A Midsummer Night's Romp (21 page)

“Yes, yes it is,” he said, and with businesslike, efficient moves, he peeled off his shirt, and spread it out on the ground.

“Noble, even,” I said, my eyes huge as they drank in all that lovely chest acreage. My mouth started watering at the sight of it. “We're talking Mother Teresa sort of generosity, the kind of act that the Nobel people take note of. Are you going to take off your jeans, too?”

“Yes, it's part of the plan I just created to keep your mind from being distressed.”

“I like your plan. Your plan is good. No, wait, what am I saying? We can't have sex here, Gunner.” I stopped
pulling his jeans off him when he carefully removed his cast. “It's wrong.”

“How is it wrong? Please pull the jeans off, so I can put my cast back on. Thank you. It's a nuisance, but the doctor assures me it's necessary for another day.” He strapped the cast back onto his foot, and sat watching me.

I had a horrible time trying to get my brain working in the face of his near nudity. “My god, you really are gorgeous. Hmm? Oh, it's wrong . . . uh . . . morally?”

He shook his head. “I'm not involved with anyone, and I'm assuming you aren't, either, since you mentioned a former partner.”

“Still, we haven't known each other long—” I stopped. I had a hard time forming coherent thoughts in my almost overwhelming desire to lick him.

“I don't think that would make a difference in how we feel about each other, do you?”

He had a point, I had to admit. “Well . . . I suppose if I'm going to die down here, it would be better if I died happy, rather than sexually frustrated.”

“You're not going to die down here.” He swept his hands down my back, and around my front to cup my breasts. “I, however, may well do so if you don't let me finish what we started this morning.”

My breasts were wholly on board with that idea. I let them flirt shamelessly with him for a few minutes before letting my hands do a little walking along his arms and shoulders. “I thought you were doing this to save me from mental upset?”

“Ah, yes. Good point.” He cleared his throat and looked down his nose at me. “I am thinking only of your welfare, Lorina. You will allow me to kiss and otherwise fondle your breasts for your own good.”

He bent his head to do just that. I moaned, and pulled away enough to run my thumbs over his naked little
nipples. “I'd nominate you for Good Samaritan of the Year, but you have a raging erection, and I don't think they approve of that sort of thing at the awards ceremony.”

“My erection is not raging—it's simply appreciative and attentive. And I can't help it when you kiss me like you just did.” He looked somewhat offended.

“Well, now I feel like a heel pointing it out,” I said, and pulled my shirt off over my head. Gunner had arranged his pants on the ground next to his shirt. “Here you are doing nothing but thinking of my own good, and I go and make you feel awkward.”

“If you take your trousers off, I won't feel awkward anymore,” he said, nodding at my lower half as he laid my shirt out next to his.

“Then I obviously need to do that as a sign of just how much I regret causing you even so much as a moment of unhappiness,” I said grandly, and shucked my shoes, socks, and pants with panache.

He paused in the act of putting them on the ground, giving me a look that had me giggling out loud.

“Too far?” I asked.

He nodded. “I could pretend to chalk it up to the regret-causing-you-unhappiness bit, though.”

“Good. I'm not sure I'm willing to face the fact that I'm so happy getting it on with you when we could be down here for the rest of our lives.”

He slid my bra off, and immediately cupped my naked breasts in his hands, bending down to kiss each handful. “At most, we'll spend a day down here, just long enough for us to get a bit peckish.”

“I don't know that people will know to look for us here, assuming they notice we're gone,” I said more than a little breathlessly.

“Perhaps not, but my brother is due back tomorrow, and he knows I know about the bolt-hole. He'll be sure
to look here once he finds out we're missing.” Gunner looked up at me, his eyes a smoky blue even in the dim lamplight. “You're sure you want to do this, Lorina?”

“Oh, hell yes,” I said, leaning into him and gently biting the tendon in his neck. “I've wanted it since that first moment when you ran me over and pulled me onto your lap. Oh, dammit! I didn't mean to say that. Great, now you think I'm just one of the millions of women who no doubt fall for you the second they see you.”

“And that, I assume, is my cue to tell you that you are unique and there's never been a woman like you, and despite the millions of women who have fallen for me, I can see, think of, and desire only you?”

I pulled back and punched him in the stomach.

Laughing, he held my hand and pulled me down onto the makeshift bed. “Don't tell me I deserved that.”

“You did,” I said, giving in to my body's demands and nibbling my way along his jaw to his ear. “You're not supposed to catch me out when I'm fishing for a compliment. A polite man, a man who has the manners to live in a castle, would have said all of that and not pointed out my insecurities.”

“I'm a boor and a brute, and I did deserve that punch, because it is true that I do only think of you.” He rubbed his cheeks against my breasts, the slight abrasion of his beard making my whole body feel like it was made up of fire.

“Apology accepted,” I said, squirming restlessly against him as I kissed him. “Although you still haven't retracted that ‘millions of women' thing.”

“Less than twenty,” he amended, and slid a hand up my leg, bending over my ankle and giving it a little bite. “You have the most beautiful legs.”

“That's because I'm on my feet all day. It builds up
the calf muscles.” I gave myself up to the moment, relishing the feel of his mouth as it steamed up my flesh.

“Mmm. So sexy,” he said, nibbling a path up my thigh.

“I hope that wasn't a cannibal reference. Gunner?”

“Yes, my dumpling of delight?”

“Can we skip the appetizer and go straight to the main course? Because I already feel like I'm going to explode in a thousand little pieces if you take any longer, and it's just bound to make me insane if you insist on going into the land of oral sex.”

He pursed his lips and eyed my underwear. “But I was looking forward to giving you pleasure.”

I lifted my hips and peeled off my undies. “Oh, trust me, this is going to be pleasurable enough. Normally I'm very thumbs-up on foreplay, but I'm feeling a bit vulnerable here. We're not really in a private place, are we? We are just out here in the middle of a passage with Roman ruins, and if anyone opened that door and came into the passage, they'd see us going at it, and then where would we be?”

“I would have to marry you,” he said gallantly, and released my leg, pulling himself upward as he did so.

I snorted. “That's a pretty old-fashioned response. People don't do that anymore.”

“You've never been a member of my family,” he said with a twisted smile. “If my mother had her way, we'd all be married with large families by the time we hit twenty. Hell.”

“I don't know that it would be hell being married to you. Not that I'm looking for a man to marry—I'm perfectly fine on my own—” I stopped, realizing that he wasn't listening. “What's wrong? You look disappointed. Did you really want the oral sex part of the event? If you did, I can go ahead with it.”

He gestured toward his lap. “Do I look like I'm
unhappy? I was just thinking that since this is our first encounter, we should use protection.”

“Oh. You're right.” I was annoyed that I was so smitten with him, I hadn't even thought of that. “And how stupid is that?” I said aloud. “Especially since it's the whole reason I'm here.”

“Pardon?” he said, looking confused. “You're here just to have sex with me?”

“Of course not! I didn't even know you existed until I got here. Just ignore my mouth. It's talking again without my permission.”

“But I like your mouth so very much.” He got up on his knees and leaned over me, kissing me in a slow, hot manner that left my stomach quivering, and all my girl parts cheering in anticipation.

“I don't suppose you have a condom?”

“I do, as a matter of fact, and if you make so much as one comment about that, I will refuse to let you touch my chest for an entire week.” He rolled me onto my side while fumbling around in the pocket of his pants, which lay beneath me.

I gasped at him, pinching him on the hip. “That's even worse than telling me you'd eat me while I was in a coma!”

He found the condom, and opened the package while I tried to adopt a position that said I was willing and enthralled without seeming needy or the sort of woman who would get down with a man in a dire situation.

He slid me a coy look. “Would you like to put it on, or should I?”

“Oooh! Let me.” I took the condom from him, and sat up, biting my lip to keep from offering him help when his underwear got caught on his cast. At last he managed to wrestle it off, and lay on his side next to me, panting slightly, but trying hard to look suave.

“Now, let's see.” I waggled the condom at him,
unrolling it a bit. “I believe I know how this works. Why don't you lie on your back and let me see if I can't get you suited up?”

“I hope I last,” he said, groaning when I trailed my hand down his belly and made a little circle around his crotch. “I'd better start thinking about famine and sexual diseases.”

I froze just as I was about to kiss his belly button, glancing up at him in worry.

“Sorry,” he said, waving a hand. “I wasn't implying I thought you had an STD. I'll stop talking now so you can continue.”

I opened my mouth, closer than I'd ever been to just telling him the truth, but decided that it wouldn't enhance the moment. Instead, in an attempt to recapture the light mood of a minute ago, I said perkily, “Prepare yourself. I shall now apply the condom . . . using only my mouth.”

At that moment, the oil lamp gave a nasty hissing sound, sputtered twice, and went out.

I heard Gunner sigh in the darkness.

I started laughing. I couldn't help myself—it was just too funny to refuse to acknowledge.

“Do you ever feel like you're doomed?” Gunner asked when I finally managed to stop. “Not doomed to die—I reiterate that we will be found sooner rather than later—but doomed on a metaphysical level, the kind where all the sins of your past return to haunt you?”

“Not really.” I reached out to where I last saw his penis, found it still standing at attention and waiting for my ministrations, and leaned down to lave my tongue around the head.

Gunner sucked in approximately half the air in the passage. “Oh Christ! I really won't last if you do that.”

With some fumbling, I managed to get the condom
rolled down on him, after which I crawled up his body, careful to avoid his hurt ankle. I lowered myself until I lay on top of him, his flesh warm and solid beneath me. Instantly, his hands came around and possessed themselves of my behind. “It's a bit weird doing this in pitch black, and I'm having to block the thought of rats from my mind even though you said there really aren't any, but I think if we focus, we can do this. Only, Gunner, I'm going to need a whole lot of distracting.”

He chuckled, his mouth taking possession of mine, his tongue doing a wonderful little move against mine that had me feeling light-headed with passion. And when he lifted me up so that I was poised to accept him, I had a flash of insight that told me that nothing would ever again be the same.

The feel of him as he slid into me was almost overwhelming, making my muscles cramp around him in a manner that had him humming with pleasure. And when he worked up a rhythm that came close to making
me
hum, too, I let go of the last shreds of doubt, the little slivers of fear that he would turn out like my father. Gunner wasn't a man who felt he had to dominate in order to prove himself—far from it. He had been solicitous and thoughtful with me, and I realized that he must have known I would have felt threatened otherwise.

The question of how he knew that was for another time. Right now, I just wanted to glory in him, in how right he felt, and tasted, and simply
was
. Everything about him fit perfectly with me, and when he urged me to a faster pace, his fingers tightening on my hips and his breath coming short and hard, I knew that no matter how the situation with Paul ended, at least one very good thing had come from this trip.

Gunner shouted as I slipped over the edge into an orgasm that seemed to ripple outward in never-ending
waves. And after I collapsed down on his chest, now heaving and damp with exertion, his ragged breath ruffling my hair, I felt a few tears prick painfully behind my eyes.

Now that I'd found Gunner, I didn't want to ruin everything. Would he understand if I told him the truth about my plan? Or would he find it so repugnant that I lost him forever?

I clutched him tight and ignored the fact that I was lying naked in the middle of a hidden passageway. If I pretended hard enough, maybe everything would work out.

G
unner felt pretty damned good, even considering the cramp in his leg, the rock that had somehow wedged itself under his left hip, and the fact that he hadn't had food for almost twenty-four hours.

He narrowed his eyes in the darkness, wondering about that. With nothing else to do, and no oil left in the lamp to see by, he'd made love to Lorina two times. A man of normal stamina, usually he'd feel pretty drained after two sessions of lovemaking in a small amount of time, yet here he was not only feeling good, but also thinking more and more about waking Lorina up and allowing her to have her womanly way with him, as he'd promised her at the culmination of their previous session.

Even without her telling him what secrets she held regarding Thompson and the dig, he felt closer to her than he had any of his previous lovers. More so, because
none of them had triggered in him the strange protective need that possessed him around Lorina.

Quite simply, he wanted to keep her in his life. He wanted to enjoy the warm, loving woman he had uncovered, to watch her blossom while keeping her safe from all the ills of the world.

He just wanted her, in every sense of the word, and that itself was such an alien concept, he had to stand back and look it over thoroughly.

“You're humming,” Lorina's voice drifted upward to him.

Why? he asked himself. Why did he want to keep Lorina in his life? She was just a woman, like any other woman he had known.

Ah, but there he was wrong. She wasn't like anyone else—she had her own unique blend of defiance, vulnerability, and mystery that made up a heady cocktail of desire.

“Gunner?”

That didn't mean he had to think along the lines of a permanent arrangement, he argued with himself. He'd enjoyed lovers before and not yearned to wake up to them every morning, or to act the brave hero in keeping the world at bay. No, it was Lorina and Lorina alone, he decided. She was the only one who had generated such thoughts and feelings.

“Gunner, are you all right? I know you're awake.”

The question was what to do about that. He considered his options, thought about what Lorina would be likely to accept, and decided there was no way for it but to make the decision for her. Oh, to be sure, she'd give him hell for it by pointing out that she was an independent woman who could think very nicely for herself, thank you. But even knowing the ire she'd display, he concluded there was no other option. If he wanted her,
wanted to keep her, then he'd simply have to change his ways.

It was an oddly pleasing thought.

“Right, now you're making me paranoid. Are you not answering me because you're suddenly appalled at what we've been doing? Having second thoughts? Wishing you were miles away from me?”

“Hmm?” He stopped making plans, and quickly ran over her conversation. “Good morning, love. I didn't know you were awake. I apologize if I woke you up with humming.”

“You didn't; I was awake already. I was lying here wondering if we were going to be changed by this experience. I mean, when people eventually find us years from now, assuming we could gain enough nutrients from the dirt to survive, will we be pale, shrunken, giant-eyed mole people?”

“Do you want another minute of light?” He reached into the spot where he'd carefully set his mobile phone.

“No, we'll save its flashlight app for potty visits.” He felt her shudder. “Although what we're going to do when the emergency tissues run out, I don't like to think. Also, at some point, that hole I dug isn't going to remain suitable as a toilet.”

“You're worrying again,” he told her, and lifting her head, he raised his hand so he could see his watch with its lit dials.

“Yes, I am. I'm also hungry as all get-out, but I'm trying to remind myself that this is no worse than a cleansing fast. How many days have we been down here?”

“Almost twenty-three hours.” He was silent a moment.

Lorina uncurled herself from his side, and he knew without even seeing her that she was eyeing him with skepticism. “You have got to be kidding.”

He held up his wrist. “You can see the time for yourself.”

“I'm not talking about the time, which you very well know. I'm referring to your oath to distract me from what you call my rising panic by making love to me until I forget everything but how fabulous you are, and how I love your legs and your chest and that little spot on your neck that makes you shiver when I bite it.”

He smiled into the darkness. “It's odd how we met just a week ago, and yet you know me so well.”

Her hand fumbled around until it found his flesh, which she then pinched. “You can't be serious, Gunner. You're not an animal. You're not some potent stallion around a harem of mares. Normal men, men who are real and not depicted in porn movies, those sorts of actual, live men, do not have sex three times in twenty-three hours. I know you promised to keep me from being scared and worried, but even you have to admit that there is a limit to your stamina.”

“You're dying to know if I have an erection, aren't you?” he asked.

“Dammit!” She sounded so irritated it made him smile again. “Stop reading my mind. Where are you?”

Her hands danced lightly across his side until she got her bearings; then she slid them down his stomach to his groin. “Holy Mary, mother of god! You are bulgy again!
Gunner!
”

“I can't help it,” he protested. “There's something about you that has me sporting wood every time I think about you. I think it's your legs. And your breasts. And your ass, and your thighs, and those delicious calves of yours. I just want them all.”

“Aha! I knew it! It's a return to the oral sex thing. You can't convince me that you're really brokenhearted because I wouldn't let you do that the first time.”

“No, but when you insisted on pleasuring me the second time, without allowing me due repercussion, I began to suspect there's some sort of a hang-up you are too embarrassed to mention.”

He felt air move above him, indicating she was waving her hand around. “I don't have sexual hang-ups! I simply wanted to go down on you, and I assumed you would enjoy that.”

“I would. I did. All I ask is equal time to give you the same pleasure.”

“Hrmph.” She sounded disgruntled, which perversely delighted him. He'd never known a woman to think the way she did. It wasn't just the vulnerability about her that he sensed, but something within himself that reacted to her. He realized at that moment that he was wholly devoted to protecting her, to act as her champion and fight the world on her behalf.

He pulled her down, and rolled onto his side, using her thigh as a guide as he moved downward. “Would it make you uncomfortable if I indulged myself now? I won't if you really don't want me to, but it's been my experience that women who feel they won't enjoy it usually do once they allow themselves to give me free rein, so to speak.”

“I think,” Lorina said after a moment of thought, “that we need to have a moratorium on the mention of other people when we're about to get down and get funky. As I said, I don't have an objection, although those moist wipes that you inexplicably carry around with you—”

“I told you—it's impossible to keep your foot clean during the day when it's in a cast, even a removable one such as I have. The need arises to wipe my toes during the day lest they start to resemble those of a Hobbit.”

“Regardless, as grateful as I am that you have them, they aren't as potent as a nice hot shower. Plus, you've
been a-visitin' twice now, and although I cleaned up the last time I went to the toilet area, I'm not as springtime fresh as I would like.”

“The same can be said for me,” he murmured, kissing her inner thigh, and relishing the way she simultaneously shivered and pulled his head closer.

“Except it's easier for you to keep clean.”

He paused. “I don't see how.”

He felt her arm move. “It's the way we're built. Women have parts that are nicely tucked up inside, which, although preferable to the alternative—really, don't all male genitalia get in the way when you walk? I don't see how you can even sit without crushing parts of it. Anyway, lady parts are a wee bit more difficult to tend to due to their position.”

“There you go again, calling my balls ugly. I can't do anything about their appearance any more than I can my face.”

“I didn't call your balls ugly. I simply pointed out that having all your bits outside made it easy to clean them up. I mean, you can just dunk them in a bucket, whereas women have folds. And recesses. And many more working parts. It's not my fault that men insist on keeping their genitals outside, where they are not only visible to all and sundry, but also get in the way of things.”

He squared his shoulders. “My cock and balls do not get in the way!”

“Well, not now, but I bet they do other times. Like when you want to ride a horse. Or a motorcycle. Or dandle a baby on your lap only to have him kick you right in the family jewels.”

Gunner grimaced. “All right, I will allow the last one, but I assure you that I have no difficulties with my privates when riding a motorcycle. Now, shall we proceed, or is there something else you wish to discourse about?”

Lorina laughed. “I love it when you talk all lofty like that, although you really sound awfully disgruntled.”

“I feel disgruntled,” he said in an injured tone. “Here I am attempting to seduce you as best I can, and I'm just about to tell you that you have a lovely . . . what did you call it? Lady guardian?”

“Garden.”

“Lady garden, and you throw at me the fact that you think my genitals are unsightly! I ask you, how is a man to proceed with admiring the lady garden when that happens?”

“Screw it,” Lorina said, pulling him forward onto her. “Foreplay is overrated anyway. Let's skip the oral sex again, and then we can trade witticisms about crotches afterward.”

He shifted his hurt leg to one side and propped himself up on his arms, humor and passion mingling within. Was there ever such a delightful woman as Lorina? “I have never met a woman who says exactly what she thinks.”

“It's my lack of filter,” she said sadly, and then he lost all thought when her hands took possession of him, stroking him to a hardness he hadn't thought possible. His heart sped up to match her rhythm, making the blood pound in his ears. Spots seemed to dance before his eyes, and just as he was about to sink himself in her, he realized two things.

It wasn't the sound of blood pounding that he heard, and they were no longer alone.

He looked up and saw elongated fingers of pale light licking along the bolt-hole walls, and heard the sound of footsteps.

“Christ,” he swore, and, reaching underneath Lorina, pulled out his shirt, and thrust it at her at the same time he tried to pull his jeans out from underneath himself.
Unfortunately, the pants caught on the heel of the walking cast, and wouldn't budge.

“Gunner? What's wrong? Hell's bells, I can see your face! Ack!”

Lorina spoke the last word as a squawk when their darkness was suddenly illuminated by several sources of light, all of them seeming to be as bright as the sun. He shielded his eyes and blinked, trying to get his pupils to adjust after almost a day of darkness.

“Gunner? Are you all right?” a familiar voice asked.

Gunner blinked some more when a second voice said, “Crikey! He's naked, Elliott. And who's that behind him? Whoever she is, she's naked, too.”

“Ah. Yes. Just so.”

Slowly, Gunner's vision adjusted itself so that he could make out the people behind the lights. Sure enough, his brother Elliott was in the forefront, an ax in his hand, and behind him, smiling with delight, was Alice.

Those two rescuers, he could have dealt with. But when Cressy pushed her way through, accompanied by Tabby and Matt, he knew the situation was pretty bad.

“Gunner, we were so wor—aiiiiieeeee! You really are naked this time!” Cressy sucked in a huge amount of air, and then pointed over his shoulder. “And Lorina is naked, too! OH MY GOD, YOU GUYS WERE DOING IT!”

With an
eep
ing noise that he found oddly endearing given the situation, Lorina lunged around him and threw herself across his legs. She'd managed to get his shirt on, hiding her naked torso from view, but it was clear to all that beneath it she wore nothing. “For god's sake, Cressy, stop staring. Haven't you ever seen a naked man before?” Lorina scolded.

Gunner tapped her on the shoulder. “She's only seventeen, love.”

“Oh. That's right.” Lorina cleared her throat. “Never mind, Cressy. You're due a freak-out, although if you could stop panting, it would probably leave more air for the rest of us.”

“I believe that Cressida and I should retire to the kitchen to make some tea,” a gentle voice said from the back of the crowd, and to Gunner's dismay, Salma came forward to take Cressy's arm and drag her still-gaping self backward. “I'm sure you could do with a cup, and I know I could.”

“Did you get that all on film?” Roger could be heard to ask in the background. “Dear god, the viewers are going to go insane over this footage! I can almost hear the voice-over: sex on the ruins! The Romans weren't the only ones who had deviant practices!”

“We are not deviant!” Lorina protested.

Roger ignored her. “We'll top the ratings! This'll bring all the tabloids running. It'll make
Big Brother
look like a kiddie show.”

“Yes, I got it,” Tabby said, giving Gunner and Lorina an apologetic look. She continued to film them as Gunner sighed.

“Good, keep at it. Sue, you're going to want to work up some new text for the next voice-over. Something about romance being in the air, and unable to resist the lusts of the ages, and how the lord of the manor's brother and an American visitor fell victim to the passions of the past, that sort of thing . . .”