The Art of Stealing Time: A Time Thief Novel (12 page)

His eyes grew grave.

I leaned down and gently, oh so gently, nipped his lower lip. “I, however, will kiss you.”

“I’m not normally aroused by bossy women,” he warned as I feathered little kisses along the edges of his mouth. His hands slid down so that they rested warmly on my waist.

“Who says I’m trying to arouse you?” I asked as I licked the tip of his nose.

His eyes crossed. “You’re doing a damned good job of it if you’re not. Are you going to stop teasing me and kiss me properly?”

“Now who’s being bossy?” I didn’t let him reply. I just leaned in and let my lips do what they’d wanted to do ever since the moment I’d seen him on the cliff. His mouth was warm and soft and infinitely pleasing, but when his lips parted in a happy sigh, my pleasure in the kiss went into overdrive. I touched the tip of his tongue with mine, then retreated. It was such an intimate gesture, it shook me for a moment or two, and I felt the need to give him time to adjust himself to the invasion.

Gregory obviously did not share such thoughts, because before I could tell him that he was an extremely good kisser, his tongue was there in my mouth, being just as bossy as he had claimed I was. I didn’t have long to think about that because not only was his tongue laying siege to my mouth—in a way that made me feel as if my toenails were steaming—but both hands had moved up along my sides until they were cupping the undersides of my breasts. That was pleasant, very pleasant indeed, but when Gregory sent his thumbs into action in the form of soft little sweeps across my nipples, I pretty much stopped thinking and just wallowed in a delicious world made up of Gregory and his magic mouth and hands. And chest. And I had a feeling that the rest of him would be pretty damned fine as well.

“All righty, ’ere we go with dinner, and a few visitors to—oy!”

It took a couple of seconds for Al’s voice to penetrate the thick fog of desire that had rolled over me, but Gregory’s stiffening beneath me did a lot to bring me back to my senses.

I sat up, my mouth feeling strangely bereft, my breasts very much protesting the removal of his hands from their premises.

“Oh,” I said, staring at the two guards who held trays bearing food. Behind them stood three people, one of whom held a camera. “Um. This isn’t what it looks like.”

“Yes, it is,” Gregory said, and crossed his ankles as he put his hands behind his head.

The guards—Herbert and another man—looked at each other.

“I can’t see!” a voice squeaked from behind them. Al opened the door wider, gesturing for Herbert and his buddy to set down the trays of food. The others behind them spilled into the cell. “What does it look like?”

“It looks like a man and a woman having sex,” a thin, rat-faced woman said and took a picture of us. “Henry, I’m shocked and appalled by this. It isn’t at all what I thought we’d see in a dungeon.”

“This is hell, dear,” a short, round man said softly. “I expect that’s the sort of thing they get up to, here.”

“We are
not
having sex,” I said a bit desperately.

“Not yet, anyway,” Gregory added.

I glared at him. He winked.

“I still can’t see!”

“You’re too young to see, kid,” the rat woman said, taking another picture of us. I stopped glaring at Gregory and stood up, trying to think of something to excuse our actions that didn’t sound inane.

“See what?” A spotty teenage boy pushed his way around the guard. He looked disappointed to find that we weren’t engaged in a full-fledged orgy. “Oh. It’s just some chick and a dude. I thought there would be more skin.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Excuse me, but just who are you people?”

“This is the After-Hours Tour.” Al smiled cheerfully. “We don’t be normally sendin’ tours down ’ere, what with the payin’ customers enjoying their bit o’ privacy, but since you and Sir Bollocks Puncher over there ain’t payin’, ’is lordship figured folks might want to see actual prisoners in their native environ, so to be speakin’. We weren’t to know that you and ’is nibs would ’ave preferred to be alone.”

“I believe,” Gregory said as he sat up and swung his feet to the ground, “that of the two, I prefer the name Sir Cover Model.”

We all ignored him.

“I thought there would be more torture. Shouldn’t there be torture, Henry? There should be torture. Blood, and hot irons, and torture—that’s the proper sort of thing to have in a dungeon.”

“This tour has got to be against some sort of rules,” I protested to the guard and tourists alike. “You’re invading our privacy, and we don’t like it.”

“I’ll pass along your complaints to ’is lordship,” Al said, jerking his head toward the door. His two henchmen shuffled out, but only after giving us wide, amused grins.

“I will be sure to say something on the comment cards about the lack of blood and tormented people, of that you may be certain!” the woman snorted.

Her husband smiled a watery smile, and shared it with Gregory and me. “Mariah does love a good torture scene.”

“Bully for her!” I gave her a look that I normally reserve for people who spit in public.

She sniffed and took a few desultory shots of the cell. “Not even a proper set of shackles here. What sort of hell is this where there’s no torture and no shackles?”

“Look, lady—”

“Nothing but a strumpet and her love toy.”

I gaped at her for a second, then took a step forward, intending on giving her a piece of my mind, but Gregory was suddenly in front of me, one arm blocking me.

“Madame,” he said, and his voice was one of commanding dominance. The rude tourist woman shrank before him. “You will kindly refrain from referring to Miss Owens by that word. It is untrue, and upsets her. Furthermore, you will remove yourself, your husband, and that adenoidal teen from our presence.”

“Well, now, well, now,” Al the guard said while the two others backed away from Gregory. I have to admit, I smirked a little behind his back. I wasn’t normally one for expecting someone else to save me, especially a man, but Gregory seemed to slip into the protector role easily, so who was I to complain? “There’s no need for anyone to be gettin’ angry-like, is there? We’ll just be on our way and leave you two to the kissin’ that you were up to.”

“We weren’t kissing!” I objected, then swore to myself. “We might have been, but that was all we were doing. Gregory was wounded, if you recall. I was merely seeing if he had healed up properly. I was . . .
tending
him.”

The last couple of words fell from my lips with a pretense made limp with disbelief. Even I couldn’t say it with any conviction.

“Have a very . . . fulfilling . . . evening tending ’im.” Al’s parting shot was delivered with a knowing smile. He closed the door, leaving us standing in the middle of the room.

The food wafted a heavenly smell toward us. Gregory moved over to examine the meal, making approving noises at a bucket of ice containing a bottle of champagne. “Ah. Very good year. How pleasant. And now, my dear—”

“Don’t say it,” I warned, pointing a finger at him. “Don’t you dare say it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he answered, then sat back down on his cot. “Even if I did, I’m too weak to actually speak. Feed me?”

“You big ham. You need a sharp smack to the head.”

“No, what I need is some of that tending you spoke of.” He patted the cot. “I’m in considerable pain. Don’t you want to come back over here and give me the benefit of your healing powers?”

“No.” I went to my cot, grabbed my pillow, and hugged it to myself to keep from doing as he asked. Damn the man for his tempting mouth and eyes and oh, dear goddess, the sight of him splayed out on that cot all hard and masculine and bulgy with muscles and did I mention hard? He looked very aroused indeed if the largest bulge of all was anything to go by.

I reminded myself that those bulges were attached to a man who was by definition if not my mortal enemy then
not
someone I should be having illicit thoughts about, let alone indulging in related touches with.

He was with the Watch. They were dangerous, even here in Anwyn where they had no jurisdiction. If I fell victim to the lure of his sensual ways, he’d be able to play me like a violin, and before I knew it, my mothers would be out of Anwyn and into the custody of the Watch.

I hardened my heart, mentally girded my loins, and told my libido to take a cold shower.

“No?” he asked, giving me a come-hither look to end all come-hither looks.

I almost went thither.

“It’s out of the question. I’m tired. I’m going to sleep.”

“It’s about four in the afternoon.”

“Very tired. I didn’t get much sleep last night. You eat the food and drink the champagne, and if you so much as come within two feet of me, I’ll scream bloody murder.” I grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around me like a cocoon, rolling over on the cot so that my face was to the wall. I prayed that the buzz of excitement that had filled me at our recent activity would die down enough so that I could at least rest.

Sleep, I knew, was out of the question. Not while Gregory was near. Not while everything in me wanted to ignore common sense.

I sighed. It was going to be a long, long night.

T
he night was long. Hellishly long. That was a better description, Gregory decided somewhere around two in the morning. Not only did he have a sleepless night in which to consider his sins, mostly focused on the fact that he had charged into Anwyn without official permission, but he didn’t even have the deliciously ripe form of Gwen to distract him.

“Blast it all,” he said into the close, dark night.

“You can say that again,” came the soft reply.

He stopped staring at the stone ceiling—which he couldn’t see once the guards turned off the lights for the night—and squinted across the cell. Was it his imagination, or could he make out a dark shape that was Gwen’s cot? “Are you awake, too?”

“No. Go back to sleep.”

“I haven’t been to sleep, so I can’t go back to it.” He hoped she would reply. If she would at least talk to him, then he stood a fair chance of wooing his way onto her cot. Or having her come and “tend” him again. That had been most pleasant, and not a little bit surprising.

“I like your mouth,” he said conversationally, putting his hands behind his head as he once again looked up into the darkness. “It is sweet, and hot, and very enjoyable.”

“We are not having this conversation.”

He smiled to himself. She had refused to speak to him for hours, her breath evening out until he thought she had dozed off. But he had been wrong.

What he hadn’t been wrong about was her interest in him. No woman could kiss him like she had if she wasn’t the littlest bit attracted to him.

“I liked how your tongue touched mine. But it seemed to lose interest.”

He cocked his head, but there was no reply.

“I did enjoy how it twined around mine after that, though. It was very erotic.”

There was a small noise in the darkness, like that of a frustrated woman stifling a sigh into a pillow, followed by the determined rustle of blankets.

“I also very much liked touching your breasts.”

An exhalation of breath. Good. She was listening to him, at least.

“I like that they are . . .” He let the silence build for a minute and a half before there was a sharp sound of blankets being pushed back, and the squeak of a bed frame.

“What?” Gwen demanded to know. “They are what? Horrible? Repulsive? Off-putting?”

“Abundant. And warm. And so very sensitive to my touch.”

“They are not sensitive to your touch,” Gwen said in a huffy tone and from the sound of it, lay back down on the cot.

“No? So the thought of me touching them right now isn’t making your nipples tighten in anticipation?”

“Certainly not!”

“The idea of me nuzzling them, licking them, taking the tips of them into my mouth doesn’t stimulate you in the least?”

“Not at all.”

He smiled. Her voice sounded strangled, and he could swear her breath was coming faster.

“Odd. I freely admit that the thought of your breasts, of touching them, of rubbing my cheeks on them, of tasting them and pressing them against my bare chest makes me hard.” Sadly, that was very much the truth. He shifted on the cot, trying to ease his now strained fly.

She didn’t answer, but he heard the sound of her legs moving restlessly. That thought led to another. “I bet your belly is sublime.”

“You’d so lose that bet.”

“Really? What is it, if not sublime?”

“A stomach. A poochy stomach. If you haven’t noticed, I’m a big girl.”

“Statuesque.”

“Large.”

“An Amazon goddess.”

“Mom Two says plump is in these days. I hope so, because I can’t seem to lose this last twenty pounds no matter how many Zumba classes I go to.”

“I don’t care for women who have no padding on their bones. I prefer my woman with curves, and ample flesh for me to caress.”

She snorted. “You’re worth your weight in gold, then, because most men like skinny women.”

“That is their loss. Would you like me to go over there and show you just how much I appreciate your lushness?”

“No!” There was a
whump
as she obviously turned over, no doubt giving him her back again. He wondered if she knew that he simply had admired her delectable bottom when she’d done so earlier. Probably it was best not to mention it.

Then again . . . “You have a nice ass, too.”

“Bloody hell, Gregory!” she snapped as the cot squeaked again, followed by the slap of two bare feet hitting the stone floor. He could just imagine her shaking a finger at him. “Stop cataloging my body! I’m trying to sleep over here.”

“You are not. You are trying very hard to not imagine me naked.”

The startled inhalation of breath confirmed that wild shot (literally in the dark). “You are deranged.” She curled up again.

“It’s all right. I’m doing the same. Imagining you naked, that is. I already know what I look like.”

She muttered something under her breath, but refused to rise to his bait.

A thought struck him. “You appear to be shy about things of a sexual nature.”

“I am not shy!”

“You were shy when you kissed me. You touched the tip of my tongue with your own, and then seemed to be overwhelmed with the sensation.”

“That is not shy. That is just . . . circumspect.”

“Since you are shy, would you like me to describe myself?”

“No!” Their silence was pregnant with unspoken thought that quickly became spoken. “I am not interested in what you look like naked. You are the Watch. You want to arrest my moms. You could look like Adonis, and I couldn’t care less.”

Ah, so that was what bothered her. He had had a suspicion that she was feeling threatened by his employment. Unfortunately, he couldn’t reassure her that he meant her family no harm, when the truth was that he fully intended to arrest her mothers. Bringing in criminals who posed such a threat to the well-being of the Otherworld was likely going to be the only way he could salvage his career after he’d disobeyed orders.

He decided to set aside that problem for the moment. It wouldn’t be resolved then and there, and he wanted to have Gwen fully on his side before he had to make the arrest.

Thoughts of how he could present his case to her filled his head, and he didn’t realize how long he’d been quiet thinking that over until she interrupted his thoughts.

“Well?”

“Hmm?”

Her voice was disgruntled. “Aren’t you going to tell me anyway?”

He chuckled to himself. She truly was a joyful contradiction. He was certainly no stranger to women, and knew full well what effect his appearance had on them, but Gwen’s refusal to be lumped in with those women amused him. And entertained him. And most dangerous of all, intrigued him.

“I’m six foot one, blond, and have blue eyes.”

“I can see that for myself, thank you. Oh, forget it. It’s not like I want to know.”

“My tailor would tell you that my waist size is thirty-four and my inseam is thirty-two. My shirt size—”

“I am not going to be knitting you a sweater!” she burst out, interrupting him. “I don’t need to know your shirt size.”

Silence fell. It lasted thirty seconds.

She sighed. “Fine. What is your shirt size?”

He told her. She muttered under her breath again.

“If I came over to your cot, would you strike me in any way?”

“Yes. Possibly. Almost certainly.”

“I’ve been wounded already tonight.”

She chewed that over. “I wouldn’t punch you in the face, but I don’t want to kiss you again.” The words choked to a stop, and she quickly corrected herself. “I don’t want you to kiss . . . dammit!”

He wiggled his toes in delight. She wanted so badly to lie to him, to deny the attraction, and yet her own moral code wouldn’t allow it. He began to think that perhaps a few weeks in her company might not be enough.

“Just . . . stay over there! I’m going to sleep now. And no, I don’t want to hear you describe your body anymore. I’ve had enough.”

He let her be, partly because he had believed her when she said earlier that she hadn’t had much sleep, but mostly because he wanted to study the problem of how to overcome her objections to his position with the Watch.

The lights came on sometime around six a.m., and an hour later breakfast was served.

The guard raised his eyes at the two of them lying on their respective cots, but said nothing, just delivered a five-star-hotel-quality breakfast of fruit, omelet, and the best bacon he’d ever eaten and then left them.

They ate, but conversation was desultory. He tried a couple of times to get her chatting about her work as an alchemist, but she curled up on the cot and pretended to read one of the magazines that had been delivered with the breakfast.

Gregory thought some more, found no solution, and instead paced the perimeter of the cell looking for possible means of escape. He found none other than the very solid door.

“I don’t suppose you would care to cast the spell you used in order to get out of the bathroom in Slugs-Upon-Snails?” he inquired politely at one point.

“I’ve told you,” she answered without looking up from the magazine. “The name of that little town is Malwod-Upon-Ooze, and no, I can’t. I don’t have the spell with me.”

“You don’t remember it?” He was momentarily surprised by that thought. He’d assumed she was well versed in the art of magic, given her mothers’ backgrounds.

She shot him a quick look. “No. I’m really bad at magic, so my mothers gave up trying to teach me. I can cast simple spells, but only if I have them written out in front of me.”

“Blast,” he said.

She did not reply. He continued to pace, very aware of her warm presence, while the scent of her made him think of all sorts of ways he’d give her pleasure when she finally admitted their mutual attraction.

It was about two hours later that the captain of the guard opened the door again. “Come on—’is lordship wants to see you both.”

“The king?” Gregory asked, holding out a hand for Gwen.

She spurned his hand and strode past him through the door, her head held high.

“Aye. There’s been a letter about you two, there ’as.”

“What did the letter say?” he asked politely as they climbed the stairs to the ground floor. Immediately, three cats that had been curled up together on a bench stood, stretched, and jumped down to follow them.

“No clue. I’m not privy to messages from the front.”

Gwen stumbled. He grabbed her, but he needn’t have worried that she would fall—judging by the look of concern that suddenly appeared in her eyes, she had something on her mind.

“What is it?” he asked softly as they followed after the guard as he led the way out the great hall to the courtyard.

Gwen slid a glance at him, looking away quickly, but he could tell by the way she bit her lower lip that she was distressed.

He wanted to bite her lower lip. That thought wafted through his mind and refused to be ousted. He reminded himself that he was an honorable man, a man who cherished women and did not view them as mere playthings. Gwen especially deserved to be treated with respect and care, and if she was worried about something, now was not the time to be thinking about just how wonderful it would be to bite that lush little pink lip. Or to taste her mouth again. And certainly not what the feel of her tongue touching his did to his various and sundry lower parts.

He
really
wanted to bite that lip.

“You know that if I can help you in any way, I will,” he said, pulling her back so they were out of Al’s hearing.

“It’s . . . it’s just that the letter is probably from Douglas.”

“I have no doubt that it is. Why are you so concerned? The worst he can tell the king is that we were sent here because we are prisoners, and we’ve already acquired that status.”

“You don’t know these people,” she said with a little jerk of her hand in his. He wondered briefly how her hand had come to be there, and then decided that he liked it. His fingers tightened in support.

“You don’t either.”

“I’ve been here longer than you.”

“By about twelve hours.”

She made a disgusted noise. “That’s long enough to know that they aren’t normal.”

“Well, this
is
the afterlife.”

She waved that away with her free hand. “This goes beyond that. I’d expect some quirky characters to be hanging around, but these guys are just downright strange. Take that Ethan guy. He had dogs everywhere at his camp. And this place is overrun with cats. Not to mention the fact that the king has a Velociphant, whatever that turns out to be. Who do you know who has a million cats and a Velociphant?”

“You have a point.”

Her thumb stroked absently over the back of his hand. Inexplicably, the touch made his groin tighten.

“I’m telling you, this isn’t going to be good news.”

He released her hand, sliding his arm around her to pull her up to his side. She shot him a startled look, but didn’t object when he said, “Then we’ll face it together. I won’t let anyone harm you, Gwen. Have no fear of that.”

He felt brave, and strong, and very much like a warrior of old, protecting his woman from a herd of marauding Vikings. Or Goths. Or whoever it was who stormed castles and caused men like him to defend women like Gwen. History had never been his strong point.

Al led them through various outbuildings to a lower section that was surrounded by thick walls. Gregory glanced back and was only moderately surprised to note that the main structure was, indeed, a castle. One with tall pointy bits, and parapets, and other castle-ish details that he couldn’t remember the names of, assuming there had been a time when he knew them. As they emerged from between two small sheds, Gregory stopped, Gwen at his side, both of them stupefied by the vision that lay before them.

“I take it
that
is a Velociphant,” Gwen said.

“I would assume so. It looks mechanical, and Aaron said he needed someone with engineering experience.”

“Come along, come along. ’is lordship doesn’t ’ave much patience when things are going awry with ’is contraption.”

They moved forward again at the guard’s urging, Gregory examining the large structure that squatted like a mechanical behemoth. Scaffolding surrounded it on one side, with a half dozen men crawling all over it. Three wooden tables had been set up nearby it, both littered with papers that appeared to be held down by a couple of cats curled up with paws tucked under their fronts. At one table, the king of the Underworld stood with another man, both of them consulting what appeared to be plans for the machine. Beyond them, about twenty feet away, a woman clad in an orange blazer and white walking shorts stood talking to a group of about ten people.