved murder with a lynch mob. I killed you, and I buried your body. The proof is in the pudding as you southern girls say, and those bones were right there. End of story, except, here we are again."

Taylor rested her head against his back, his heart beating under her ear. "You don't feel it?"

"I feel connected to you. I did the moment I met you. Actually, even before that just on the phone about that d.a.m.n house in North Carolina. I don't dream about it, Taylor. I can't see it. There's no way to explain."

She reached up and pressed her lips to his. "I know. Trust me, I know. I might have some memories, but I feel it, too."

"My life will never be the same if I do something to hurt you."

"You once said I was the tough chick who uses power tools. I'm not weak. I'm not one to sit around and wait to see what bad experience will fall down upon me. I don't feel it ... in here." She tapped her chest above her heart. "If I did, I'd be running away so fast you'd see nothing but a blur. But, I don't feel that. I just feel ... desire. Need. Want." She sucked in a breath. "Love."

25.

Tendrils of Taylor's hair flew up before she could control it.

She grabbed at strands and patted them flat, taking the whole tail and resecuring it.

"Um ..." Ian circled a pointed finger. "That's kinda freaky."

"Sorry. Yeah. Does that sometimes when I'm a little emotional."

"What else can you do with the air?" Ian tugged at Taylor's hand, nudging her toward the couch. "If you can prevent three people from belly flopping against a wood floor ... what else?"

Taylor offered him a small shrug. "That's kinda it. Like I told you before, I can move stuff. I don't use it much ... not since my college years." Not since Tanner. Taylor stared into Ian's eyes. She read a question in the deep green-one to which she'd kept the answer to herself.

He didn't move, didn't shift-didn't blink.

"Tanner knew about my gift." She said it on a whoosh of air.

Ian jerked back. "What?"