I flexed my hips, the better to accommodate him, and bit the tendon on his neck. “Go, baby, go. Oh yes, just like that. I think… I think…” And that was the point where I stopped thinking and just let my instincts take over. My body moved with his until he tensed up, his face buried in my neck when he yelled his pleasure. That pushed me over the edge as well, and I clung to him, reveling in the exquisite waves of pleasure that rippled outward.
We stayed like that for what seemed like an endless amount of time before Rowan finally lifted his head, his chest still heaving as he panted, “You’re going to kill me if you do that again.”
“Me?” I asked, unlocking my legs and regaining my feet. I had to cling to him for a few minutes while they turned from jellied blobs to solid form. “All I did was show you a watch. You are the one who turned into a wild man in the bedroom. And it’s not even our bedroom. Oh hell, it’s on fire, too.”
He grinned at me and stooped to pick up my underwear before stamping out the fire that burned in concentric rings around us. “I believe we’re going to have to have a ban on gold objects until I can better handle my reaction to it. I’m sorry about your panties. And the wall.”
I took my undies from him and stuffed them up my sleeve. “I’ll see if I can’t repair them. What wall?”
He pointed behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and did a double take at the black shape burned into the wood.
“Oh hell, that’s me, isn’t it?”
His smile was one of pure satisfaction when he took my hand and led me from the room. “When we do it, we do it properly.”
“Uh huh. And how are we going to explain that to the cabin’s occupants?”
He gave me a roguish look, kissing my fingers as he said, “If they say anything, I’ll offer to pay for a new cabin, all right?”
“All right, but stop swaggering around like having sex so hot you burned my shape right into the wall is a point of pride. We’re never going to be able to have nice things if we keep burning them up every time we make love.”
Fifteen
I would like to report that the two days following that memorable chase were uneventful, but that wouldn’t be even remotely true. The next day started benignly enough, though: Rowan texted everyone he had ever heard of and several to which he’d received referrals.
Mrs. P did much to enrage me by sashaying around in a manner intended to aggravate me. And aggravate she did.
“Why do you look at me that way?” she asked, flipping her waist-length hair back with a practiced move. “It’s not like I told your man to leave you.”
I pursed my lips. She wore a fairy costume, complete with gossamer wings, nearly see-through low-cut bodice and skirt, and a bag of glitter she called her fairy dust.
“For one, that costume you’re almost wearing was supposed to be mine. We agreed that you’d be the cheerleader and I’d get to be the fairy.” I gestured down to my cheerleader pleated miniskirt and cotton sweater. “I’m too chubby for this outfit. Your skirt is longer.”
“But it suits me much better. See? My bosom is perkier than yours now.”
She had a point, damn her. I made a mental note to ask the laundry if they’d managed to clean the Xena outfit yet. Thus far, they’d taken their own sweet time cleaning the items we had daily taken to them. I shook a pom-pom at her. “And for another thing, I saw you trying to score a few points with Rowan earlier. I didn’t appreciate it, and if you try it again, you’ll find your lovely long hair tied in a knot around your throat.”
She laughed, a silvery, tinkly sound that made me very aware that I had what was politely termed a smoky voice, but was really just plain ole rough and unattractive. “I was, I admit. Not that I could bed him here—my beau would know and not be happy with me. But I did want to see what sort of man you had and whether he would remain true to you. I think he will.”
“I know he will,” I said without as much conviction as I’d have liked.
“Then you have nothing to worry about, do you?” she said, tossing a handful of fairy dust on my head and laughing her way to her bedroom to change for some time at the pool.
I threw a pom-pom at the door and returned to the project of attempting to convert the pair of shorts that came with the cheerleading outfit into suitable underwear.
“I’m feeling distinctly like a third wheel,” I commented later that day, when Mrs. P and her coterie of priestesses trooped into the room fresh from the swimming pool.
“We asked you to come swim with us, but you refused,” Mrs. P said, tossing off her swimsuit cover-up and heading into the bedroom.
“You didn’t miss much, although your friends were up there being nosy again,” Bunefer said, plopping down on the window seat.
“May and Gabriel?” I asked, wondering what they were up to.
“No, the two old ladies. Gidget and Moondoggie.”
“Ken and Barbie,” I corrected. “I think they’re just dying to be of help. They are some sort of cherubs or something from a divine place. Kind of a heaven.”