"Different from you." She began to unbutton his shirt. "Your mother thinks that you and she speak the same language. Is that true?"

"Ouch! Another low blow. Your wit is as sharp as your wand tonight. Want to see mine?"

"With whom would you rather align yourself? Your sweet-spirited sister or your narrow-minded, mean-spirited mother?"

He kissed her. "You know the answer to that, but you'll look like a fool tomorrow, if I take out my debunking equipment."

"I beg to differ, and you will take it out. I'll dare you again and again until you do." She straddled him.

"If Meggie is goading you, she's still a brat. What else did she tell you about me?"

"Meggie is at rest for tonight. You and I are wasting time."

"You had to mention my mother. I'm not turned on anymore."

"This afternoon, in your parents' house, your mother was calling your name while we plucked our brains out."

"Rebellion!" he said, snapping his fingers. "Rebelling with you, Kismet, makes me hot."

"So let's rebel." She got off his lap, placed her red suitcase on the bed, and opened it.

Morgan looked closer. "What are they?"

"Surely your sex books mentioned how women manage on their own. There were enough chapters about how men do, which turned me on like crazy, by the way." She raised the first object. "This is a dual-action, multispeed kangaroo vibrator."

"Okay. Let's use it."

"That's only half the fun."

"Tell my pecker that."

She placed a second suitcase on the bed, a smaller one, and when she opened it, Morgan grabbed his heart, and his eyes glazed over. He fingered a red bustier and held it in front of her. "Put it on. Put it on."

"Not without the scarlet panties and spikes that go with it. What are you, a heathen? Do you want me to put it on in front of you, or do you want me to go in the other room to put it on, so you can get the full effect all at once?"

"Oh, I want the full effect. Not sure my heart can take it, but I'm game. Besides, I'll get the effect coming and going-pun intended-when I remove it to reveal every delicious inch of your flesh and when I come my brains out. Before you go, name some of the rest of these man toys for me, will you?"

"Yellow garter belt," she said, dangling it in front of him. "Sheer fuchsia bikinis with a slit-crotch entry system."

Morgan groaned.

"Purple camisole with matching V-string bikinis. I brought high heels to go with each set."

"No more. I can't take the heat. Neither can the studly spire. He's doing an Irish step dance."

"Your aura has been growing and getting brighter by the day, but right now, if I didn't know you better, I'd think you were happy."

Morgan gave her a wicked grin. "Hey, if the big guy is happy, I'm happy."

"Man brain doing your thinking?"

"Who cares? Man brain just learned how. Cut him some slack. He's in practice mode."

Destiny knuckled his studly spire to get a wild rise out of him before she turned on her heel and left the room.

"Oh, wicked girl," Morgan shouted after her. "Naughty, teasing, wicked playmate, you will so get what you deserve."

When she got back, Destiny stopped short. Morgan the grumblestiltskin, ex-virgin, ex-priest, naked on his bed-their bed-beneath her scattered underwear, a pair of yellow V-string panties swinging from his boner like a flag run up the flagpole in a high wind.

His aura had turned blue with white edges, which meant pure and loving, which she would never tell him.

"It's raining bras," he sang to the tune of "It's Raining Men," while wiggling a foot to wave her fuchsia underwire. He sat up and lost half his rain. "Sex on a hot tin roof," he said, licking his lips as he looked her up and down. "You look good enough to eat, and I'm starved. How do you prefer your foreplay?" he asked, raising a vibrator in each hand. "Bunny a la Mode or Pig in a Blanket?"

Oh, we got trouble, right here on Paxton Island. Morgan the Magnificent could play. He could try new things and make himself look like an ass to amuse her. Begone, trip wire to my heartstrings.

She could so fall for this man, and it scared the blessed thistle out of her.

Morgan rose on his knees and bowed. "I remain at your command. A feast awaits."

She got into the bed, pushed him back, and climbed on top of him to abrade his dick with the crotch of her scarlet panties, and her breasts fell from her scarlet bustier into his gleeful and expectant face. "I'll take the bunny," she said, "for bunny ears are tidbits of orgasmic delight. And you, my good man, shall get porked-which, by the way is a gnome, not a pig-to within an inch of your man glue."

Destiny found herself riding the epicenter of an earthquake, a bucking bronco of rare man laughter, an eruption so violent, she got thrown and landed on the bed, so Morgan could sit up and catch his breath.

Morgan Jarvis, carefree. Happy. Loud. Raucous.

The man who'd growled through the first four months of their acquaintance. The man who talked her ear off while necking on the night of Harmony's wedding, who'd grumbled as he walked down the aisle at Storm and Aiden's wedding.

Something in Morgan Jarvis had snapped.

More than his dick but less than his sanity.

Chapter Thirty-five.

SUDDENLY the laughter stopped, and something momentous and emotional took its place. Destiny didn't dare try to name it; she knew only that it existed.

As one, they swooped, and fell on the lingerie-strewn bed together, both aggressive and starving, giving and taking, coming and coming, slick with sweat, sticky with sex, each shouting or screaming, satisfaction guaranteed, sometimes together, sometimes in turn.

After the first formidable flash of lust, Morgan found Bunny a la Mode, turned it on, examined it, placed his thumb at the tip of its jackhammer ears, and grinned. "Hunh, hunh, hunh," he said, imitating a Frenchman by twisting his nonexistent handlebar mustache, "Thee bunny ears, they are deelicious for thee happee clit?"

Destiny rolled into him to hide her face, while he lowered her scarlet panties and rubbed his five o'clock shadow against her butt cheek, tickling her and staking his claim. Then he put the bunny where it belonged and played her like a French horn.

At one point, she was certain she'd passed out.

The following morning, Destiny woke to Morgan tickling her nose with a feather from her sex toy bag. She wiggled her nose, scratched it, and tried to go back to sleep.

"What have you done to me?" Morgan whispered rather earnestly.

"Witchcraft, that crazy witchcraft," she sang, keeping her eyes closed so she wouldn't wake up entirely.

He chuckled. "I don't think so."

"I planned to use that feather on your most prized possession," she said, rolling over and trying to go back to sleep.

"Please do." He feathered her ear.

"Mmm," she sighed.

"Come on, Kismet, get up. I feel like a new man today. Let's play. Tell me what you want to do, and we'll do it."

She rose up and leaned on an elbow. "I wanna play with your debunking equipment."

"No, that's crazy. We can't; I mean we don't need-"

"Yes, we do. A belly laugh and a good pluck do not a free man make. You need to talk to your sister."

"That again."

"You let me protect her, though you don't believe she's here?"

"I let you protect her, in case I'm wrong to disbelieve, because I was wrong once."

Destiny swatted him and got up, hoping to gain his cooperation by manipulating him with her nakedness. "Get your debunking equipment and prove me wrong, or yon rising sex slayer will rust from disuse."

"Now don't go off half-timbered," he said following her to the shower. "Letting the big guy rust sure trumps a headache."

After separate showers and breakfast, Morgan reluctantly set up his debunking equipment.

Deep inside, Destiny was doing a happy dance. She planned to make him see his sister, come hail or high priestess, which called for a couple of silent spells, the first to wake Meggie, the next to wake Morgan.

Angel wings unfold

Allow Meggie sight.

Meggie, my sweet,

Come into the light.

Horace, Meggie, and her angel appeared in the center of the rug, almost like the first time she'd seen them, except that this morning, they were watching Morgan set up his equipment.

Memories unfold

Give Morgan sight

Morgan, my dear,

Come into the light.

His debunking equipment with all those wires and dials and recording devices looked complicated. He brought the recording stuff into the kitchen, where Meggie had had her tantrum, and it took him a while to set it up.

"It's plugged in and running," he said returning to the parlor.

Meggie shrugged. "I could have a tantrum in here, too."

"What?" Morgan asked.

"You're sister's being flip."

"Quiet, brat."

"She's sticking her tongue out at you."