It was as if she had thrown a lit match into gasoline. He caught fire underneath her touch. Clenching her against his chest, he angled his mouth to kiss her with such raw, single-minded intensity, it brought another wave of dampness to her eyes.

His fire set her on fire. It ran down her nerve endings like lava, leaving her aching with hunger, yearning, and sheer roaring l.u.s.t. Her thoughts splintered into singularities.

All she wanted to do was touch him. That was all. Yanking his shirt up, she ran greedy hands over his hot torso.

He hissed against her mouth, sinking both fists into her hair. It was a primitive, aggressive gesture, restricting her movements, holding her captive against his mouth while he kissed her with such raw, shaking intensity, her defenses crumbled. He walked her backward, his lean body trapping her against the wall.

Kissing him back, submitting to his aggression, inciting him for more, she fumbled at the waistline of his pants. Why couldn't she figure out how to get the fastening open? It was making her crazy. With a muttered curse against her lips, he brushed her fingers aside to help. Still kissing her, he pulled his pants open while she unzipped her jeans and wriggled out of them.

There was no finesse in what they were doing. It was all animal instinct. He yanked her gauzy top up, along with the camisole underneath, and she raised her arms over her head so that he could pull them off. As her b.r.e.a.s.t.s bounced free, he made a hungry noise at the back of his throat and cupped them.

Something coherent tried to worm into her brain. She broke away from his hardened lips to gasp, "What if Gawain walks in?"

Without looking, Nikolas shoved his hand out and slammed the bathroom door shut.

For some reason that struck her as funny. She started to laugh, drunkenly, but her laughter was cut short as he lifted her up against the wall and thrust his hips between her legs. His thick erection brushed against the sensitive skin high on her inner thigh, and she moistened for him in a liquid gush.

She was not a lightweight. While she might have lost some muscle tone since the shooting and subsequent injuries, she hadn't lost all of it. It took strength to haul her bodily around or lift and pin her against the wall, but he did it so effortlessly she relaxed into the experience and wrapped her legs around his hips.

"We have no business doing this," he muttered against her cheek.

Twisting to reach for his c.o.c.k, she gasped, "You're not going to stop, are you?"

"f.u.c.k, no." As her fingers wrapped around him, his head fell back, eyes closed in an expression that looked almost like anguish. He gritted, "You'd have to shoot me to get me to stop now."

"Come inside me," she whispered. Rubbing his broad head against her opening, she positioned him just right, and with a slow, relentless thrust up, he penetrated her. In this position, at this angle, he felt ma.s.sive, and she heard herself making a high, whining noise as her inner muscles stretched to accommodate him.

She was especially sensitive after last night. His entry not only burned through her, it felt perfectly right, exquisitely good.

He paused, chest heaving, to ask roughly, "Am I hurting you?"

In answer, she tightened her legs around him, drawing him farther in. "Only in the best possible way," she breathed in his ear.

He angled his head to look at her. With one hand braced against the wall by her head, the other arm wrapped low around her hips, he began to pump into her.

She had always felt a shock of connection when she looked into his eyes, and now, coupled with the savage carnality of their coupling, it was almost too much. But she couldn't look away either. The hunger, the heat in his dark eyes, the intensity all fed her own. She couldn't take him in deep enough. Flexing, straining, she stretched to reach around the outside of her thigh to finger the place where they were joined.

A groan broke out of him, and she could tell that her caresses heightened his pleasure as well. "I can't get enough of you," he muttered. "This is making crazy."

"Me too," she whimpered. It shocked her. Did that whimper really come from her?

His heat and hardness, the rhythmic sensation, built up a pressure and a need inside her that had her clawing at his shoulders. "Come on." As he hissed in her ear, he gave her hips an insistent yank while he ground himself against her. "Come on."

It was such a demanding thing to do to order her to climax, so very Nikolas and quite entirely imperious. She didn't know whether to laugh or to be offended or shocked. Instead, she felt a primal response rise up from deep inside. Arching off the wall, she gripped him by the back of the neck as she slammed into an o.r.g.a.s.m.

He watched every moment of it, fiercely, as he kept moving in short, fast jabs. The twisting pleasure wrung at her. She clenched on him, shaking, until the last of the waves subsided.

Still inside her, he sank to his knees. Sitting splayed on his muscular thighs, she wrapped her arms around his neck while he began to move again, harder and more urgently. Biting at his ear, she egged him on until he froze, muscles bunched, and suddenly the intolerable tension broke and she felt him spurting inside her. Rocking gently, she helped him as he had helped her, drawing out every last moment of pleasure.

Just when she thought his climax was subsiding, he gripped her by the hips so hard she felt the pressure from each individual finger, and he picked up the pace, to gasp in her ear a few moments later as he spurted again. His expression was taut, beautifully wrung out. Loving every sensation, every glimpse, she ran her fingernails down his back, only to have him arch up into her again, with another renewed wave of climax.

It was odd, addictive, delightful. She'd never experienced anything like it, but all her previous lovers had been human. Nikolas presented her with an entirely different, unknown landscape. Pulled out of her preoccupation with her own pleasure, she breathed every part of him in.

Finally he held her hips stationary as he gritted, "We have to stop."

We have to stop, he had said, not I can't do any more. He still felt as hard inside her as he had when they had first started. Did that mean he could actually go further, do more, climax again? She spiraled dizzily into wonder.

But he was right. They didn't have time for leisurely exploration. Still, her fingers wanted to cling to him, and her arms wanted to remain wound around his neck. It was physically and emotionally difficult to detach.

Did he feel the same?

Almost as if he had heard her thoughts, his arms tightened around her. "I don't want to let you go," he growled. "And I don't want to stop now, but the day is flying by and we must stop. This is why I don't have anything to offer a lover-there's no time to give you the attention you deserve."

Oh, that old thing.

That old understanding she had worked so hard to establish between them last night. This was just supposed to be s.e.x, just an interlude. They weren't even supposed to like each other.

How had she put it? They had the opportunity to give each other some pleasure. There was nothing more to it than that. It certainly wasn't his fault that she had gone and changed the rules of the game in her head without him.

Don't be weird at him, Sophie, she admonished herself fiercely. In terms of pleasure, affection, and a transcendent experience, he's given you so much more than you had expected or asked for. Don't ruin it now.

He was studying her too closely, his expression brooding, so she gave him a quick smile and a kiss. "Thank you," she said. "That was more than I could have expected."

He scowled. "What the f.u.c.k does that mean?"

She blinked. "What do you mean, 'what the f.u.c.k does that mean'? Last night you said you couldn't give a lover time and attention. Today you repeated it. So okay, I said thank you. Was I supposed to beat my chest and say, oh my G.o.d, we had s.e.x in the bathroom? Because if so, I didn't get the memo."

He took her head between his hands and said between his teeth, "You said thank you the same way you would thank someone for buying you lunch. You make me crazy."

She shouted, "I said it was more than I could have expected! What else was I supposed to say?"

In answer, he rose to his feet, grabbed his clothes off the floor, and stalked out. Utterly bewildered, she sat, legs sprawled on the bathroom floor, and watched him leave.

After a few minutes, she stirred to gather up her own clothes. She looked down at them, then started banging the heels of her hands on her forehead again.

Sophie. Sophie. Sophie. This. Is why. You don't. Kiss a.s.sholes. He gives you another o.r.g.a.s.m, and all of a sudden you're in love with him. And somehow you both get naked, because that's a really bright idea that never goes wrong, and then you start shouting at each other for no comprehensible reason.

After a moment, she set her clothes carefully aside and turned on the shower. She washed away all the evidence of what they had done together, dressed, and got back to work.

Her excuse was, apparently she had no sense.

And his excuse remained exactly what it had always been, inexplicable.

Chapter Sixteen.

As evening fell into darkness, clouds ama.s.sed on the horizon, and the air grew damp and electric with the energy of impending rain. The puck had disappeared some time ago. Now that Sophie knew what his magic felt like, she could recognize his touch on the wind.

They were going to get a fine storm that night. For someone who was only partially recovered, Robin was exerting a tremendous amount of effort.

At first Sophie thought she would start shouting at Nikolas the moment she laid eyes on him again, but they had no more time to waste on personal issues.

The three of them ate a quick, cold supper. Nikolas slapped meat between two slices of bread and wolfed it down. Gawain ate beans out of the can while he stood at the kitchen counter. Sophie followed Nikolas's example and ate as much of a sandwich as she could choke down past the nerves tightening her stomach.

"Robin might be able to wash away your scents with his storm," Sophie said worriedly, "but he's also exposing himself. If I can sense his magic on the wind, others will be able to as well."

"If they're still anywhere in the vicinity, they'll be out searching for him." Nikolas's expression had turned grim. "We have to plan on it and tell the others to hurry. This night could turn ugly."

Taking his warning to heart, she double-checked the spells she had painted on her arms earlier to make sure they were still viable, and she pulled the Glock out of the micro gun safe, inspected it quickly, and tucked it in the waistband of her jeans at the small of her back.

A gun tucked in the small of the back was not only uncomfortable, it was insecure. It could slip out her waistband in a struggle, and she would have preferred a proper holster, but she hadn't brought one with her from the States and they hadn't thought to give her one. She would just have to make do. Last, she slipped extra ammunition into each front pocket. She didn't want to risk running into one of those monstrous Hounds without being prepared.

Using the wheelbarrow Gawain had found in the shed behind the cottage, they transported things from the cottage to the manor house. They didn't bother to sort everything in the great hall but stacked things in haphazardly to organize later.

They emptied out the kitchen-all the food, the dishes, pots and pans, the table and chairs, and even the dishwashing liquid. Sophie dragged her luggage across the lawn, while Nikolas swung the settee onto his back and jogged it over. Gawain followed shortly afterward with the armchair balanced on his shoulder while he tucked the sitting room table under one arm.

While Sophie cleaned out the linen closet-sheets, blankets, bedspreads, towels and washcloths, laundry soap and toilet paper-and dumped everything into the wheelbarrow, the men insisted on moving all the bedroom furniture as well, even the bed frame.

"You're already giving up enough as it is," Nikolas said over her protests. "The least we can do is make sure you get a comfortable bed to sleep in."

Gawain even walked his Harley into the great hall. He said to Sophie, "The bike won't work in the land magic, but at least no one can vandalize or disable it while it's in the house, so we'll have it available just in case."

Straightening her aching back, she nodded. It was a good idea. "I only wish we could do the same with the Mini."

At that, the two men paused to a.s.sess the small car and then look at each other. "If we get both the oak doors open, it might fit," Nikolas said. "If we get enough momentum with the car, the engine will cut out when it gets close to the house, but it should coast close enough that we can push it the rest of the way."

"Really, guys?" Sophie didn't know whether to protest their effort or thank them.

"Yes, really," Nikolas told her. "It's a principle of siege warfare. You don't leave anything out for your enemy to use, dismantle, or destroy, if you can possibly avoid it. The Porsche is going to be toast. It's too big to fit through the doors, and sooner or later they'll find it, but we can at least hope to save the Mini. And you never know. We might need it."

His dark hair had fallen onto his brow with the expenditure of effort. He looked handsome, dangerous, and kissable all at once. Having s.e.x in the bathroom might have turned into a debacle, but in spite of that, she had managed to fall even deeper in love with him. She was afraid she had gone well past the point of it being a bad, bad cold. This feeling was turning into a life-threatening, flu-strength illness.

Then she flipped over to a kind of cheerful, macabre train of thought. Oh, well, they probably weren't going to survive the siege anyway. Because none of them were talking about what might come next, after they had been in the manor house for so long their supplies had run out, while they could very well discover that the broken crossover pa.s.sageway magic was just that-broken pieces that lead nowhere.

They were throwing everything they had at a mere possibility. They would be blockading themselves into a dead end with no proof of an emergency exit.

We're all insane, she thought. So I might as well enjoy loving him while I can, because it doesn't make any less sense than anything else we're doing.

In the meantime, she threw up her hands. "If you guys think you can fit it in through the doors, by all means. It's only a rental, but I didn't take out extra insurance for siege warfare and decimation caused by Hounds of the Light Court, so you'll be saving me some money."

Once they had cleared everything moveable out of the cottage, even the curtains, Sophie shooed the men outside.

She told them, "Don't step back inside now. We might be preparing for a siege, but we can also work on some misdirection. For whatever good it does, I'm going to clean everything with as many household chemicals as I can. Hopefully by the time Robin and I are done, n.o.body will be able to pick up yours or Robin's scents, either in the cottage or anywhere outside on the property. The storm might bring Hounds nosing around the property, but with any luck, if Morgan doesn't find anything, he should go away again, right?"

"We can hope," Nikolas said, giving her a dark look. "Unless Morgan gets information from another source."

By the mystified look on Gawain's face, Nikolas hadn't had a chance to tell the other man what they had learned from her most recent vision.

Her shoulders drooped. "Well," she said tiredly. "We'll do everything we can, and then we'll see how things play out."

Gawain patted her back. "That's all anyone ever can do."

Pulling out an extra burst of energy through sheer will, she attacked the interior of the cottage. Through the kitchen window, she paused briefly to watch Nikolas and Gawain force the second oaken door open in the deepening twilight. Then Nikolas loped back across the lawn to start the Mini and drive it toward the open doorway.

Sure enough, within fifteen yards or so, the car's engine died. It rolled a little farther, but the thick turf and the broken flagstones must have provided too much of a barrier, because it stopped well back from the doorway.

Nikolas leaped out, and Gawain joined him at the rear of the car. Together they pushed the Mini, seemingly without effort, into the house.

Mmm-hmm, that show of masculine strength wasn't s.e.xy in the slightest.

Sometimes she cracked herself up. She turned her attention back to cleaning the cottage. Basically, she threw bleach on everything that could take it and lemon floor polish on everything else. By the time she was finished, even she couldn't handle the smells inside. Stacking the cleaning supplies outside the door, she backed out of the cottage and locked it.

When she turned around, she found Gawain striding toward her. By the hard, tight expression on his face, she could tell that Nikolas had finally talked to him.

He put an arm around her and squeezed her against his side tightly enough to make her grunt. "You're going to be safe with us, la.s.s," he told her. "I swear it."

Sighing, she let her head fall onto his shoulder as she slipped an arm around his waist. "I didn't believe anything otherwise," she told him.

"Good." Unexpectedly, he turned his head to press a kiss against her forehead. "We're all at sixes and sevens right now, but you should know-you matter to him. You matter a great deal. He has to work through some things, so he might not be able to tell you that himself. If it matters to you enough to do it, la.s.s, try to give him some time, and hopefully he'll work his way through the heaviest of it."

At his words, the starch went out of her spine. She turned into him to give him a full-bodied hug. "Thank you for saying that, Gawain."

He returned the hug and patted her back. "You matter to me too, you know. Have faith, stay the course. We'll do right by you."

"It's okay," she told him. "I don't know the others, but I believe in you, and I believe in him. Whatever that means."

As he let her go, he smiled and touched the tip of her chin with his knuckles. As she looked up at his rugged, handsome features, she thought, oh Gawain, you're such a good man. You're not an a.s.shole in the slightest. Of course I couldn't fall for you.

While Gawain helped her to load the last of the cleaning supplies into the wheelbarrow, the first fat splash of raindrops began to fall. She warned, "Your null spell is going to wash off in this rain."

He paused, considering. "Maybe it doesn't matter, as long as Nikolas works inside the house," he said. He narrowed his eyes at the manor house. "I can't sense anything with the null spell on my hand. Can you sense his presence?"

She tried and couldn't. "I can't sense anything but the land magic."

"That's good news, la.s.s. Maybe it means the house will cover our presence like we'd hoped."

They jogged over to the manor house as the first few raindrops turned into a steady rain; then quickly it became a downpour.

They tossed everything through the front doors. As she peered inside, she saw that Nikolas had lit a small fire to one side of the ma.s.sive fireplace, and he stood beside it, head angled as he peered up at the chimney.

"Is it running clear?" Gawain called out.