“It’s out of the question. I’m tired. I’m going to sleep.”
“It’s about four in the afternoon.”
“Very tired. I didn’t get much sleep last night. You eat the food and drink the champagne, and if you so much as come within two feet of me, I’ll scream bloody murder.” I grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around me like a cocoon, rolling over on the cot so that my face was to the wall. I prayed that the buzz of excitement that had filled me at our recent activity would die down enough so that I could at least rest.
Sleep, I knew, was out of the question. Not while Gregory was near. Not while everything in me wanted to ignore common sense.
I sighed. It was going to be a long, long night.
SEVEN
The night was long. Hellishly long. That was a better description, Gregory decided somewhere around two in the morning. Not only did he have a sleepless night in which to consider his sins, mostly focused on the fact that he had charged into Anwyn without official permission, but he didn’t even have the deliciously ripe form of Gwen to distract him.
“Blast it all,” he said into the close, dark night.
“You can say that again,” came the soft reply.
He stopped staring at the stone ceiling—which he couldn’t see once the guards turned off the lights for the night—and squinted across the cell. Was it his imagination, or could he make out a dark shape that was Gwen’s cot? “Are you awake, too?”
“No. Go back to sleep.”
“I haven’t been to sleep, so I can’t go back to it.” He hoped she would reply. If she would at least talk to him, then he stood a fair chance of wooing his way onto her cot. Or having her come and “tend” him again. That had been most pleasant, and not a little bit surprising.
“I like your mouth,” he said conversationally, putting his hands behind his head as he once again looked up into the darkness. “It is sweet, and hot, and very enjoyable.”
“We are not having this conversation.”
He smiled to himself. She had refused to speak to him for hours, her breath evening out until he thought she had dozed off. But he had been wrong.
What he hadn’t been wrong about was her interest in him. No woman could kiss him like she had if she wasn’t the littlest bit attracted to him.
“I liked how your tongue touched mine. But it seemed to lose interest.”
He cocked his head, but there was no reply.
“I did enjoy how it twined around mine after that, though. It was very erotic.”
There was a small noise in the darkness, like that of a frustrated woman stifling a sigh into a pillow, followed by the determined rustle of blankets.
“I also very much liked touching your breasts.”
An exhalation of breath. Good. She was listening to him, at least.
“I like that they are . . .” He let the silence build for a minute and a half before there was a sharp sound of blankets being pushed back, and the squeak of a bed frame.
“What?” Gwen demanded to know. “They are what? Horrible? Repulsive? Off-putting?”
“Abundant. And warm. And so very sensitive to my touch.”
“They are not sensitive to your touch,” Gwen said in a huffy tone and from the sound of it, lay back down on the cot.
“No? So the thought of me touching them right now isn’t making your nipples tighten in anticipation?”
“Certainly not!”
“The idea of me nuzzling them, licking them, taking the tips of them into my mouth doesn’t stimulate you in the least?”
“Not at all.”
He smiled. Her voice sounded strangled, and he could swear her breath was coming faster.
“Odd. I freely admit that the thought of your breasts, of touching them, of rubbing my cheeks on them, of tasting them and pressing them against my bare chest makes me hard.” Sadly, that was very much the truth. He shifted on the cot, trying to ease his now strained fly.
She didn’t answer, but he heard the sound of her legs moving restlessly. That thought led to another. “I bet your belly is sublime.”
“You’d so lose that bet.”
“Really? What is it, if not sublime?”
“A stomach. A poochy stomach. If you haven’t noticed, I’m a big girl.”
“Statuesque.”
“Large.”
“An Amazon goddess.”
“Mom Two says plump is in these days. I hope so, because I can’t seem to lose this last twenty pounds no matter how many Zumba classes I go to.”
“I don’t care for women who have no padding on their bones. I prefer my woman with curves, and ample flesh for me to caress.”
She snorted. “You’re worth your weight in gold, then, because most men like skinny women.”
“That is their loss. Would you like me to go over there and show you just how much I appreciate your lushness?”
“No!” There was a whump as she obviously turned over, no doubt giving him her back again. He wondered if she knew that he simply had admired her delectable bottom when she’d done so earlier. Probably it was best not to mention it.
Then again . . . “You have a nice ass, too.”
“Bloody hell, Gregory!” she snapped as the cot squeaked again, followed by the slap of two bare feet hitting the stone floor. He could just imagine her shaking a finger at him. “Stop cataloging my body! I’m trying to sleep over here.”
“You are not. You are trying very hard to not imagine me naked.”
The startled inhalation of breath confirmed that wild shot (literally in the dark). “You are deranged.” She curled up again.
“It’s all right. I’m doing the same. Imagining you naked, that is. I already know what I look like.”
She muttered something under her breath, but refused to rise to his bait.
A thought struck him. “You appear to be shy about things of a sexual nature.”
“I am not shy!”
“You were shy when you kissed me. You touched the tip of my tongue with your own, and then seemed to be overwhelmed with the sensation.”
“That is not shy. That is just . . . circumspect.”
“Since you are shy, would you like me to describe myself?”
“No!” Their silence was pregnant with unspoken thought that quickly became spoken. “I am not interested in what you look like naked. You are the Watch. You want to arrest my moms. You could look like Adonis, and I couldn’t care less.”
Ah, so that was what bothered her. He had had a suspicion that she was feeling threatened by his employment. Unfortunately, he couldn’t reassure her that he meant her family no harm, when the truth was that he fully intended to arrest her mothers. Bringing in criminals who posed such a threat to the well-being of the Otherworld was likely going to be the only way he could salvage his career after he’d disobeyed orders.
He decided to set aside that problem for the moment. It wouldn’t be resolved then and there, and he wanted to have Gwen fully on his side before he had to make the arrest.
Thoughts of how he could present his case to her filled his head, and he didn’t realize how long he’d been quiet thinking that over until she interrupted his thoughts.
“Well?”
“Hmm?”
Her voice was disgruntled. “Aren’t you going to tell me anyway?”
He chuckled to himself. She truly was a joyful contradiction. He was certainly no stranger to women, and knew full well what effect his appearance had on them, but Gwen’s refusal to be lumped in with those women amused him. And entertained him. And most dangerous of all, intrigued him.
“I’m six foot one, blond, and have blue eyes.”
“I can see that for myself, thank you. Oh, forget it. It’s not like I want to know.”
“My tailor would tell you that my waist size is thirty-four and my inseam is thirty-two. My shirt size—”