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frustration, skimming the surface of consciousness. Her voice called him back to the poppy-laced deeps.
    “Use the dagger to cut them,” she suggested.
    He and Lady Cambourne were suddenly no longer in his soft bed. They were somehow standing in his parlor and the safe’s door hung open at an odd angle, like a drunkard clinging to its hinges trying to remain upright. A chill crept over him as the dagger began to sing.
    He stopped his ears against the weapon’s summons, focusing on the call of his cock instead.
    “No, milady,” Jacob said. “We’ll manage without using the blade.”
    He kissed her while he tugged the undergarment down far enough to free her breasts. They were plump and soft and fit his hands perfectly. When he thrummed her nipples, her whole body hummed in response. He smelled the color of her skin, tasted the sound of her sighs. His hand found the slit in the crotch of her all-in-one.
    She was slippery as a mossy well. Warm and fragrant as a hothouse orchid. He plunged a finger in to gather her nectar. She shuddered when he stroked the right place, delight making her chant his name.
    “Aubrey.”
    Not Mr. Preston. Not even Jacob. She called him Aubrey in breathy, loving tones. No one had ever used his middle name except his mother, and then only as in “Jacob Aubrey Preston, you young scamp, just you wait till I tell your father.”
    He decided he liked it this way much better. It gave him license to think of her as Julianne instead of “milady.” The way she said his name made it seem as if she knew him, and not just the parts he wished her to know, but all of him. His weaknesses, his strengths, his honor, and his shame—he was laid bare by that simple “Aubrey.”
    And yet he felt accepted.
    But then from the corner of his eye, he saw that the dagger was no longer in the platinum-lined safe. It lay like an ill-wish between the fire irons of his hearth, the lethal tip pivoting from one to the other in time with Jacob’s heartbeats, steady as a metronome. The tree on the blade swayed as if caught in a stiff wind. An oak in a gale.
    A Druid oak.
    The connection bubbled up to his conscious mind and lodged there. He groaned, tangling the bed sheets as he rolled over to seek his dream once again.
    He walked the countess backward and pinned her against the wall, so he wouldn’t have to look at the dagger. If it came nearer, his unprotected back would be in its malevolent path, not hers. The lady made a soft, needy noise and arched against him.
    He shoved the blade from his mind.
    She hitched a knee over his hip and rocked her pelvis, coating him with her slick dew.
    “If I don’t take you now, I’ll die,” he gasped.
    “Don’t die.”
    He lifted her, poised himself at her entrance. Her gaze locked with his, her eyes sloe-lidded and languid. Balls clenched, he began to lower her by inches on his hard length, watching her mouth go passion-slack as he filled her. He felt her heartbeat between her legs, pulsing around his cock, her life’s blood flowing around him, through him.
    He wanted to go faster. He wanted to draw out their loving. He wanted time to collapse on them and leave them suspended in aching need till they both came in ragged waves from sheer wanting.
    There was a loud pounding in the distance. Someone was calling his name. And they weren’t calling him Aubrey.
    He lowered his mouth to hers, determined to ignore the voice, and slid the rest of the way into her velvet channel. She made a sound of surprise and pleasure in his mouth and licked his hard palate with the tip of her tongue. It tickled a bit and they laughed together, the secret laughter of lovers who recognize how ridiculous lovemaking is and how deadly serious at the same time.
    Two souls in one joined body, two hearts in peril because the only thing sure in this world was that their joining could not be forever.
    Then Jacob heard the dagger’s voice again, but nearer now. It was clear of the scabbard, flying through