"Or I could have been letting you do your job while I was tied up with SEPA," Paen said, unlocking the trunk of his car and throwing my suitcase into it.

I stood to let him unlock and open the pa.s.senger door for me. "SEPA?"

"Scottish Environmental Protection Agency. They've been claiming a bit of my land is contaminated with runoff from a nearby smelting plant, and I had to meet with the officials to prove again that it isn't. I doubt if you've had much experience dealing with Scottish political red tape, but it's just as unpleasant as the Canadian version."

"Oh. I'm sorry." I nibbled on my lower lip for a moment. "How did it turn out?"

He flashed me a quick grin before starting the car and backing it out of the parking spot. "Chemical a.n.a.lysis of the soil and water table showed they're unpolluted, as I've said for the last six years."

"Good."

"It was d.a.m.ned annoying timing on their part. I planned on helping search the antiquities network for news of the statue, but was tied down with the minutiae of officialdom."

"That's OK. Clare and Finn worked on that while I was gone."

He glanced at me before pulling out into traffic. "Why haven't you been sleeping well?"

I hesitated about telling him. I'd already made a fool of myself by sounding jealous and possessive of him when there was no relationship to be jealous or possessive about, but the urge to protect my delicate ego was strong. In the end, though, I told the truth, because... well, just because I figured it might mean something to him. "The time not spent in incredibly erotic dreams about you was mostly spent tossing and turning, wondering what you were doing, why you hadn't called me, and whether you regretted making the proposition you did."

"You didn't call me either," he said, picking the one thing out of my embarra.s.sing confession that I knew was the weakest.

"I did. You didn't answer. And I... er... didn't leave a voice mail."

"Why?" he asked, shooting me another quick glance.

I looked out the window at the lights of the city as they pa.s.sed by. It was painful having to admit how much I missed him during the two days away. "I didn't have anything to report. I just wanted to talk to you."

"Well, I'm here now," he said, pausing to let an elderly couple cross the street.

"Yes, and that's something I'm rather curious about. Clare knows full well there's a bus that goes from the station to less than a block away from our apartment. I've hauled a lot more luggage than what I have now. So why has she sent you to fetch me?"

His eyebrows flattened out to a straight line. "I just thought it would be polite to pick you up since you'd been away on my behalf."

"Doing the job you're paying me to do," I pointed out, secretly delighted by the revelation that Paen had missed me while I was gone."I was in town anyway," he said, avoiding my eye.

"Uh-huh. And the kilt?"

"I'm a Scot. I'm allowed to wear one."

"I know that, silly. I just meant, what's the occasion?"

He maneuvered the car slowly through a busy, pedestrian-laden street. "I don't need an occasion to wear a kilt."

"Riiiight," I drawled.

He sent me a quick glance. "Most women fair drool at the sight of a man in a kilt."

Oho! So that was the way things were. I fought to keep my smile from showing, and tried to look only mildly interested. "Do they?"

"Yes." He glanced at me again. "They find it s.e.xy."

"I'm sure they do." I pointed out the next turn, and Paen swung around a corner, entering the narrow street in the old part of Edinburgh where Clare and I shared an apartment. "Did you miss me?"

He pulled into the tiny parking area behind our building, giving me a startled look. "Did I what?"

"You heard me. Did you miss me while I was gone?"

"Where should I park?" he asked, ignoring my question.

"There, next to Clare's car. It's the spot a.s.signed to me, but I don't have a car, so you can use it. And stop avoiding answering the question."

He pulled into a spot and turned off the engine. "I regretted that you were away on business when I couldn't help you."

I smiled to myself as I unhooked my seat belt. "Not good enough. Did you miss me?"

He got out of the car, going to open the trunk.

I followed, my arms crossed over my chest as I leaned a hip against the car. "Well?"

"Let me ask you this-did you miss me?" he said, slamming the trunk closed.

"Very much," I said, waiting.

His eyes lightened another few degrees. "I see. In that case-yes, I missed you."

"Good. Are you going to spend the night this time, or are you not yet ready for such a thing?"

"That was our original agreement, but I thought perhaps you might have changed your mind."

"I don't change my mind that easily," I said as we walked to the building, waiting as he opened the door for me. The faint sound of music from Mila's s.e.x shop was the only sound to permeate this part of the building. I started up the stairs to our apartment, but Paen stopped me, pushing me up against the wall of the stairwell, his body blocking out the dim light that hung over the stairs until all I could see was the silver gleaming brightly in his eyes."You're tired," he said.

"I haven't yawned once. How can you possibly imagine I'm tired?"

"You said you weren't sleeping well," he reminded me.

"I slept on the train coming home," I answered, thankful that I had dropped off for a few minutes so I could tell him that.

"You look tired," he insisted.

I smiled. I couldn't help it; he was so cute trying to deny the obvious. "I do not look tired. I checked a mirror before the train arrived. The dark circles under my eyes are hereditary, not due to lack of sleep. I am exhibiting no obvious signs of fatigue."

He leaned into me. "I can feel that you're near exhaustion."

"Nuh-uh, that won't work either, because according to you, we don't have a psychic thing. So you can't possibly know what I'm feeling," I argued softly, my body turning into one gigantic tingling erogenous zone as he pinned me against the wall.

"Then you won't mind at all if I ascertain for myself your feelings on the subject of our having s.e.x?" His voice was likewise low, but roughened with arousal.

"Good G.o.d, no. Ascertain away," I said, gasping as his hands slid up my waist to cup my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, causing me to rub myself against him like a cat begging for stroking. I clutched the back of his jacket to keep myself upright, my senses overwhelmed with the scent and feel of him.

"I'm going to kiss you now," he said, as if he had to warn me. My answer was to move sinuously against him, twine one leg around his, and grab his head with both hands to pull him into a kiss that I figured would make him see stars, if not actual galaxies.

The elf in me wanted to distance myself from the situation and a.n.a.lyze just what it was that made Paen so attractive to me, but bless my dad's mortal genes, there was enough of him in my chromosomal makeup to let me ignore the elf part and go into a full swoon of delight when Paen's lips touched mine. That touch was brief, but I didn't mourn its loss because what followed was enough to have my shoelaces melting.

It started out like a regular kiss-our lips were there, smooshing up against each other, tongues present but not yet engaged.

There was a sense of aroused excitement with the first couple of pa.s.ses of lip action, followed by a tentative, questing touch with the tip of my tongue. Paen's tongue answered, and suddenly he wasn't just kissing me, he was feasting, supping on my mouth, drinking me in like I was the source of all being. His body was hard against mine, but it wasn't an unpleasant sensation-far from it. While he was busy making love to my mouth, my body curled around him, trying to get closer still.

Wanting more, I poured into him the feelings he was arousing in me, the sensations he fired up deep inside me, the desires and wants and a whole slew of complex emotions that I couldn't even begin to imagine. I flooded him with what I was feeling-and he froze.

Is something wrong? I asked as his body turned into a statue. He pulled back, looking down at me with his quicksilver eyes, now so bright I swear I could read a book by them.

"This is not really an appropriate place to continue," he said, answering, but not really answering, the question I had mind-zapped him.

"Oh." I looked around at the dimly lit stairwell. "You're right, it isn't. Shall we go up to my apartment?"

He stepped back and indicated I should precede him. Speed on stairs has never been my forte, having inherited my father's tendency to clumsiness, but I made it up this flight in record time. I hurried into the apartment with an excuse on my lips for Clare to explain why I was dragging Paen off to my bedroom, but there was no Clare to be seen. Nor Finn.

"Huh," I said, peeling off my jacket and tossing it on the coat-tree. "I wonder if she and Finn went out?"

Ethereal giggling, followed by deeper, more masculine laughter, drifted out from behind the closed door to Clare's room.

Paen c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at me. "I would say they stayed in."

"Geez!" I said, looking for a moment at Clare's door. "They just met! And now they're in there going at it like bunnies?"

The other eyebrow rose.

"We're different," I told both eyebrows. "She's not conducting an experiment, she's just giving in to her libidinous faery nature."

"Elves don't have a libido?" he asked, taking off his coat.

"Of course they do. They're just not as flighty as faeries. They don't feel the need to have s.e.x on a daily basis, as most Fae folk do. They are circ.u.mspect. They have restraint. They can wait for the proper time and place, and most importantly, the right person to come along before they... rawr!"

Paen reeled back a few steps from the impact of my body being flung onto his.

"I want another one of those kisses," I said, wrapping my legs around his waist.

"Circ.u.mspection and restraint having gone out the window?" he asked as he hoisted me a little higher, staggering ever so slightly in the direction I pointed.

"I'm also human," I mentioned, nuzzling his neck as he struggled to open my bedroom door.

"Would you mind... thank you."

"So very polite. I love the Scots," I said as I reached behind me to open the door, closing it as Paen carried me across the threshold.

"Our politeness is just one of our attributes." He stopped a foot into the room, looking around it in surprise.

"My mother's idea," I said, unhooking my legs so I could stand. "She and Dad went to Africa last spring, so for Christmas last year she hired a decorator to come in and redo my bedroom. Don't let the malacca and mosquito netting fool you-the bed is quite st.u.r.dy."

"And the elephant head?" he asked, looking at the wall above the headboard.

"Fake. Mom wanted to get the real thing, but I had to draw the line somewhere. There's a matching foot basket I use for trash around here somewhere."

"I see. And the machete is for... ?"

I picked it up and gave it a twirl before hacking at an aggressive palm that blocked the path into the bedroom. "The plants are very real, and were tended by my mother before she turned them over to me, so they grow like crazy. I'm dreading what will happen this summer, once some actual sunlight gets to them. There, I think you can get by. Mind the rhino."

"Bench?" he asked, eyeing the large wooden figure that lurked in the shrubberies my mother insisted live in my room.

"Yup." I skirted a faux-leopard rug in order to fling a few dozen accent pillows off my bed. "You can ride him, too, but he's not very comfortable. I use his horn as a backscratcher when I have an itch I can't reach. So... um... here we are. Do you want to get naked?"

Paen thought for a moment. "Do you?"

"Well..." I looked at him, really looked at him. He wasn't movie star handsome, but I liked his face. It was a typical Scottish face, kind of long, with interesting cheeks, and a jaw that made my knees go a bit melty. His eyes were unparalleled-going from dark, cloudy grey-almost-black, to a silver so bright it came close to scorching me. I was still more than a little bewildered by my instant attraction to him, but there was no denying it was there. So where was the harm in giving in to it? "I think I'd like you to be naked first, and then I'll get naked later."

"That hardly seems fair," he said, frowning just a little. "You'd have me at a disadvantage if I was nude and you weren't."

"You saw my b.o.o.bs already. That gives you a point up on me-all I did was get to feel you."

"I didn't see your b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I saw your bra."

"With my b.o.o.bs in it. It's the same thing," I argued.

"Is that really an important distinction?"

I wrinkled my nose as I thought about that. "Well... not in the world peace sort of sense, no, but I'm trying to establish my footing with you. I'm a bit nervous."

"And you are taking advantage of that fact by dictating to me a bizarre set of rules you just thought up?" Paen may have been grumbling, but he kept unb.u.t.toning his shirt.

"Maybe. OK, I am. You got away with all that experiment stuff, so I'm going to be the rulemaker. Rule number one is that you get naked before me."

"Do you have body issues?" he asked, shucking his shirt.

It took me a minute to answer. I clutched the malacca, mosquito-netting-wrapped bedpost to keep from running over to touch that magnificent chest again. "Just the usual. Nothing out of the ordinary. Why, do you think I should have body issues?"

"No," he said quickly as I looked down at myself. "I just wondered. So many women seem to be unhappy with themselves, it's refreshing to find one who isn't."

"Oh. Well, as far as that goes, I'd like pretty much everything improved, but since that's not going to happen without a new set of genes or a really expensive plastic surgeon, I'm resigned to living with this body."

"It's a very nice body," he said politely, sitting on the rhino's back to pull off his shoes and socks.

"Thank you. I wouldn't mind being taller than five foot four, having bigger b.o.o.bs, and less in the hip and thigh area, but eh. I can live with myself."

"That's a good att.i.tude to take. I never understood women who feel driven to surgical enhancement to match a society's ideas of beauty."

"Well, I did have my ears bobbed," I reminded him, watching with interest as he stood back up and put his hands on his belt.

"Yes, but I a.s.sume that was to lessen the taunting that you must have undergone as a child."