Chapter Seventeen
HARMONY figured Paxton needed to know about her witchcraft, but he wasn’t ready, yet, to hear that she was psychic. Her efforts to loosen him up had worked to a point, but this would set him back a bit. She sighed. “I’m a hereditary Pictish witch. My family’s roots are in the Druidic and Celtic traditions. My ancestors come from Scotland. Pictish means picture or tattoo. The Picts are a tattooed people.”
“Are you?”
“I just said I was.”
“Are you tattooed?” he clarified.
“Uh, yeah. Are you?”
“Sure. Where’s yours?”
“Oh no you don’t,” she said. “Twenty-four hours after meeting is a bit soon for the ‘you show me yours, and I’ll show you mine’ routine. We’ve already toppled the lust-at-first-sight boundary. I’m not ready for any more boundary-testing at the moment.”
“Tomorrow, then?” He frowned. “It’s hard to focus seriously on someone wearing live fur accessories. Your cats are distracting.”
“Your penis is distracting.”
He sat on the cot near the bed. “Are you?”
“Distracted? Yes.”
“Hold that thought. Are you going to show me your tattoo tomorrow?”
“Tattoos, plural, but that’s only a few hours away, and I’m tired.” She snuggled lower into his cushy bed and turned on her side to face him, while her purring accessories readjusted themselves. She closed her eyes. “Night.”
“You saw my ass after half a day,” he grumbled.
“Dumb luck.”
Paxton strolled like a lazy panther back to his cot. “You never answered my question.”
“I did, too.”
“You missed one. Are you a hocus-pocus witch?”
“Look, I’m a little tired. Tomorrow I’ll turn you into a toad, okay?”
“Now why would you want to go and do that?”
She sat up. “Oh, I don’t know. In appreciation for this gorgeous suite, maybe? Funny when I asked you for details, I never doubted it had walls! You have protective walls all around you, but you have none around your bed. What does that say about you?”
“Walls. Right.” Paxton yawned. “Night.”
“Warthog,” she accused, settling in and closing her eyes, though she found it difficult to sleep in a strange bed with a vital, virile man across the room. And his scent so infused the bedding that some of his sensual fantasies were creeping into her mind without any need to read his thoughts. Maybe she should try counting . . . warthogs.
“Argh! Ouch! Attack cat!”
Harmony opened one eye. Tigerstar stood on Paxton’s chest staring down at him, her claws likely pricking his flesh a bit.
“Harmony?” Paxton called softly. “Harmony?” he whispered.
Every time he spoke, she knew Tigerstar dug in her claws. “You should be proud,” Harmony finally said. “She likes you. She hasn’t been that friendly since she fell in love with my Scottish brother-in-law. That cat’s got a real thing for good-looking men. I wish I had a camera. You’d make a great scene for a cartoon strip.”
“Help,” he whispered.
“All right. Walls or not, if you let yourself relax, Star will pull in her claws.”
“Does that go for you, too? Ouch!”
Paxton lowered his head to his pillow and took a visible breath. In out, in out, he breathed. Harmony saw him relaxing. Inevitably, he sighed in relief. “It worked. I guess you know your pet.”
“She’s not mine. She’s my sister Vickie’s, and she won’t hurt you. You’re safe, though I can’t say the same for the castle’s mouse population.”
“She’s not moving,” Paxton said, “and her eyes glitter in the dark, and they’re two different colors. She’s weirding me out over here. Is she going to watch me from up there all night?”
“Nah, she’ll have to nurse my hat and muff soon.”
As if Tigerstar heard, she jumped off Paxton.
He sighed with audible relief. “Witches use cats for spells right? Can Tigerstar turn me into a toad, or worse, a mouse, when she gives me that glitter stare of hers? Or am I mixing up my fairy tales?”
“Witchcraft is not a fairy tale.”
“Right. Sorry.”
One by one, Tigerstar picked up her kittens and jumped off her bed to go and deposit them on Paxton’s chest.
“Uh, does she think she’s gonna nurse them on my . . . yep, she does.”
Harmony tried really, really hard not to laugh. “You must be very comfortable, and Star must love you deeply.”
“I . . . think I’m gonna build the five of you a separate room.”
“Yesterday, I would have considered that a good idea.” Harmony raised her head to rest it on her hand. “But now I think this is cozy. Besides, we’re two against ‘you know who,’ like you said.”
“We can’t say her name?”
“The existing walls have ears,” Harmony replied. “Nuff said.”
Paxton groaned, which was the last thing Harmony remembered, until fifteen minutes later, or so it seemed, when the sound of multiple motorboats woke her. Then she heard the joking construction crew approaching the castle. “What time is it?” she asked.
“Grr, growl, grumble,” Paxton said, already sitting on the edge of his cot scrubbing his hands over his whiskers, looking morning-snuggle soft and sleep-mussed kissable.
“Ah, a morning person,” she said. “You look like hell.”
“Gee thanks.” He did a double take. “You look good enough to—”
“Thanks!” She got up and ran for the bathroom, turning to him in the doorway and raising both arms. “Ta da! I’m first!”
Gingertigger took a flying leap from the floor to his chest and knocked him back on his cot. “You know what I hate more than anything?” he said, staring up at the ceiling. “Wise-ass brats and flying cats in the morning.” Gingertigger licked his nose.
Harmony closed the bathroom door on a chuckle.
“Living with you and your kamikaze cats is like being married without the perks,” he grumbled as he passed the bathroom door. “I have a meeting today,” he yelled, then she heard him walking down the hall. Good, the place must have another bathroom somewhere. Served him right for telling her the dorm was a suite.
After she showered, put on her makeup, and dressed, she saw that he’d made up his cot with military precision. She’d almost forgotten about the obsessive picture-straightening flaw in his personality.
Just to drive him nuts, she unmade his cot, corner by corner, and placed the kittens in the curl of his blankets. She petted Tigerstar as the cat jumped up to join her family. “Show your kids how to be mousers today,” she said, scratching behind Star’s ear. “If you can’t find any mice, there’ll be kitty munchies in the kitchen. Litter’s that way.” She pointed. “Aunt Harmony has to go to work now.” She kissed each kitten on the head, turned to leave, and came face-to-face with Paxton.
“They’re cats, not people,” he said. “You think they understood your instructions? Aunt Harmony?”
“Three of them belong to my sisters. Caramello, the caramel and marshmallow swirl, is Destiny’s. Warlock, the pure black, belongs to Storm. And Gingertigger, the orange and black striped, is mine.” Harmony wondered if Paxton had looked this good last night, and if so, why hadn’t she shown him her tattoos? That kiss had been sexy as all hell.
They remembered at the same time, every taste and texture. Harmony stepped away from his heat, but Paxton had no such intention. What had they done, switched places?
He examined her shirt and her nips got hard. “How May I Ignore You?” he read, his laugh lines deepening. The man didn’t even need to smile to turn her on. His breath warmed her as he nuzzled her ear and whispered, “Let’s see if you can ignore me.”
“What is this, freaky Tuesday?” she asked as his embrace made her feel safe and cherished. His hand at her back pulled her into a sphere of protection, his bare chest upping the intimacy factor.
His parted lips came slowly for hers, heightening her anticipation.
No swooping in to steal a kiss. This morning, Paxton savored. The touch of his lips barely there, like fluttering butterfly wings, he prodded her upper lip to separate it from her lower, then he teased her lower with his upper, the two of them sharing breaths. This was taking kissing to a new level, raising the bar on her expectations, and her appreciation and desire, to the point that . . . she could really learn to care for this guy.
After kissing him and reading his fantasies last night, she’d had some pretty erotic dreams—of him in that bed alone, hot . . . of the two of them there together, hotter—and yet her dreams were nothing compared to being in his arms at this moment.
Losing all sense of self, Harmony fell into the kiss with ease, knuckling his rugged back with one hand while sliding the other up his centerfold chest. Sifting through his chest hair, she found a nipple and took to curling the hair around it until it pebbled like her own, while her favorite steel rod got harder, too, as it prodded her ready center.
She got greedy with the kiss. She couldn’t wait a second more, and Paxton groaned and became as ravenous, their tongues mating, the two of them arching to get closer.
Harmony moved her hips to abrade his erection, taking a good deal of satisfaction in their complementing rhythm, but she wanted more, which he surely had to give, because Paxton was hard and thick with plenty of giving power.
He lifted her off her feet, laid her on the bed, and slid over her, taking up where she left off, his purpose clear, to graze her aching center with the treasure in his unsnapped jeans.
Harmony wanted to release, fondle, and torture the standing soldier. She wanted it inside her, until they both came their brains out.
Someone coughed. King stilled.
Harmony looked toward the door.
“Well,” said a scraggly stud muffin voyeur. “I didn’t know the place had gone coed, or I would have come up sooner.”
Harmony expected Paxton to come out of his sexual haze, but he returned to nibbling her mouth. “Go away, Aiden,” he said between nibbles.
“Yeah.” Harmony licked her parted lips. “Bye, Aiden.” She pulled Paxton’s head back down for another kiss, so he had no choice but to cooperate.
The intruder chuckled, and Storm’s kitten followed him out the door.
“I—” King slipped a hand beneath her shirt to place it flat on her midriff. “have—” He kissed the corners of her mouth, “a—”
“Breast in your hand.” Harmony placed his palm over an aching breast, arching so he’d do something amazing with it, which he did, then he lifted her shirt, unhooked her bra . . . and saw her tattoo. He fingered the pale aqua triquetra, symbol of three, in a heart, low on her right breast near her cleavage.
“It’s a Celtic design. Pretty, isn’t it?”
As if captivated by it, Paxton brought his mouth close, closer, and he kissed it. When he was finished adoring her tattoo with his lips, he breathed on her nip, warmed it, and let it cool. “I’m gonna be late for my own meet—” He reared back. “Hey, witch. Am I under a spell?”
Disgust turned Harmony to ice. “The Denialator strikes again!” She shoved him away with so much force, he fell back and hit his head on the footboard.
“Good!” She pulled down her shirt and jumped from the bed. “Meeting,” she said. “Downstairs. Now!”
She went in the bathroom and slammed the door.