She found herself caught up in Morgan's arms. Him, comforting her, rocking her, kissing her brow, offering solace when he had suffered so deeply. "What is it?" he asked. "Des, tell me what's wrong."

"I should have told them what I saw," she sobbed against his strong and sturdy chest. "She'd be alive if I told. I'm sorry. So sorry."

Chapter Twelve.

DESTINY felt Morgan go still. "Who'd be alive? Who, Destiny?"

"I-" She opened her eyes. "Morgan? I don't know who. I was lost in a mist. Time had shifted, and you were-"

"You," he corrected too quickly, "were having a nightmare." He kissed her brow, the walls of Jericho behind his back. "Are you all right? Do you want a glass of water?"

"No, thank you."

"Wanna push me in the ocean again? Would that make you feel better?"

"Yes," she said, because she knew he wanted her mind away from her dream. Or her vision of the past?

The relief in his easing grasp and the slowing beat of his heart confirmed as much. "Okay if I let you go now?" he asked.

Destiny wanted to say no, but after the books she saw, she sensed that, when it came to intimacy, Morgan needed to make the first move.

"Yes, you can let me go now, if you want to. I'm fine, thank you. It's pink granite gravestones that give me the creeps."

His muscles beneath her hands became taut again. He let her go and returned to the opposite side of their wall, creaking the springs and mumbling beneath his breath about pink granite angels and walls he didn't want toppled.

Tired as well from the short night they'd had last night, Destiny felt herself nodding off. She slept fitfully, exhausted, but not in a good way, with dreams or visions skipping in and out of her mind, giving her incomplete peeks into the sequence of events that had brought her here. She saw twins and a fanatical uncle, the priest who baptized them.

She woke with a gasp. A clue, maybe. Unlikely. Possibly.

She changed positions, kicked off the blankets, and woke again, this time with one of Morgan's hands cupping her breast. Loving the tactile experience, her nipple growing into his palm, she closed her eyes.

The next time she woke, she came wide-awake, because they were snuggled crotch to bottom, with nothing but the walls of Jericho, her Bite Me underwear, and maybe a pair of his red silk boxers between them.

Dawn hadn't quite made an appearance as she felt herself being poked and spooned by an aroused male. This was real. This was Morgan making the first move, if he was awake, and even if he wasn't.

"Gee, who could that be?" she whispered. "I like."

Morgan didn't answer.

Destiny wiggled her butt to test his cock; yes, his rigidity and its resting place beneath her bottom gave the impression of length, or perhaps that was witchful thinking.

Morgan groaned at her movement, but asleep or awake? Who cared? She wallowed in her power and gave his fine, firm dick the wiggling run of its randy life.

Morgan moaned and changed position. He must be awake. No sleeping male would move away from that kind of pressure on his boner. A sleeping man would instinctively move toward it.

She shouldn't be so proud of herself for getting him hard, because she was as ready and willing as him, with no relief in sight. And he should at least call her a tease. Something. "You wanna relieve that ache?" she asked, but he didn't answer. Maybe he was embarrassed. Hesitant. "Tenderness means more than skill," she repeated, and still he didn't move.

"Fine, but you should know that I'm hot, and it's your fault." Destiny huffed and tried to get comfortable, all but throwing her frustrated body into an assortment of positions, mostly to annoy him, until she saw his leg on her side of the bed like an escaped refugee beneath their blanket wall.

Hot damn. This she could work with.

She threw a leg over his, pushed her hot, flowering mound against his thigh, raised her knee, and let it ride his pulsing boner, barely northwest of the blanket border.

Comfortable for the first time since Morgan had come to bed, Destiny sighed and drifted in ecstasy as he slipped a hand down her back and into her panties to cop a feel and cup her. She did the same, a hand beneath his boxers, found his buns, as soft as a baby's cheek, but she did a bit more exploring than he'd dared.

She cupped and palmed every inch of his perfect butt cheeks, then she stroked him between his legs all the way to the root of his desire.

Once she found that delicious spot, she rubbed it, just there at the root, no higher, in small circles, then up and down the slightest bit, until he moaned again and splayed his hand to cup her butt tighter, pulling her moist mound against his leg, pushing her knee tighter against his burgeoning sex.

She wanted to come. He wanted to come. And they were both too wise to yank down that freaking blanket. Evidently, he wasn't emotionally ready to take that step. She could respect that. But physically? Oh brother, was he ready.

She couldn't help herself. Her need to give overrode her need to get. She rocked against his boner with her knee and matched the rhythm of her hand at the base of it. Yes, he'd learned staying power. What an incredible turn on. But she was in control, and they both knew it. He rode the wave of her manipulation until he began to rock against her mound, and though they couldn't see each other, she came and didn't hide her pleasure.

After she did, he rocked faster, as if he wanted her to come again, so she obliged. Amazing with a blanket between them, but maybe that's how he needed it to be for now.

She closed her thumb and forefinger around the base of him, squeezed, released, squeezed, and slid her hand upward, not far, but he moaned. She took it slow and did it again. He moaned again. She came again. This might be the best sex she'd ever had. Kinky. Nearly blindfolded. No kissing. Just the glorious, mysterious basics.

He must have felt the wetness of her come on his leg, because he moved as if he'd been challenged and rode her so she came again.

Destiny sped her movements, closed two fingers around his base, sliding, sliding, three fingers, her whole fist, picked up speed, and she soared one last outrageous time. At the same moment, something warm hit her knee, her leg. As he groaned his pleasure, his arms tightened around her, and his brow settled against hers, with only the blanket wall between them.

Destiny drifted into sated sleep and opened her eyes to full light, glad to be alone, warmed by her memories, and on fire over her brazenness. She hoped the experience had the same exacerbating effect on Morgan's libido as it did on hers.

Hot, ready, and distracted, Destiny found that preparing to dress took more thought than usual. She planned her wardrobe before showering. She didn't have a T-shirt based on Meggie's information about Morgan, so she decided to make one to fit the bill. Then she decided to take it a step further. Easier said than done. Her clothes at the base of the tower's circular stairs didn't give her a lot of choices. Most were still wet though no longer dripping. And the rest? Yech.

Wrinkled and stiff from salt water, but dry, her peach Instigator T-shirt would work. How appropriate, since at this moment, she embraced instigation. Destiny turned the shirt inside out and went to their makeshift art studio for her acrylic paints.

She was glad he said he wasn't a priest, because seducing a priest would be bad karma. Never mind that she'd kept picturing him wearing the cassock; he'd denied it. So there.

She'd wear her shirt without a bra-his lucky day-so she put it on and painted a hot pink pastel heart around each of her hard nipples.

Hard from remembering and anticipating more of same.

Carefully, so as not to smudge the paint, she raised the shirt over her head and flattened it on Morgan's drawing board. With pastels and concentration, she painted, Cassock Wearers Welcome, above the hearts, added an I between the hearts, then Dare You beneath that.

Okay, so subtlety didn't enter into this, but sexually speaking, Morgan seemed as thick as a California red-wood, and according to Meggie, he hated to turn down a dare.

Destiny mentally rubbed her hands with wicked glee, cackling like a cartoon witch, except that the apple she offered was hot and wet, free of poison, full of sparks, and aching for a sweet, tasty nibble.

She figured that wearing a suggestive shirt wasn't quite like making the first sexual move. It was like opening the door so that Morgan might feel comfortable stepping inside to make his move-his first true move.

Down in the kitchen, near the lingering, coffee-making warmth of the prairie cookstove, she spotted the corner of a picture frame on the top shelf of the Hoosier cabinet, a perfect spot to leave her shirt, paint side up, to dry.

By the time she'd showered, wrapped a towel around herself, and gathered the mums, Chinese lanterns, and silver dollars she found in the backyard, her seductive shirt was done to a T.

Destiny loved working with acrylics, especially on fabric, because the paint dried quick as a wink. A tease like her needed a quick wink now and again.

After she dressed and applied her makeup, she put on the woven straw hat she'd bought to help fight breast cancer, took a container of yogurt from the ancient fridge, mixed in a handful of frozen cranberries and a teaspoon of flaxseed, grabbed a spoon, and went outside.

She found Morgan whistling a Sousa march as he painted the molding that formed squares on the front door, Caramello perched beside him on a wooden bench, talking up a storm.

"Good, gorgeous morning," Destiny said. "Isn't it?"

"Good morning, gorgeous," Morgan said, turning a fine beet red as he leaned a hand on the paint can cover, paint side up, in an effort to appear nonchalant.

Once his indifference was blown, and he'd wiped his hand, he cupped her nape, pulled her close, lowered his lips to hers, and kissed her like she'd never been kissed in her life. His way of acknowledging the night before with thanks, she imagined. Fine with her. For a man with his limited sexual experience, 'nuff said.

Regaining his bearings-not an easy task, judging by his fumbling-he noticed the message on her shirt for the first time, and gave it a double take, an intrigued spark entering his eyes. "Cassock wearers get their own statement shirts?"

"Statement shirt? It's a freaking engraved invitation. Cassock wearers can remove said shirt as well."

"You're wearing it inside out."

"Just for you." She spooned some of her yogurt into his mouth.

He made a sound of surprised appreciation. "You know anybody who wears cassocks?" he asked, returning to his painting.

"Scads of men."

"Any of them ever take you up on that invite?"

She sighed. "Only in my dreams."

Chapter Thirteen.

"YOU'D better go find one then," he said a minute later. "Can't let that shirt go to waste."

She froze and nearly dropped her yogurt. Huge disappointment. He'd played as much of the game as was in him in the light of day.

Backpedal, Cartwright. Don't let him see you drool.

"I thought you looked lonely out here," she said, determined to draw him out.

He indicated Caramello adoring him from the porch rail. "Chatty Kitty here's been keeping me company since I got up, though she went ballistic when she followed me into the shower and I turned it on. She can jump a six foot wall, did you know that?"

"She's a regular catapult." Destiny petted her arching cat while trying not to let Morgan's embarrassment affect her. "Why do you never talk to me, Caramello?"

"Must be my animal attraction," Morgan said.

Destiny elbowed him. "First time I see your cocky side. Your emotional cocky side," she added quickly. "I like it better than your cranky side."

Morgan eyed her shirt. "By the looks of that shirt, and the bra you're not wearing, you're bucking to see more of my . . . cocky side."

She stepped closer. "Well, this invite is special."

"So it is, which leaves me out."

Caramello jumped into the space between them.

Destiny scratched her cat behind the ears, knuckle deep in soft, lush fur. "I think my Cara's in love with you."

"And she's jealous of you." Morgan raised Caramello for an eye to eye, and her cat got all feline flirty and uberchatty. Humph. She did have a rival for Morgan's affections. Good thing the cat had gotten shut out of their room last night. Cara wouldn't have liked what they were doing.

Like a catapult, she would have tried to stop them.

"Thanks for soothing my nightmares last night, by the way. I hope you were able to sleep . . . after."

This time only his ears got red. "Like a baby," he said, his gaze locked on hers. Their first true eye to eye since the best sex of her life. "You?" he asked.

"Like a babe. Yeah, that." She looked around, wondering what color her face had turned. The patch of Chinese lanterns growing between the porch and the plank walkway in front of the lighthouse looked brighter this morning, the trees in the distance like a watercolor wash of red, orange, and yellow. "Prettier than a painting," she said. "I love this place."

"I love it, too." But he had given his attention back to his project.

"Coral is a great color for the door trim," Destiny said as she took a turreted, multilevel Victorian birdhouse off the porch rail. Painted in shades of sage, cream, and eggplant, it looked like a regular painted lady of the San Francisco variety. "This is gorgeous, a truly talented work of art. Where did you get it?"

"It's my design and my handiwork. I build birdhouses for fun."

"You? Building birdhouses? Now there's a hobby that doesn't fit my image of the stern Morgan Jarvis."

"You? Cooking? There's a hobby that doesn't fit my image of the mysterious Destiny Cartwright." He wiped his paint-stained hands on a rag. "Hidden depths, the both of us," he said. "I think the coral accentuates the brick perfectly."

Deeply hidden depths. "Coral would be my choice." It had been her choice, once upon a painting.

Morgan wiggled a brand-new paintbrush before her eyes. "Finish your breakfast, and I might let you help with the molding on the back door."

"How grateful am I?"

They finished the trim on both doors by eleven.

"No more manual labor for today," Morgan said as they made sandwiches for lunch.

"What's this?" he asked when he saw her painting hanging on the kitchen wall.

"It's a swarm of ladybugs on a coffeepot. See the spout?"

"I can tell what it is, but it's new to the room. How'd it get here?"