His eyes crossed for a few seconds before he shook his head, and said, “You have carte blanche to touch me wherever you like.”
“But you just shook your head.”
He nodded. “No, I didn’t. My head lies. Just keep doing what you’re doing, only without your shirt. Could you move your arm this way?”
“No. I’m using it.”
“Just for a few seconds, then I’ll return it so you can continue to drive me insane by stroking my chest.”
I obliged, then slid my hands around his sides, and down to his silk-covered behind. Cool air made me shiver as he peeled off my shirt, his hands immediately on my breasts, his mouth caressing the tops of them in a way that just about made my knees buckle. “I have a bra on,” I said helpfully.
“I noticed. Might I remove that, too?”
“Gunner,” I said sternly, or as sternly as a person could while she stood in a man’s castle, her hands full of his ass. “You’ve got your hands on my boobs, and your tongue down my cleavage. At this point if I’m not yelling for the police, you can probably take it for granted that you have my consent to remove my bra.”
“I like to make sure,” he said, pulling his head out of my breasts for a moment. “Some women have limits.”
I squeezed his cheeks. “I don’t seem to be one of them. Also, too much talking, and not enough mouth on breast.”
“You must be one of those women who likes to dominate men. Would you think less of me if I told you that I’m not particularly turned on by that?”
My fingers lovingly traced his thick gluteus muscles. I thought for a moment, then slid my hands inside his shorts. It seemed to me that his naked skin was even softer than the silk shorts, if such a thing were possible. “And you are one of those guys who likes to talk a lot during sexy times, aren’t you? Luckily, I don’t mind that. And I’m not trying to dominate you; I’m simply letting you know what I want. Strong women do that.”
The grin he flashed at me was lopsided, but one hundred percent adorable. “You can let me know exactly what you want, my fair little squab. Now, about this bra of yours that is so cruelly hiding your breasts from me—”
“I can’t find the car keys on your dresser, Gun—holy hair balls with big juicy spit on it!” Cressy stood in the doorway, her mouth open, her eyes huge.
I gave a little shriek and, in the best nearly half-naked- woman manner, leaped behind Gunner.
Cressy screamed at my shriek, and slapped her hands over her eyes. “Oh my god. OH MY GOD! I didn’t just see you with your hands down Gunner’s shorts, did I? I did! Oh my god, I’m blighted for the rest of my life despite the fact that I like you, and I wouldn’t mind if you hooked up with Gunner, because he’s probably really lonely and could do with a nice woman to make him stop dating all those trashy women that my mom says he dates, but clearly doesn’t love, because if he did, one of them would be here right now with her hands down his shorts, and not you, but you are here, and you were copping a grope, not to mention the fact that he had his hands on your boobs, and holy toasted cheese, how am I ever going to get that image out of my brain?”
I did a horrified little dance behind Gunner, sending one arm out to snatch up my shirt from where it had fallen, hastily putting it back on and buttoning it.
Gunner, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be bothered in the least. He simply moved a chair to the side so that it stood between him and Cressy. “If the keys aren’t in my room, then check the sitting room. And no, I’m not going to buy you a horse to cure you of the vision of Lorina embracing me.”
I pinched his butt.
“What?” he asked, looking around at me.
I made mean, but meaningful, eyes at him.
“Oh.” He turned back to Cressy. “That should be the vision of me embracing Lorina.”
I peered out around his shoulder. Cressy had stopped screaming and hiding her eyes, and was now glaring at her father, her hands on her hips, and her brow mutinous. “But I’m traumatized!”
“You are not.”
“I could be! You could have been naked! Lorina could have been naked! You guys could have been doing it!”
“But I’m not, she’s not, and we weren’t, so no horse. And I’m sure I needn’t point out that what I do in the privacy of my own home—you’ll note I stress the word—is no one’s business but my own. And Lorina’s.”
“Fine!” Cressy slapped her hands on her legs and stomped loudly out the door. “But when I’m so horrified about sex because I saw you guys hooking up in the kitchen that I can’t stay married longer than six months at a time, I know who I’m going to blame!”
“If that’s the sort of grammar they teach at your school, then you may have other issues to address,” he called after her.
I waited until she was gone before emerging from behind Gunner, my cheeks hot with embarrassment.
“You look delightful,” he told me. “Rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed, but I have a suspicion you’re going to rail at me for putting you in such a position. Should I apologize now, or wait for the railing to be over and do so then?”
“I’m not going to rail. At least, not at you. What the hell was I thinking?” I grabbed up my jacket, realized that it was Gunner’s discarded sweater, and dropped it, hurrying over to where my jacket lay over the back of a chair. “I’m just—seriously, Gunner, at what point did my brain flat-out stop and decide to throw what remains of my plan overboard just so I could kiss you, and lick your nipples, and stroke your chest, and smell you, and want to do all sorts of things to you with a small pastry brush and some lemon pudding?”
He looked thoughtful. “That sounds sticky. What plan?”
I stared at him in dismay. “I did it again. Or rather, my mouth did. I can’t take it anywhere anymore.” I thought for a moment, then pointed at him, holding the jacket tight to my chest with one hand. “It’s your fault!”
“It is?”
He did the head-tilt thing that just made me want to pounce on him again.
“Oh, no!” I backed away, holding the jacket out like it was a shield. “You’re not going to sway me anymore—do you hear me? My mind may be susceptible, but my . . . er . . . well, other parts of me aren’t. Dammit, that was a bad analogy.”
“Metaphor, I believe.”
“Whatever!” I struck a dramatic pose at the door. “I refuse to be tempted by you any longer. You got that? No more touching your really fabulous butt. And your chest. And your back, not that I ever imagined a man’s back could be sexy, but I’m damned if you didn’t pull it off. In other words, I don’t, under any circumstances, want to kiss you anymore. In fact, if I never see you again, I’ll be a happy, happy woman!”
He just head-tilted a little more and said, “So I’ll see you out at Daria’s trench to talk to her about digging in the cellar when?”
“Half an hour!” I snarled, and, turning on my heel, marched off, swearing at my own weakness.
Chapter 14
The day did not proceed as Gunner had hoped it would. First there was a second shower of the day that was necessitated by Lorina’s attentions in the kitchen. The erection he sported simply refused to go away until he doused his body in cold water, and even then it was a near thing.
The second flaw in his morning was that his continuing desire to get Lorina alone was consistently thwarted. She had attached herself to the archaeologist named Daria, and clearly was not falling in with his suggestion that they go to a quiet place where he could kiss her senseless.
In fact, when Gunner finally found her with Daria at one of the trenches in the pasture, Lorina looked anything but interested in resuming their previous actions.
“Daria agreed to help us with the cellar. She said she’d do the hard digging for you, and teach me how to start a trench without potentially harming stuff beneath the surface,” Lorina explained with a pointed look that
Gunner didn’t have the least trouble deciphering. She obviously did not want to risk being alone with him, and strode off quickly to her tent when Daria told her to go pick up a spare shovel and her digging kit.
Daria watched her leave before turning to Gunner. “I’m not one to push myself in where I’m not wanted, but if you have your eye on Lorina, you should know that she’s been spending time with Paul Thompson. The odd thing is, from what I can see, she doesn’t seem to be enjoying herself with him.” Daria’s eyes narrowed on him. “She doesn’t seem to be awfully happy to see you, either.”
“No, she doesn’t.” Gunner wasn’t one to tell tales, but he did want to find out why Lorina was pretending to be something she wasn’t. “I take it you’ve been keeping track of her?”
“Ha!” Daria gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Not out of interest, if that’s what you’re worried about. I have a husband and two children running amok at home.”
“Lorina is exceptionally attractive,” Gunner pointed out. “You wouldn’t be the first person to fall sway to her charms, I’m sure.”
“Attractive?” Daria blinked a couple of times. “I suppose some men like overly curvy women like that, and with hair that’s all over the place, but attractive? I don’t think you could call her that.”
“I think she is,” Gunner said quickly, feeling defensive on Lorina’s behalf. He kept to himself the thought that he’d rather have an armful of the lovely round form of Lorina than any of his previous model girlfriends.
“Beauty, eye of the beholder, et cetera,” Daria said dismissively. “Regardless of what you think of her appearance, I assure you that my interest is purely one of self-preservation. Keeping your enemies closer and all that, you know.”
“Thompson?” he guessed after eliminating Lorina as a possible enemy. No one in his or her right mind could consider someone as sweet as Lorina an enemy. Even the fact that she had outright lied to him, and was deceiving everyone present, couldn’t convince him that she was enemy fodder.
“He’s as capricious as the wind, and twice as unreliable,” Daria said with a tightening of her lips. “He’s also known to fire people at the slightest whim.”
“Thompson can’t fire her—she’s here by permission of the TV studio.”
“True, but he can put pressure on them to rescind that permission, and since the studio wants to keep him happy, they might listen to him. I’ve seen him drive other people he didn’t like from a dig site, so I know he can do it. That’s why I thought it was best to keep an eye on things.” She gave him a sidelong look. “Not that I understand her preference, mind you.”
“Thank you.” He made a wry face. “At least I hope that was a compliment.”
“It was.” She started packing up her tools. “Besides, I like Lorina. I just don’t know why she’s spending so much time with Paul.”
He was oddly relieved that others didn’t understand Lorina’s preference, either, but what concerned him most was how quickly he had fallen victim to her despite the fact that she continued to maintain a deception. And yet there was an obvious attraction between them that he didn’t seem able to resist. It was puzzling and frustrating and gloriously wonderful all at the same time.
“You know that Roger is going to have a fit when he hears you are digging somewhere hard to film.”
“We’re just going to take a quick look to see if it’s worth bringing the crew into the cellar.”
She tucked away the last of her implements. “I have to admit, I am looking forward to doing a little digging, even if it does have the hint of a covert treasure hunt about it.”
“Covert treasure hunt? What covert treasure hunt is this?”
Gunner slumped on his scooter for a moment before straightening up and looking over his shoulder at Roger, who stood with a look that was equal parts outraged and interested. “You have another spot to dig?”
Daria gave Gunner an apologetic look. “Sorry.”
“That’s all right,” Gunner said, swiveling around on the seat to explain. “We would have told you the second we found anything promising, Roger.”
“What’s promising? Where?” Roger demanded to know.
“Gunner and Lorina think that they’ve found a connection between the villa here and the courtyard at the castle.” Daria briefly went over the scenario that Lorina had shared.
With each word, Roger grew more and more excited, finally bursting out, “What a fabulous idea! I love it! It’s brilliant! Viewers are going to go crazy with excitement watching the dig in the actual castle itself.”
“It’s all just speculation,” Gunner felt obligated to point out. “Drawn from the admittedly tenuous evidence of the courtyard along the north side of the castle. There may be nothing in the cellar, nothing at all.”
Roger brushed away such doubts. “Results would be fabulous, but even if we don’t find anything, the whole idea of a treasure hunt will keep viewers glued to each episode. Now, let’s see. . . . We can send one crew down to the cellars to film the digging there. That’ll mean the two other film teams will have to cover both trenches in the field, but that can’t be helped. Digging inside an actual castle is unprecedented! The ratings will skyrocket! Where exactly is this other courtyard, Daria?”
Gunner hobbled his way over to where Daria pulled out several printouts that showed the results of the geophysical surveys. She pointed to one. “We think it’s there.”
“And do we have any data on the cellars? No, of course we don’t. Let me get the geophys team on it.” Roger pulled out his walkie-talkie. “Terry, come in. We need your team to go to the castle to survey the cellars, stat.”
A static-laden voice demanded to know what the hell Roger was talking about.
“The cellars—we need them surveyed. We’re going to put in some test pits there to see if the treasure is there. There’s a second villa, and it makes sense that the treasure was put there when the first one was attacked.”
More staticky demands of explanations.
“No, no, it all makes sense. That’s what those stones were pointing to—don’t you see?”
Gunner was mildly irritated, but resigned himself to the film crew’s involvement.
“I can’t help it if you don’t get it,” Roger snapped into the radio at Terry’s protestations of confusion. “The clues were a roof tile, a ship, and a thief. Clearly they meant to say that thieves were coming, so the treasure would be hidden on a roof in a ship of some sort. Probably a wind gauge or decorative bit of statuary, or something of that ilk.”
“A ship statue on a roof?” Daria asked, shaking her head. “I’ve never heard of such a thing on a Roman villa.”
“Nor I,” Gunner said, smiling a little at the spate of profanity emerging from the radio at Roger’s explanation.
“Just do as I ask,” Roger said, clearly losing his temper. “We’ll want the full treatment. Get your team in there pronto so we can get the diggers in and find the treasure.”
A staticky, but obscene, suggestion was the result of that request.
Roger looked at Gunner. “Do you think we could get the backhoe in by some means?”
“No,” Gunner said acidly. “I refuse to knock down a wall for this. In fact, my brother will probably have my hide for letting you people in to dig up the cellar, but since that part isn’t being used, I feel he won’t mind too terribly so long as no damage is done to the castle and everything is set to rights afterward.”
“Oh, we won’t do any damage—that I promise you.” Roger spoke briefly into the radio. “No backhoe, Terry. Now, then, Daria, where do you think we should put the first trenches?”
Daria gave a little shrug. “It’s difficult to say, since I haven’t been in the cellars to know their layout, but assuming that they reach to the north, I’d say against the northernmost wall first, and work our way outward from there.”
Gunner thought for a few seconds. “That section of the castle is made up of a lot of corners and angles, but I bet you could open a trench across the northmost corner.”
“Excellent,” Roger said, and continued on excitedly about his plans for filming, and how digging would proceed, and what sort of ratings the show was sure to get.
Lorina returned with a shovel, a pair of gloves, and her dig kit. Strapped across her delectable torso was a camera case. She didn’t meet Gunner’s eyes, but he couldn’t help but (delightedly) notice that her color rose when he shuffled over to stand next to her.
While Roger was continuing his speculation, Gunner leaned toward Lorina and said softly in her ear, “If I was responsible for creating a book that documents this project, my camera would never leave my hand.”
She froze, shot a startled look his way, and hurriedly moved forward to stand with Daria. The latter was now explaining to Roger her plan for laying out trenches given what Gunner had just explained about the layout of the cellar.
Gunner forgot for a few minutes his desire to corner Lorina and not only have a few words with her about this plan she had accidentally mentioned in the heat of lust, but also more fully explore said lustful passions. “That sounds like it would work. I don’t remember the layout of the cellars exactly, but it should be possible to drop pits at various points along the northern walls to see if we find any archaeology. If you can do the hard work, Daria, I’ll be able to get into the trench and—”
“Ah, excellent, everyone is here.”
Gunner ground his teeth at the sounds of Thompson’s voice. The man himself strode confidently over to them, trailed by Tabby and Matt, and a handful of diggers.
“I understand from Terry that we have had an exciting development, and we’re going to be working in the castle itself. I had wanted to do that the second we found the courtyard against the castle, but assumed we’d never get permission. I’m delighted to know that, about this, I was incorrect.” Paul, without a single glance his way, began giving orders to the diggers, sending them and the film crew to the castle. “Oh, Ainslie, is that you? Excellent. You can show the diggers how to get into the cellar. Daria, you can take over my trench out in the pasture. Roger, you may want the film teams in the cellar for maximum coverage. Lorina . . . ah. Yes. You’re here, too.”