“So, you act in a manner that gives a very obvious impression, and then you’re all bent out of shape when people accept that impression?”
Her voice was going to be a problem. There was a lilting tone to it, as if she was secretly laughing at the sheer joy of being alive, that called to him on a fundamental level. He considered asking her to sit there, out of the range of his vision, without saying a word, but knew in the way of a man who was informed about women that should he do so, she would hit him on the head with something heavy. Or possibly stab him.
The sad fact was that he wanted her weaving a spell of fascination by means of her voice and her delectable body. He wanted to be there with her in the close, slightly skunk-scented confines of her musty tent. She brought him a sense of belonging, as if it wasn’t just him against the world, alone and unloved.
He wanted her right where she was, at his side, tempting him, driving him insane, making him laugh at the way her thoughts leaped around, and, most of all, making him feel as if at long last he had a home.
That home was Kiya.
“Marry me.”
The words surprised them both, but at least he had a warning of the directions of his thoughts. He mulled over what he had said, decided it made sense—Kiya was the woman with whom he wanted to spend the rest of his life—and adopted an expression of a man who knew what he wanted, and expected others to fall into the plan.
Kiya gawked at him, her mouth once again ajar. “What did you say?”
“Marry me. I said marry me.”
She continued to stare at him for the count of eleven. “Are you out of your ever-lovin’ mind?” she finally got out.
“I am a member of the Watch,” he pointed out. “They do not let those of feeble minds into such positions, so the answer is no, I am not out of my mind, ever-lovin’ or otherwise. Will you marry me?”
She whomped him on the arm with a rolled-up duffel bag. “You can’t ask someone you just met to marry you!”
“Why not?”
“Because you don’t know anything about me! I don’t know anything about you! It’s just…you don’t do that, Peter!”
“I don’t see why not. It makes perfect sense to me. You enjoy my company. I enjoy yours. I wish to spend a great deal of time with you, and since my mother raised me to hold women in honorable esteem, the solution to such a situation is a marriage. That would also be appropriate should you become pregnant.”
He didn’t think it was possible, but her eyes widened even more. “You met me, what, three days ago?”
“Two, I believe.”
“And now you’re talking about kids?” She sucked in a huge amount of air. He was surprised the side of the tent didn’t bow inward.
“They aren’t high on my priority list at the moment, no. We have plenty of time, given that our lives can span centuries. Just out of curiosity, how old are you? You appear to be in your late twenties.”
“Thirty-two, actually. But thank you.” She looked pleased for a few seconds before she returned to looking outraged and shocked, and wholly beddable.
“We both have ample time to be together before we begin a family. I merely mentioned the possibility should such a situation arise.”
“But—” She hit him on the arm again. “We don’t know each other!”
“I am happy to answer any questions you have about me.”
“And then there’s the other thing.”
His brow wrinkled. The only thing he could think of at the moment was in his pants and growing more and more demanding that it have its share of time with Kiya. “What thing? My penis? Do you have an objection to it? I know you said it was beefy, but I believe we fit together rather nicely.”
“No, not your penis,” she said, casting a glance toward his lap.
Instantly, he was fully aroused.
“Wow,” she said, her gaze fixed on his groin. “You really are bulgy. I like that in a man.”
“I don’t share,” he said primly. “And I don’t expect my woman—wife or otherwise—to have cause to look to another man.”
“Oh, I wasn’t saying I wanted to fool around,” she said with a smile that filled him with warmth, and light, and a desperate need to lick every inch of her body. “I was actually referring to…you know…love.”
She said the word almost in apology. He stopped imagining himself doing all those things to her that he so desperately wanted to do, and considered what she said. “Love is not something I have much experience with.”
“You’ve been in love before, haven’t you?” she asked gently.
“I loved my mother,” he answered, meeting her gaze. “You would have liked her. She was a strong woman in her way. She died about eighty years ago.”
“I’m so sorry.” Without hesitating, Kiya was there at his side, pressed against him, one arm around him as she offered him comfort. No one had ever comforted him before. He relished the sensation, and pulled her closer. “I know what it’s like to lose your parents. I wasn’t talking about that kind of love, though. How many girlfriends…no, I can’t ask that. How about this: how many times have you been in love? Really in love? The deep, all-consuming sort of love where all you do is think about the other person, and want to be with them day and night, and seem kind of empty inside without them sort of love.”
He looked at her, anger driving away all the lovely warm feelings she had brought him. “I have never felt that way about any woman.” Other than Kiya, that is. Was he in love with her? He gave a mental headshake and focused on what was at that moment of prime importance. “Just how many times have you been in love with other men?”
She wrinkled her nose as she thought. “I think…yeah, three times. Well, one was when I was sixteen, so that doesn’t really count, because all teenage girls are desperately head-over-heels in love at some point or other. Twice. We’ll go with twice.”
“Who were they?” It was all he could do to keep from growling the words. The idea that Kiya, his Kiya, the delightful, effervescent Kiya who made him feel like he could do anything, had felt the same way about other men filled him with a fury the likes of which he had never known. Fury and jealousy, but the latter was a petty emotion, and thus did not deserve to be acknowledged. “I want their names. And addresses. What state are they living in? Never mind, just their names will do. I will find them.”
Kiya started laughing. “You are so sweet to pretend to be so jealous that you would demand to know about my former boyfriends. I can’t tell you how warm and fuzzy that’s made me feel. Thank you, Peter, for acting like an idiot just to let me know you care.”
Idiot? She thought he was acting like an idiot? He wasn’t, but clearly she didn’t understand his need to have her acknowledge that he was the one she loved, not those others. His mind didn’t even shy away from the word love. Just because he had never been in love with a woman didn’t mean that she shouldn’t be madly and wildly in love with him. Starting right that minute.
“I do care,” he said, deciding that now was not the time to press her for details of former lovers. He’d wait until he was in a better position to act upon the information. “I enjoy your company greatly. You interest me. I like the way your mind works. It’s different from other women. Your body gives me immense pleasure, as well.”
She snuggled into him, and patted his leg, careful to avoid the bulging area of his pants. “I like you, too, Peter. A lot. And I like you for your brain, as well, you know. Although, holy hell, man, you have a chest that could make a nun forsake her vows. And the ass of a god. We won’t go into what your nether regions are—”
“Beefy,” he said with complacence.
“—but I will second your opinion about the pleasure to be had from our rompy time. If they had Olympics in sex, you’d definitely be a gold medal winner.”
“Then you will marry me.” It was a statement, not a question, a fact he hoped would escape Kiya.
“I didn’t say that.” She kissed his jaw. “I’m not in any rus
h, Peter. I agree that we have something going on between us, and I think it might be something that should be permanent, but it’s too soon for me to tell for sure.”
“I can tell. You should trust me to be the judge of whether or not we are ready to progress,” he said loftily, knowing she wasn’t going to stand for it, but unable to keep from teasing her.
“You are so asking for it, buster,” she said, laughing and elbowing him in the side.
A horrible thought occurred to him then. “There’s not another man to whom you are tied?”
“No, and I ought to punish you for even thinking I’d get together with you if I was interested in someone else, but I’m going to let it go because, for one, I can see by your expression that you’re actually worried about that, and for another, I’m about twelve seconds away from ripping off all your clothes and having my way with you. And I can’t do that if I’m busy being mad at you.”
“Twelve seconds?” He looked at his watch. “Do you want me to count down the last five seconds?”
She laughed again and moved away from him, pulling her shirt over her head as she did so. “I think what I like the most about you is your sense of humor. You never fail to make me laugh. I want you naked, Peter. Even with everyone in the camp knowing what we’re doing, I want you right this very second.”
He was never one to turn down a reasonable request from a woman, he mused as he stripped himself of his clothing, and even though he had already informed Kiya that he would not, in fact, be making love to her, he decided that it would be churlish to deny her when she so obviously needed him.
Yes. It was for her benefit that he would do this. He would prove to her once and for all that she was meant to be with him for the rest of their time on earth.
THIRTEEN
“Remove your clothing, and lie back so that I might touch you.”
I dragged my gaze up from where I’d been ogling Peter’s bare chest and arms and all the rest of him—and the rest of him was well worth the time spent ogling—and looked at his expression to decide if he was actually serious in thinking he could order me around like that, or if he was so aroused that he just sounded bossy and arrogant.
“You, sir, are nuts if you think I’m going to respond to commands,” I told him, deciding he was being high-handed. As if demanding that I marry him weren’t enough, now he seemed to think he could direct our lovemaking. “I’m all for sharing experiences, and letting the other person have their fun time, and whatnot, but I am not a doormat, Peter, sexually or otherwise. You can’t just tell me to lie back and get naked and expect me to do it. Even if I did, I’d be so annoyed that I wouldn’t enjoy anything you did to me, and I gather that is the point of you being so incredibly pigheaded that you think you can become Mr. Lovemaking Bossy Pants.”
“I don’t remember you speaking this much last night,” he said somewhat thoughtfully. “You moaned, yes. You groaned, as well. And at one point, you hummed a happy little song of sexual completeness, but you did not chatter on and on when I was trying to provide you with intense pleasure. Are you suddenly shy? Does the fact that my family are all around us bother you? Is the presence of Lenore Faa causing you to have second thoughts about the rightness of our sexual joining?”
I stopped wriggling out of my pants (I wasn’t aware that I was, in fact, complying with his demand to strip until that moment), and glared at him. “You didn’t just tell me that I talk too much! You couldn’t. Not even you, a man who claims to never have been in love with a sexual partner, would be so downright stupid as to tell the woman he was about to pleasure to the very tips of her toes that she talked too much. You didn’t just say that, did you, Peter?”
“No,” he said gravely. “I like the fact that you feel comfortable telling me everything you think. I enjoy seeing how your mind works. However, there is a time and a place for narration, and this is a time for you to be lying naked on that foul sleeping bag, so that I might do all the things to you that I’ve wanted to do to you since I saw you in the forest.”
I was about to protest, but the thought that he had been as attracted to me as I had been to him eased my annoyance. Instead of telling him that there was no time where communication was not a good thing, I removed my pants, socks, and underwear. “Right.” I lolled back on the sheet I had bought, and looked expectantly at him. “I’m naked and lying down. What exactly is on your list of things that you wish to do to me?”
“I know what I’d like to do to you, but it doesn’t matter if you’re naked or not,” a voice said from beyond the confines of the tent. “Except so much as it makes the beating more effective.”
“Eep!” I stared at Peter for a moment, my face burning with the knowledge that Andrew—it had to be Andrew—was standing just outside the tent listening to us. But what did I expect? Any man who would bash a woman on the head from whom he had just stolen time was not a man who would afford privacy where it was due.
Peter looked just as shocked as I was, an expression that quickly changed to one of fury. He dropped my ankle, which he had picked up prefatory, I was guessing, to kissing his way up my leg, and spun around on his knees, clearly about to exit the tent and confront his cousin.
“Peter! Stop!” I hissed, grabbing at his foot.
He pushed back the flap of the tent, pausing to glance back at me. “Why?”
“You’re naked,” I pointed out, gesturing toward his torso.
“Andrew Faa will just have to bear the sight of my nudity,” he said with mingled anger and dignity, and left the tent.
I hurriedly pulled on the nearest thing at hand (Peter’s shirt), and grabbed his jeans before scrambling out of the tent. I crawled out and stood up, turning to find Peter striding over to where his cousin stood, while not twenty feet away, two women and assorted children stood like stone statues next to their minivan.
In unison, their heads swiveled from the sight of naked Peter to me, struggling to button up his shirt so my boobs weren’t hanging out. “Oh,” I said, freezing at the sight of the wives and kids. From around the far side of the van, the two other cousins emerged, both of them stopping to stare at Peter and me. “Um. Hi. We…uh…weren’t just doing what you think we were doing in the tent.”
“It seems to me pretty clear that you were,” Gregory said from where he sat, his chair rocked back to lean against Mrs. Faa’s RV. “Not that I eavesdropped, you understand, but you weren’t being very quiet.”
My blush cranked up to a level that I had previously thought impossible. “Great,” I told Peter. “Everyone here knows we were about to go off to boink-land.”
One of the wives squeaked and, grabbing two of the littlest kids, hustled them off to their RV. The second wife did likewise, casting an appalled look over her shoulder at me.
“I’m so sorry,” I called to them both, waving Peter’s jeans toward him. “I didn’t mean to say that in front of the little ones. But I did tell him to put his pants on before he left the tent, so that part isn’t my fault.”
“Do not speak to the women!” Andrew spat, little flecks of spittle accompanying the words. “You are not fit to be in their presence!”
“I’ve had enough of you tonight,” Peter snarled, heading to where Andrew stood in the center of the clearing. “If you ever again threaten Kiya, even obliquely, I will see to it that you spend the rest of your blighted life regretting it.”
“Peter,” I whispered loudly, glancing worriedly over at Mrs. Faa’s RV. Thus far, she hadn’t emerged, and I wanted to keep it that way. I had a feeling I was in enough trouble with her, and didn’t need to add another scene to the balance.
“I’ll say whatever I want to say,” Andrew replied to Peter, his eyes narrowing. “You are nothing to us, son of a mortal. Less than nothing. Take your whore and leave our camp.”
“Oh!” I gasped, my worry and concern that Peter might do something to cause problems evaporating in the face of that untoward insult. “I am not a whore! I admit that we had no idea that we could b
e overheard so easily while we were in the tent, but that doesn’t give you the right to call me names! In fact, since I know you won’t take it back, I’ll just make sure you don’t even say it!”
Peter turned his head toward me. “Kiya—”
One of the wives squeaked just as she had before I reset time a few seconds, and grabbed her kids, rushing them to their RV. The second followed after giving me a speaking look. “Sorry,” I called, digging through the pockets of Peter’s jeans to look for some money to throw at Andrew.
“Kiya!” Peter, en route to confront Andrew, stopped to turn a stern look upon me. “What did I tell you about doing this?”
“He called me a whore! I’m not going to stand for that. Where’s your wallet?” I said, going from pocket to pocket.
“I will take care of him. Stay out of this. I have no money in my pants—it’s in my wallet, which is in your tent.”
Without a word, Gregory settled the chair on the ground, stood up, and reached into his own pocket before walking a few steps over to me and handing me a handful of silver coins.
“Thank you,” I said, smiling at him before throwing a couple of the silver dollars at Andrew’s feet. “Now, let’s get a few things straight here, Mr. Potty Mouth. One—”
Andrew looked aghast at the coins at his feet. He stared at them as if he couldn’t believe they were there; then his gaze touched on me, anger quickly replacing the confusion. “Take your whore and leave!” he thundered, interrupting me.
“Hey! You’re not supposed to be able to do that. Fine! This is war now!”
“No, it is not.” Peter grabbed my arm just as I stole a few more seconds from Andrew.
The wives squeaked. The kids were hustled.
“Ha! Take that!” I couldn’t help but tell Andrew.
He looked confused. “Take what?”