“Now we’re both going to fall,” she said, holding tighter.
He liked that part best, her hanging on to him. Her trust, he liked. “I leapt upward to prove a point. Pay attention, Kenna, and behold the spectacular view of your farm from here.”
“It’s beautiful, but too dark to see.”
“I see well in the dark. I forgot that you could not. There is a full moon. Too bad you only have one moon. Our nights on the island were triple bright.”
“Tell me more about your island.”
“Ah,” he said. “Like your trees change colors with the seasons, our sky, moons, and suns also change with our seasons.”
“What happens?”
“I will tell you sometime when our heads are on the same pillow, shall I?” He waited for her answer. “McKenna?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Think hard,” he whispered, inhaling the scent of her hair, like a mix of the trees on her property and the wild-flowers scattered among them. “In your opinion, Kenna, what would be the role of a heart mate?”
“A heart mate? Given the sci-fi nature of the word, I suspect it means mate of the heart. Someone you love.”
“Define love.”
“Bastian, writers, scholars, philosophers, and the everyday Joes of the world have been trying forever to define love. I’m not sure I have a definition.”
He inhaled her musk, keener in the crisp night air. “Try, Kenna, please. For me.”
“Mmm.” She sighed and snuggled against him. “If I loved someone, I would love him for his faults—”
“Like flaws?”
“Yes, I would love him for his good points and bad, unconditionally.”
“And what would you do with a heart mate?”
“Share a home, have children, work the farm, run the Dragon’s Lair, grow old together.”
Having children meant sex. His man lance grew in anticipation. Bastian shifted her so McKenna rested against his leg, not his lance, because he did not want to frighten her with his large enthusiasm. “So you would sleep with your heart mate?”
She looked at him as if his tri-horns were visible. “In a word, der.”
“Define der.”
She kissed his ear, her breath warm like a blessing. “Of course I would sleep with him.”
“Have sex with him, you mean?”
“The whole enchilada.”
“You eat Mexican food while you have sex?”
“I would do everything with my heart mate, including having great sex with him. Wondrous sex, and often—screaming, sticky, healthy, making-love kind of sex. We’d get into bed on either side every night and meet in the middle, and then we’d occupy the middle together, me on top, or my man, and—”
McKenna’s whole body shivered, and her heart beat fast against his.
“And?” he asked.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I got carried away.”
“No, you answered my question quite well. Are you cold?”
She gathered her wits with a whole-body tremble. “The rain is icy. Yes, I’m cold.”
How could she be cold when she warmed him so thoroughly? “I can fix cold.” He breathed warm air against her face, hands, neck, down her blouse—his favorite part. “If we weren’t on the peak of a roof, I’d try to warm your legs, but I think that could get us into trouble.”
McKenna buried her warm, pink face in his shirt.
“Jock,” he said, “we need a protective smoke cloud above us to keep the rain away, if you please.”
Jock constructed a purple cloud above their heads large enough to protect them from rain falling from any direction. “Better?” Bastian asked the woman curled into a ball against him, her proximity growing his heart.
“I appreciate not being rained on, but the air is still cold.”
“Warm air, coming up. Watch.” He breathed fire around them to warm the air in a circle.
“Do it again,” she said. “That was amazing.”
He fired the air once more, showing off a bit when he allowed his fire to go the distance where possible.
“I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I’m so toasty, I’m beginning to like being up here. I feel . . . powerful. Like a giant. Queen of my kingdom.”
Judging by her ancestors watching from around the farm, she already ruled her kingdom. She simply did not know it yet. “I feel toasty, too,” he said, “especially where your body meets mine.”
She leaned forward, or he did, or they both did, and their lips met, though he kept their precarious position in mind. When he pulled back, the green of her eyes had brightened. “Are you warm enough?” he asked.
“Mmm. For what?”
He wanted to kiss her, again, and more. He wanted everything kissing led to, but first she must believe in him.
“Jock, please smoke the spirits from behind, one by one, head to toe, so McKenna can see her ancestors watching over her and understand the depth of their love for her.”
“You know,” McKenna said. “I just realized that when you get to thinking that the man holding you hostage on the peak of a roof must be a lunatic, you don’t have a lot of options.”
THIRTY-SIX
“McKenna, I would never let you fall.”
“You let yourself fall.”
“That was Killian, remember?”
“Oh, right.”
“Look, Kenna, on top of the caves,” he said to distract her, as Ciarra slowly appeared, Jock’s yellow smoke backlighting her, from her ancient cloak and gown to the wild mane of her red fire hair blowing in the breeze.
McKenna sat forward. “Who is that?”
“With the leadership in her stance, and the hands on her hips, she claims the caves as well as all she sees. Who do you think she might be?”
“Not Ciarra? Is she? The matriarch of our clan? Seriously, Bastian, is that the spirit of the woman who hid in the caves and survived the hanging times? She’s extraordinarily beautiful.”
The shadowy spirit at the top of the caves tilted her head in thanks.
“Can you hear me?” McKenna whispered.
Ciarra nodded.
“I didn’t know you were still here.”
“I am here to protect you.” Ciarra’s response came like a whisper on the wind.
“I’m honored to be your descendent and to have your protection, but I’m distressed that the prophesied champion of the McKenna clan never appeared. Even so, I will work very hard to save your legacy.”
From the tilt of Ciarra’s head as she nodded, and the way the matriarch, and McKenna’s descendents, focused on her, Bastian believed that he held in his arms the long-awaited champion of the clan, but to burden McKenna with that weighty knowledge at this difficult time would only frighten her.
Ciarra began to fade but not before McKenna waved. “Thank you for saving us,” she said. “Thank you for giving us life.”
“Thank you,” came Ciarra’s echoing whisper.
McKenna turned to him. “Did she thank me?”
“Seems so.”
“Odd, but, oh, thank you for showing me my famous ancestor. Wait until I tell Vivica. Can I tell Vivica?”
“Only Vivica. No one else will believe you.”
“Of course. Bastian, I met the family leader, sort of.”
“Kenna, Ciarra is not the only ancestor here.”
Jock worked fast, highlighting spirit families, the first outline already fading, but McKenna got the idea. Their Celtic blessings and cheers warmed the air and came with raised hands, bows, curtseys, and air-kisses. Before their eyes appeared elders, babies, men in kilts—Scot male dress, Bastian had learned—the men who worked this farm and the women who bore children and shouldered family burdens.
“There,” Bastian said, pointing. “There are Esther and Caleb. They left the addition and have been accepted with love. There are no curses or negative spirits in the addition, but you might want to get Vivica to do a health-and-prosperity ritual for Lizzie a
nd Steve, and the same for your house before you open the Dragon’s Lair.”
“You believe in magick, then?”
“Kenna, darling, I am magick.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” she said with a wink.
Teasing him? If she teased him, could he not retaliate and tease her?
But McKenna forgot his tease in view of her ancestors’ rousing cheers. She turned to him with tears on her cheeks. “My family. They’re my past and, in a way, the inspiration for my future. I have to save this land for them.”
Bastian stole her tears with kisses. She was beginning to understand her role without being told, though the impact of her responsibilities had not yet hit her.
“Look closer to your porch,” Bastian said. “Jock saved the best for last. Who knew that Jock had a flair for the dramatic?”
Close to the house, a cluster of spirits materialized, and McKenna caught her breath. “Gran. Mom!” She wiped her eyes with a sleeve. “Sorry for crying,” she told him, “but my mom; the wound is still raw.”
Bastian loved the way Kenna loved. “I understand.”
“Daddy?” Kenna tried to stand, but Bastian held her firm. “It’s been too long. See, Bastian, how handsome he is?”
“Kenna, shh. Listen.”
“Oh, he’s singing that French lullaby I love. Daddy, I’m coming. Don’t stop.” She fought Bastian’s hold to turn in his arms, and he was afraid she might knock them both off the roof. He grasped her, so if they fell, he would land on his feet. “Bastian, I want to see him—them—all of them, up close. Now. Can I touch them?”
“No touching. They’re spirits, shadows made of energy, but you should be able to see them in the morning and perhaps even talk to them if you absorbed enough of my magick.”
“If I don’t retain enough, can we go back in the water together, until I can see them?”
“You learn fast, my Kenna, but they will still be here in the morning. They are always with you.”
Bastian stroked her hair. According to Caleb and Esther, saving her heritage would be a bittersweet success for McKenna, because her ancestors would be free to go on to their eternal rewards, or to reincarnate, whatever their destiny or varied beliefs mandated. Since he did not know whether they would have a choice as to whether they stayed or moved on, no need to distress McKenna with the knowledge.
“Bastian, they’re fading.” McKenna threw quick kisses in every direction, focused on her parents, who lasted the longest, and wiped her eyes by pulling up his shirt and using the edge. “Can Jock show them to me again?” Her voice trembled.
“Jock is that lump on the ground near your father’s feet, sound asleep. He will need to rest for some time after this night’s work. He loves you, or he would never have taxed his energy so mightily. Now do you believe that I was a dragon?”
McKenna’s eyes danced. “Well, I believe that Jock is. Don’t you think he’s a little young to smoke?”
“But . . . but, but . . .”
“You sound like a dragon whose engine won’t start.” She threw her arms around him, a first, and so deliciously sweet, he wanted to take her to her bed on the instant. “Let’s go for a swim,” she said.
“What?”
“I need to spend the rest of the night in the water with you, so I can soak up enough magick to talk to my family in the morning.”
Bastian sighed, his sex dream dissolving in a smoke puff of disappointment. “You want to swim now?”
“You heat the water with your magickal and sexual energy, remember? Of course now.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
McKenna floated, warm and toasty, not only in the water but in her elation as a result of seeing her family. The full moon cast a silver path through which she and her handy hunk swam. “Handyman, hell,” she said, treading water to face him, “you’re a flippin’ miracle worker. Bastian, they’re together, watching over me, Mom, Dad, and Gran. Thank you for showing me. I can’t wait to talk to them in the morning.”
“While we wait for morning,” he suggested, “may I interest you in a few moves you might not yet have experienced in water?”
“Are you talking about that . . . snake?”
“You know what it was, do you?”
She wasn’t stupid, though it had taken her a few hours to figure it out. “Was it a . . . trouser snake?”
“Ah, Kenna, you spoiled the surprise. C’mere. Give us a kiss.”
“Us, meaning you and your zipper brain? Which, I might add, seems to cavort like a long and bendy jock-sock puppet.”
“Let me show you what this puppet can do.”
When he came for her, she remembered her relatives, smacked him in the chest with the palm of her hand, and held him at arm’s length. “My ancestors are watching! Take one more step, bozo, and you’re turkey meat.”
“Bozo is an endearment, yes?”
“Sure it is.”
“Your relatives have left. I have your mother’s permission to court you.”
“You’ve spoken to my mother? About me?”
“She and your grandmother approve of me.”
“Hah! Well, maybe I don’t approve.”
“Let me rephrase that.”
“I don’t see how you can speak at all with both feet in your mouth.” Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness, because she saw his face as he tried to figure out, literally, why she might think his feet were in his mouth. His thought processes amused her. “It’s an expression,” she explained.
The furrows on his brow eased. “I see. Your mother and Gran said they approved of me, but you might not, because you are stubborn, though the decision is yours.”
“How politically correct of them.”
He tipped his head magnanimously. “You might be inflexible, bossy, opinionated, and a wee bit of a shrew, but I still want you. Do you want me?”
“Oh, sure, who wouldn’t want a fugitive from the Lizard of Oz Funny Farm with delusions of dragon deeds?”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, Bastardon, that I’m ticked off.”
“I was not a dinosaur, Kenna; I was a dragon.”
“I rest my case.”
“Thinking time is over,” Bastian said as he warmed the air around them to match the water and pulled her over him. And though she should fight, she didn’t want to.
In using a man raft, one’s female parts fell into mating mode and thrummed against all said raft’s huge manly parts. She especially enjoyed his undulating trouser snake, which gave her a wet, hot shot of orgasmic promise and melted her at her core.
“Talk about buoyant. I didn’t think this was possible.”
“You’ll find that a lot of new and different exercises are possible with me.”
“Are you bragging?”
“I may have flaws, but they seem to work in my favor, as they will work in yours, I believe.”
“Not all things are possible with you.”
“Name one thing that I cannot do well.”
“You said yourself that you have a dragon’s sense of direction, which is useless here, and you can’t eat appetizers without an instruction manual.”
He dunked her and kissed her beneath the water, stealing her breath but replacing it with his own so she could stay under longer.
They popped up together. “Did you turn me into a mermaid?”
“Nearly, but none are as effervescent as you, nor do they hold my heart the way you do. Do not even bother to protest; just know that I am moving toward a night of wet and wetter foreplay.”
“Foreplay,” she squeaked, despite her best efforts not to act like a schoolgirl. “You’re just all over the place with your education, aren’t you? Sounds intriguing.” She was gonna get la-aid.
This was all new to her, this lust for a man, one man, a god who permeated her senses as he stood before her, sexy and lickable. His hot, talented lips grazed her ear, melted her. He turned her and tread water for them both, her bottom against his lance, while he s
lowly nibbled her nape, fine-tuning her yearning, stepping up her eagerness, and causing a slow burn in all the right places. Scary places that she tried to ignore but couldn’t.
Spirals of need licked at her inner thighs while the water lapped about them, tangible in its sensuality, like a living, stroking presence, warming her, as it sensitized her nerve endings.
Bastian’s lips tasted of salt and sweat. Man and beast. His arms, like welcome vises, held her in place, molding her against him, while he inhaled her essence, his body growing taut and aroused. She liked his package better than any she’d ever found under her Christmas tree.
She wanted him. Inside her. Yesterday if not sooner.
Her eyes popped open out of sheer guilt. She looked around. Too still. Too silent. “Are you sure my ancestors can’t see us?”
“Jock,” Bastian called, and that small blue head rose, dragon eyes blinking sleepily. “Jock, a quick smoky turn about the farm, my friend? Just one.”
Jock’s blink became cranky. He closed one eye, but the open one looked hostile.
“For me, Jock,” McKenna said. “Please?”
That did it. Jock shot into the air and swirled around the farm, his yellow test smoke like the light of a sparkler on the Fourth of July, bright but disappearing nearly as fast as he flew.
The yard was empty.
McKenna sighed with relief. “Thank you, my sweet blue friend.”
Jock snuffled purple smoke and landed by the water to sleep again.
“He’s lovesick, our Jock.”
McKenna sighed inwardly. He might not be the only one.
THIRTY-EIGHT
She was losing her irritable edge, McKenna feared, her strength and ability to say, “No,” dissolving with it. Probably due to the magick in the water. Or Bastian’s magick, or were they one and the same? “Did you use your magick on the water so it would stroke me in nearly as gratifying a way as you do?”
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