He had no such hang ups.

"Good morning," he murmured and joined her on the bed. He slid down to suckle on one unsuspecting breast. She grabbed his head and arched with pleasure, only to cry out as sore muscles protested.

Instantly he stopped, concerned. "Are you alright?"

She gave him a rueful smile. "Just a little sore, is all. It surprised me."

"Ah." He looked down at the painful area, hidden under the blankets, until she squirmed. He sighed. "I shall have to be very careful with you, I see." Casanova poked his nose at him, asking for attention, and he petted the little villi. As he did he shifted, exposing himself to her.

Jasmine looked away.

He smiled and gave her another sweet kiss. "You have nothing to fear, my love. I like it when you look at me." He took her hand and guided it to him, showed her what he liked. "I like it even better when you touch me."

Given formal permission, Jasmine explored him. She watched as her hand moved from wet tip and silky-hardness to the vulnerable testi at the base. All the while, he neither flinched nor displayed the least bit of self-consciousness. When she began to stroke him with a rhythmic pattern, he wrapped his hand around hers and showed her the proper pressure and timing, then let go and let her have her way. Head back, he reveled in the pleasure. It was beautiful.

He was beautiful.

Afterward they shared a bath. As they cleansed away the exertions of the night, new fires began. She was still too tender to fully appreciate his loving, but still she wanted him too badly to stop. She knew it would get better every time until nothing was left but pure, sweet pleasure.

They ate breakfast and reclined on the bed afterward. Keilor held her against his chest while they talked.

"We'll need to choose a suite," Keilor murmured, drawing her hair away to kiss her neck. "Our rooms aren't suitable for a mated couple." She felt him smile against her skin. "I think we'll have to take this bed and the mirror with us, though."

Some of her drowsiness fled and she turned over to swat him in playful warning. "Don't you dare!" He grinned and nipped at her, then pretended to wrestle, ending their play with a long, drugging kiss.

Reluctantly he drew away, murmuring, "Many more nights." He settled her comfortably into his arms. With his chin on her head, he said, "Jayems' and Rihlia's wedding ceremony is tonight. Maybe you should get some rest. It's bound to be a long evening."

A sudden thought struck her, and she leaned up on one elbow, her head on her hand. "Do we have to have a ceremony?"

He brushed her hair off her shoulder. "Do you want one?" he asked, feeling indulgent. If that was what she wanted, he wouldn't argue. Personally, he'd never favored public ceremonies, and wouldn't feel any more married for it. As far as he and Haunt law were concerned, she was now his wife.

She frowned and looked at the bed. "To tell the truth, I'd rather just skip it. It seems like a lot of bother just to announce to the world that we're, ah, married."

The careful way she said it raised his short hairs. He pinned her with a hard stare. "You gave me your promise, charmer."

It was the wrong word to use.

She wouldn't look at him. "I said I was yours for as long as you want me." She took a deep breath. "In twenty or thirty years-"

He forced her to look at him, to see his anger. "My promise was for a lifetime, wife. And I meant it." She pulled away, and he cursed the fact that she was too new to loving to speak with his body. She needed his possession right now.

Unsure what else to do, he got up and pulled on his clothes, intent on working off his frustration. "I don't understand you, woman," he said grimly. He tugged on the carefully polished boots, so at odds with his careless housekeeping. "One moment you trust me enough to take me to your bed, and the next you are taking me for an honorless animal."

She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off, his eyes sparking gold. "You've got something to learn about your new world, wife. Haunt men take but one mate, and we don't touch another woman for as long as she lives, unless we wish to go insane. Unlike humans, once mated, for us there is no going back. As soon as the fluids mix, a connection is made that won't bear severance.

"Unlike you, I can never play you false. Do you not think I considered that carefully before I spoke to Jayems?"

"I'm not planning to run off with the butler and the family jewels the first chance I get!" Most of what he said went right over her head. He already thought of her betraying him? Is that what he expected? "I was just trying to give you breathing room, a chance to bow out gracefully when-"

He turned on his heel and stalked to the door. "I'm not listening to any more of this. If I'd known what madness it was to take a human for a wife-" The door slammed, cutting off whatever else he had to say.

Jasmine stared at the door, wondering what just happened. She'd tried to be considerate. He'd never be able to have kids with her, and she couldn't believe he wouldn't be revolted once old age set in. It wouldn't be fair not to let him go.

Her chest constricted, and she flinched at the thought of Keilor taking another lover, or a wife. She'd be better off to think of this as an extended affair.

Her eyes prickled, and she flopped back on the bed, her arm over her eyes. So much for the honeymoon.

The moment Rihlia saw her somber face, she dropped everything. She dragged Jasmine into her old room and firmly shut the door. The lock snicked shut.

The women who'd hovered around her, fussing over her wedding dress, protested loudly. They were ignored.

"Out with it," she demanded, and sat down on the bed. She pulled Jasmine down to the white and yellow quilt. "I know Keilor spent the night with you."

"Ri!" Jasmine rolled her eyes and avoided her friend's curious gaze. She felt guilty for taking her away from her wedding preparations, but she'd needed to talk to someone, and somehow she'd doubted Keilor would appreciate her talking to the door guards.

"So now you're married," she continued, all curiosity, not realizing in her happiness that Jasmine wasn't nearly as thrilled.

"Sort of," Jasmine hedged.

A frown gathered on Rihlia's brow. "Sort of? How can you be *sort of' married, Jas? Didn't you sleep with him? Didn't he make you a promise?" A golden square of sunlight from the mullioned windows sparkled on the gems in her hair. Their gaiety was a sharp contrast to her expression of concern. No bride should look so serious.

Jasmine picked at the quilt. "Yes, but it doesn't mean anything. I told him I didn't want a ceremony, and he was okay with that. He told me he loves me and that's good enough for me, for as long as it lasts."

Rihlia peered at her in pained disbelief. "As long as it lasts, Jas? You make love sound like the stomach flu."

Jasmine took a deep breath and explained as logically as she knew how. "It's like I told him, Ri, I'm going to get old a lot sooner than he will. I'll waste away, shrivel up. Hey, for all I know, I'll get Alzheimer's and go senile on him. How would that be fair?" She shook her head. "Like I said, I'll take what I can get for as long as it lasts."

She glanced at her best friend and was shocked to see a single tear track down her cheek. "Ri?" she asked, uncertain what was wrong. She reached out to comfort her.

She shrank away from Jasmine's touch and stood up. "Do you know what it is for a Haunt to take a mate? Of course you don't," she said, answering her own question. Her voice was laden with heavy emotion. "You can be with only one person, if you are a Haunt. That's why I could only go so far with men before. My instincts stopped me."

She closed her eyes and fought back tears. "Jas-you have no idea. Once I was with Jayems, once we had been together, made love... Jas," her voice cracked. "He was a virgin, too."

Jasmine stared at her in shock. Jayems, a virgin?

Rihlia found her composure. "We can mess around all we want, touching and kissing whomever we please, but the moment we cross that line, we can never go back. That's why it's a marriage. It has to be."

Still at sea, Jasmine said, "I don't understand."

Frustrated, Rihlia searched for something Jasmine could comprehend. Inspiration struck. "Do you remember what you said about your first time?" she asked as she sat on the bed. "You told me it was mildly pleasant, but you felt detached and empty. Remember?" When Jasmine nodded, she asked, "Was it that way with Keilor?"

Jasmine sucked in a breath. "There was no comparison. I had feelings for him, and he clearly.... She lowered her eyes in embarrassment. "He was clearly a better lover." Unbidden, the image of him as he'd been this morning, completely focused and relaxed as he'd let her touch him, came to mind. There had been no barriers of any kind for him. Because he assumed there would never be anyone else?

She felt misgiving as she remembered how her own walls had come down when he'd been killing her with pleasure. In that moment, everything she was belonged to him and only him. Was Rihlia trying to say they were like that with their mates all the time?

A frantic bubble of fear rose to her throat and lodged. How could they survive without armor and walls to hold others at bay? She wouldn't, couldn't! Surely he wouldn't expect that of her? She wasn't capable of that kind of sustained vulnerability.

Something in her face must have given her away, for Rihlia said, very gently, "You became a part of him, connected with something deep inside him that no one has ever touched. Something so much deeper than a loss of virginity I can barely describe it. If you ever tried to take that away..." Words failed her.

A little frightened and a lot shaken, Jasmine got to her feet. This was a lot more complicated than she'd thought. "He was a virgin?" she asked, repeating the most difficult of the concepts to accept.

Rihlia nodded.

"A virgin," Jasmine repeated. How could such a confident, competent man possibly be a virgin? She'd heard men use the word as an insult. She just couldn't reconcile her image of innocence and fumbling inexperience with anything about Keilor, or the Haunt for that matter. Her eyes boggled as another thought hit her. "Fallon is a virgin?"

Rihlia grinned. "Every unmated male is a virgin, silly. Every woman, too."

"Urseya?" She still remembered Urseya standing in nothing but a thin slick of mud, boldly flirting with Keilor.

"I never said they weren't experienced, you goober," Rihlia said, giving her a friendly little push. "Sticking it in doesn't take brains or skill. Even amoebas manage to reproduce." She smirked. "I take it Keilor was one hot number."

This time, Jasmine felt her entire body blush. She hid her face in her hands. What an understatement!

Now she understood what Keilor had been talking about with his rantings about exchanging fluids. Armed with the knowledge Keilor had been a virgin, Jasmine had several things she urgently needed to discuss with him.

She returned to her room to avoid the flurry surrounding Rihlia, but Keilor didn't show up soon enough to suit her, and pacing only fed her frustration. She decided to seek him out. She checked in his room, but he wasn't there. The mess hadn't improved since the last time she'd visited. She hesitated, looked around. Did he ever let the maids in here?

Since he wasn't around to tell her no, she decided to muck out some of the refuse, starting with the nasty blanket on his gray mattress. Using as few fingers as she could, she drug the icky thing over to the door and started a trash pile.

That mattress had to go, she decided as she viewed the lumpy thing with hands on hips. It looked like it had been slept on by a team of huskies, peed on, and left to dry out in somebody's driveway.

This called for manly muscles. Fortunately, she knew just where to find some.

She threw open the door and surveyed Raziel and Isfael, who were on duty today. Raziel glanced at her from where he was slouched against the opposite wall, arms crossed and one leg slack, obviously bored. His limp red sash and scarlet insignia were the only hints of color about him today. A silver earring dangled from one ear.

Poor Isfael just looked stoic.

For the life of her, she couldn't figure out why Keilor was wasting officers to guard her when even Rihlia only had regular soldiers. They weren't exactly models of discipline, either. More than once she'd walked out and found them at a game of dice. She shrugged it off. They were a likable pair, and they'd gone a long way towards helping her to relax around the Haunt.

She raised her brows at them. "So, when are you two going to get a real job?" Raziel snorted but didn't move. Isfael gave her a toothy and decidedly unnerving grin. Girding her loins, she said, "Hey, I know you guys aren't servants, but I've got something heavy here I need to get rid of. Could one of you give me a hand?"

The pair followed her into the room and she propped her hands on her hips again with a grimace. "Can you believe this mess?" she asked with disgust. "The man runs an entire army and probably tortures his recruits with inspections and stuff, but he can't even be bothered to pick up his socks."

"Rank has its privileges."

Startled, Jasmine whirled around and stared. Isfael and Raziel had shifted into human form. Isfael was uglier than sin, and she thought with a flash of chagrin that the poor guy looked much better covered in hair. Raziel was unremarkable in appearance, except for his piercing blue eyes. Both of them nodded at her with respect.

"Congratulations on your new match," Raziel said, and she realized he was the one who had spoken. "Keilor is a good friend of ours, and we wish his new wife every happiness,"

"Happiness and a long life," Isfael seconded.

Jasmine frowned lightly. "Well, I don't know about the long life, but I'm definitely going for happiness. Thank you."

Isfael unclipped a pouch from his belt, flipped up the cover and extracted a folded belt and a black laser gun. He presented both to her with a toothy smile. "We thought Keilor's wife ought to have her own gun. This way, if he gets out of line, you can bring him to heel."

Jasmine laughed and took the holstered weapon. "Thank you," she told them, and tried it on for size. It fit very well. When she looked up again, they had shifted back. She blinked and shivered. "You guys have got to stop doing that."

Shaking her head, she pointed four fingers of her right hand at the mattress, thumb folded in, and then jerked her thumb over her shoulder, indicating that it had to go. The guys each grabbed an end and took it with them out the door to dump it in the hallway.

It was hard to know which of the scattered papers lying around might be important, so she just gathered them into one neat stack and put them on the freshly scrubbed table. Eyeing the crusty dishes, she decided reinforcements were called for, and summoned a maid to attend to them while she gathered up the scattered laundry. There was too much to do all at once, so she loaded it into the washing machine in increments.

Time passed quickly. She had the tub half scrubbed when Keilor found her.

CHAPTER 21.

"What are you doing?" he asked with a frown. "The ceremony is in half an hour." He was already dressed in black leather armor and had his dark hair pulled back with a silver clip. A sleeveless, midnight blue robe of velvet trimmed in silver added an air of magnificence. It was open in front and held together with a thick silver chain. There were sparkling blue stones at every other link.

He looked ready to dazzle, and very impatient.

"Oh, no!" Jasmine popped out of the tub in alarm. She dismissed the maid and tossed her rag in the dirty laundry pile. She sprinted for the door, snagging her wedding gift on the way. Keilor was forced into an undignified lope to keep up with her. Since she was well in hand, her bodyguards followed at a more sedate pace.

"Bath!" Jasmine ordered the moment she stepped in the door, wishing her room came equipped with a shower. Why was it cleaning always made the cleanee dirty? She stripped a little self-consciously and took her frustration out on her husband. "You could have found me sooner."

He leaned against the armoire, unabashedly enjoying the view. "How was I to know you would be so enticed by your wifely duties you would forget your own wedding ceremony?"

Crouched in tub, she froze with soap in hand. "It's Rihlia and Jayems' ceremony...isn't it?"

He raised a brow. "There's been a change of plans. We will also take our public vows today." His expression brooked no defiance.

Jasmine remembered the soap and slowly began to use it. "I don't know anything about Haunt ceremonies. Shouldn't we take a little more time to...?" She trailed off at his quelling look. The man could be spooky when he chose.

He disappeared into her wardrobe. Recalled to the need for haste, she quickly finished up, wrung out the end of her hair and toweled off. Keilor emerged from the closet just as she wrapped the towel around herself, a dress she'd never seen draped over his arm. He held it up for her inspection.

The dress itself was a simple black velvet sheath, long enough to reach her ankles but slit to just above the knee for ease of movement. Two silver clips held the three-quarter inch straps to the bodice. The outer robe was a smaller replica of his midnight velvet. Instead of the rearing stags she could now see embroidered into the edges of his clothes, hers had silver leaves and vines with small flowers. In place of snarling volti heads, the chain that clasped her robe had dragonflies. The material felt heavenly against her fingers.

Touched, she looked at him. "You had this made for me." And some time ago, by the craftsmanship. She wanted to ask when he'd commissioned it, but her throat closed up.

He said nothing, but his eyes shone.

She rose up on her toes and clasped her hands around his neck to demonstrate her thanks. His arms slid around her, and their kiss deepened. His hand fisted on the back of her towel and he pulled it from her, leaving her nude. Warm hands drifted down her back and settled possessively on her derriere, kneading and lifting. With a groan, he broke away, and she could tell it cost him much to step back. "We have to go." Cupping her face, he gave her a careful kiss and handed her the gown. While she dressed he moved to stare out the window, giving them both a chance to cool off.

Jasmine finished, then looked around. "You forgot the underwear."

Her husband grinned. "It wasn't an oversight."

She rolled her eyes and moved to the wardrobe door, but he was there before her, blocking her way.

"Keilor! Move." He didn't budge an inch, and her face flamed. "I am not wandering around in public with no panties."

For a moment he didn't move, gauging the strength of her conviction. With a disappointed sigh, he stepped aside. "We really must do something about this shyness of yours," he complained as she went after her unmentionables.

Her only reply was a muffled snort.