Knight Time Kiss

By Brynn Paulin

For months, Emma dreamed of Cyr. The dashing knight invaded her sleep, aroused her senses and made her believe in love. But whenever he bent to kiss her, she woke up. 

 

Until the day, she wakes up in the middle ages and finds it's no dream at all. And she's appeared in the middle of a marketplace full of people who immediately think she's a witch. Terrified she runs, knowing her life is in danger—if you die in a dream, you're dead, right? Minutes later, she lands in the mud, right at the feet of her knight. They've spent dream after dream together, yet he doesn't know her at all. Even so, he claims her as his wife and places her firmly under his protection.

 

Fresh from the continent, Cyr has no interest in being a husband and little interest in being a protector, either. He plans to dispatch Emma to the care of an out-of-the-way abbey at his first chance. She has a better idea. He can just kiss her and send her home.

 

Their lips meet…

 

Nothing.

 

It seems Emma needs to find another way home—even if it means leaving behind the knight who's stolen her heart and now seems intent on keeping it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Supernova Indie Publishing Services LLC
• Release date: Oct 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9781623443429

Book preview

Chapter One

Emma recognized this place. Without looking around, she knew she’d find decadent intricately decorated tapestries, heavy wood furniture and gray flagstone walls and floors. In this sizable chamber, the floors were bare, and without leaving here, she knew the ones in the great room were covered in reeds.

She knew he was behind her. She knew that without looking, too.

She knew a lot about this place because she’d been here many times. Once every few days for a few years. Many times before that, too.

In her dreams. This was a muzzy dream, too. Comfortable. A little fuzzy and otherworldly on the edges. It warmed her and filled her with a sense of belonging. A sense of longing. For him.

Her senses homed in on one thing. Him. The powerful man drawing closer to her.

She shivered, goosebumps lifting on her skin, as his large, rough hands gently grasped her upper arms and caressed down to her wrists then up to her shoulders before pulling her against his long, muscular body. Every hard ridge pressed to her back, including that impressively wide and lengthy bar of steel, barely hidden behind his two tunics and breeches. She tilted her head, angling sideways to allow him access to her neck. He nuzzled aside the fabric of her dress, pressing his warm lips to her skin.

Moaning quietly, she turned to face her knight as heavy arousal pooled low in her belly. Her head tilted back to look up at him as he straightened, still holding her to him. She felt tiny beside the knight, held close to his chest, while he loomed at least a foot taller. His long golden brown hair fell around his shoulders, his midnight black eyes staring down at her with unmasked passion. His face was perfection. Sharp lines mixed with a strong jaw, a broad brow and slightly deep-set eyes. The perfect amount of facial hair covered that masculine mandible but didn’t hide the full, firm lips she wanted pressed to her mouth.

In a different place, a different time, he’d be stunning Hollywood perfection, his image captured on billboards and posters around the world.

Another time…

His hands tightened, and his brow furrowed as her modern thoughts pulled her from the moment.

Don’t leave me, he growled. Not again.

Her hands bunched in his outer tunic, feeling the hard muscle beneath his clothing. No, she whispered. I’m staying. I want to be here. With you.

Good, he replied. His mouth, his perfect, perfect mouth, lowered to her lips. She sighed in pleasure at the feathering touch—

Emma’s eyes flew open, and she squinted in the painful glare of daylight.

Damn it! she yelled to her empty apartment walls. No! Not again!

Tears of frustration stung her eyes. It was like this every time. She’d been with her knight. Things had been progressing, he finally kissed her, and BAM! she was back in her twenty-first century bed. Alone. Panting with need—a need only her fantasy knight could fill. Not that he ever had or ever would. The dream never got that far.

She rolled over and pressed her face into her pillow and screamed. It was always the same. The dream came several times a week. She’d spend hours with her knight, and because he was all courtly and crap, he never did anything remotely untoward. But God! She wanted him to do something scandalous. She needed to feel him.

As always, he’d fill her thoughts for the next few days. She’d try to remind herself it was all a dream, he was a figment of her imagination, but a heavy blanket would fall over her. No matter how she tried to tell herself the whole thing was unreal, the sadness of loss would overtake her. She wouldn’t be able to shake it. He was her soul mate, and she’d lost him. Again.

And again. And again…

She’d mourn him. Though they’d never really been together, there was no other way to put it.

Then she’d get angry at this bittersweet, haunting dream, this glimpse of another life, in another time, held in her knight’s arms and living in his castle.

Why did her subconscious torment her like this, week after week? Year after year?

After her fury, she’d grow resigned.

Then just when she’d gotten almost back to normal, she’d find herself in medieval England again. At least, she assumed it was England. Wherever she was, she understood the accented language. Of course, that could be the magic of dreams, right? It was her delusion. Of course, the language was hers.

Even knowing none of it was reality, she already wanted to be back in Cyr’s arms.

Not happening. Annoyed, she rolled out of bed and to her feet. She had to move on. She had things to do. A full day. She couldn’t lie here, wishing she was with him. He was only a dream.

Cyr. That was his name. She had no idea how her mind had come up with it. Of any of it, really. Was it a past unfinished life or something? Had he been a lover before she’d been swept away? Died? Lost him somehow?

Had Sir Cyr Neville, Lord of Middleham, been hers once? Was that what this was?

For the first time, she resolved to look into him. She’d studied the middle ages during a history class that surveyed the past in a quick sweep crammed into a semester, so she had some idea about that time period but not him. If he’d even existed. She was sure he hadn’t. It would be too freaky if he had. Right?

Cyr…

She sighed, reminding herself not to say his name. Dwelling on him wouldn’t help anchor her to her real life. Real life was about school, her two jobs, and trying desperately to get by week after week.

Still, despite her resolve, her mind repeated his name over and over as if creating a link between her reality and the dream, so she’d never forget it or him.

As if…

Emma could never forget him. If she lived to be a hundred, he’d be seared into her mind. She chuckled at her almost pun. He was certainly Cyr’ed into her thoughts. At this point, she doubted she’d ever stop having the dreams of him. The same movie had repeated multiple times a week since she’d turned twenty-one. That was almost two years now, since she was just a couple months from twenty-three. He’d visited her before then, too, starting around sixteen. The dreams had been far less frequent then, but no less real.

Stumbling into the bathroom, she grimaced at her reflection. Speaking of age, she look about two-hundred-and-three this morning. Her wavy brown hair stood out at odd angles since she’d gone to bed with a wet head, and there were lovely purple smudges under her eyes from her late-night studies.

It’ll all be worth it, she reminded herself as she reached for a washcloth. Wiping her face with cold water would get her perked up. Well, it would wake her, anyway. You’re going to finish your degree then you’ll get an awesome management job, and you won’t need to nanny and work as a barista and go to school anymore. Just two more years. You can do anything that long.

Two more years of school while working a couple simultaneous jobs seemed like two more centuries at the moment.

She huffed out a breath. Her self talk wasn’t cutting it this morning. In the whole scheme of her life plan, she should be done with her degree and working in hotel management or some other hospitality field by now. But when her grandma had fallen ill Emma’s senior year of high school, Emma had dropped everything to care for her—though her grandma had still retain enough fire to insist Em graduate then take some online college courses. It was one of the last strong things her gram had done.

Emma had stayed near her until the very end. Her grandmother had passed away two summers ago, leaving Em alone in the world. Not one to wallow, she’d regrouped, even as her heart had wept. She’d sold everything, moved into a small apartment, enrolled full time in college, taken extra classes and gotten two jobs to get by. It was tough, but Emma was on her way to her dream. Nothing would stop her.

Not even distracting dreams of Sir Cyr, her hunk-o-licious fantasy knight. As if he’d known, he’d come to her more frequently after her grandma had fallen ill, and he’d been with her ever since. Truly, despite her heartache after being wrenched from each dream, he’d gotten her through it.

Or her subconscious creation of him had.

She needed to be realistic. He didn’t exist. Her mind had made him up. But what was the point of giving her this perfect man then ripping him away each time?

By now, she’d learned how to manage it and hide the aftermath of her tempestuous nights. After all, people would think she was insane if they knew she longed for some fictitious, fantasy guy. Seriously…there were book boyfriends—which she’d never had—and then there were delusions.

She glanced at her watch. She had thirty minutes to get to her day job, and it would take twenty minutes through morning traffic. Quickly finishing in the bathroom, she made a mental checklist of what she needed to take with her. She dashed into her bedroom and threw on jeans, a thermal and flannel shirt then slipped on socks and sneakers before flying into the living room. She gathered school books and tonight’s work shirt, grabbed a bagel and a juice packet then sprinted out of the apartment and down to the building’s parking garage.

Thoughts of Cyr would have to wait until after her charges’ parents had left and she’d gotten a cup of coffee into her. By then, the infant twins would be ready for their morning nap, and she could indulge in a few steamy thoughts. Like where things would go if she ever got past the brush of Cyr’s lips…

Chapter Two

Exhaustion weighed heavily on Emma as she trudged into her little apartment that night. It felt as if it had been sixteen days since she’d left rather than sixteen hours. Directly after watching the Martin’s two adorable infant boys all day and being the best and most attentive nanny she could be while squeezing in schoolwork where she could, she’d rushed to the little coffee shop where she worked and put in four more hours. Four hours might not seem like a lot to some, but after eleven hours nannying, she was whipped. She still needed to study more. Then do the whole thing again tomorrow.

Don’t think about tomorrow, she muttered. Just focus on right now, and what you need to do this moment.

It was a tactic that had served her well many times, especially when she’d been caring for her grandma and after she’d lost her grandfather. Usually, she focused on her big picture and how she’d get there, but sometimes, she had to keep her eye on one teeny, tiny moment of time. She had to focus on the here and now and nothing else. Because everything else… It was too overwhelming.

Trying not to think about how much she still needed to do before tomorrow, she plopped down on her brown secondhand couch. It was some sort of heavy corduroy fabric, and more than once, she’d woken with horizontal grooves covering her cheek after she’d nodded off on it.

With her utter exhaustion tonight, she supposed that scenario could happen again this evening. Maybe, she should just go to bed and get up early in the morning to work on things.

Yeah, that wouldn’t happen. Tomorrow, she had to go to the college campus for a couple of her courses that weren’t online.

So, maybe, she should have had another cup of coffee at work. Lately, caffeine was the only thing getting her through each day. She knew something had to give, but she wasn’t sure what. It couldn’t be her jobs. And it couldn’t be school. If she gave that up, what was the point of all this?

The weekend’s coming, she muttered, placing her statistics book and notes on the couch cushions beside her. On Saturdays, she normally worked at the café, but it was a six hour shift. She didn’t nanny on the weekend. And there were no classes. She planned to spend at least half of the two days sleeping.

Oh, that sounded so good.

The siren call of her bed sounded again, trying to lure her.

Focus on right now, she muttered to herself, clicking open her pen and getting ready to take notes. Eyes on the big picture.

Emma had always been determined in that way. She remained intent on the future, but also cognizant of what needed to happen at the current moment to reach her dreams. Her grandma had said it was because Emma had vision.

Emma wasn’t so sure of that. She definitely had a drive to be the best she could be and to help kids who might not be as lucky as she’d been. Her grandparents had been fully devoted to her after her mom’s death. She knew full well some kids had no one. She wanted to be a conduit of hope and give a stable home to children who might otherwise be forgotten.

But to get her degree, eventually get a management job in hospitality then adopt or foster kids in need, she had to get through this math class.

Resolutely, she stared at the numbers and the accompanying text until it all blurred together. Getting up and stretching, she walked in circles for a few moments to get her blood flowing. She needed to get her second wind. Or maybe, it would be her third wind by now. If she held out long enough, that would happen, right?

Dropping back down onto the couch, she fidgeted with the ring on her right hand. She’d gotten it from her grandmother, and often spun it on her finger and played with the engraving while she thought. Something about it comforted her. Of course, it reminded her of her grandmother, who’d given it to her just months before her death.

It’s been in my family for many years, she’d said, though Emma had never seen it until then. Someday, it will bring you what you desire to the deepest part of your heart. It will give you what you need most.

Emma didn’t believe that at all. It wasn’t some good luck talisman. She didn’t believe in that. Still, something about it calmed her—it always had since the day she’d slid it on her right hand. Now, while she