Chapter 16
Gunner felt pretty damned good, even considering the cramp in his leg, the rock that had somehow wedged itself under his left hip, and the fact that he hadn’t had food for almost twenty-four hours.
He narrowed his eyes in the darkness, wondering about that. With nothing else to do, and no oil left in the lamp to see by, he’d made love to Lorina two times. A man of normal stamina, usually he’d feel pretty drained after two sessions of lovemaking in a small amount of time, yet here he was not only feeling good, but also thinking more and more about waking Lorina up and allowing her to have her womanly way with him, as he’d promised her at the culmination of their previous session.
Even without her telling him what secrets she held regarding Thompson and the dig, he felt closer to her than he had any of his previous lovers. More so, because none of them had triggered in him the strange protective need that possessed him around Lorina.
Quite simply, he wanted to keep her in his life. He wanted to enjoy the warm, loving woman he had uncovered, to watch her blossom while keeping her safe from all the ills of the world.
He just wanted her, in every sense of the word, and that itself was such an alien concept, he had to stand back and look it over thoroughly.
“You’re humming,” Lorina’s voice drifted upward to him.
Why? he asked himself. Why did he want to keep Lorina in his life? She was just a woman, like any other woman he had known.
Ah, but there he was wrong. She wasn’t like anyone else—she had her own unique blend of defiance, vulnerability, and mystery that made up a heady cocktail of desire.
“Gunner?”
That didn’t mean he had to think along the lines of a permanent arrangement, he argued with himself. He’d enjoyed lovers before and not yearned to wake up to them every morning, or to act the brave hero in keeping the world at bay. No, it was Lorina and Lorina alone, he decided. She was the only one who had generated such thoughts and feelings.
“Gunner, are you all right? I know you’re awake.”
The question was what to do about that. He considered his options, thought about what Lorina would be likely to accept, and decided there was no way for it but to make the decision for her. Oh, to be sure, she’d give him hell for it by pointing out that she was an independent woman who could think very nicely for herself, thank you. But even knowing the ire she’d display, he concluded there was no other option. If he wanted her, wanted to keep her, then he’d simply have to change his ways.
It was an oddly pleasing thought.
“Right, now you’re making me paranoid. Are you not answering me because you’re suddenly appalled at what we’ve been doing? Having second thoughts? Wishing you were miles away from me?”
“Hmm?” He stopped making plans, and quickly ran over her conversation. “Good morning, love. I didn’t know you were awake. I apologize if I woke you up with humming.”
“You didn’t; I was awake already. I was lying here wondering if we were going to be changed by this experience. I mean, when people eventually find us years from now, assuming we could gain enough nutrients from the dirt to survive, will we be pale, shrunken, giant-eyed mole people?”
“Do you want another minute of light?” He reached into the spot where he’d carefully set his mobile phone.
“No, we’ll save its flashlight app for potty visits.” He felt her shudder. “Although what we’re going to do when the emergency tissues run out, I don’t like to think. Also, at some point, that hole I dug isn’t going to remain suitable as a toilet.”
“You’re worrying again,” he told her, and lifting her head, he raised his hand so he could see his watch with its lit dials.
“Yes, I am. I’m also hungry as all get-out, but I’m trying to remind myself that this is no worse than a cleansing fast. How many days have we been down here?”
“Almost twenty-three hours.” He was silent a moment.
Lorina uncurled herself from his side, and he knew without even seeing her that she was eyeing him with skepticism. “You have got to be kidding.”
He held up his wrist. “You can see the time for yourself.”
“I’m not talking about the time, which you very well know. I’m referring to your oath to distract me from what you call my rising panic by making love to me until I forget everything but how fabulous you are, and how I love your legs and your chest and that little spot on your neck that makes you shiver when I bite it.”
He smiled into the darkness. “It’s odd how we met just a week ago, and yet you know me so well.”
Her hand fumbled around until it found his flesh, which she then pinched. “You can’t be serious, Gunner. You’re not an animal. You’re not some potent stallion around a harem of mares. Normal men, men who are real and not depicted in porn movies, those sorts of actual, live men, do not have sex three times in twenty-three hours. I know you promised to keep me from being scared and worried, but even you have to admit that there is a limit to your stamina.”
“You’re dying to know if I have an erection, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Dammit!” She sounded so irritated it made him smile again. “Stop reading my mind. Where are you?”
Her hands danced lightly across his side until she got her bearings; then she slid them down his stomach to his groin. “Holy Mary, mother of god! You are bulgy again! Gunner!”
“I can’t help it,” he protested. “There’s something about you that has me sporting wood every time I think about you. I think it’s your legs. And your breasts. And your ass, and your thighs, and those delicious calves of yours. I just want them all.”
“Aha! I knew it! It’s a return to the oral sex thing. You can’t convince me that you’re really brokenhearted because I wouldn’t let you do that the first time.”
“No, but when you insisted on pleasuring me the second time, without allowing me due repercussion, I began to suspect there’s some sort of a hang-up you are too embarrassed to mention.”
He felt air move above him, indicating she was waving her hand around. “I don’t have sexual hang-ups! I simply wanted to go down on you, and I assumed you would enjoy that.”
“I would. I did. All I ask is equal time to give you the same pleasure.”
“Hrmph.” She sounded disgruntled, which perversely delighted him. He’d never known a woman to think the way she did. It wasn’t just the vulnerability about her that he sensed, but something within himself that reacted to her. He realized at that moment that he was wholly devoted to protecting her, to act as her champion and fight the world on her behalf.
He pulled her down, and rolled onto his side, using her thigh as a guide as he moved downward. “Would it make you uncomfortable if I indulged myself now? I won’t if you really don’t want me to, but it’s been my experience that women who feel they won’t enjoy it usually do once they allow themselves to give me free rein, so to speak.”
“I think,” Lorina said after a moment of thought, “that we need to have a moratorium on the mention of other people when we’re about to get down and get funky. As I said, I don’t have an objection, although those moist wipes that you inexplicably carry around with you—”
“I told you—it’s impossible to keep your foot clean during the day when it’s in a cast, even a removable one such as I have. The need arises to wipe my toes during the day lest they start to resemble those of a Hobbit.”
“Regardless, as grateful as I am that you have them, they aren’t as potent as a nice hot shower. Plus, you’ve been a-visitin’ twice now, and although I cleaned up the last time I went to the toilet area, I’m not as springtime fresh as I would like.”
“The same can be said for me,” he murmured, kissing her inner thigh, and relishing the way she simultaneously shivered and pulled his head closer.
“Except it’s easier for you to keep clean.”
He paused. “I don
’t see how.”
He felt her arm move. “It’s the way we’re built. Women have parts that are nicely tucked up inside, which, although preferable to the alternative—really, don’t all male genitalia get in the way when you walk? I don’t see how you can even sit without crushing parts of it. Anyway, lady parts are a wee bit more difficult to tend to due to their position.”
“There you go again, calling my balls ugly. I can’t do anything about their appearance any more than I can my face.”
“I didn’t call your balls ugly. I simply pointed out that having all your bits outside made it easy to clean them up. I mean, you can just dunk them in a bucket, whereas women have folds. And recesses. And many more working parts. It’s not my fault that men insist on keeping their genitals outside, where they are not only visible to all and sundry, but also get in the way of things.”
He squared his shoulders. “My cock and balls do not get in the way!”
“Well, not now, but I bet they do other times. Like when you want to ride a horse. Or a motorcycle. Or dandle a baby on your lap only to have him kick you right in the family jewels.”
Gunner grimaced. “All right, I will allow the last one, but I assure you that I have no difficulties with my privates when riding a motorcycle. Now, shall we proceed, or is there something else you wish to discourse about?”
Lorina laughed. “I love it when you talk all lofty like that, although you really sound awfully disgruntled.”
“I feel disgruntled,” he said in an injured tone. “Here I am attempting to seduce you as best I can, and I’m just about to tell you that you have a lovely . . . what did you call it? Lady guardian?”
“Garden.”
“Lady garden, and you throw at me the fact that you think my genitals are unsightly! I ask you, how is a man to proceed with admiring the lady garden when that happens?”
“Screw it,” Lorina said, pulling him forward onto her. “Foreplay is overrated anyway. Let’s skip the oral sex again, and then we can trade witticisms about crotches afterward.”
He shifted his hurt leg to one side and propped himself up on his arms, humor and passion mingling within. Was there ever such a delightful woman as Lorina? “I have never met a woman who says exactly what she thinks.”
“It’s my lack of filter,” she said sadly, and then he lost all thought when her hands took possession of him, stroking him to a hardness he hadn’t thought possible. His heart sped up to match her rhythm, making the blood pound in his ears. Spots seemed to dance before his eyes, and just as he was about to sink himself in her, he realized two things.
It wasn’t the sound of blood pounding that he heard, and they were no longer alone.
He looked up and saw elongated fingers of pale light licking along the bolt-hole walls, and heard the sound of footsteps.
“Christ,” he swore, and, reaching underneath Lorina, pulled out his shirt, and thrust it at her at the same time he tried to pull his jeans out from underneath himself. Unfortunately, the pants caught on the heel of the walking cast, and wouldn’t budge.
“Gunner? What’s wrong? Hell’s bells, I can see your face! Ack!”
Lorina spoke the last word as a squawk when their darkness was suddenly illuminated by several sources of light, all of them seeming to be as bright as the sun. He shielded his eyes and blinked, trying to get his pupils to adjust after almost a day of darkness.
“Gunner? Are you all right?” a familiar voice asked.
Gunner blinked some more when a second voice said, “Crikey! He’s naked, Elliott. And who’s that behind him? Whoever she is, she’s naked, too.”
“Ah. Yes. Just so.”
Slowly, Gunner’s vision adjusted itself so that he could make out the people behind the lights. Sure enough, his brother Elliott was in the forefront, an ax in his hand, and behind him, smiling with delight, was Alice.
Those two rescuers, he could have dealt with. But when Cressy pushed her way through, accompanied by Tabby and Matt, he knew the situation was pretty bad.
“Gunner, we were so wor—aiiiiieeeee! You really are naked this time!” Cressy sucked in a huge amount of air, and then pointed over his shoulder. “And Lorina is naked, too! OH MY GOD, YOU GUYS WERE DOING IT!”
With an eeping noise that he found oddly endearing given the situation, Lorina lunged around him and threw herself across his legs. She’d managed to get his shirt on, hiding her naked torso from view, but it was clear to all that beneath it she wore nothing. “For god’s sake, Cressy, stop staring. Haven’t you ever seen a naked man before?” Lorina scolded.
Gunner tapped her on the shoulder. “She’s only seventeen, love.”
“Oh. That’s right.” Lorina cleared her throat. “Never mind, Cressy. You’re due a freak-out, although if you could stop panting, it would probably leave more air for the rest of us.”
“I believe that Cressida and I should retire to the kitchen to make some tea,” a gentle voice said from the back of the crowd, and to Gunner’s dismay, Salma came forward to take Cressy’s arm and drag her still-gaping self backward. “I’m sure you could do with a cup, and I know I could.”
“Did you get that all on film?” Roger could be heard to ask in the background. “Dear god, the viewers are going to go insane over this footage! I can almost hear the voice-over: sex on the ruins! The Romans weren’t the only ones who had deviant practices!”
“We are not deviant!” Lorina protested.
Roger ignored her. “We’ll top the ratings! This’ll bring all the tabloids running. It’ll make Big Brother look like a kiddie show.”
“Yes, I got it,” Tabby said, giving Gunner and Lorina an apologetic look. She continued to film them as Gunner sighed.
“Good, keep at it. Sue, you’re going to want to work up some new text for the next voice-over. Something about romance being in the air, and unable to resist the lusts of the ages, and how the lord of the manor’s brother and an American visitor fell victim to the passions of the past, that sort of thing . . .”
Gunner met his brother’s eyes. “Could I get your light, please, El? This is Lorina, by the way. Lorina, my brother Elliott, Baron Ainslie. That’s Alice, his baroness, beyond him.”
“Hi, Lorina!” Alice called, waving. “Good to see you again. It’s been a long time, huh? I look forward to having a chat with you about Sandy. Er . . . later. When you’re not so . . . occupied.”
Lorina, now draped across his lap, gave a feeble smile in reply. “Nice to see you again, Alice. I’m sure you’d like some sort of an explanation about what we’re doing down here—”
Gunner stopped her talking by dint of covering her mouth with his hand for a few seconds. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“But they’re going to want to know what we were doing—”
“No,” he said firmly, the humor in the situation making his lips twitch. “I think they know exactly what we were doing.” She turned beet red and started sputtering an explanation that he ended by announcing, “You may congratulate us, actually. We have decided to get married.”
“We have not!” Lorina managed to say before he rolled her over so that her face was into his chest.
“Ignore her. She’s a bit disconcerted by the fact that our lamp went out several hours ago.”
Lorina struggled against him, but he kept her firmly clasped to his chest.
Roger gave a cheer and started babbling to Sue about the possibility of having a wedding the last week of the show in order to drive up viewers, while Alice clapped excitedly. “You can have the wedding at the dower house now that the renovations are done! Oh my god, this is so exciting! Elliott, isn’t it exciting? Your mom is going to go ballistic! Good thing she’s coming home in a few weeks.”
“Very exciting,” Elliott said, giving Gunner an unreadable look. But at least he had the presence of mind to set down the flashlight he’d be
en holding, and turned to shoo the clutch of people back along the passageway to the stairs. “We will get the full details in a bit, everyone. Now, I think you’ve filmed enough.”
Roger clearly wanted to protest, but didn’t wish to annoy Elliott, so with a reluctant wave of his hand, he instructed the film crew to follow him and Sue.
Gunner didn’t need to catch the acid look that the latter cast him to know he was now in her bad graces, but he didn’t particularly care. What he did worry about was what Lorina would say as soon as he released her.
He looked down at her. She had tried to push herself back from where he’d clasped her to his bosom, but gave up when she realized it was doing no good. Now he loosened his hold and braced himself for the barrage.
It wasn’t long in coming.
“What the hell do you think you were doing? You could have smothered me with your lovely chest muscles and that soft chest hair, which I never think I’m going to like but which is really nice on you.” She smacked him on the arm. “Don’t you ever do that again! Not unless I ask you to, anyway. And why on earth did you tell them we’re getting married? Are you insane? Did the lack of light make everything but your genitals wither away and die? You’re bonkers—that’s what you are. You’re outright bonkers!”
“I told you that if we were discovered down here in flagrante delicto that I’d have to marry you, and marry you I will.”
“Have to marry me? Have to? Oh, I do not think so,” she snapped, getting to her feet. “No one has to marry me, especially not some oversexed, way-too-handsome-for-his-own-good brother of a lord. No sir! The man I marry is going to feel grateful to me, not beholden by some outdated and totally insane moral code that says men in the act of getting their jollies off have to wed their fellow jollyee.”
He waited until she took a breath, and awkwardly got to his feet, shaking off his jeans as he did so, and attempting to hop his way into them. He had to sit down in the dirt to do it, which left grit in unmentionable places. “We’ll talk about it later,” was all he said.
“We’ll talk about it when I say we will talk about it,” Lorina yelled, then stopped, realized what she’d said, and huffily donned her own clothing, muttering all the while, “Of all the stupid things to say in front of people . . . we’re going to get married, he said, just like he gets to decide that without me having any input whatsoever, not that I’d marry him now if he was the last man on the earth. . . . Where the hell is my left shoe? I am a strong woman, one who does not allow men to run roughshod over her, and that includes making decisions about what I do with my own life. That is so something my father would do! Well, I won’t have it, do you hear me? You may be the only man I’m comfortable with, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you push me around!”