Destiny sought Morgan with her gaze, but he stood in the far corner of the dining room, adjacent to the parlor, asking his father how he was feeling. How could she interrupt them?

She swallowed and tried to calm herself. "Mrs. Jarvis," she said when the woman rose from the oval, fringed persimmon area rug. "Is there anything I can do to help you in the kitchen?"

How stupid. This wasn't Sunday dinner in the seventies. And she didn't need anyone's approval.

So an ex-priest brought a witch home to meet the parents. So what? Normal new millennium stuff, though somebody forgot to tell the mother from hell-positively appropriate in this case-who hadn't responded to her offer of help, anyway.

Olive, as her husband called her, had ignored her offer and marched into the kitchen, letting the swinging door shut in her face. Charming hostess.

Destiny had at first pictured Morgan's mother as a green Olive. Now the woman appeared more in her mind's eye like a black one, though she didn't want to be unfair. She liked black olives.

Destiny girded her loins and confronted the fighter in her kitchen. While being ignored, she noticed the statue of one of their saints facing the wall. To keep busy and useful, she turned it right side out to face the kitchen.

Morgan's mother rushed over to turn the statue back to the wall. "When the Blessed Mother doesn't do as I ask, I can't look at her," Olive snapped.

Whoa. Destiny backed up a step. "Do you turn the statue in the bathtub, too?"

"Brazen thing."

This must be how Morgan felt that first night at the lighthouse, after she gave him a concussion, the cart fell on his balls, and Caramello clawed him.

Olive Jarvis opened a linen drawer, took out a black cloth, and draped it over the statue. "The wall's too good for her now that Father Morgan's brought home a hussy!"

Shock caught Destiny by the throat. She stepped back as if struck, faced the venom in the woman's expression, and raised her chin. "That would be the Whore of Babylon, thank you."

Chapter Twenty-nine.

MORGAN ran when he heard Destiny's scream.

He found her doubled over in the kitchen, trying to catch her breath, except she wasn't crying, thank God. She was laughing.

Judging by his mother's mottled burgundy face, she looked like her head might explode.

Morgan took Destiny's arm. "Kismet, are you okay?" He caught his mother's evil eye and changed tack. "Destiny, what's wrong?"

"Her expression when I-because she-" Destiny pointed his mother's way but couldn't seem to catch her breath enough to talk, because she was laughing too hard. She fell against him, tears streaming down her face. "Not important." Destiny shook her head. "House?" she whispered in his ear, her hand in his hair as she tried to subdue her breath-stealing, hiccupping laughter. "Show me the house."

Translation: "Get me the holy Hades out of here." He knew the feeling well.

"Mother, I'm giving Destiny a tour of the house to calm her down." He led Destiny through the dining room, and she started laughing again as she maneuvered him toward the stairs. As they passed his father, his dad winked.

At the top of the stairs, Destiny stopped. "Your room," she said.

Morgan took Destiny to his old room, a boy's room with bunk beds and red and blue plaid curtains. Nevertheless, the laughing charmer closed the door and went for his zipper.

"What are you-?"

"I'm a hussy, I know." She unzipped him and pulled out his enthusiastic pecker, pushed him back against the mattress of the bottom bunk, where he'd slept as a kid, followed him down, and impaled herself.

"This bed never felt so good," he said, raising his hips to meet her.

"Morgan?" his mother called from a distance. "Morgan, are you up there?"

"Bathroom!" he whispered, helping Destiny off him, both of them groaning, hitting their heads on the top bunk, and making for the bathroom, him hobbling like an ass with his pants around his knees.

Destiny started laughing all over again, at him, at them. "I like being a hussy."

He locked them in, leaned Destiny against the pale blue tiles edged in black, and slipped inside her warm and welcoming center.

It was wild, taking the woman you lo-lusted after, under dangerous circumstances, with the threat of getting caught.

Faster and faster he surged, kissing Destiny, devouring her, as greedy and insatiable as him, cupping his ass, fondling his balls, and generally making him hotter. "This is the most fun I ever had at my parents' house," he whispered.

A knock at the bathroom door nearly gave him a heart attack.

They stilled. Destiny's eyes got so wide, he kissed her.

"Morgan?" his mother called from the other side of the door. "Are you in there?" She jiggled the knob, and his heart actually stopped.

Des saw the fear on his face and looked as if she was about to crack up again. Who wouldn't? How absurd was this? His mother trying to break in on them.

What was she gonna do if she caught them? Ground him?

He placed his hand gently over Destiny's mouth, and she placed her hand over his, her eyes dancing merrily, her hips beginning a slow torture that he couldn't stop or deny. Damn it, at thirty years old, he could damn well do what he wanted and who he wanted wherever he wanted.

They moved in sync, slow and silent-sex, sex, sex-in his old room, his little old bathroom, but who cared, because Destiny was here milking him, until he lost control, they both did, and they exploded together, fast and bright as the sun, there in his parents' house, no sin allowed.

Morgan stayed inside Destiny, his palms on the wall on either side of her head, his breath coming hard and fast.

He kissed the perspiration on her brow, her cheek, her nose, and then her lips again, hungry and sated at the same time. He brought her head against his heartbeat. She kissed his knuckles. A perfect moment, if he didn't have to figure out what to say when they got downstairs.

He heard the back door slam, which brought him to action. "Quick, we have to clean up. Sex is sticky," he noted, bringing the amusement back into Destiny's eyes.

They washed each other, the most intimate experience of all. He wanted to kiss her again. He liked her, sincerely. So much so that he wanted to show her every silly pebble and seashell in his childhood collection box.

After they washed and got their underwear in place, they faced the mirror, him standing behind her. He straightened his collar while Destiny, a head shorter, brushed her hair. She turned, and he patted the moisture on her brow, cheeks, and neck, while she stood on tiptoes and rearranged his hair.

Finally, he fished her strappy high-heeled sandals from behind the toilet, and she put them on, which raised her up and brought her head to his chin.

"Lipstick," she said.

"No thanks."

"Too late," she said. "You're wearing it instead of me."

"Oh, good God." One more shot at the mirror with a facecloth for him and a tube of lipstick for her.

He looked for a place to put the lipstick-covered facecloth, and decided it was time his mother grew up. He folded it over the towel rack, lipstick side out.

At the top of the stairs, he took Destiny's hand. "Chin up," he said, as they went downstairs side by side. "I'll take care of this."

His father rattled his newspaper and jumped from his easy chair. "Quick, sit on the couch and grab a crab puff. I told her you went to see the neighbors' prizewinning garden." He winked. "She'll be back any-there's my bride." His father turned back to them. "The neighbors have a new baby, a boy. She miscarried four times in the last six years, and they're so excited. He's such a blessing."

"Gordon, mind your talk in company."

"Olive, we're all family here."

"It's me, Mr. Jarvis. I don't think Mrs. Jarvis considers me family."

His mother gave a tight-lipped nod. "If the miniskirt fits."

Chapter Thirty.

MORGAN coughed. What was he supposed to say to that? To the devil with being careful; his mother could stand the truth for once. "I like Destiny's skirt. I especially like looking at her legs in it."

His mother regarded Destiny with deep dislike then-an understatement. "I won't let you destroy him," she snapped.

"Did you just threaten my friend? It sounded like you threatened her," he said. "Mother, Destiny is our guest. You taught me to be gracious to guests in this house."

Destiny elbowed him. "It's okay, Morgan. Your mother has a right to her own opinion. I'm a big girl. I can take care of myself."

He pulled Destiny down to the sofa and slipped his arm around her, brought her close, lifted his legs, and crossed his ankles on the coffee table, a rebellious act that he wouldn't get called on, because he was the chosen child. "I'm playing your knight in shining armor, Kismet."

"I'll let you," Destiny said. "If and when I ever have an enemy who needs vanquishing."

Saints alive, he couldn't fight them both. "Mother?" Morgan sat forward. "Is lunch ready yet? We've got a long ride back."

Conversation at the table became stilted when all avenues, also known as "the third degree," led to the undeniable and unspoken conclusion that he and Destiny were both staying at the lighthouse.

"I thought the lighthouse had only one bedroom," his father said.

Destiny rubbed her nose. "It has four bedrooms, Mr. Jarvis."

Morgan cleared his throat. "But only one bed. That's why I'm glad that you taught me to share, Mother."

His father coughed into his napkin, his mother sucked lemons, and Destiny kicked him under the table. "Quit poking the tiger," she whispered. "Seriously, Mrs. Jarvis," Destiny said. "Why aren't there any pictures of Meggie in the house?"

His father now choked on the coffee he'd sipped to stop coughing.

Destiny stood and poured Morgan's father a glass of water from the pitcher on the table. "Should you be having coffee, Mr. Jarvis," she asked, "if you're not feeling well?"

"I feel wonderful. Never better. Why would you think-"

Morgan's mother coughed, rearranged the napkin in her lap, and Morgan's father shut up.

"Mother, Dad," Morgan said, standing and pulling Destiny up with him. "We have to go now. Thanks for lunch." He took Destiny's purse from the floor and set it on the table. It fell over, and her huge pink penis pop rolled into the center of the table.

His mother screamed as if a rat sat there.

His father's rolling belly laugh about knocked him over. He'd never heard Gordon Jarvis laugh like that in his life.

"Well, Dad, you do sound healthy. Thanks for the talk. The hussy thanks you, too." Morgan railroaded Destiny to the door. When he'd nearly got her over the threshold, she stopped and tugged him to a halt.

She stood her stubborn ground, and he got a really bad feeling about that. "By the way, Mrs. Jarvis," Destiny said, "I'm a wit-"

Morgan yanked her into his arms and shut her up the only way he knew how. He kissed her, and kissed her again, after which, he picked her up, still dazed from the kiss-both of them-and carried her down the walk. He deposited her in the passenger seat of his rebellious Mustang and walked around to the driver's side.

He would have gotten away, if his father hadn't come ambling out to the car, hands in his pockets. Morgan rolled down his window, but his dad went around to the passenger side.

Destiny rolled down her window, and as if she and his dad were on the same wavelength, she raised her face for his father's kiss.

"You're good for my boy," his father said. "I like you."

Then his father came to his side and strangled on his words, as usual.

"Say it, Dad. You're allowed to say any damned thing you please."

The poor man, who'd rarely been allowed to talk around his wife, blustered, but for maybe the first time in Morgan's life, he unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth. "I love you, son. Be happy." He squeezed Morgan's shoulder. "You have good taste in women." Then his father turned and went back into the house to face the wrath of Olive the Ornery.

If Morgan didn't know better, he'd think his father had just congratulated him for getting laid.

"Quick," Destiny said. "Drive, before your mother comes after me with a broom."

"It would serve you right if she tried, after nearly telling her you're a witch."

"Sorry, I got carried away."

"Ya think?"

She broke into laughter all over again.

Charmed the holy frustration out of him. Scared the swell out of him, too.