*
They stopped for the night at a luxury resort hotel on the coast a few miles from Troy. Everyone washed up, then reconvened in the lounge, Rose carrying her laptop and The Iliad. The dining room was closed, but the bar served a light menu until midnight. They ordered wine and shared platters of bread, hummus, cheese, olives, and shellfish. Grannie yawned and stretched. “I’m going to bed,” she said.
“Me, too,” Florence said, collecting her guidebook.
Marian set her hands on the arms of her chair and got to her feet. “As am I.”
“I’m going to check in with work,” Rose said, lifting her face to kiss her grandmother’s cheek. “I’ll be quiet when I come in.”
“I won’t hear you,” Grannie said. “I’ve been sleeping like a log. Stay up late, dear.”
“Good night, ma’am,” Keenan said formally. When they’d left, the lounge was so quiet he could hear the stars vibrating in the inky sky. More magic. Rose spun it from her fingertips, tracing the eye holes in the Corinthian helmet on the cover of The Iliad.
He cleared his throat. “Are you actually going to work?”
Her lips curved in a smile. “No,” she said.
Magic. Sheer magic. Don’t think about feeling like you’re on the brink. Don’t talk. Just act.
He leaned forward and held out his hand. Without flinching, without hesitation she put her hand in his. He rubbed this thumb back and forth over her knuckles, sensitizing the skin before lifting her hand to his lips. Her smile softened, and her eyelids drooped.
Still holding her hand, he got to his feet, giving her brace to straighten. He took her laptop and the book. As they crossed the lobby together, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and nearly tripped over the rug. Her with a trusting smile on her face, holding his hand, him carrying her books like they were in high school in the fifties or something.
The elevator dinged, then the door opened. They stepped inside with another couple, trotting in from the parking lot, chattering away. Rose made one brief abortive tug to free herself, but he tightened his grip.
A tremor ran through her, invisible in the mirrored walls but eddying through him like she’d dropped a rock into his soul. The doors opened on the eighth floor.
“Excuse us, please,” he said, politely, in Turkish.
Faint conversation and television sounds rose and fell as they walked down the hallway, hand in hand. It was tricky, balancing the laptop and book between his hip and the door, sliding in the key card. The laptop nearly hit the floor when Rose leaned into his side and went on tiptoe to press a soft kiss just below his ear. He swore under his breath and solved the problem of not enough hands by shifting the laptop and book to his left and pulling Rose hard against his body, then wrapping his arm around her waist. Book, computer, woman all restrained while he opened the door. They stumbled inside, Keenan ending up with his back to the wall and Rose plastered against him from shoulders to thighs. He slung the laptop and book onto the low dresser that held the television, got a handful of hip and thigh, and kissed her.
Ten seconds. They’d been in the room ten seconds. The whole thing had been going on less than a minute, if he included the time in the elevator. But that wasn’t right either, because the fire between them had blazed this hot since their first time in Cappadocia. It was immediate, potent, and undeniable. Rose was panting against him, her breath catching in her throat brokenly, and the sound went straight to his cock. He’d been semi-hard all day, thinking about this, watching her bite her lip as she read a book about the causes and spoils of war. Did she understand he would always be a warrior? Maybe. She knew Jack, after all.
Desperate for connection, he wove his fingers into her hair and kissed her. When that wasn’t enough, he turned them so she was trapped between his body and the wall, putting everything he wanted, everything he felt into the next voracious kiss. The roots of her hair were slightly damp, the air in the room warm, close. He could smell the sweat rising from the nape of her neck, tinged with arousal, and it was all he could do not to close his teeth on her nape and mark her. He wanted to touch her, fuck her, and not against the wall.
Time for a change of venue. In one smooth motion he pushed back, putting inches between their bodies. Then he crouched down and hoisted her right off her feet.
Chapter Seven