“Yes, I should have known, because no, you certainly haven’t.”
“You were a powerful and handsome young warrior who was supposed to be looking for a sweet, obedient maiden to marry. A royal lady who would give you dozens of children and . . . and who wouldn’t sneak baby goats into the palace or knock a stupid emperor in the ocean on purpose or . . . or . . .” She leaned away to cover her face with her hands. “You could have married anyone you wanted!”
Titus barely stifled a shudder at the notion he might have spent the last forty years married to a sweet, obedient, boring lady. Although Rana certainly had tried—only to fail miserably, thank the gods. “I married you, Stasia,” he said softly, pulling her hands down so she’d see his smile, “because I wanted the most terrible wife in all of history. And I saved you from that dog to win a kiss from the stubborn, opinionated, irreverent, lusty woman I saw hiding inside the beautiful maiden giving me the fiercest scowl I had ever seen.” He gently ran a finger over her flushed cheek. “You were the only anyone I wanted, Stasia,” he continued thickly, “because the moment our gazes met, I saw a woman who would have the courage to love me despite who I was.”
“But I’m not brave,” she whispered, hiding her face in his chest again. “I can’t even drive up a stupid mountain alone.”
“Aye, but ye are brave, lass,” he said, quickly losing his smile when she reared back in surprise.
“A-Aye?” she repeated. “Lass?”
“I’ve found myself admiring the Scots lately.” He kissed her frowning forehead and pulled her against him again before she caught his amusement. “In fact, they gave me the idea for us to walk home. Except the MacKeages usually kidnap their women rather than fish them out of the sea, then carry them off to a cabin in the woods and make love to them until the lasses promise to love them forever.” He felt her stop breathing, her tears apparently forgotten. “I’ve heard rumor ropes may be involved,” he continued with barely stifled laughter, “though I don’t suppose a lass would run very far if all her clothes had been burned.”
She reared back again, her eyes huge as she darted a worried glance at the rope holding up the sail, then at the fire, then back at him. “Um, you do know I already love you forever, don’t you?”
“Aye,” he said on a heavy sigh, “but I’m thinking ye may have forgotten, what with being such a terrible wife and all.”
That got him the feminine little snort he was after, though it was cut short when her completely dry eyes suddenly narrowed. “I thought you were angry at me.”
“I am,” he said, rolling her onto her back and smoothing a lock of hair off her face. “Which is why I’m giving you the next few days to make up to me.” He closed her slackened mouth with his finger then began unbuttoning her shirt. “Wives do still try to appease their husbands in this century, don’t they?” He stopped when her hand covered his, his amusement vanishing at her uncertainty. “I need to hear you sigh my name as I’m entering you, Stasia, and feel your warmth and aliveness surrounding me again.” He lowered his lips to just above hers. “I want to make love to the woman whose response has the power to make me forget who I am.”
“Oh, Titus,” she said on a sigh as she pulled his mouth down to hers.
In all their forty years of marriage, he never knew who he’d be making love to on any given night. Sometimes he would gather the shy maiden from their honeymoon into his arms, and other times the lusty woman who owned his heart would attack him with glorious abandon. And every so often, for reasons he couldn’t—and probably never would—fathom, his stubborn, irreverent, terrible wife would empty the palace of staff once dinner had been served, then over dessert quietly ask if he happened to know of a handsome warrior she could spend all that night, the whole next day, and the following night completely alone with. After which she would get up and silently walk away, and he’d follow her clothes strewn like breadcrumbs to the throne room, where he’d find her sitting on his seat of power wearing nothing but his royal sash and a smile that always brought him to his knees. And for the next thirty-six hours they would stay locked away from the maddening world, making love everywhere but in their bedroom.
The first time Rana had staged her grand seduction, he’d thought it was because she had been feeling neglected. But by the fourth time in as many years, he’d begun suspecting it was more for his benefit than hers, as it appeared to happen whenever he wasn’t feeling particularly benevolent toward mankind.
And she couldn’t understand why he’d chosen her, when he wanted nothing in life but her.
He soon found out who was in his arms tonight when she began trailing kisses over his jaw to his ear, into which she whispered a very unladylike word before gently nipping his lobe. She shoved at his shoulder as she slipped from under him, and Titus found himself on his back with his lusty wife straddling his hips—the campfire reflecting a familiar sparkle in her passion-filled eyes as she slowly finished unbuttoning her shirt.
“Did you also happen to learn how lasses make up to their husbands when they’ve been terrible wives?” she asked, opening the shirt just enough to expose only a portion of her plump breasts.
“I . . .” He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, but the highlanders don’t seem to discuss what happens after they steal their women.”
He saw her glance toward the rope holding the sail, then arch an eyebrow as she looked down at him, apparently not realizing she was caressing her breasts while slowly moving her hips over him. “Then I guess I’ll just have to . . . improvise,” she whispered, the huskiness in her voice nudging a memory in the back of his mind—though he couldn’t remember if he should be alarmed or excited.
He was having no trouble, however, focusing on the fact that her moist heat was pressing against him rather intimately, since they were both naked. Well, except that she’d kept the unbuttoned, oversize shirt on, which was providing him with a rather erotic display as she slowly began rolling up the overlong sleeves, thus giving him tantalizing glimpses of her decidedly more defined cleavage.
She captured his hands before they could reach their prize. “Oh, no, my love,” she purred, tucking them behind his head, the action brushing her heavy, rose-tipped breasts over his chest as her moist heat slid over him again. “You’ve had a rather hard day, so just lie back and relax. I’ve got this.”
Titus clenched his hands into fists behind his head, suddenly remembering that that sparkle in her eyes and husky voice were telltale signs he should be alarmed.
Now if he could only remember why.
Although he was fairly certain it had something to do with her delicious mouth.
And then he stopped trying to remember anything, even his name, when Rana leaned down and kissed his jaw, his neck, his shoulder, his chest—her lips blazing a fiery trail lower and lower and her roaming hands making him nearly forget to breathe.
Being intimately familiar with his body, she knew exactly where to touch him to get the response she was after. And she wasn’t shy or the least bit hesitant about what she wanted, either, which was his complete cooperation or else . . . well, in truth, he’d never quite been brave enough to discover the consequences of denying her.
He was snapped out of his musing again when that delicious mouth whispered its intended destination as it moved even lower, and sweat broke out on his forehead when he realized the words had been in French—his wife’s language of choice when she was feeling particularly adventurous.
He did wish she’d hurry up and get there before he died of anticipation, but knew she was prolonging the sweet torture because she had a rather diabolical penchant for turning her powerful warrior husband into a quivering ball of sweat—which he’d discovered not two months into their marriage when his shy maiden had suddenly turned into a lusty and daring vixen.
In fact, he was fairly certain that was the night Maximilian had been conceived.
Titus couldn’t stifle a shout when she found her target, although he did manage to keep from reaching
for her.
“I’m sorry, did I startle you, my love?” she asked in French, her sparkling eyes lifting to his as she kept her pouting mouth pressed intimately against him.
“I’m not even going to get inside you if you keep this up much longer,” he said roughly in Greek—his language of regression when she was feeling adventurous.
Her big brown eyes remaining locked on his, she slowly and provocatively and provokingly slid her mouth down over him with a loud hum of pleasure.
Titus flopped back with a loud groan of defeat, resigned to becoming a quivering ball of sweat. For having learned that night not two months into their marriage that resistance was futile, he grinned up at the colorful sail through gritted teeth and surrendered to her diabolical loving.
But being an intelligent woman, Rana stopped pushing him to the edge of his control the moment she felt him start to lose it. She scrambled up his body to once again straddle him, leaned down and gave him a lusty kiss as she kneaded her fingers into his chest, and finally sighed his name when he took hold of her hips and slowly and provocatively and provokingly guided her down over him.
And as always happened, his stubborn, opinionated, irreverent, lusty, terrible wife proceeded to show him exactly who the true magic-maker was in their marriage.
Chapter Fifteen
Titus couldn’t stop grinning like the village idiot as he followed his beautifully disheveled wife strolling through the forest ahead of him, appearing not to have a care in the world as she dodged patches of snow while noisily humming and chewing her way through the bag of figs. He felt like an idiot for not immediately recognizing he’d lost control of this kidnapping when he had awakened this morning to find her sprawled on top of him with her chin resting on her hands, her big brown eyes sparkling in the rising sun and her wild hair framing the smuggest, proud-of-herself smile he’d ever seen on a troll.
She of course had insisted they make love again. And being a dutiful husband, he of course had obliged her. But becoming distracted by her passionate response, he apparently hadn’t heard the six subtle percussions down on the shoreline and had suddenly found himself kissing empty air when Rana had caught a glimpse of movement in the woods and, with a shriek of horror, scrambled from under him to slip on her oversize shirt just as the six wolves had trotted into camp.
Which is why they’d come damned close to having orca for breakfast.
Finally realizing she didn’t have a clue if she had been strolling in the right direction for the last hour, Rana suddenly stopped humming and chewing, glanced around the woods as she shoved the bag of figs in her pocket, and turned to him. “Would it not be easier if we simply followed the shoreline?”
Titus shrugged off the dry bag he’d been wearing like a backpack and unzipped the top. “According to the gazetteer, the forest on this side of Bottomless is riddled with abandoned old logging roads,” he said, taking out the large soft-sided book of Maine topographical maps he’d purchased at Ezra’s store. He studied the map on the back cover, opened the gazetteer to the proper page, and folded it back on itself. He then held it for her to see when she walked back to him, and tapped the spot where he estimated they were. “If we head uphill in a northeasterly direction, in about a mile we should come across a main artery that runs north and south along the ridge. It would be easier going, as the road would be completely bare,” he said, nodding at snowdrifts more than a couple of feet deep where the still low-hanging April sun hadn’t yet reached.
She studied the map of the southern half of Bottomless, then took the book away from him and turned to the page that showed the northern end of the inland sea. “But that old tote road,” she said, running her finger along the dotted line, “veers to the back side of Duncan’s mountain, and we’d have to take a series of crooked spurs to get to the fiord.” She handed the book back to him. “It could add two full days to our trek.”
“Are you in a hurry to get home?”
She studied him as she licked her sticky fingers, then smiled. “No, I don’t suppose I am.”
He stuffed the gazetteer back in the dry bag, plucked the figs out of her pocket, then grabbed a handful before stuffing them in the bag. He popped one of the figs in her mouth when she started to protest, slung the bag over his shoulder, and headed uphill. “Since you rounded the southernmost island ahead of me yesterday,” he said past his own mouthful of fig, “I suppose we can declare you the victor of our wager.”
He heard her stop humming and chewing behind him. “Every time we passed each other, I saw you eating the prize. Is there even half a bushel left?”
“Probably not. But,” he continued when he heard her snort, “I believe there were two parts to our wager, which means the second prize is still yours to claim.”
He didn’t have to look back to know she’d stopped walking. “That’s right,” she said just as he heard twigs snapping as she ran to catch up. “You must grant me one favor.”
“So, what is your wish? Take your time,” he said when she didn’t immediately respond. “And choose carefully. Remember that your any wish will be my command.”
“Anything?” she clarified from right behind him.
“Anything.”
He grinned when she fell silent for several minutes but for her slight puffing as the terrain grew steeper. “Even something magical?” she finally asked.
“If the magic is needed to grant your wish, then yes.”
She pulled him to a stop and looked him in the eyes. “Absolutely anything?”
Since he’d just popped another fig in his mouth, he merely nodded. He held a fig up to her mouth, stared as she slowly and provocatively wrapped her lips around it, then quickly started off again before she could see his scowl.
Fairly certain she already knew what favor she wanted from him, Titus suspected it would take her some time to work up the nerve to ask for it. “You needn’t decide this instant,” he assured her after he’d swallowed, “unless your wish is for a horse to ride instead of spending the next few days walking.”
“No. No,” she said absently, obviously still thinking. “I enjoy walking. It reminds me of some of the trips we used to take before . . . um, before we moved to Atlantis.”
Not all of them pleasant, if he remembered correctly, as they’d often been fleeing his enemies. But with time apparently softening her sense of desperation, he could see how she might recall the forced marches fondly as he also remembered she hadn’t ever seemed scared. The one time he’d asked her why not, she’d merely melted into him holding their infant son and stated that worrying was wasted energy, since she was married to a big and powerful and very devious warrior.
He’d made a vow to himself that day never to let her regret that boast.
It took them a little over an hour to reach the old tote road due to a couple of potty breaks, which had him worried Rana truly might be with child as he recalled her embarrassment at repeatedly bringing their small entourage to a halt on their final run to Atlantis, when she’d been pregnant with Carolina.
The tote road was indeed bare of snow, and they walked hand in hand for several miles, the conversation limited to an occasional comment on the view as their elevation rose, for it seemed his wife was still working up the courage to ask for her wish.
“Will you look at that,” she suddenly whispered, pulling him to a stop. “Oh, she’s so homely she’s beautiful.”
“He’s magnificent,” Titus said softly as the moose standing in an old clear-cutting stopped ripping the tips off a young fir tree and looked at them.
“She doesn’t have antlers.”
“He sheds them every winter. See those two swollen buds over each eye?”
The beast under discussion stopped chewing to listen, then turned its elongated head to the road behind them and lifted its cavernous nose in the air, its huge nostrils billowing as it tried to discern the new scent on the breeze. The bull suddenly gave a deep guttural snort and clomped into the forest, mowing down young trees in i
ts way and throwing up clods of earth in its wake.
“Surely we didn’t scare him,” Rana said. “We’re not even— Kitty, no!” she shouted when the wolf bounded into the cutting, two of his pod-mates giving chase behind him. “Titus, make them stop.”
“Kitalanta,” he called out, which brought the wolves stumbling to a halt. “Come,” he commanded when Kit gave a longing glance toward the path the moose had taken.
“Would it hurt you to ask instead of snapping the order at him?”
“You do not insult a warrior by asking him to do something, you tell him.” He took her hand and started walking again as the three wolves fell into step around them. “If you’re looking for a good chase, Kitalanta, go hunt us up a couple of rabbits for dinner,” he instructed, only to stop when he realized the wolves had stopped.
“I don’t think Kit knows what a rabbit is,” Rana said with a laugh. “You better draw him a picture or we’re liable to be eating skunk for dinner—assuming the stench coming from your warrior doesn’t kill our appetites.”
The three remaining wolves came tearing down the road from scouting ahead and moved to stand at attention behind Kitalanta. Having no idea how to explain to a killer whale what a rabbit was, Titus sighed in defeat and began walking again.
But after covering two more miles in silence, he finally reached the end of his patience. “For the love of Zeus, just ask.”
Rana shrugged free and shoved her hands in her pockets as she moved ahead of him. “Very well,” she said, her tone as brusque as her pace, “my wish is to continue living in Spellbound Falls and give birth to our child in this century.”
“Then consider it done.”
Spellbound Falls [5] For the Love of Magic Page 17