Why didn't we come here to begin with?"

Megan smiled. "Because you didn't want to be forced to cohabit with my relatives if they were as strange as you were expecting them to be."

"Oh, yeah, that."

The fire was stoked. He rose, going for the hot chocolate. He handed Megan a cup, and took his own down by the foot of the bed, before the hearth. The room was carpeted in deep blue except for the tile that immediately surrounded the hearth. There was a thick, plush white foot rug there as well, making a very comfortable place.

Megan brought her chocolate and joined Finn. He sat against the bed, and slipped an arm around her as she joined him. She leaned against his shoulder and chest, feeling the sense of being cherished and secure that she had first known with him, and which had seemed to so abandon her lately.

He stroked her hair, absently staring at the flames. She didn't want him to go, and yet…

She was afraid to fall asleep with him at her side, and as much as she might long for him, ache for him, there was something inside her as well, something terrified that she might drift…

"Finn."

"Hm?"

"What… do you think is happening? Is one of us… crazy? Or worse—psychotic?"

"No," he said flatly, and with determination. "I wish there weren't so many woods around here," he murmured.

She smiled, reaching up to touch his chin. "There's a phone on the bedside stand. Hit one, and it dials the police. Hit two—and it dials your cell phone. I programmed it in today."

"Did you?" he said huskily. "Hm… would have been nice if you'd picked up when I dialed you this morning."

"Finn… you don't understand."

"You're right, I don't, but never mind. I believe that you are really terrified of me, and as painful as that is… I'll cope. November first, we're out of here. Back home. And you can lock yourself in a different room until we have a chance to talk to someone. Two more nights. I can be patient."

"I'm not so sure that I can," she whispered softly.

He started to shift, as if he were going to rise.

"I have to get back to Huntington House," he said.

She hesitated. "Can you wait just a few more minutes? I wanted to hop in and out of the shower, really quick. I feel like I have food, fog, smoke, and the smell of booze all over me."

"Sure. I can wait. Go ahead."

She rose. He didn't take the bait. Maybe he figured she really just wanted a shower, or that she was being a real bitch, walking out on him, but playing games as well.

She left him on the floor and walked into the bathroom.

Martha, always a restless sleeper, awoke, not sure what caused her to do so, rather than the fact that her bones were old and creaked when she turned, and almost any little noise startled her.

She lay awake for a moment, paused, then rose, inched her feet into her slippers, and walked to the window.

She smiled benignly, pleased to see that Finn's car was in the driveway.

"Those perfect, charming, young people!" she murmured aloud. There were the problems, of course.

Serious, and she knew that she had to keep a wary eye on Finn. But really, they were like an Adonis and Venus, and so very beautiful together.

She was very proud of herself for having left the hot chocolate. It was a way for her to let Finn know that, whatever the problems, he could come to her at any time. Much better her than Morwenna or Joseph!

The yard was richly illuminated. There was so much moonlight, with the full moon just a few days away now.

Ah, well. They were together, as it should be. As it would be.

Martha laughed softly aloud. "Why, old woman, you'd be patting yourself on the back—if you could still reach it easily enough," she told herself in a whisper.

Very pleased with herself, she went back to bed, and slept soundly.

The bathroom was another very nice and sane concession to the modern day. Megan was grateful that Martha was so practical when it came to her home. The old was preserved where possible, and the new came in where it made sense. Martha couldn't have had the bath redone more than ten years ago. The shower stall was marble and tile with a frosted glass enclosure. The sink was a free-standing deep blue color, bringing the scheme from the bedroom into the bath. Megan quickly shed her clothing, wrinkling her nose as she did so—it was true that by the time they left each night, they smelled like the club.

Megan turned on the water, loving it hot. She poured bath gel into her hands from the container beneath the spray, slipped the net sponge from its little hook on the side wall, and began to lather.

She was amazed at the deep spark of sensuality that seeped into her from the heat of the water, the least touch of the netted sponge against her flesh. She was amazed to feel that she was arousing herself as she moved the material over her arms, to her shoulders, around her beasts, down to her belly. It was three in the morning, the world was strangely falling apart, and she was on fire… from steam… a touch of net…

the stroke of her own hands.

This was horrible! All she had to do was ask him in. He would come…

Unless it was a lie. Unless the violence was real, unless he really had elsewhere to go. Unless he had been doing things like this… elsewhere, touching someone else… someone like Sara, so small and compact, so tightly configured, so well built, hypnotic, with her powers…

The glass doors opened. Finn was there. Naked, bronze, absurdly beautiful in the most masculine way, and as fully aroused as she was herself, but even more evidently so.

"I take it you wanted me to come in?" he queried.

She saw both the smile in his eyes and the tension in his features as he spoke. The steam from the water rose between them, not unlike the blue fog, and yet…

He reached for the sponge. She realized she had been scrubbing herself in a circular motion, low, very low, well below the belly. He took it from her.

"Here, let me do that for you."

He did. Nylon… slightly scratchy, erotically abrasive… bath gel, slick, oily, foamy… moved against her intimately. She clung to Finn's shoulders, pressed against him, his touch, the movement of his hands…

She stroked her fingers down the length of his spine, curved them over the muscles of his buttocks, brushed around his hips, gliding the friction of her soapy fingers over the fullness of his erection. The touch of his fingers jerked against her, pressing against an erogenous zone so intently that she gasped out loud, suddenly certain that she was going to fall in the shower.

"Sh!" he whispered, catching her lips in an open-mouthed, hungry kiss, then pulling her against him more tightly. "We don't want to wake Martha!"

Dizzy, aching, barely able to stand, Megan returned, "Hey, she left us the chocolate."

"We don't want to give the old bird erotic dreams, eh?" Finn whispered against her earlobe.

"Maybe she'd like a few."

"She's not sharing ours!" Finn said firmly, lifting her against him. It wasn't quite so easy to hold her, keeping her flush with his body, while turning off the shower spray and stepping from the shower stall.

Megan had to keep from laughing as he made the stalwart attempt, somehow managing to accomplish what he had set out to do. He carried her from the bath, ready to drop her to the bed. Megan laughed and told him, "Wait!" She reached down to wrench up the bedcover and comforter while he groaned, straining to hold her in the awkward position. But then the covers were stripped and Megan was down and he fell on top of her, then rose slightly, drawing her hands over her head, kissing her again, deeply, with a slow and then frenzied passion, then sliding the length of himself against her, his body creating an absurdly erotic friction, the brush of his lips intent and intimate, over her nipples, the delicate sides of her breasts, sloping over her ribs, caressing her navel, falling below, bringing liquid fire to the flesh laid so vulnerable by his every stroke in the cascade of the shower. She surged up, drew him to her, wrapped herself around him, and lost all sense of anything but the depth of her hunger and passion for him, ultimately him, Finn, the feel of the man, so unique, unique to her, with all the things she loved. The length of his fingers, the scent, so subtle, yet so there, underlying everything. She was aware, incredibly aware, of every movement, every stroke of friction, making her rise to a greater fever, a frenzy, desperate, yearning. Aware… and not aware, because she had felt quite so much as if she flew, entered a realm not of the earth, soaring, wanting, hungering, reaching… a passion so great… a love so strong…

She escalated to a climax so volatile that she thought the house, the ground, the granite of New England shook. She clung to him, soaked, hair glued to her face, limbs trembling, heart racing. He held her in return.

Her heart finally slowed. New England became granite once again.

He smoothed the damp hair from her forehead, cradling her against him. Comfort settled in. Security. The sense of being loved, and cherished.

And then…

The fear.

She was too blissful. Too glad to be where she was, far too ready to feel that she was his wife, that everything she had felt, fear… no, terror… had been imagined. Power of suggestion. This was Finn, the man she had fallen head over heels in love with the moment she had met him, with whom she had lived, loved with a fever so many times, fought with, made up with… adored. Her husband. Her life.

And yet…

Those feelings could far too easily change. Had changed… there had been this morning, the feel of his fingers around her throat, holding her, the look in his eyes…

Don't fall asleep! she thought. Please, God, don't let him fall asleep, don't ruin this!

Finn rose. "I've got to get back to Huntington House," he said. He strode across the room, naked and lithe, shutting himself into the bathroom for a quick rinse-off shower.

Just as he had known to follow before, she knew not to follow now.

A moment later he was out and dressing quickly by the light of the fire, taut, bronzed, muscled flesh and lean sinew quickly covered.