Catching Moonlight (Man Season) Read Free Page B

neon signs in the city. He was naked
above her, his hips smooth and firm, moving rhythmically; his heart pounding so
fiercely it shook his chest.
    She was a virgin. She briefly thought
she should mention it to him but it seemed unimportant. Her first time was
going to be special, unexpected and oh so magical, wrapped in the cool, white
arms of a sad-eyed angel of a boy. He was gentle and kind with her, making
moves that he must have imagined doing as he watched her sleep. She encouraged
him with soft glances and whispers, nodding and smiling each time he sought
approval for his actions. Toby gave herself up to him eagerly, enjoying his
lingering, tantalizing kisses, his admiring caresses, his hard, ready flesh. Then they merged, he shivered inside her, bringing her to a
crest of pleasure she’d never experienced before. She groaned, almost afraid of
the force of it but he calmed her by cupping her face in his hands and
smothering her moans with another wet, delicious kiss.
    He moved slowly away from her, sat
staring at her face. She was suddenly ice cold. Dio rushed into a back room; came back out with a jacket. He wrapped her in it then
echoed the gesture with his arms.
    “Warmer, now?”
    “Yes, thank you.” She felt shy under
the close examination of his stare. “Was I … was it okay?”
    “The best I ever had!”
    “Are you sure? I mean, I’ve never
gone that far with anyone. I wasn’t sure I was any good.”
    “You must have a natural talent for
it.” He grinned, the sadness left him for a moment
then returned. “I guess you’d better get back to the house. Aella doesn’t like people showing up late to dinner.”
    “Did she raise you?”
    “Raise me? Oh, yeah, you could say
that. Toby …” he paused, his eyes glistening in a shower of light as it
filtered through the holey roof. The storm had passed; a brilliant sunset was
spreading orange and purple plumes across the sky. Farther up, the moon had
taken its nightly position, pointing at the temple like a searchlight. “You
will come here, later? You’ll spend the night with me?”
    “Do you have a bed?”
    “Sure. I have a small apartment in
the back here. It’s pretty nice. Aella takes good
care of me.”
    “I don’t know; seems to me if she
cared for you she’d make you sleep in the house! Unless, of course, my dream
was real, and you’re tied to the temple by a rope of shame, I think Hera called it.”
    The expression on his pale face
changed; it shocked Toby with the sheer ferocity it revealed. She wasn’t one to
believe in fairy tales or myths. Her dad had trained her to have a practical,
realistic view of the world. In his mind, people made up myths and religions to
help them cope with the unknowns of life, things they couldn’t explain
rationally. And he had passed that observation to her without much resistance.
Her mother Lauren was raised with a strong faith but hid it whenever Matt was
around, to avoid his stern reproach. Yet she’d managed to let a bit of that
faith seep into Toby’s heart, giving the girl cause to turn to Kismet – or the
Three Fates, as Dio believed - whenever things didn’t
go her way.
    But the idea that Dio was the son of Zeus and Selene , cursed by Hera to suffer eternity alone, was too radical for Toby’s
practical mind to comprehend. Maybe someone had conditioned him to believe such
a fantasy - why, who could say? But it could not be reality. And yet, how could
she explain the dream? The wild imagination of a young woman who’d spent most
of her life burying her nose in books, maybe?
    “You’re making fun of me,” Dio said, pain infusing his eyes with sorrow.
    “No, I’m not! But Dio ,
you can’t expect me to believe that you are bound here, and have been for
centuries!”
    “Believe anything you like! I gave up
caring about escape a long time ago! But I need you, Toby. If you don’t want to
be with me, say so.”
    “Oh, I do! I swear I do! I’ll come
back after dinner and spend the whole