It was another stone building. And it had elevators. But by the time Harry opened the door to the room he’d rented, Sorcha wasn’t sure she cared.
“I don’t understand,” she said, turning to him.
He was handing something to the young man who had led them here and accepting a key in return. Tossing it on a table, Harry shut the door and turned to her. “I’m being unpardonably selfish.”
How could those simple words lodge so tightly in her throat?
“You’ll not get the Stone?”
He stepped nearer. “Of course I’ll get the Stone. But right now you look pale and shaky, and that’s just not the optimum condition for conducting an assault.”
“It’s all those metal cages you mortals love so, Harry. I’ll be grand once I get my feet under me.”
“Then there’s the fact that I very much want to make love to you.”
Sorcha stopped breathing. “I…”
He stepped right up to her and took her shoulders in his fine, elegant hands. “We’re out of time, Sorcha, and we didn’t even know we were on a countdown till this morning. I’m sorry. I can’t send you back just yet. I have to…I need to…”
“I could stay here in your world,” she offered, feeling her fairy soul shrivel at the thought.
Tears welled in his eyes, where she knew he’d never allowed them before this day. “I couldn’t allow it,” he said. “It would kill you faster than despair. You don’t fit here, Sorcha. You wouldn’t survive what this world is.”
“You shouldn’t have to, either,” she couldn’t help but say, matching him tear for tear.
He was right, of course. She knew it. She knew, too, that he would sacrifice their happiness for their own good.
He combed his fingers through her hair. “But I have to be here, my love. I’m needed too much to go. And you have generations of children to train. We have only these moments, and I don’t want to squander them.”
But we’ll not be safe till the Stone is home, she almost said. She knew, though, that they would be, at least for now. She couldn’t imagine the Dubhlainn Sidhe wasting his time scouring the house or grounds when he could more easily lie out on that vast, lonely moor and wait for the sound of a car engine.
If he’d overheard her as she’d hoped. If he didn’t think it would be better to find himself some leverage.
“We have a little time,” Harry said, as if he’d heard her, leaning his forehead against hers. “There’s no way that fairy’s going to find us till we get back to Waverly Close. And you’ve managed to strip almost every single tree on the property to protect those children. All I ask is an hour or two, Sorcha. Just enough time to pretend we don’t have to do this.”
She couldn’t bear the pain in those sweet eyes; she couldn’t bear to walk away, either. Even for the sake of her world and the goddess and Mother Earth herself. He was right. There would be no other time for them.
“We’ll still have time to get the Stone?” she asked, knowing how small and uncertain her voice sounded. Knowing that her body sparked with sudden, intense life in his hands. She laid her own hands on his chest to measure the pounding of his heart and knew she was home. “I know that mortals run on clocks we fairies have no need of.”
“We have time to get the Stone and even a meal to see us through the next hours.” He kissed the tip of her nose, and he smiled. “I promise.”
She managed a nod. “All right, then. But only if you’ll do one thing for me first.”
“Anything,” he said, and she knew he meant it. He meant all of his heart and his wealth and his life. He meant everything that he was and would be.
She smiled and struggled to draw a complete breath. Already she saw it in her head, his eyes darkening, his skin sheening with the sweat of arousal, his body tautening in her arms. She heard the rasping of his breath and felt the thunder of his heart against her questing hands, all in her head where it did her no good. She had to hurry now, or she would never have the time to realize those wonderful imaginings.
Pulling a hand away, she reached into the coat Harry had lent her and pulled out the smallest of her packets. “For me, Harry,” she begged. “Take the herbs with which the bean sidhe gifted me. Protect yourself against the evil of the fairy we fight.”
He looked down at the small green bag and then back up to her. “But I’m not having the dreams anymore.”
“He’ll fight you, Harry. When we reach him, sure he’ll use every weapon in his arsenal, and in doing, would stop me cold, for I’d have to help you. Please, Harry. For me.”
Still he just looked. “And what about you? Shouldn’t you be protected?”
“The herbs are for mortals. Sure, they don’t work on a fairy life. It’s his assault on you that would kill this fairy heart, Harry. Please.”
Finally, just when she was sure he would ask the question she couldn’t answer, just what would happen if the Dubhlainn Sidhe attacked her, he reached over and took the little bag from her.
“I don’t suppose these taste at all good,” he said.
Sorcha’s laugh was sore. “Sure, the bean tighe herself said that nothing is worth the cure that doesn’t hurt. The thing is, though, I’m thinking it would be after hurting much less if you’re using it for prevention instead of cure.”
He squinted at her, as if trying to decipher a riddle. “Uh-huh. Well, then, let’s get on with it.” He took another look at the little bag in his hand, weighing it. “Not much here. Is it enough?”
“Oh, aye, I think so. It might help with a bit of water, though.”
He managed that. He opened the bag and just tossed back the herbs, following them with a large swallow of water. And before the reaction set in, Sorcha pushed them both onto the sofa in the corner and wrapped her arms around him.
It didn’t take long. He bucked like a young colt to rein, and his mouth opened. “Ah…”
“Aye,” she said, holding on tight. “I’m that sorry, Harry.”
“It’s like…fire….”
She just nodded. He was sweating, and his hands were clenched around her arms as if trying to hold on for dear life.
“I have you, Harry,” she assured him, her lips against his cheek, her arms tight around him. “I’ll not let you go.”
“Good thing,” he gasped, “I have…the strangest feeling…I’d explode.”
“Sure, you’re safe. It’s just the fairy version of a cold.”
His laugh was sore and short. But his frantic grasp on her eased a bit, and he drew a full breath.
“Ah, now it’s passin’,” she said, stroking his damp cheek. “Grand, grand…it’ll be over soon, and you’ll be impervious.”
“For how…long?”
“Long enough for us to get our enemy back through the gate and into my mother’s loving arms, anyway.”
“Loving?” he echoed.
Sorcha grinned. “Sure, haven’t they acquainted you with sarcasm in your world, Harry?”
He just closed his eyes and rested against her.
“Not exactly my idea of foreplay…” he muttered.
She chuckled and rested her head on his shoulder. “Well, then, how would this be?”
Closing her eyes, she spent a long moment just listening to the steady beat of his heart, then settled herself against the hard wall of his chest. She did what she’d never consciously done in her life, what her mother and sister had tried to teach her. She crept into Harry’s head and prepared to seduce him.
It wasn’t as easy as it would have been in her world, but Sorcha was determined. In her mind, where all was possible, she created a picture. She sparked the image to life with her will and whirled it into colors, into intent and imagination. Like clay, she molded it to her will: crafting, refining, until the general feelings were honed into sharp, clear edges, and she could recognize them for what they were.
Hunger. Lust. Delight. Love.
Harry in her arms. Harry at her mercy.
She knew the minute the images appeared in Harry’s mind. He stiffened, just about to object, she thought. She thought he moved to look down at her, but her eyes were still closed as she focused on the scene she would play out in his head.
His eyes drifted shut, and his hands loosened a bit around her arms. But his heart, that great, giving heart, sped up. His skin warmed, and fresh beads of perspiration appeared on his forehead and upper lip.
Yes, Harry, yes, she thought, molding those images to perfection. And there, in her mind, she stood before him and slowly, very slowly, lowered herself to kneel between his thighs. She lifted her hands and laid them on his chest, against his shirt, which was suddenly damp and hot, where his heart beat hard and the breath of him rasped beneath her fingers. And slowly, so slowly, she drew her hands down, over his chest, his belly, his groin, down to his thighs to feel them tauten, hard and sleek as a stallion’s, and she edged them apart.
She smiled for him, the most potent smile Orla had ever taught her. She thought briefly of the oils Orla had given her, seductive scents that would drive a man to insanity if shared. But Sorcha didn’t want Harry by sorcery. She wanted him truly, with honesty and delight between them, instead of seduction.
“Good God,” he rasped in her mind, breathing hard. “What are you doing to me?”
“Fuist,” she whispered out loud, holding on to him, letting the scene play out in her head. “Isn’t it just a bit of an appetizer before we have our luncheon?”
She felt the growl of laughter against her fingers. “I don’t think this is legal,” he managed, his body arching against the suggestion of what she was painting in his mind.
It was there she was reaching out to him, to that interesting fastener they called a zipper. Not just something to close and hold, something to seduce just with the opening. Even imagining it, it made the most interesting rasping sound as Sorcha pictured catching it in between her fingers and pulling.
Even before she touched him, Harry was hard; she felt him against the sides of her hand, and it exhilarated her. She unbuttoned the waist of his slacks and stroked her hand down the silken line of his boxers. She needed to bring boxers back with her. Sure, weren’t they a sensual treat, to intimate the pleasures beneath without forfeiting the delicious texture altogether? Sleek and hot, and hiding him away from her.
“Oh, God, Sorcha…” he rasped. “Enough!”
“Aye,” she whispered, taking her arms from around him. “It is.”
And so she let the images in her mind fade, slowly, like the last stroke of a hand or the final invasion of a tongue. She gently disentangled herself from his embrace and got to her feet. Then, before he could recover, she stepped out of his mind and in between his thighs. She lowered herself to her knees and with her fingers trembling with the hunger in her, she took hold of that zipper at last and made it growl. She thumbed the cool, round button above it, letting it slide free, and reached in to savor the hard, thick lines of him that he’d wrapped away in silk.
“Ah, Goddess, Harry, I’m not sure fairies are made for mortal men.”
“Don’t tell me that,” he groaned, his head thrown back.
She did away with the silk, as well, and took him in her hands, the steel length of him, the velvety tip that already pearled his essence for her. Ah, how she loved mortal textures, the wiry coil of hair, the sleek satin of skin. She loved his scent, musk and salt and man. Harry. She bent to taste him and loved that, too, so she ran her tongue along the length of him. She nibbled the tip of him with her teeth and took him in her mouth to pleasure them both.
She felt his hands in her hair, his fingers strong and elegant. She heard the harsh rasp of his breathing, the odd growl of frustration in the back of his throat, and she smiled. She did this to him. She brought him to this place where he lay helpless before her.
Not totally helpless, evidently. Before she even realized what had happened, he slipped his hands beneath her arms and pulled her up to him. She didn’t even remember him kicking his pants away, but suddenly he was walking her over to the great, pillow-filled bed, where he dropped her. And somehow she found that her dress had been left behind with his clothes.
They were both naked as the day the goddess had made them, so that it was his hair-roughened body that met hers, that tormented her with its delicious abrasion. Her breasts swelled. Her nipples tightened. She was the one moaning now, because he kept his hands to himself. He lay above her, just looking, as if memorizing every inch of her. Touching her only where his chest met her breasts, her tender, aching breasts.
Her skin was shot through with lightning at the sense of his gaze on her. She shivered, hot and cold at once, and he hadn’t yet touched her with hand or mouth or tongue.
“Is it begging you want?” she asked, reaching up to delight herself with the feel of his chest. “I’ll beg, then.”
“Don’t beg,” he murmured, and bent to her. “I couldn’t bear it if you begged.”
“Then I’ll command,” she said on a breathy sigh, as he nipped at her breast. “Touch me, Harry. Give me enough memories to last me my long fairy life.”
He didn’t answer, not in words. He smiled, and Sorcha thought she’d never seen a more bittersweet sight. It was the smile she would take with her, the smile she would try to remember when she felt lost and forgotten back in her world. It was the smile she would cherish until her memories winked out.
She lifted her hands to him, cupping his face, claiming him for hers, calling him to her. She brought him to her, mouth to mouth, tongue to tongue, heart to heart, and she loved him. With her hands and her body and her soft sighs of delight. With her lips and head and heart.
She, too, memorized, but with her hands: his throat, his shoulders, his arms, oh, his arms, his chest with its crinkly hair and copper nipples. His belly, his flat, hard belly and its whimsical navel that, sure, had been created for nothing more than dipping into with her tongue. His thighs, those thighs that could control a stallion and protect a woman; ah, sweet Goddess, there wasn’t poetry enough to speak of his thighs.
And his hands, those hands that set fire loose in her, sweeping over her, settling in her most sensitive nooks and crannies, cupping her breasts and holding them up, one after the other, for the worship of his mouth. Those hands that measured every inch of her and seemed to offer him delight, for he murmured, too.
He sighed into her mouth, as if all breath should be shared between them. He chuckled when he slipped his fingers into her, and she gasped, she writhed, she arched to him, begging without words, because words weren’t needed between them anymore.
She knew, because before she could even think to ask, to coerce, to, Goddess, yes, beg, he rose over her, nudged her thighs wide and drove himself home.
“Ah…my love…” he moaned against her throat.
She wrapped her arms around him, wrapped her legs around him, pulling him hard into her, so hot and deep that she’d never lose him, so full that she’d carry the imprint of him to her very core, tears sliding down her cheeks at the sweet beauty of it, her mouth open to gasp for air, her hands desperate to hold him to her, to keep him in her, to bring him ecstasy inside her.
“Yes, Harry,” she heard herself saying. “Yes, yes, love me, please, love me….”
“I couldn’t love you more,” he answered, and drove into her, harder and harder, deeper, until she thought she would die of the delight of it, so much more visceral than anything she’d ever known, so immediate and alive and true, a swirl of color and sound and impatience that gathered, that tightened inside her, that urged her on to meet him, thrust for thrust, seeking, climbing, soaring, the air around her thinning, the temperature climbing, until suddenly she heard herself keening, because her body was keening at the wild, impossible knifepoint of pleasure that suddenly cut through her and simply destroyed her.
She threw her head back, scrabbling to keep hold of his slick back, opening herself impossibly to him, completely, utterly, as he thrust home once, twice and again, one final time, until he shattered right along with her, his guttural cry echoing around the pale, dim walls.
He wasn’t asleep. As much as he ached for it, there was no way he was missing a second with Sorcha in his arms. He was panting like one of his racehorses after a long uphill course. His skin was sweat-sheened and cooling fast in the autumnal room. He probably should think about pulling up covers or rearranging pillows, but he simply didn’t have the energy. He didn’t want to take his concentration away from his beautiful fairy princess.
“Ah, Harry,” she said, her breath washing over his chest where she lay nestled beneath his shoulder. “Sure, it’s a good thing we have other appointments. I think if I got used to this, I’d never get another thing done.”
He couldn’t help chuckling. “I’m not sure I’d let you. You feel too good right here.”
Against his heart, he thought. Two days ago, he would have groaned aloud at such a maudlin thought. Today, all he could think of was how little time they had like this, in perfect accord, sated and settled and exhausted by the most spectacular lovemaking he could ever imagine.
Who would ever believe it? He, Harry Wyatt, wrapped up in the arms of a woman he’d met only two days before, right in the middle of the day in a hotel in York. Harry Wyatt didn’t indulge in flights of fancy like that. Harry Wyatt didn’t believe in them.
Harry Wyatt hadn’t believed in them.
It was just too bad he’d finally begun to believe only when it was too late.
He closed his eyes against the shard of pain that lodged in his chest. He was losing her. Hell, he’d hardly found her, and he was having to sacrifice her. It wasn’t fair.
He almost laughed. He was an adult. He knew how often life was fair. And he knew damn well his was more fair than most. He had a close family, a beautiful home and a successful career. How could he have known that he would come to realize how little most of that meant when faced with the loss of love?
“I love you,” he said, because he couldn’t help it.
She ran her fingers down his chest. “Ah, just so I love you. And I thank you, Harry, for sharing such beauty with me this day.”
He slipped his own hand along her waist, over the slope of her hips, obsessed with the feel of her. They had so little time.
“Tell me,” he said, just to put off the inevitable, “What’s your world like?”
She brushed her satin-soft fingers along his cheek. “Ah, well, it’s pretty much like you see on your wall.”
“You said you had a sister.”
She was looking at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Harry, I don’t think…”
“I know nothing about you, Sorcha. Give me this. Please.”
Tears trickled down her cheeks, and he couldn’t bear it. But she nodded briskly, as if this weren’t killing her, too.
“Two. I have two sisters: Nuala, the oldest, and Orla, the baby.” She smiled a bit wryly. “Although I doubt it would be wise or accurate to describe her as a baby of any kind. Until very recently, she was one of the leannan sidhe.”
“Leannan sidhe?”
She nodded, her attention more on the patterns she was now drawing on his chest. “Aye, one of the legendary fairy sirens. A seducer of mortal men, who counts her successes in the slaves she’s created.”
Harry caught her hand, too distracted by the touch of her to attend to her words. “Slaves?”
She kissed the tip of his nose instead. “Aye. Once she’s had them, they pine for her until they waste away. It’s a fearsome thing to be, but such she was.”
He scowled and kissed the tips of her fingers. “I can certainly sympathize with the poor bastards.”
“Sure, I’m no leannan sidhe,” she protested.
“You’ve enslaved me.”
There seemed to be no amusement to be found in that answer. They both knew it was true. They both knew the enslavement was total and mutual. Harry felt the despair of it in his chest. Silence stretched to discomfort. He couldn’t tell whether either of them was breathing. The injustice of their situation was suddenly overwhelming, and the minutes were ticking away.
“But I used no fairy power,” she finally said, her voice a bit rough. “Orla was a master at it.”
Harry was awed by her. “Was?” he asked, just to keep her talking.
She nodded. “She was the one talked Darragh into trying to usurp our mother’s throne. Sure, there could be no punishment greater for her. She now must face the world without her powers, or the knowledge of how to go on without them.”
“And you like her?”
Sorcha smiled at him. “She’s my sister. She can’t help it she was given that soul-gift from the creator. And I’m thinking she’ll be better for it now that she’s lost it.”
“And your other sister?”
Her eyes grew wistful at the question. “Ah, Nuala. I’m going to miss her, altogether. She has gone to her mortal, and happily. She was to be queen until she met him.”
“I’m sorry.”
She smiled. “I’m not. She won her love, and I’m thinking that’s a rare thing.”
Another punch to the gut. Harry smiled for her, though, and used his thumb to wipe away the tears that escaped down her cheeks.
“And your mother?”
“Ah, my mother. She is a queen, as queens are, I suppose, controlling and inspiring her clan since the days when the poet walked our land in Ireland.”
“Which poet?” he asked. “The place is jammed full of them.”
“The one who wrote the poem to her. ‘The Faerie Queen,’ he called it. Sure, you must know him.”
His eyes widened. “Spenser?”
She smiled and nodded. “Oh, aye. That’s the lad’s name. And didn’t he spend time at the very castle where our seer was born?”
“Your seer. What’s a seer?”
“Ah, well, he who is a prophet, the interpreter of the great design. The one who sees the threads of existence.” She looked down at him for a moment, then shook her head. “Ah, Harry, would that I could show them to you—the queen, my mother; Kieran, who is our seer; my Uncle Mick, who is master of the horse. Sure, you’d be a perfect heir to him, as he’s longing for the West himself. I can see you now, with your magic with the horses, gentling the great horses of faerie to your hand.”
“They really look like my stock?”
“They are the same as your stock, Harry. Maybe brought over when your ancestor came, maybe just happily yours by serendipity. Fairy horses are always gray, so pale they fade into the mist and disappear in the early morning. So fleet their step can’t even be felt. And you, with your fairy eyes, recognized them.”
He snorted. “I saw a beautiful horse.”
She just smiled. “Aye, you did that.”
“What about you?” he asked. “What was your childhood like?”
She looked wistful again. “It was a fairy’s life, Harry. I had the glen and the hills and the rivers to wander, the animals and birds as friends, the trees as teachers. I had the rarest of music and the finest of bards to entertain me every night as we feasted in the great hall.” She paused, and Harry thought this the most important part. “I had the children. It’s they who are my responsibility, not the throne. I have no business being queen, and so my mother the queen should know.”
He pulled back a bit, as if that would help him see her better. “She wants you to be queen?”
She huffed a bit and shook her head. “Sure, I’m not made for it, and so I told her.” Suddenly, she chuckled. “And wasn’t that the best thing I’ve done in my life? Because I refused her, she sent me on my quest in a place she said was so hostile my fairy soul would shrivel.” For the first time, there was whimsy in her eyes. “I’d say there’s been precious little shriveling between us, Harry.”
He couldn’t help a chuckle. “I think the opposite has been more the case. So, what happens when you get back?”
She looked off into the distance, as if visualizing the event. “Why, I refuse her again. Sure, how can she argue if I’m holding the Dearann Stone at the time?”
Somewhere in the town, a clock struck the hour, bonging dolefully. Harry felt each strike in his chest, counting down the time they had left. He saw the realization dawn in Sorcha’s eyes, as well. God, he wanted to keep talking, nestled together like an old married couple on a Saturday morning, unhurried and easy. He wanted to just keep holding her, here, where no one could find them. He wanted more time.
“We don’t have it, Harry,” she said, as if hearing him. “We had this, though. It will keep me, I promise. I couldn’t ask for a more perfect memory. A more gentle or considerate lover.”
“I didn’t have any violent thoughts,” he mused, surprised that he hadn’t even worried about it before now.
Sorcha didn’t move. “I’ll tell the bean tighe thank you for you.”
“That’s all it took? Some herbs?”
“A temporary measure, Harry. We have to think about getting the rest of this day done.”
For a second all he could do was hold her as tightly as he could. Damn, where had those tears come from again? Harry Wyatt never wept. Not when his parents died, not when he’d realized what kind of condition they’d left his world in. Not when his gran had lost her legs, or he’d lost his chance to spend his days wandering the moors and glens he loved so much.
“We’ll get the day done,” he said. “I have some food coming up first. You need some nourishment.”
She actually chuckled. “Sure, after the exercise I’ve just had, I should think so.”
“Will I ever see you again after this?”
She went very still. He kept his hold on her, wrapping himself around her so that he could stay skin to skin with her, as if that would imprint her on his memory any better.
“Do you think it wise?” she asked. “Since I can’t stay and you can’t go?”
He closed his eyes and pulled her head to his chest. And for a long while he just inhaled her, cinnamon and honey and wildflowers. He satisfied himself with the silk of her body in his arms. He pretended they had all the time in the world.
“Well, then, we’d better make the most of the time we do have,” he managed, his voice raspy and sore.
And when she lifted her face to him, he met her with a kiss. They turned to each other, wordless, eyes open and mouths meeting. They kissed, a slow, sensual mating of tongues and teeth and lips, a branding and a leaving. He took her mouth as he would take her body, gently, insistently, completely. He kissed her cheeks, her eyes, her nose. He licked the salt from her throat and wrapped her hair around his hands. He tasted and touched and tortured himself with her body, until his own was taut as a bowstring and hurting hard with the waiting. He weighed her breasts in his hands and pulled her nipples deep into his mouth, until she mewled in the back of her throat, her hands tangled in his hair as she held him to her. He slid down the silk of her belly and fingered the damp curls below.
“Open for me, love,” he begged, his hands on her thighs, and she opened.
He bent lower to spread her open with his fingers, and he bent to taste her. He inhaled the scent of her so he would never forget. She shuddered at the touch of his tongue, and he smiled, hungry for the slip of that satiny flesh, for the swelling sex that smelled of her, tasted of her, that wept with the waiting.
Ah, he could feast here forever, and yet his body was shrieking in protest. She was rubbing her legs against him, tormenting him into agony. She was humming in her chest, and trying her best to pull him up to her. But he persisted, licking, dipping, nipping at her until he could feel her climax gather, until her muscles clenched and her mouth opened, and she arched impossibly so he could reach her more easily, and he laughed, because she was singing for him, a high, sweet keening sound of wonder, wonder he’d brought her.
Before the spasms eased, he lifted himself up and plunged into her. She met his gaze with one of demand, of delight, and Harry thought he would do anything for that look. He caught her hands and pulled them above her head, so he could be eye to eye with her, and he began to slowly drive into her, a slick deep glide, then just the tip of him to tease her into moving, into clawing at him. He smiled at her, and then he kissed her, sharing her own taste with her, and he plunged in, harder, until he pushed her up, until they were slamming the bed against the wall, until she had to hold hard on to his hands, her legs thrown around him, her hair tangled and wet, her gaze only on him.
And it was at the moment she smiled, a cat’s smile, a siren’s smile, the smile of a seductress, that he felt the spasms begin again, clenching around him, milking him, and oh, God, he couldn’t hold out any longer, couldn’t control himself. He bent to her, forehead to forehead, hands clenched above her head, bodies meeting in a fierce mating, and he exploded into her with a growl that sounded primeval and felt as if it had consumed him whole.
“Sweet…Goddess, Harry,” she gasped, as he collapsed into her arms.
Harry nestled against her breasts and closed his eyes. “Indeed, Sorcha.”
Her heart was racing. She was the one panting this time. Her hands trembled when she wrapped her arms around his chest. He wasn’t surprised. He was chilled with sweat, and shaking as if he had the ague. He didn’t think he’d ever held on to anything as tightly as he held on to her for those few minutes.
And then, inevitably, there came a knock on the door.
“Who’s that, then?” Sorcha asked him, not so much as twitching.
If he didn’t answer, maybe they would go away. Maybe the rest of the day wouldn’t matter so much, and he could stay here in her arms.
“It’s undoubtedly the room service I ordered.”
“Room service?”
“Our food.”
He felt the reaction in her body. “Ah. I see. We’ll be after moving on, then?”
“We’ll be after moving on.”
The beginning of the end had come.