Sparring Partners (13 page)

"Charlie's not. He eats meat. Reed could
skewer Jordon, roast him and feed him in little chunks to Charlie."
She shrugged, "Or, she could pound him into ground meat and serve
him on a bun. Either way he'll be swallowed, digested and Potters
Woods will be rid of him."

And you
. That thought didn't lift
Finn's spirits in quite the way it should have.

Henry's eyebrows shot up and he stopped
walking, the look he gave her said he didn't know how to take her.
"You know, for such a sweet faced woman, you sure are blood
thirsty."

Finn didn't think that merited a response so
she turned away trying to get to her workshop before he did so she
could lock him out. Work always calmed her. Her workshop, a free
standing mini-house with it's own loft, bathroom, kitchenette and
utilities was her refuge when the constant stress of running
Potters Woods with increasingly limited resources threatened to
overwhelm her.

It even had it's own small flower garden.
All the windows had flower boxes stuffed full of bright blossoms
and trailing ivy. It looked like something out of a fairytale, but
that was the effect Finn wanted to achieve. She reached down and
pulled a weed from her multi-colored impatiens, trying to ignore
the inexplicable attraction she felt for Henry.

"I may be blood thirsty, but, I'm not the
one Jordon needs to worry about. He's not pulling at my
heart-strings."

Henry sat on the metal bench Finn created in
her workshop that looked like a fallen log with copper inserts
forming Celtic knots across the back. He looked right at home in
her sacred space, taking up most of the bench made for two, making
Finn painfully aware of his size and his physical appeal. Damn
him.

She already had a lover she was pleased
with. A painter. A young, talented, vibrant painter who satisfied
her without overwhelming her senses or making her heart beat
painfully simply by touching her. She didn't need or want a
bodyguard. She really, really didn't.

Henry looked at her, his gaze pinning her to
the ground, his mist colored eyes that seemed to change with his
mood seeing past her internal denial. If she didn't know any
better, Finn would have sworn he had control over the color shift,
and used it to his advantage in every situation.

Wizard
.

The word flitted in and out of her mind
before she could give it shape or deny it credence. She knew magic
was real, she simply didn't believe this man had the ability to
conjure it. Finn looked up sending a silent prayer to the God and
Goddess that she was right.

"So who pulls at your heart-strings?" Henry
asked.

"I thought we were talking about Reed and
your boss."

He shrugged, maintaining eye contact. "We
were. Now we're not. Answer the question."

Finn tossed the weed she plucked into the
grass and turned to face Henry fully, hands on her hips, back yoga
straight, using every inch she could muster to lord over him. "You
can turn off your dictatorial-tell-me-or-else-body-guard button.
It's not going to work on me."

Henry stood in one easy movement and crossed
the distance between them before Finn could blink. He didn't touch
her, but he was standing very close. Close enough for her to make
out the flecks of sunshine yellow in his chameleon irises.

"Tell me what will work on you." He said,
more cajoling than demanding now.

"What do you want from me, Henry?"

He reached out and brushed the lock of
straight blond hair that had fallen into her face back behind her
ear. "You want the truth?"

Yes
.

"No."

He let his hand fall back to his side,
managing to look disappointed and cynical at the same time.

"Let me know when you do." He said, turning
away from her, heading back to the house. He didn't look back when
he added, "I'll be staying in the room next to Reed's upstairs.
Come find me when you decide to stop lying to yourself."

He sent her a little wave over his shoulder
without bothering to see if she was even still watching him as he
disappeared into the trees.

Finn looked at her watch. It wasn't even
noon. Irma wasn't due for a few more hours. Reed and Jordon were
still hashing out their differences down by the pond. She had
plenty of time to quickly shower, change into one of those leather
outfits Peter, her painter, liked so much, and be back in time to
see Irma settled in. Peter was always up for a quickie, and she
needed to get one pushy, over-sized, misty-eyed head of security
out of her head.

If only running to Peter would get Henry and
her nephew-in-law out of her house.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

She was warm, wet, naked and sitting on his
lap. What more could a man ask for?

Satisfaction? No tree bark making its way
through the skin on his back?

There was that, Jordon thought wryly as he
kissed the top of Reed's red-gold curls, more red in the muted
sunlight than in the bright light of the day. Her hair smelled of
lavender, lemon and the unique scent that was all Reed. He'd always
been partial to lemons. Lemonade, lemon sorbet, lemon jell-O, he
liked it all. Lavender reminded him of home. There wasn't much
reason why it should, lavender wasn't a big cash crop in Wyoming,
but his grandmothers always had a pot growing. The scent never
failed to calm him, reminding him of how sure he was of his place
in the world growing up, and how much he was loved. Funny how it
took this moment with his wife, satiated, snuggling into him, to
remember.

Jordon pushed thoughts of his childhood home
from his head. Wyoming hadn't been home in almost two decades.
Neither had anywhere else he'd laid his head over the years. Here,
with Reed, seemed as good a place as any to rest and call home, if
only for a while.

Gently Jordon caressed her vaginal wall with
one finger, reminding her without words, that they were far from
finished. Savoring her moan of pleasure, he withdrew his damp
finger and found her clitoris once again hardening for him. She was
incredibly responsive, and she took over rubbing against him with
no care for the escalating volume of her response. She sure was a
noisy little thing. The way she screamed earlier, as she came
against the tree, had him looking around for the cavalry, but they
weren't coming. The house was too far away. Maybe that's why she
picked this spot, so they could be alone when she threw her head
back and let out sounds no lady wanted anyone but her lover to
hear.

Her lover
.

Well he was that. With any luck he'd
continue to be her husband past the time line William so
arbitrarily decided Jordon should be loved by, as if William's will
alone could make it so. Jordon had no illusions about his ability
to get Reed to actually love him in the next month, but he was
willing to bet he could get her to love his love making in less
time than that. Maybe then she'd be willing to help him.
Unfortunately, he was still dressed.

Jordon lifted Reed and rolled at the same
time, reversing their positions. He was on top, corralling her, his
arms taking most of his weight while letting her feel the pulse of
his cock through his pants. She was dampening his jeans as she
continued to squirm against him seeking release. He smiled down
into her lovely face. Her full lips, filled with color because she
kept biting them, parted slightly as her eyes inched open. She
smiled up at him and Jordon was lost. There was a world of welcome
in that smile and she didn't have to say a word to make him feel
like in this moment he belonged exactly where he was.

He cupped the side of her face with his
hands and she turned into him, running her tongue along his palm
sending electricity straight to his groin. Jordon bent to kiss her,
giving her more of his weight. As his lips touched hers Reed pulled
him in deeper with one hand on the back of his neck and the other
cupping his bottom. There wasn't a millimeter between them, only
denim and the cotton of his boxers he wished with all his heart
he'd had the foresight to leave in the drawer this morning.

"I can't feel you the way I want to with my
clothes on."

"Take them off." He chuckled at the demand
in her voice and the disgruntled look she gave him. "You have to
let go of me first."

Her eyes flared, and something like
embarrassment flashed in them before she blinked it away. "Oh.
Sorry." She said letting her hands fall to her sides. Her
reluctance to let him go pleased Jordon more than he cared to
admit.

Shedding his clothes in less time than it
took her to roll on her side to watch was a mistake. Attempting to
kick off his jeans and rid himself of his shirt at the same time,
Jordon didn't see the thorn bush before he stumbled over it, his
shirt obscuring his sight for a pivotal millisecond before he
pulled it from his head. The pain hit him before his shirt hit the
ground.

"
Fuck
."

"That's the general idea. Come here and let
it happen. You can close your eyes and think of England if it'll
help ease your pain."

Jordon stared down at her, the shock of the
prick easing as she grinned at him, propped up on one arm, hand
behind her ear. She looked like he imagined the sirens of myth
looked to sailors who hadn't been laid since their ships set sail,
comfortable, powerful even, in their nakedness. His foot throbbed,
but that was nothing compared to the throbbing in his groin.

"Come here. Let me see your foot. You
probably have a thorn. You'll stop scowling at me when it comes
out. Then we can get back to that other thing you mentioned."

He wasn't immune to her come-hither smile or
the way her breasts curved gently against her arm as she curled on
the blanket. The curve of her waist and hips as she folded her legs
around herself and patted the blanket, as if he were an animal she
was trying to entice to her side, wasn't lost on him either. He
limped toward her and sat on the blanket so she could see the arch
of his foot. Sure enough there was a sizable thorn.

Reed sat up. Reaching over him she wrapped
her small hands around his foot and placed it in her lap, where it
rested gently on her bare legs, crossed in front of her. She looked
like a mystical yogi who sat naked in the woods every day just
waiting to take thorns out of injured lion paws. Her hands were
cool and gentle as she explored the area around the thorn. It hurt
like hell, but he wasn't about to let her see how much.

She found the spot directly on each side of
it with her thumbs. Then she looked at him, cocking her head to the
side. There was earnestness in her expression that belied her
intent.

"I have a small mouth."

His eyes narrowed, but other than that
Jordon didn't respond. Whatever her game was, it didn't translate
to the male brain. At least not to his male brain.

She looked from his eyes directly at his
cock. Without his permission it waved at her. "Do you think I can
fit all that in my mouth?"

Before the effect of those words fully
registered on his blood starved brain, the pinching on his instep
and the surge of relief that followed swept over him. When he
opened his eyes she was grinning at him again, holding out the
thorn in the palm of her hand like a pleased child showing a frog
to a less than enthusiastic parent.

"See. Nothing to it. A little diversion and
all the pain is gone."

Jordon was on top of her in a second. Her
hand instinctively closed around the thorn on her way down. He
pried her hand open, took the incredibly large thorn from her and
put it on one of the small rocks holding down the blanket. He
didn't want to step on the damn thing again. That done, he focused
all his attention on Reed.

He pushed against her mound letting her feel
him fully. Her eyes, more smoky gray now than blue flared. She ran
one small foot up his calf to the back of his thigh and back down
again.

"No matter how you try to divert me now elf,
I am going to find out just how much of me your small mouth can
take."

"Yum. Now?"

Jordon growled in her ear, pleased with her
openness, sorry he didn't have the control to take advantage of it.
"The way I'm feeling right now, I wouldn't make it past your lips
before exploding."

Jordon didn't give her a chance to respond.
He kissed her before she came up with something else he desperately
wanted to try. He didn't let her take control this time. He held
himself far enough away not to gnash teeth, as she seemed
determined to do. He fought against the pull she had on the back of
his neck until he couldn't anymore. Capturing both of her hands in
his he held her arms over her head. That left a good deal of his
weight effectively trapping her lower body so she couldn't keep
squirming against him.

"Be still."

Reed settled more from his weight, he
guessed, than his words. As soon as she did, Jordon leaned down,
resting his forehead on hers. He held her like that until he felt
her body relax beneath him, then he softly kissed her cheek, her
lips, the corner of her eye, like a butterfly kissing mountain
larkspur. He moved back to her mouth, running his tongue along her
full bottom lip.

She didn't try to take over again, she just
let him explore her which he did slowly, thoroughly, savoring the
delicate curve of her lips before delving in to explore her mouth
more fully.

She tasted like the herbs and the tea she
seemed to constantly be sipping. Jordon let go with one hand, and
Reed didn't protest when he grasped both of her wrists with the
other. Tilting her face to the side, Jordon kissed her as deeply as
she'd kissed him earlier, only with more finesse and less intent to
devour. He wanted to taste her first. He needed to learn everything
he could about her desires, her needs, what burned her soul, and he
wanted to learn it now.