The Titan Drowns: Time Travel Romance by Nhys Glover (highly recommended books .txt) 📕

wasn’t one of them. Her every reaction was tentative and genuine, as if she was experiencing these intimacies for the first time. And yet, for all her inexperience, she seemed to have no inhibitions, no shame about anything they did. And because she had none, neither did he. Their kisses, their caresses were as natural as sunshine on water or flames devouring wood.

‘Damn,’ she grumbled after the kiss had gone on forever. ‘I cannot breathe.’

He drew away in concern.

‘No, no, don’t stop. It is not you. It is these damn stays. Even though I do not lace them tightly, the whale bone, or whatever it is, digs into my ribs and cuts off my oxygen supply.’

She was panting. And it was the strangest explanation he had ever heard. But by now, he was used to her strange way of phrasing things.

He drew her to her feet so she was no longer doubled over, and she breathed a sigh of relief as she reached up to stroke at his hair and ears. ‘I need you to know who I am before… before we…’ she said as she leaned in to kiss his cheek, drawing him in close so he could feel her warm body pressed against his hard length.

In that moment, she could have told him anything about herself and it wouldn’t have mattered. All he cared about was her warm, giving body pressed in painful bliss against his own.

‘No… no, it is not fair. You need to know…’ she drew away from him and when he went to follow her, she shook her head, holding up her hands to keep him at bay.

‘Did you not hear what I told you before? I said that I found happiness only when I travelled through time to find you.’

His mind would not focus on her words. All he could think about was that she was holding herself back from him. Keeping him from what he needed most in the world.

‘Max, listen to me. I do not come from here. Neither does Luke. We are time travellers from the future. We come from 2337, four hundred years into your future.’

He laughed then, thinking her joking and tried to go to her, tried to pull her back into his arms where she belonged.

‘I am not joking, Max. I have been travelling through time since it was discovered seventy years ago in my time line and I have enjoyed the adventure of it. Enjoyed the novelty of it – wearing these strange clothes, seeing things I had only ever read about. But I was never happy. It never gave me happiness, until now. ‘

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Eilish. Come here, please. I need to hold you…’

‘I need to hold you too, but not until you know what it is that you hold. Max, I have lived for hundreds of years. I am an old, old woman. You have to know…’

He swore loudly and spun away from her. ‘If you do not want me to touch you, then I won’t. You do not have to make up outlandish tales to keep me from your bed. I have been there with my wife; I have no desire to go there with you.’

‘I want you in my bed. God, I want nothing more than that, right now. This desire is killing me. But you have to know…’

He spun back to her and snarled. ‘So I know. Now will you open your legs for me?’

She jerked away as if he’d hit her and he couldn’t believe the crudity and cruelty of his words. He wanted to drag them back. Go back in time like her nonsense story and do it all again. Not say those terrible words.

Her face lost its painful shock and hurt and began to suffuse with fury. ‘You think I am a cock tease, is that it? You think I am making this all up to stop you from doing the deed. Fine, that is fine. ‘

She began to rip at her dress, tearing the bodice down the front, struggling to get the crimson, brocade-and-lace dress off her shoulders. He could hear the tears in her voice as she continued to tear furiously at her clothing. ‘Come on, help me, why don’t you. This is what you want. I get that. Goddamn these bloody clothes. How does anyone get out of them?’

He had never heard a lady swear before and his shock at hearing it was almost as great as his astonishment at the hysterical struggle she was having with her gown. Suddenly, all selfish thoughts were gone and the only thing he cared about was the pain he was causing her. Coming to her side, he drew her into his arms and held her while she continued to struggle like a trapped bird against him.

‘Don’t, don’t… it is nothing… do not do this to yourself. I am sorry; I did not mean it. My words were a reaction only. I did not mean them. Shhh… it is all right now, dearest one, be still…’ His crooning words and gentle touch finally won out and she relaxed in his arms, crying softly.

‘I did this all wrong. I should have waited until Luke was here. I must seem like a lunatic to you. A hysterical, overwrought crazy woman tearing at her own damn clothes…’

‘Don’t… don’t…. hush… it does not matter. All that matters is that we are together. That is all that matters.’

She drew back a little and sniffed loudly, wiping at her cheeks. Her gaze lifted to his, and even in the shadowed room, he could see the tears glistening on her thick, sooty lashes. Those eyes seemed huge as they stared into his.

‘If I was not a crazy woman. If what I told you was the truth…’ she shushed him as he tried to interrupt. ‘No, listen. Just think about your answer for a moment. If it were imaginable for someone to travel through time from the future and that someone had been able to extend her life way past anything you currently think is possible, could you love her? If that were true?’

Max pressed his forehead to hers and drew in several deep breaths, trying to clear his mind. He tried to imagine what she said as truth. Could he love her if she were hundreds of years old and came from the future? Of course he could. He could love her if she was a woman poised on the edge of insanity. He could love her if she was set on destroying his whole world. Because, the reality of the situation was, that there was no choice in it anymore. He could love her because he already did.

The revelation was not profound. It had been playing at the edge of his consciousness since he made the decision to divorce his wife. Each day had just brought that idea into higher definition. Now, there was no doubt, no ‘what if’s or ‘what might be’s. There was just this: He loved her, whoever and whatever she was, wherever she was from or wherever she would go back to. Even if he had to share her with the moody Luke or anyone or anything else, he would do so. She was everything.

He didn’t know how long they stood there, him thinking, her waiting patiently for his answer. When he finally drew back to look her in the eye, he could feel the tension in her body. So tight. So close to shattering.

‘If you were an ancient time traveller from the future, I would still love you. I am past the point where I can put any conditions on how I feel about you. I need you. Not to spread your legs for me… I do not know where that crass statement came from. I need you standing here beside me, my companion and life mate. And I will do anything to have you by my side. I had decided to divorce Agnes that first day. It is now only a matter of time and opportunity. The rumours are already rife. I will even let her divorce me on the grounds of infidelity, though the irony of that will not be lost on my brother.’

Eilish reached up and put her fingertips on his lips. ‘Come to bed, Max, and help me out of these awful clothes. I imagine some would see them as sexy, the whole bustier and stockings thing, but not me. I just want to be skin to skin with you. ‘

She led him by the hand into her bedroom where the large, four-poster bed draped in gold velvet, awaited. Turning her back, she offered him what was left of the buttons she had been unable to tear loose. With fingers more nimble than he could have imagined, Max made quick work of the dress. Then, when she had stepped out of it, he slid off her other undergarments until he came to the corset. The bow at the top was easy to undo, and finally he worked the laces loose so that soon the torture device released completely and fell away.

Eilish breathed in deeply and turned around to face him in her bloomers, lace decorated camisole and stockings. Her bounty was apparent and so was the agonising tension in his extremities.

‘Thank god for that. Now we start on you. I hope it will not take quite so much effort to get you naked.’

He felt his face growing hot with shyness and she giggled.

‘I love it when you do that.’

‘What?’

‘Blush. Most of us do not blush, because it requires an intensity of emotion few feel. When you blush, it tells me you feel strongly about what is happening. I like it.’

‘Men are not supposed to blush. It is a womanish thing to do.’

‘Says what rulebook? If you plan on remaining with me, you will have to be willing to throw away a great many of your current rulebooks. You will have to start questioning everything you now believe to be true or real or possible. Can you do that, Max?’

‘I will question, but do not always expect me to accept your answers. I am no one’s lap dog.’

‘I would expect nothing else. And last of all, you will find me less inhibited than most virgins in this time would be. That is because ours is a liberal society where sexuality is not considered a sin or wrong. We just do not indulge in it much, as these clones… sorry these bodies are barren. I have lived a very long time and I have never felt the urge to mate until I met you. However, I do know quite a depth of theory, so please do not misinterpret my forward behaviour for experience.’

He tried to digest what she was saying, but his own limited experience and lack of theoretical knowledge had him struggling to imagine what she might mean. Agnes had pulled away from his kisses and when consummation became a necessity, she lay stiff and still in his bed; her eyes squeezed shut. His fumbling attempts to position his half-erect staff and drive it into her dry core had been the most humiliating moment in his life. The idea of repeating that humiliation with Eilish now made him draw back in dread.

Eilish noticed his resistance. ‘Sorry. Would you rather not? I will understand because, to be honest, I am terrified I will get it wrong or make you think I’m some brazen hussy…’

That was all he needed to hear. She was as worried as he. With determination, he used his lips to silence her concerns and then started removing his jacket, cravat, collar and shirt. After that, Eilish got involved and began to undress him – and it was the most exciting thing he’d ever experienced; even more thrilling than removing her clothes. Finally, they both stood in their last layers of apparel and, by the electric lamps on either side of the bed, they began to study each other more closely.

‘For an older man in a sedentary profession I expected you to have less muscle-mass, but you are lean and