Out of This World

Chapter 14

Still Kellan’s view…

Marilee burned the bottoms of my cookies and then blamed the oven, bringing us into the kitchen to taste them anyway after we’d changed out of our wet clothes.

I knew her hospitality wasn’t kindness but a way to keep us from snooping.

“Is there something that you’d like us not to find?” Rachel finally asked so politely, it took Marilee a moment to realize what she’d said.

“Of course not,” Marilee said. “Mi casa es su casa.” She laughed. “I’m learning Spanish on tape.”

Rachel smiled. “¿Es usted que planea en dormir con Axel?”

Marilee looked at her blankly. “Um, I don’t think I got to that chapter yet.”

“I asked if you planned on doing Axel.”

Marilee folded, then refolded, a kitchen towel. “That’s something we haven’t quite worked out yet.”

“But you want to,” Rachel said.

“Yes,” Marilee admitted. “But to be honest, I was hoping he’d make the first move. That boy is as slow as molasses; nothing can rush him. Drives me crazy.”

“Yeah.” Rachel sighed as if she commiserated greatly.

I looked at her. I wasn’t as slow as molasses.

Was I?

But she had made the first move…

Fine. I still wasn’t as slow as molasses, because there’d never been a first move to make before now-at least, that I knew of.

“You could make the first move,” Rach pointed out to Marilee, carefully not looking at me. “I know it’s always preferable when they do it, but sometimes, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”

Really? Had I been a “gotta do”?

“You’re being awfully nice,” Marilee said, sounding just a little unsure.

“I’m not used to being at odds with someone,” Rachel said. “I hate that we got off on the wrong foot.”

The women looked at each other. Rach smiled, and then, unbelievably, so did Marilee.

Bonding right before my eyes.

“Well, this is good,” I said. “Except for the whole missing-information part.”

Marilee looked at her watch, and moved to the door. “Oops, would you look at the time? I’ve got to-”

“Go,” I said in unison with her. “Yeah, imagine that-” But I was talking to myself, because Marilee had vanished.

“I almost had her. Before you screwed it up,” Rach said.

“What? You had nothing.”

“She’s not so bad, Kel.”

I stared at her. “Is this a girl thing?”

“Probably.”

Marilee popped her head back in. “Oh, I forgot. William and Serena want you to play a game with them in the den.”

More conspiracy. “What game?” I asked, but Marilee was already gone.

“Probably Monopoly,” Rach said. “Come on. Maybe we can wheedle something more from them.”

Not Monopoly. No, William and Serena wanted to play Sensual Truth or Dare, a game for couples, that was pretty much self-explanatory.

“Oh boy,” Rach said, and glanced at me.

“Come on,” Serena said, and patted the couch.

I stood there. “Uh…”

“Oh, don’t be shy,” Serena said, and got up to pull us to some seats.

Truth or Dare. Fine and dandy for her and William, a couple obviously at ease with their sexuality in regards to each other.

But I felt like I was sitting on a time bomb with a lit fuse.

William went first, and picked truth. “Tell a secret to the person on your right,” he read.

I was on his right. “Tell me about the swap.”

“Dare,” William decided, switching, and smoothly turned the card over for his resulting dare. “Instead of telling a secret to the person on your right, do something to them.”

“Wait!” Serena hopped up from his left and squished herself in between us so that now she was on his right.

“Go,” she said breathlessly.

William smiled at her, then slipped off her sandals and gave her a slow, languid foot massage, which had Serena melting boneless into her chair with a moan so sensual, it got to me. She lay back, eyes closed, breathing shallow, nipples hard. I glanced at Rachel, who looked as turned on as Serena.

At her turn, Serena chose truth. “Choose a secret to share.”

“I know which secret I want to hear about,” I said.

Still looking hot and bothered, Serena smiled. “I’m glad it was you two.”

I looked at Rachel, who looked back at me. “What do you mean?”

But Serena’s smile became mysterious, and she shook her head. “That’s my secret. That’s it.”

And there was no getting her to say more.

When it was my turn, I picked truth, afraid of the dare.

Yes, afraid. I was no fool.

Rachel drew the question, read it first, then gave me a long, measuring glance.

Uh-oh.

“What’s your greatest fantasy?” she asked.

Ah hell. “How about my greatest irritation, which is when people won’t talk to me.”

“Fantasy,” she repeated, clearly forgetting that we were supposed to be on the same side here.

“Greatest fantasy? Uh…” You naked. Me naked. You naked, pinned by me also naked, against my shower wall. “Uh…” Think, man. “To go skydiving.”

“Sexual fantasy,” Serena said, laughing. “Unless you’d rather have the dare.”

“Dare,” I said, deciding I was less afraid of that.

“Fine.” Serena turned the card over. She read it in silence, then stood and opened the coat closet door. “Take a partner of your choice and kiss her for five minutes.”

“You are joking.”

“No.”

I looked at Rach for help.

“I thought it was seven minutes in the closet,” she said.

Some help.

“Sorry, you only get five,” Serena said. “Get moving, you two.”

Rachel smiled into my eyes, took my hand and led me to the closet.

I knew this was just a stupid game. But that didn’t explain why my heart was suddenly racing, or why my palms had gone sweaty.

I didn’t want to do this.

Right. I was already hard as a rock, and I hadn’t touched her yet. Hell yeah, I wanted to kiss Rachel for five minutes.

I wanted to kiss her for the rest of my life.

Rachel went into the closet first, then pulled me in as well, shutting the door, leaving us in complete darkness.

Actually, it was just me in complete darkness, because she could see right through anything, including the inky black. A soft scarf brushed my cheek and the padding of a down coat pushed at my back, but all I could think about was what we could do with five minutes. I didn’t know about Rach, but I could think of a lot.

“Rach.”

She put a finger over my lips. “Not talking. Kissing. Unless…you don’t want to.”

I let out a rough laugh, and pulled her hand from my mouth, pressing it up against the vee of my jeans, loving the soft little “oh!” that escaped her at the feel of me. “Yeah, feel how much I don’t want you-”

She kissed me, diving in with such unexpected fierceness that I fell backwards.

A pile of coats broke our fall as her arms entwined around my neck, pressing closer, straddling me with those glorious legs spread on either side of my hips so that she could arch against me.

I think my eyes rolled back in my head.

“Mmm,” she said when I ran my hands down her spine to hold onto her ass, pressing her closer, urging her on, as her hips rocked both back and forth, and my world.

I couldn’t stop kissing her, kissing her with everything I had, hoping my five minutes would never come to an end, that I didn’t ever have to let her go.

And then far too soon, a laughing voice called through the door, “Time’s up!”

No.

Rachel stood, and I nearly cried. Seriously.

She reached a hand down to help me, then went to open the door.

But I held it closed, as gently as possible so as to not destroy my third door in two days. “I need a minute.”

“You do?” She outlined me through my jeans with her fingers. “Oh my,” she breathed, doing it again, making me jerk and grab her wrist.

“That’s not going to help,” I said tightly.

With a soft laugh, she kissed the side of my neck.

“Neither is that.”

“I’m sorry.” But she didn’t sound sorry. “What can I do to help?”

Take off all your clothes and drop to your knees. “Wear a potato sack. Stop smiling at me.” I sighed, and attempted to make adjustments, but there was no way to get comfortable. “Stop breathing.”

“You’re so cute when you’re sexually frustrated.” And she kissed me again, softly, sweetly, right on the corner of my mouth.

All I could do was pull her in for a hug, and sigh.

“Better?” she murmured.

“Much,” I lied, and buried my face in her hair, still painfully hard, still painfully aware that in spite of everything, there was nowhere on Earth I’d rather be.

Dinner was a bit of a strained affair, mostly because Marilee ruined her chicken dish and Axel rescued her with a steak barbeque that was so successful, it made her pout and threaten to lead all his fishing and hiking expeditions.

Axel laughed, which made her madder.

“Why don’t we just switch jobs, Mari?” he asked.

She stared at him. “Seriously?”

“Why not?”

“Yeah,” she said slowly, “why not?” And she began to glow with happiness as she talked about some of the expeditions she wanted to plan.

Axel glowed as well, over a mouth-watering pan of brownies he’d baked for dessert.

“So you’re really swapping?” Kel asked.

“Just jobs,” Axel said. “Not…you know.”

Silence fell.

“Now see, I would know, if you’d tell us,” Kel finally said, but Serena and William quickly excused themselves to go upstairs, and Marilee did the same.

Axel sighed. “Guess it’s good night.” He opened the back door for us, then ended up wandering to the guest house, too, which I thought was strange.

He plopped himself down on the couch, kicked his feet up on the coffee table and bogarted the remote.

Since we only got one channel, a fishing channel, there wasn’t any reason to feel resentful, but I sank into the couch next to him and felt it anyway.

I wanted that remote.

Rach glared at Axel. “Don’t you have your own room?”

“Thought you might want some company. But if you two want privacy or something, I can go.”

Privacy. My entire body leaped at the thought, especially since Rachel sent me a quick speculative glance.

But Axel kept watching the fly-fishing team on the TV.

Finally, I kicked his feet off the table and snagged the remote. “You want to stay? Fine. All you have to do is explain some things.”

Axel stood up, and sighed. “Dude, you really gotta learn to chill.”

And then he finally left.

Rachel followed him to the door (with the hole still in it), and locked it. She looked at me, and crooked her little finger to come close.

When I did, she wrapped her arms around my neck, making me moan and haul her close. “Rach-”

“I found the office,” she said in my ear.

This information took a moment to soak into my brain, but when it did, I went still. I told myself this was what I’d been waiting for, all day not for night to get here so she could jump my bones again. I pulled back, and tried not to feel stupid that I’d thought she’d wanted me.

“Where?”

“Soon as everyone’s asleep, I’ll show you.”

We waited two hours, an eternity in a small room, alone with the woman I’d been drooling after for so many years, especially since I now knew exactly how good it could be.

She changed into a camisole, sans bra, and matching pj bottoms, thin and insubstantial enough that I could see she’d gone commando beneath.

Seriously. She was going to kill me, and I was going to die with a hard-on. I could only hope they wouldn’t ask my mother to identify me.

Finally, the lights went off in the main house. Rach pulled on a sweatshirt-mine-and out we went into the night.

Damn, the nights were pitch-black here, and the first thing I did was stub my toe on the porch step. Hopping up and down, I swore the air blue, while Rach laughed breathlessly and bent down to try to see the damage.

I looked at her crouched in front of me, in an extremely erotic position, and could only groan.

“Is it broken?” she asked anxiously.

“No.” I hauled her up. “Not broken. It’s just too bad my superpowers don’t extend to seeing in the dark.”

“Mine do.” She bit her lower lip as she took me in from head to toe, stopping at one particular spot in the middle. “And, um, wow.”

Yeah. Wow.

We sneaked into the dark inn together. She led the way, clearly seeing with ease, while I felt like a bumbling idiot, still limping because of my toe. Having her warm, curvy body pressed up to mine didn’t help much either, and she seemed to know it. Every time I stumbled, she threw her arms around me, pressing her breasts into my ribs, holding on tight, until I began to wonder how long a male could have an erection and not die from DSB-deadly sperm buildup.

In the kitchen, Rach went directly to the freezer and grabbed a handful of cookies. “For strength,” she said with utter seriousness.

We moved through the living room, Rach pulling me to safety before I could fall over a big chair in the way. Past the living room we went, down the hallway.

Rach stopped at a coat closet, then quietly opened the door and shoved me inside.

“Um-” I started to say.

“Shh.”

She closed the door. In the dark, coats and sweaters brushed my face, and then Rach was plastered up against me.

“I can’t see,” I whispered.

“Scared?” she asked, sounding amused, and smelling like chocolate mint.

“Rach, we don’t have time for this.”

“For what?”

For all the wicked things running through my head.

“Silly man.” She pressed me through the coats and opened another door. Which is how I found myself in a small room just off the living room, facing a tiny, cramped desk, a row of metal filing cabinets and stacks of files everywhere-strewn haphazardly across the desk, on the floor, on top of the cabinets-basically everywhere but where they belonged.

“Apparently Gertrude wasn’t so great with the paperwork,” Rachel said.

“A hidden office.”

Rachel smiled. “Suits Great-Great Aunt Gert, believe me. Where should we start?”

Hard to say, given the state of things. “The file cabinets. Since the files all appear to be scattered out here, what’s in them?”

She tried to open one, and couldn’t. “They’re locked.” Frowning, she concentrated on the first one, then blinked. “Kellan.”

The tone of her voice alerted me, and I remembered what she’d found in the guest house: guns. “What do you see?”

“Whiskey in the bottom drawer. Good to know,” she said softly. “And a laptop in this one.” She pointed to the next. “But that one? It’s got…cash. Lots of it.”

“Well, isn’t that just fascinating.”

“A bit, yeah. And the top one-” She gulped. “A pistol.”

“Okay. Give me some room.”

There wasn’t much room to be had in the small confines of the office, but she sat on the desk, while I pulled open the locked drawers with my new muscles, finding a laptop, a Blackberry, a gun and, indeed, a drawer full of cash.

“Jackpot,” Rachel whispered, and put a hand to her head.

“What? What is it?”

“I feel weird.”

I think my heart stopped. “Headache? Piercing pain?”

She shook her head.

“Dizziness?” I set everything down, and strode toward her, which took all of two steps. Putting my hands on her arms, I waited until she looked up. “Talk to me.”

Her eyes shimmered brilliantly, and she shook her head. “I’m sorry. Not sick weird.”

“What then?”

“Hard to explain.”

“Try.”

Instead, she pulled me in for a hug and held on tightly. “An I-need-you weird.”

Need me. That should not have meant so much. She was scared and had no idea what she was saying.

“Am I making any sense at all?” she whispered.

“No.”

But Christ, she was. And unable to resist the pull of her see-all eyes or the tremor of her lush mouth, I compounded my errors and held onto her tightly.

“This is nice,” she whispered. “But by ‘need you,’ I mean naked.”

“Uh…”

She squeezed her eyes shut, and if I wasn’t mistaken, she blushed. “Have you ever noticed that it’s always me coming onto you?” she whispered.

“Is that right?”

“Yes,” she said very quietly, looking…embarrassed?

No. No, I didn’t want that. “Let’s fix that right now,” I said. Clearly I’d lost my mind, but she was right.

How was it that I’d never even attempted to make a move on the most beautiful woman in the world? Oh, that’s right, because we’d never been on the same plane before, much less both yearning and burning.

But there we were, on the same plane.

Yearning and burning…

I cupped her face and leaned in, watching her watch me as I touched my lips to hers, keeping it quiet and warm and intimate. And only when her eyes flickered did I kiss my way up her throat, making my way to the sensitive spot beneath her ear, then over her jaw, her scent and taste driving me wild, and by the time I got back to her mouth, she had her hands fisted in my hair and was helping.

“No, let me,” I whispered.

And she did.