“There is none,” he said, obviously guessing my thoughts. “You’re mine now. I claim you.”

My inner wyvern’s mate squealed with happiness. The primitive part of my brain was telling me to run. I bumped up against the wall, swallowing hard when he took two big steps and then was at me, his body pressing me against the cool, smooth wooden panel.

“Rowan,” I said, hiccupping back a laugh. “We can’t do this here.”

“Why not?” he said in what was more or less a growl. A sexy growl, one I felt to the tips of my toenails.

“Because this isn’t our cabin. We can’t have sex in someone else’s bed. That’s just rude. You wouldn’t want someone to do that to us.”

The light from the bathroom slanted across his face. He frowned as he thought about that, then grabbed me by the waist, and hoisted me upward, using his body to hold me into place. “Then we’ll do it standing up.”

A little quiver of excitement ran through me—oh, who was I fooling, by now my entire body was one giant erogenous zone, just waiting for Rowan to touch me. I grabbed his shoulders, and pulled my knees up, hoisting myself a little higher when he placed my legs around his hips.

“This is going to have to be quick,” he said in the same low, rough voice that seemed to stroke across my skin like velvet. “I hope you’re ready.”

“I was ready ten minutes ago. Eons ago. I’ve been ready for you since the dawn of—Rowan!” He ripped off my underwear, just grabbed it with both hands and snapped the narrow straps, letting the material fall to the floor. “That’s my only undies!”

“You can go without,” he mumbled, working on his fly.

“Are you crazy? I can’t go commando. Not with the short skirts—hooo, Nelly!”

He thrust into me with one smooth, forceful move that left my entire body quivering in pleasure, my intimate muscles doing a little shimmy of welcome and basically singing songs of praise about Rowan.

“I’m sorry. I just can’t… you don’t know what the chase does… I have to… tell me you don’t need more time,” he said in a near pleading voice. “I don’t think I can stop.”

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.