Chapter Thirteen

 

Malachai sat in his hotel room, his feet propped on an ottoman, and a feeling of incompleteness bothering him. He ought to be perfectly content, and he knew it.

Here he was, relaxing in the most magnificent surroundings he’d ever inhabited, in a first-class hotel, with a fire burning in the grate and a lively city right outside waiting to clasp him to her bosom. He’d bought himself a stack of books so that he could catch up on his reading—treasure recovery didn’t leave a man with much time to fritter away—and he’d been looking forward to an evening to himself.

More, he’d assured his future absolutely and beyond doubt. If anything should give a man a feeling of contentment and completion, it was that. This latest expedition, even though some of its fruits had gone missing somewhere, had capped a career that was revered in ship-recovery circles. He’d made his fortune beyond any chance of doubt, and he was looking forward to settling down at last.

Security. He loved that damned word. So few people understood or appreciated it, probably because they’d had it from birth. Only someone who’d grown up like he had could value security the way it ought to be valued.

So why wasn’t he able to get lost in Chesterton’s latest Father Brown mystery story? Why did he feel the faintest bit itchy, sitting here in luxury and comfort?

Why the devil did visions of Loretta Linden keep plaguing him, confound it?

“Damn her,” he muttered without a care for Chesterton’s sleuth in holy orders. “The damned woman drives me crazy.”

What really drove him crazy was remembering her in her beautiful garden, with that green thing slipping from her shoulders, and her amazing dark hair carelessly piled on top of her head, and her huge chocolate-brown eyes sparkling at him as she decried the world and its failures.

When they’d first met, he’d believed that he’d met women like her before: women who crusaded for causes they knew nothing about and who would shrink from actually touching a poor person or a person with some hideous disease. He’d been wrong about her. Loretta not only got right down in the gutter with the people she wanted to save, but she even served them soup.

Malachai grinned. Soup, hell. When she saw an injustice being perpetrated, she went after it with her handbag. His grin dried up when he remembered her bruised flesh.

Damned woman had no sense. She had brains, he guessed, but she possessed the common sense of a gerbil. She needed somebody to take care of her, damn it, whether she knew it or not. And she didn’t know it, of course.

She’d swear until she was blue that she didn’t need anyone or anything and that she could take care of herself, but she was wrong. Malachai had seen proof of it more than once, the first time being on the very night they’d met. If he’d been a shade more impulsive, Loretta Linden would be dead now.

Impulsiveness wasn’t one of Malachai’s weaknesses, however. He’d overcome any tendency in that direction as a boy, when he’d learned that being impulsive generally led to switches being applied to the backs of his legs by those rotten nuns.

Nuns. The mere thought of them made him shudder, even all these years later. He’d discovered long since that most nuns weren’t mean like that, but he still had no use for the Catholic church. It bothered him some that Loretta’s precious soup kitchen was affiliated somehow with nuns, although he tried not to let it.

He picked up his book once more and swore at himself to pay attention. No sense thinking about Loretta, even if she was the most aggravating female in the universe. Besides, he’d see her again tomorrow.

That notion soothed his irritated nerves a little bit until he realized there was no reason for it to do so. Of all the women in the world, Loretta was the only one he’d met thus far in his increasingly long life who was guaranteed to ruffle his calm. Therefore, the notion that seeing her should sooth his nerves vexed him. He thumped Father Brown on his engagingly illustrated rump and frowned into the fire. Nothing about his reaction to Loretta Linden made sense to him, and he didn’t like things that didn’t make sense.

He hadn’t pursued this line of thought to its conclusion when—fortunately, because it was an unprofitable one—he was interrupted by a peremptory knock at his door. Pulling off his reading glasses and thrusting them at the chair-side table, Malachai squinted at the clock on the mantel. Who the devil could be knocking on his door at seven minutes past midnight on a Thursday?

Muttering, “Christ, what now?” he rose from his chair, made sure his dressing gown’s belt was tied, and shambled to the door. Prepared for just about anything from Derrick Peavey to one of Peavey’s Moors in full fighting regalia, he flung the door wide, his mouth open to ask whoever had knocked his business. The words died on his lips.

“I found it!”

Malachai gaped at Loretta, who stood before him in the most outlandish outfit he’d ever seen on a woman; with her hair frowzy, windblown, full of what looked like twigs and leaves, and with a cloth cap sliding sideways over her ear; her cheeks scratched; the knees of her trousers—her trousers?—ripped out; one sleeve of her flannel shirt torn half off her shoulder; and with a smile a mile wide on her face.

“Great God in a gun boat, what happened to you?” he bellowed.

Her smile shrank considerably. “I said,” she said, “that I found it.”

“Found what?” Taking a quick look up and down the hall, Malachai didn’t wait for her answer. Shooting out a hand, he grabbed Loretta by one scruffy arm and yanked her into his room.

“Ow! Unhand me, you brute!”

He did. Slamming his fists on his hips as soon as he’d slammed the door, and with his heart battering against his ribs like a Gatling gun, he glowered down at her with all his might. “What the hell have you been up to now? Dammit, Loretta, what the devil are you doing out on a night like this dressed like that?” He swept one arm out in an all-encompassing gesture. “You look like a damned wharf rat!”

“Don’t swear at me.” As if she felt that was weak, she went on indignantly, “I told you I’d find it, and I found it!”

“Found what? Are you talking about the damned treasure?”

“Of course, I’m talking about the treasure!” Her face began to flush with rage. “What else would I be talking about?”

“I have no idea.” Fearful lest he grab and kiss her, Malachai turned abruptly and stomped to a table which the Fairfield Hotel had conveniently stocked with a tray, glasses, and several bottles. He grabbed the first one, which purported to contain cognac, and slopped some into a glass. Picking it up, he carried it to Loretta. “Drink this.”

“I don’t need spirits!”

Losing the battle with his temper, Malachai set the glass down with a crack and picked her up. Her eyes went huge and she gasped, but he didn’t give her time to make words. Rather, he shook her as if she were a rag doll.

“I swear to God, Loretta Linden, if you’ve been out to Tillinghurst’s estate on your damned crazy quest dressed like that, I’ll turn you over my knee and paddle you until you howl!”

After her head stopped bobbing, Loretta returned his glower with one of her own that was as intense, if not quite as large, as his. “Put me down. And what do my clothes have to do with anything?”

He complied, more gently than he thought was warranted, but not wanting to do her any injury. Any further injury. Obviously, she’d sustained injuries already tonight. Scarcely able to pry his jaws far enough apart to push words out, he said, “Why are you in trousers?”

Because she didn’t seem to want to obey his wishes, he took the option out of her hands, picked her up once more, and deposited her on the lavish sofa in front of the fireplace. With a swipe of his hand, he grabbed the glass containing cognac and held it out to her. She took the glass, probably because it was the only way to get his fist out of her face.

“Drink it,” he commanded.

She sipped and made a face. “It’s awful, and I don’t need it.”

Feeling slightly less likely to explode, Malachai took a chair opposite the sofa. He noticed that Loretta’s legs weren’t long enough for her feet to rest on the floor. With another swoop, he snagged the ottoman and shoved it in front of her. She frowned, but, probably understanding that to object would be fruitless, she rested her feet on the ottoman. She was wearing rubber-soled shoes, Malachai noticed. They were the kind people called tennis shoes, he thought, although he wasn’t certain.

Because he feared that if he used too many words, they’d get away from him and form sentences he’d regret, he said shortly, “Explain yourself.”

“I was trying to explain myself when you—” She broke off suddenly, perhaps because she saw Malachai’s jaw bulge as he ground his teeth. “There’s no need for such anger, Captain Quarles. I came here to tell you that I was right all along, and that Mr. Tillinghurst is the villain. He stole your precious artifacts.” She sat back against the sofa cushions, a smug expression on her face.

All at once, Malachai thought of something that nearly made him gasp aloud. “How the devil did you know which room was mine?” A sense of impending doom pervaded his body and soul. If this meddlesome woman had asked at the front—

“I asked at the front desk, of course.”

Malachai buried his face in his hands. Impending, hell. Doom had come upon him as surely as it had the Lady of Shalott.

“There’s no need for hysterics, Captain,” Loretta said shortly, for once correctly understanding the cause of his upset. “No one knew it was me. I, I mean.”

He allowed one of his eyes to peer through his fingers. There she was: Doom personified. And she was telling him there was no need for hysterics. “I suppose we can find a justice of the peace somewhere.” His voice, he noted, carried none of the turmoil he felt. That was something, anyway.

Her eyes narrowed, and she looked at him as if he were the one in the room who was crazy. “Whatever in the world do you want a justice of the peace for? What we need is a police battalion.”

“To marry us. I can’t perform the service for myself, I don’t think.”

Her mouth dropped open and her eyes, which had been little suspicious slits, opened wide. “To what?”

Deciding to face his fate head-on, Malachai straightened in his chair, lowered his hands from his face, and frowned at the woman who had ruined his life—and who sat there as serenely as if she hadn’t done it.

In his most bitingly sarcastic voice, he said, “In case it has failed to register with you, Loretta Linden, by the time the sun rises this morning, the entire city of San Francisco will know that you, a single woman, visited my hotel room in the middle of the night, without an escort of any kind. You made sure the news would get out when you asked at the front desk for the number of my suite. Therefore, in order to salvage your honor—your honor, mind you—I will do the gentlemanly thing and marry you. If I were less honorable, I’d let you swing on your own.”

She’d begun to sputter before he’d come to the end of his declaration, but Malachai forged on relentlessly. If there was one thing he was really good at, it was overpowering his opponents by the force of his personality. “If you think I’m going to allow you to tarnish my reputation as an upstanding man in the city in which I plan to settle down, you’re even more of an idiot than I took you for.”

“I—I—”

“And furthermore, I don’t believe for a minute that William Frederick Tillinghurst stole the artifacts, but if he did, why the devil didn’t you go and tell it to the police instead of me? I doubt even you could compromise an entire police department!”

“Compromise! Why, you—”

Malachai jumped up from his chair and started pacing before the fireplace. “I can’t believe you asked for my room number at the front desk!”

“Nobody will ever know that was me!” she cried, propelled from the sofa by the same outrage fueling Malachai. “The boy thought I was a man!”

Malachai stopped pacing. Turning slowly, he directed a withering glance at her, raking her from tip to toe and back again. “There isn’t a man alive today,” he said in his most biting tone, “who would ever take you for a man, even dressed in that ridiculous costume.”

She threw out her arms and looked down at herself. “It’s not ridiculous! I looked just like one of those runners the lawyers use!”

Even she, whom Malachai believed to be a mistress of self-deception, among other things, couldn’t say that and sound convincing. He snorted to tell her so.

“Well, I did when I started out earlier this evening,” she said, less vigorously. “It’s dark, after all, and—”

”Is it dark in the lobby?”

He had her there, and he knew it. She gulped. “Well . . . That boy at the desk doesn’t know who I am. He’ll probably think I’m one of your . . . your sailors.”

Malachai rolled his eyes.

“Or a . . . or a prostitute!” Loretta’s face flamed. “Anyhow, he’ll never recognize me again in a million years! I’ll never wear these clothes again!”

It was too much for Malachai. Her total lack of sense, her silly costume, her stubbornness, her blithe belief in her detectival powers, and her smug satisfaction about having been right—damn her—sent him over the edge. With one powerful stride, he blocked her path, and with a single sweep of his powerful right arm, he picked her up.

“You are, by far, the most troublesome female I’ve ever met in my entire life, Loretta Linden.” And with that, and because he couldn’t help himself, he kissed her.

# # #

Offhand, Loretta couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this outraged, although she knew it must have been recently. Malachai Quarles was the only human being she’d ever met who could infuriate her this much, and she hadn’t known him very long.

Then he kissed her, and her rage evaporated like a leaf in a high wind.

It was going to happen tonight! She hadn’t really come here with seduction in mind—this was particularly true when she remembered the clothes she wore and considered how she must look—but perhaps her unconscious mind had taken care of the problem for her. He was kissing her, and she didn’t aim to let him stop until he’d done his duty by her as a woman and an advocate of free love.

She was hanging from his embrace like a rag doll, so she wrapped her legs around his waist to give herself more leverage, and she kissed him back with enthusiasm. He might be the most irritating man in the world, but he was wildly attractive.

His embrace was rather crushing, and Loretta wiggled slightly to get him to loosen his grip a little. She didn’t want to interrupt him, God knew, but it would help her overall state of being if he—

“Uff!”

Loretta’s feet hit the carpet with a thump. Gazing up at him in befuddlement, she said, “Wh-what?”

“What the devil do you have in your hair?” He shook his hand, and Loretta noticed that he’d scratched it, probably on one of the twigs she’d inadvertently picked up at Tillinghurst’s estate.

“My hair?” Curse it, he wasn’t going to stop because her hair was a mess, was he? “I . . . I think some leaves got in it when I was running away from the dogs.”

His eyes widened. “You were chased by dogs?”

She nodded. Blast and hell, why had he become distracted? This wasn’t fair! “According to Mr. Jones—”

“Jones!”

Loretta clapped her hands over her ears. “Don’t shout so loudly! You’ll break my—”

He had her by the shoulders again and had started shaking her, so she couldn’t expand upon her request.

“Do you mean to tell me you were chased by dogs and you found Jones?”

“S-stop sh-shaking me!” Offended, Loretta wrenched herself out of the captain’s hands, sure she would have a whole batch of new bruises. After backing far enough away to avoid a snatch, she propped her fists on her hips and said, “You’re a brutal man, Captain Quarles, and I don’t know why I put up with you!”

Malachai seemed to be trying to regain control of himself. Curse him, she didn’t want him in control. She wanted him out of control with desire for her.

“I beg your pardon,” came, stifled, from his lips. “Did you say you found Mr. Jones?”

“Yes, I did.”

“And that you were chased—” He had to pause and take in air. Loretta watched, fascinated, as his chest expanded to accommodate it. He was such a large man. “—by dogs?”

“A couple of bull mastiffs, according to Jones, although I couldn’t verify their breed since I was occupied in running away from them at the time.”

“Bull—” Again, Malachai stopped speaking, as if compelled to do so by a strong outside force. Again, he sucked in air.

“Mind you, Mr. Jones might have been correct. Their growls and barks were quite deep and ferocious.” Loretta laughed self-deprecatingly. “I have to admit that I was quite frightened at the time. Fortunately I remembered the way back to the fence, where there were trees I could climb.”

She chose not to confess to this man that she hadn’t climbed a tree before in her life, because it sounded pathetic in her mind. She felt the lack of prior tree-climbing experience keenly tonight, and wished she’d had more brothers—brothers unlike the one she possessed. What she’d needed was the Tom-Sawyer-Huck-Finn-kinds of brothers; brothers who did things like climbing trees and running away from dogs and who would take their kid sister with them on their adventures. Her real brother’s idea of adventure was speculating on the stock exchange.

The captain passed a huge hand over his face, as if he couldn’t quite take everything in. Loretta felt obliged to explain further.

“The dogs are the reason Mr. Jones hasn’t tried to escape, you see. He believed Mr. Peavey had been mauled by the dogs. Evidently, his captors told him so, and he thought he’d heard them chasing Mr. Peavey and Mr. Peavey yelling.” She frowned slightly. “Perhaps Mr. Peavey climbed the same tree I did.” It would be interesting to find out.

“Jones is at Tillinghurst’s place?”

Loretta nodded energetically. “That’s what I’ve been telling you! He’s been ever since he and Mr. Peavey were kidnapped.”

“By Tillinghurst.”

“Well, by Tillinghurst’s men,” Loretta temporized, although hiring people to kidnap other people was as bad as doing the deed oneself in her opinion. Perhaps it was worse.

Suddenly the captain turned his back on her. Dismayed, Loretta stared at his broad shoulders and tried to think of a way to renew his interest in her body. She wished now that she’d taken the time to change her clothes and clean her scratches. She’d had no idea Malachai Quarles could be so easily distracted from so intense an instinct as that of mating. After a few minutes of gazing at his shoulders and speculating how they’d look naked, she decided that tonight wasn’t the night after all, curse it, and that she might as well head for home.

“Well, I’d better be going now.” Her voice, she noted with disgust, reflected her disappointment.

Her comment managed to get him turned around again, however, which was nice, because Loretta found his face fascinating. She imagined it reflected a map of all the interesting places he’d been. It wasn’t a handsome face, exactly, but it was a very interesting and attractive one, full of hard planes and deep lines. And then there was that earring. That earring alone proclaimed a man who had strayed far from the beaten path stamped out by the more conformable of his masculine kin.

“You can’t go home alone,” he said flatly, as if that settled the matter.

Loretta shook her head in disgust. “For heaven’s sake, don’t start in with that nonsense! I can and will go home alone if I choose to do so.”

Malachai’s frown would have been more impressive if Loretta hadn’t seen it so often. “At least tell me about Jones. You can’t come here in the middle of the night, say you’ve found a man who’s been missing for four weeks, and then walk out again. Did you find the treasure along with Jones?”

“Not exactly.” Loretta decided that as long as they were going to chat some more, she might as well sit. She selected the sofa again. “I couldn’t get into the room where Mr. Jones was being held.”

Malachai took the chair opposite the sofa where Loretta resided. Their knees were so close they nearly touched, and Loretta suppressed a mad impulse to fling herself into his arms. She sighed, wishing things were otherwise.

“How do you know it’s Jones?”

She clucked disgustedly. “For heaven’s sake, what a stupid question. He told me so. I asked him.”

Malachai didn’t react to her disdain. “How do you know the treasure’s there?” Malachai asked.

“Mr. Jones told me so.”

He rubbed his cheek with one of his large hands. He hadn’t shaved for a while, Loretta noticed, his beard was coming in thick and dark, and she heard the scritch as his callused hand scraped across the short whiskers. She wondered if there would be any gray in his whiskers should he allow them to grow. He was approaching forty, after all. Didn’t men begin to go gray around forty?

She wished she knew, but the truth was that she knew precious little about men, except in the philosophical sense. For instance, she knew that men ruled the world, were carelessly cruel, and lacked any understanding about women’s worth; and she knew that she despised her brother because he was thoughtless, frivolous, and looked down upon her and her works. She forgave her father for exhibiting the same qualities, because he was from an earlier generation and set in his ways. She couldn’t find any excuses for her brother.

“So I guess Tillinghurst is the villain of the piece after all.” Malachai spoke grudgingly.

“I told you he was,” Loretta reminded him, unable to keep the satisfaction from her voice.

“I know you did. You needn’t rub it in.”

Rub it in. Oh, my, she wished she could. But he didn’t seem interested in her as a woman any longer. With a deep sigh, she reached for her cloth cap, which had become quite loose and was now sort of hanging from her hair by virtue of two hair pins that were pulling painfully at her scalp. She must have made a grimace, because Malachai, who had been staring at his feet, glanced up. She saw his gaze sharpen.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking off my hat. It’s pulling my hair out.”

She saw him swallow. “Be careful.”

She laughed softly. “Don’t worry. I won’t hurt myself. I have too much hair, and it’s curly, and I guess both my hair and the hat got caught on some twigs when I was climbing up the tree.”

The memory made her shudder unexpectedly. It truly had been a scary experience. She never did get a clear look at the dogs, but she heard them snapping and growling at her heels, and her mind’s eye featured ravening beasts frothing at the mouth and with fangs as long as cavalry sabers.

“The tree,” Malachai repeated. His gaze was intense as it focused on her hair. It gave Loretta a trembly feeling in her middle.

“Wh-what are you looking at?” Her voice had gone low and slightly squeaky.

“Your hair.”

He licked his lips, giving Loretta the impression of a bear about to spring on its prey and devour it. She stopped fiddling with her hair pins, and her arms dropped to her lap. She felt her eyes open wide when Malachai lunged out of his chair and plopped himself beside her on the sofa.

“Let me do that.” His voice was hoarse. Without waiting for her consent, he reached for her hair.

Loretta winced a little, but his huge hands were gentle. Carefully, he maneuvered the hairpins out of her tangled tresses. Gently, he removed her silly cloth cap. And then, with exquisite care, he burrowed his fingers into her hair and began combing out the tangles. Her eyes drifted shut.

“Your hair . . . I like your hair.”

“Thank you.” She’d whispered, although she knew not why.

“There’s so much of it.”

“Mmm.”

“It feels like . . . like silk.”

“Mmm.”

“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time.”

“Mmm?”

“Touch your hair.”

“Mmm.”

“Feel your hair.”

“Mmm.”

“Kiss your hair.”

What? For the briefest instant, Loretta’s eyes popped open, but at the feel of Malachai’s lips following his fingers on her hair, they closed again. She felt herself slump against his huge, warm body, and then he held her in his arms.

Oh, yes. This is what she needed. Turning her face to his, she sought his lips with her own, found them, and decided this was going to be the night after all. Hallelujah!

She made herself stop thinking then, because she didn’t want to spoil the moment. Her body tingled with anticipation, and her heart soared, and she threw her arms around Malachai Quarles and swore she wouldn’t let go of him until he’d fulfilled his purpose in her life.

His body was like a rock. A hot rock. He was so hard. Everywhere. She explored his contours almost frantically in her quest for education and satisfaction. She’d never even wanted to do this with another man. Even at her most curious, the notion of rolling around naked with any of the other men she knew hadn’t appealed one little bit.

Malachai Quarles, however, had piqued her interest from the very beginning. Even when she was furious with him, she’d wanted him. Her hands, which had been investigating his incredibly broad shoulders, found his face.

“You’ve got a craggy face,” she murmured, pressing kisses on the lines radiating from his eyes. She felt as if she were kissing a gift from the sun.

He gasped and said, “Is that bad?”

“No,” she said. “No, it’s not bad. Your face is like a work of art. Like a sculpture shaped by the sea and the sun and the wind.”

“Huh.”

Worrying lest she get too carried away and contribute to his already enlarged ego, Loretta gave up on extolling his face. No matter how much she adored it. Anyhow, he’d covered her lips with his, so she couldn’t talk anymore if she wanted to.

When his hand covered her breast, she very nearly fainted dead away on the sofa. Recovering at once, she thrust herself at him, begging him with her body to fondle the other breast while he was at it. Fortunately, the captain, being a man of quick intelligence, understood at once. Loretta heard fabric rip and a soft curse.

“Damn it, get this thing off.”

Without waiting for her to comply, he tore the shirt right off her back. Loretta didn’t mind. All she wore beneath the shirt was a short camisole. She hadn’t bothered with her combinations this evening, since she was wearing trousers, and was clad underneath only in her camisole and a pair of short drawers. As far as she was concerned, the captain could rip them all from her body—and the sooner, the better.

In order to facilitate whatever he aimed to do with her clothing, Malachai had knelt on the floor. He pushed the rag-tag ends of her shirt back from her shoulders, lifted her camisole over her head and feasted his eyes upon her. Loretta probably would have been embarrassed if she’d been thinking. Fortunately, she wasn’t. His gaze, hot and possessive, fed something deep in her soul that had been starving for years.

“God, I’ve wanted to do this for weeks now.”

Thank heaven! What he’d wanted to do was lave her breasts with his warm tongue. Loretta hadn’t expected anything ever to feel so good. She allowed her head to drop back, and she reveled in the feel of being loved by a man—and not just any man, either. By Captain Malachai Quarles, the bane and boon of her existence, and the only man in the world for her.

“Damn, I shouldn’t be doing this,” Malachai muttered, leaving off kissing her breasts and pressing his face into them.

Loretta didn’t like the sound of that. “Yes, you should.” Curse it, why in the world had she fallen in lust with a man of honor? Any other man in the world wouldn’t have any scruples at all about ravishing a willing woman.

“No, I shouldn’t.”

The damned man would argue with her, wouldn’t he? “Yes, you should. I want you to.”

“You do?”

Loretta felt his eyebrow quirk against her bosom. “Yes. I do. If you stop now, I’ll never speak to you again.”

As soon as she heard his rough, low chuckle, she guessed she should have offered him another threat.

“Well . . . as tempting as it is never to be spoken to again by you . . .”

Loretta held her breath.

Suddenly Malachai stood up. To Loretta’s surprise, he took her with him. “To hell with it,” he said. “I’m already going to hell and I’m already going to have to marry you, so why not?”

Loretta couldn’t follow his reasoning, primarily because her body’s scream for fulfillment was way louder than her brain’s feeble attempt at thought. But, when she realized he was carrying her to the bedroom of his suite, she didn’t care. In fact, she was overjoyed.

“Oh, good!” she cried. “I’ve been longing to do this for the longest time!”

He squinted down at her. “You have?”

“Yes.” She snuggled close to him and, since he seemed to appreciate her bosom, which Loretta herself had always feared was slightly too large, she pressed her breasts against his chest. She felt his heart hammering away like a jackhammer, and she knew she’d done the right thing.

He fell upon the bed with her still in his arms, and they both bounced. Loretta, finding herself free from his embrace, took the opportunity to unbutton her trousers. They snagged on her hips when she tried to slip out of them. “Curse it,” she muttered.

“Here, allow me.” Malachai lifted her hands from the trousers.

Peering at him closely, Loretta frowned. “Are you laughing at me?” Were her hips too big? Curses!

“Never.”

She distinctly heard him chuckle. “You are, too!”

“Shut up, Loretta.”

As he started tugging her trousers down her legs, kissing the skin thus exposed as he went, Loretta forgot her grievance and shut up. His lips on her body felt heavenly. She sighed deeply. Lord, no wonder all of her bohemian friends extolled the wonders of free love, if it was like this. Maybe it didn’t even have to be free. What did she know? Well, she knew more than she had an hour ago, thank God.

“That feels so good,” she said upon a sigh. Then he kissed the very most secret place on her body, and her eyes flew open. Good Lord, could a man kiss a woman there?

He could. And he did. And he added some tongue. And Loretta thought she must have died and gone to heaven. “Oh, my God!”

“Does that feel good?”

Stupid question. Loretta’s hips arched like a bow, and with very little work on Malachai’s part, she shot over the brink of excitement into a shattering climax the likes of which she’d never even dreamed of.

In a flash, before she’d had a chance to collect her bedazzled senses, Malachai had rid himself of his robe and pajamas and was naked beside her. Loretta barely had the chance to register the magnificence of him and his body before he had driven himself home in her.

It didn’t hurt. That was her first surprising thought. It was also her last, because Malachai drew himself halfway out of her. She was poised to cry out in protest when he plunged in again. And he did it again. And again. And he established a smooth rhythm with which she attuned herself almost instantly. And then, with a harsh groan and a massive shudder, Malachai’s release came.

Loretta had never felt so triumphant in her entire twenty-eight years.