As Mandi chuckled softly, Cade punctuated the whisper with another brushing kiss on Mandi's cheek and grinningly asked, "Do I have to let you go now, or could we stay like this a while?"

Looking up at him, Mandi asked, "You realize what time it is, don't you?"

"It's about ten to one, but we don't have to be anywhere until the con opens tomorrow. Not even then, really, unless someone calls a briefing on a Sat.u.r.day morning."

"Are you willing to chance that on only a few hours of sleep? You've had a long day, Ed, and as far as I know, I'll be here tomorrow night, too."

Cade c.o.c.ked his head slightly as he looked at her.

"Ah, but what if you aren't here tomorrow night for some reason? Mandi, I've been up too late a few times before and survived early briefings." He paused and kissed her again before emphatically adding, "And tonight I'm with a superwoman who may as well be a G.o.ddess. h.e.l.l, yes, I'll take a chance like that! Want some help in the shower? Not to brag, of course, but I'm considered something of a lay expert in matters of gynocentric eudemonics."

Mandi pulled back a bit and eyed Cade for a moment, then asked, "You do know some unusual words, don't you?"

"Yes'm. And since you aren't asking me what 'eudemonics' means, so do you.

Probably all of them, I figure."

She nodded slightly and smilingly said, "My education was very thorough. So you're a 'lay' expert, huh?"

"Well, a rather advanced student at the very least, ma'am."

"Uh, huh. I only have your word for that, so you must realize I'm going to have to make you prove it. I hope you don't mind my blatant skepticism, sir."

With a dismissive shrug, Cade said, "Oh, of course not, milady. I completely understand. Some things are just too important to be left unverified."

Chapter Fourteen

Cade went to the bathroom to lose some used beer as Mandi again went to her suitcase. When he came out a few minutes later, a gloriously naked Mandi smilingly strode past him and cavalierly handed him the fancy shampoo bottle as she breezed by. Setting the bottle down on the desk, Cade kicked off his boots and skinned out of his clothes, then grabbed the bottle and followed her.

Mandi grinningly stood still or moved as directed to allow him best-possible access with the shampoo and soap as Cade took his sweet time about washing her.

It surprised him to learn that she was ticklish in all the usual places.

It surprised Mandi equally to learn that Cade hadn't been kidding at all about the level of enjoyment he achieved simply by touching and tasting, but after several minutes of his joyful tasting, her surprise was replaced by other sensations that began to build within her due to Cade's questing tongue and roving, sensual touches.

A shuddering, gasping o.r.g.a.s.m was all Cade wanted from her, and he worked hard for it. When the scent of honey and wildflowers began to fill the shower stall and the magnificent twin columns that were her thighs began to tremble, Cade happily redoubled his efforts until the sounds of his success filled the tiny bathroom.

Sure, Cade vaguely realized that something was affecting him like a mood enhancement drug, but somehow that just didn't seem very important at all as the honey and wildflower taste of her flooded his senses.

Mandi's fingers entwined tightly in his hair to hold him steadfastly in place as she crested. When she relaxed with a sigh a little later, Cade thought of the way she'd tossed the Crown Vic around and actually felt relieved that she hadn't accidentally squashed him as she'd peaked.

Sliding out from between her legs, Cade stood up and simply held her for a time as the spray cascaded over them both. A few light, feathery kisses to her shoulder and neck brought Mandi's face up to his and his next kiss was one of the kind that let a woman know that a man thinks the world of her.

"See?" he whispered, "Some things are worth losing a little sleep."

With a soft snicker, Mandi simply nodded agreement and kissed him again and they stood together under the spray for another few minutes before she spoke.

"Seems to me it's my turn to..." she began, but her words were interrupted by the phone ringing in the bedroom.

They looked quizzically at each other for a moment, then parted. n.o.body would be calling either of them at that hour without d.a.m.ned good reason.

"Guess I'd better answer it," said Cade, kissing her again and stepping out of the shower stall.

Mandi said nothing as she reached to turn off the water. Cade grabbed a towel and used it as he left the bathroom.

Picking up the phone, Cade answered it with his room number.

"Four-twenty-two."

"Cade," said John in a tense voice, "I need to speak to Mandi."

"Hold one," said Cade, turning to wave the phone at Mandi. "It's John."

She nodded and came padding out of the bathroom to take it and say, "Hi, John. What's up?"

As he finished toweling himself dry, Cade faintly heard John say, "We need you in the ops room, Mandi. Let Cade stay there and get some sleep; you're going to have to make a trip to Washington tonight."

Nodding as if John could see her, Mandi said, "Tell me about it when I get there. I'm on my way. Bye," and hung up the phone as she turned to Cade.

"I heard," he said, tossing the towel over a chair and reaching for her, "And I've seen how fast you move, so how about a kiss for the road, lady?"

Mandi moved into his arms for a long, firm kiss, then she stepped back and said, "If I can, I'll be back tonight."

"Most excellent, ma'am. I'd like to wake up next to you."

Mandi smiled in her naked splendor and became a blur that moved around the room for a moment, then solidified back into Mandi a few inches from his face.

She smilingly kissed him again, then again blurred as she sped out of the room.

"d.a.m.n," muttered Cade as he parked his b.u.t.t against the desk and picked up Mandi's towel. It still carried the scent of her; the wildflowers and honey scent. He held the towel to his face and breathed deeply of her for a few moments, then hung both towels on the rack in the bathroom and climbed into bed.

Sleep was evasive for a while as he remembered various aspects of their shower together, but eventually it found him.

When he woke a little after nine, he was alone in the bed. After ablutions and making a cup of instant coffee, Cade called the ops room to see if Mandi was due back anytime soon. They either didn't know or couldn't say. He asked to be notified when she returned.

Cade tore the relevant pages out of his convention schedule and circled those events he'd attend. He then wrote, 'I'll be at one of these' on hotel stationery, used his knife to slice a line in the paper and inserted the rolled-up schedule pages in the slot, and finished his coffee before leaving to find some breakfast.

At the front desk, he told the clerk to allow Mandi access to his room, then crossed the lobby to the restaurant. The smell of food hit him hard for some reason. Cade chose from the menu cautiously, not wanting to order more than he could eat, but he nonetheless ended up ordering a whole second breakfast platter when the first one didn't seem to do the job.

As he was finishing up the second platter, Cade's cell phone buzzed and he answered it with, "Cade here."

"Hey, ol' buddy," said Frank Stearns, "I hear you had some special female company last night. I'm kind of surprised you're up and around at all this morning."

'Ol' buddy, huh?' thought Cade, 'Shields up.'

He asked, "Are you in the ops room, Frank?"

"Huh? No. Why?"

"Do you know if Mandi's back yet?"

"Back? What do you mean 'back'? What'd she do, run out on you? Didn't you tickle her fancy?"

With a sigh, Cade asked, "Frank, why the h.e.l.l did you call me?"

Frank Stearns laughed and said, "I just wanted to hear your version of things. How'd it go last night, stud?"

In a flat tone, Cade said, "Sorry to disappoint you, Frank."

Cade let Stearns hear him sigh again and thumbed the off b.u.t.ton as he reached for his coffee. As he took a sip, Cade again recalled scenes from the shower and the way that scent of wildflower and honey had seemingly taken over his mind.

Pheromones? He couldn't remember reading anything about pheromones having any particular smell, but Mandi wasn't exactly a Jane Average woman, either.

Just a brief remembrance of that scent and its effect was enough to cause that effect to occur again. Cade ordered another coffee so he'd have an excuse to remain seated until that effect died down a bit.

A rather tall woman at another table noticed his discomfort and pinked slightly when Cade had to reach to adjust himself. She was wearing a barbarian princess sort of outfit that showed a lot of skin and Cade wondered if she thought his discomfort was her fault.

His gaze fell to her long legs and he shrugged mentally as he eyed her thighs. Yeah. She had pretty good legs. Sure. It could happen, given the right -- and somewhat closer -- circ.u.mstances.

The woman's pink became a bit deeper and she turned away nervously. That made Cade chuckle. Why the h.e.l.l do women wear s.e.xy, skimpy costumes like those if they can't handle the results? Big duh, lady. You have good legs. Men look at exposed female skin. Grow up and deal with it.

Whups. Wait one. He peered more closely at the rest of her for a moment. She looked a little familiar...

Got it. Add some Klingon makeup and an outfit made of leather, metal stuff, and patches of motorcycle tires. She was the att.i.tude-woman from the dealer's room. But she was at a table with three other women and no men. Where was her Mr. Klingon this morning?

Cade decided it didn't matter a d.a.m.n where Mr. Klingon was, but he stopped eyeballing her legs so his system would relax enough that he could leave the restaurant in time to get to the eleven o'clock writer's panel.

A few minutes later he was able to down the last of his coffee and head for the escalators. As he was descending, Cade heard a soft swear word as something ripped behind him. He turned to find a woman kneeling to try to pick up the contents of her purse.

The seam of her tight skirt had opened all the way up to her a.s.s and she was scrabbling to pick stuff up before the escalator step reached the bottom.

Cade helped her, of course, and they succeeded, then they stepped to one side of the escalator and he held her purse and stuff as she tried to do something about her skirt.

"It's too tight," said Cade. "It'll just open up again. Might as well say to h.e.l.l with it and change when you get a chance."

She froze, then gaped irritatedly at him.

"Are you saying I'm fat?"

Cade eyed her ample bosom and the fullness of her thigh -- not an excessive fullness at all -- and shook his head.

"Nope. I said exactly what I meant. That skirt's too tight. It probably won't stay fixed."

Her irritated gaze became a glare.

"What the h.e.l.l do you know..?"

Shoving her purse and stuff at her, Cade interrupted her impending rant with, "Yeah, right. Forget it, lady. Here. Have fun trying to hold yourself together," and walked away.

The writer's panel covered nothing that hadn't been covered before. Cade's main reason for not leaving was that Mandi might come looking for him and it was one of the places he'd circled on the schedule page he'd left for her.

With three hours to kill before the next panel, Cade went back to his room by way of the ops room. Mandi hadn't returned, but he learned that his laptop had been marked for return to him, so he retrieved it and used his room's phone line to check email and surf the net a bit.

He'd found next to nothing about superwomen the day before. Now there were dozens of sites. All of them had essentially the same pictures -- cuts from the news and scans of the flyer Mandi had handed out -- but a few had pictures from the car-juggling event and the parking lot afterward.

He turned off his laptop and put it in his backpack. Mandi's luggage was still in his room, but there was nothing about her that he wanted or needed to know so badly that it would justify opening her bags.

Cade made himself a coffee and flopped on the bed to see what was in the day's news. Quite a bit of it on several channels was nothing more than a recap of yesterday's events and repeated reruns of the video footage.

Scanning up the channels, Cade found an old movie and half-watched it as his mind chewed through the previous day's events the way he'd lived them and survived some of them.

But his mind kept returning to Mandi. Her face, hair, shoulders, legs... the sound of her voice... her smile...

He realized that some of what he was feeling and thinking came from her natural attractiveness and having spent the day and most of the night with her, but it seemed to Cade that he was feeling quite a bit more than he should for so short a time together. That led him to wonder why, which somehow led him back to her wildflower and honey scent.

Cade got up and went to the bathroom, but the maid had already cleaned the room and taken Mandi's towel. No matter; the scent was still etched in his mind.

'Etched.' he thought, returning to the bed. 'Yeah, that was a word for it.

Unforgettable was another. Too much so?'

Could there be something about her scent that... well, that was as 'super'

as the rest of her? That maybe had left some kind of indelible chemical mark on his brain?

With a chuckle, he caught himself and changed course. If it had left such a mark on him, was it necessarily a bad thing? It would conjure explicit memories of her. Cade's mind flashed on Mandi's exquisite legs and lovely face and he decided that he could definitely live with that sort of a mark on his brain.

Unless Mandi -- or her scent, or whatever else about her -- created disruptions of some sort, no biggie.

That was essentially his last conscious thought as sleep again overtook him.