When I remembered how to breathe again, I took his face between my palms and kissed him long and slow. “That was amazing.”
He rolled to one side and gathered me in his arms. “I told you I was a master of the art.”
I snuggled closer to his warm, sweaty body and breathed a sigh of contentment. “Would that be the art of bullshit you’re talking about?”
He chuckled softly and gently tucked a sweaty strand of hair behind my ear. “That would be my other specialty.”
“No doubt about that,” I murmured, and drifted off to sleep.
When I woke the following morning, I was alone in the bed, but the smell of cinnamon toast and coffee filled the air, making my stomach rumble.
I shoved the blankets aside and got out of bed. The day beyond the windows was bright, filled with blue sky and few clouds. But the way the spruces swayed suggested the wind was pretty fierce. And if it was coming straight off the sea, I had no doubt it would also be icy.
I grabbed my old terry bathrobe from a wardrobe still filled with all my clothes and pulled it on, doing up the sash as I clattered barefoot down the stairs.
“That smells good,” I said, as I entered the kitchen.
He looked over his shoulder and gave me a warm smile. “I should hope so. I’ve been slaving away in the kitchen for hours.” I raised an eyebrow, and his smile became a grin. “Well, a good ten minutes, at least.”
I stood on tiptoes and gave him a quick kiss. “Mmmm, you taste better than the food smells.”
“As much as it pains me to admit it, you need food more than you need more of me at the moment. Here.”
I grabbed the plate and began to munch. It was as delicious as it smelled.
“I exchanged some cash after I rang my mom,” he said, dropping some dishes in the sink and washing them. A house-trained man who also could cook—you had to love that, I thought with an inner grin. “So we’ll have some usable money when we get over there.”
“Unfortunately, I lost my credit cards when the scientists snatched me in Scotland,” I said, around a mouthful of toast. “But I found a new ATM card when I was going through some of the mail.”
Which the Doc had given me after the small memorial service, along with a small bag of Dad’s possessions. Tears touched my eyes again, and I blinked them away. He was gone, but at least he’d gone the way he’d wanted to go. I’d given him that, if nothing else.
“I think we need to hit them fast,” Trae said, “before they’ve got time to realize we’re even there.”
“I agree, but we can’t be too fast. That’s what got me caught the last time.” I finished the last of the toast, then gulped down the hot coffee. “I’ll go upstairs and have a shower.”
He nodded. “I checked the tides. We need to leave within the hour if you’re going to make it under the Lubec bridge in time.”
“I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”
“Does a woman ever really mean that when she says it?” he asked, voice dry but a twinkle in his eyes as his gaze met mine.
“Time me,” I said, and raced up the stairs.
After the quickest shower in recorded history—for me, at least—I dried myself, then padded naked into my bedroom to raid my wardrobe, picking out a pair of jeans, an old Nirvana T-shirt, and a woolen sweater that would keep me warm even when it was wet. I dug an old pair of Nikes from the thick dust under my bed, then grabbed the waterproof food carryall my dad had made when I was a teenager who constantly needed to be fed and yet who was prone to wandering unheeding of time under the sea, and filled it with extra clothes and a coat. At least I’d have something dry to change into once I was in Scotland.
That done, I picked it up and clattered back down the stairs.
He glanced at his watch. “Ten minutes and forty-five seconds. You’re late.”
“So I’ll make it up to you later. There is, however, hot water left, so maybe you should be thanking me.”
“Maybe I should.” He put his coffee cup down on the bench, then walked across to give me a quick kiss. “Hmmm. Nice.”
“Shower,” I said, smiling as I stepped away from him. “Otherwise we’re never going to get out of here.”
“A bossy woman,” he muttered, the twinkle in his eyes belying the edge in his voice. “Just my luck.”
“Get,” I said, imperiously pointing toward the stairs.
He got. I poured myself a coffee, then turned off the machine and leaned back on the bench, sipping the hot, sweet liquid and listening to the shower, imagining all that water running over lean, hard, golden flesh.
He rattled down the stairs ten minutes later, as sexy as all get-out in jeans and one of my dad’s old black sweaters. My body began to ache at the mere sight of him, but now was not the time. We had people to rescue, and they’d all spent too much time locked in hell already.
“Got everything you need?” he asked, switching the kitchen light off then grabbing the car keys from the counter.
I nodded and rinsed out the rest of the coffee under the tap, then followed him out the back door. The wind whipped around me as I stepped onto the porch, flinging my still-damp hair in every direction. I shivered and locked the door, then shoved the key in my pocket. No need to put it in the plant anymore. There was no one else left who needed it—not unless I rescued my mother.
“What happened to those men who were waiting for us?” I asked, a slight catch in my voice that could have been caused by either fear of what I still had to do or the cold itself. Maybe even a bit of both.
He strode ahead of me, already in the trees, and for a moment, I didn’t think he’d heard me. Then he flung over his shoulder, “I flew them off the property. Dumped them and a few supplies in some secluded forest in Canada and took their cell phones. It’ll take them days to get anywhere without phones.”
And by the time they did get somewhere, we’d be long gone.
I followed Trae through the trees and down to the beach. The wind in the open was even colder, filled with the scent of the sea, a scent that called me on.
I gripped my bag tightly, and stopped beside Trae. “Talk to you in Scotland,” he said, and dropped a kiss on my cheek.
“You’d better have a coffee ready,” I said, “because I’m going to be fucking freezing by the time I get to those shores.”
He laughed, and flung an arm around my shoulders, hugging me briefly but fiercely. “There’s better ways than coffee to warm you up,” he said, giving me another swift kiss, then letting me go.
I walked down to the water. The sea greeted me with its usual enthusiasm, and a smile touched my lips. I dove into the water and kept under the waves, swimming far out. When I finally surfaced, Trae had already gone.
The journey to Scotland was a long and, in many ways, a lonely one. Trae occasionally swooped above me, his gold and silver form bright against the blue of the skies, but mostly I was alone, deep under the water, with only the occasional pod of dolphins to keep me company.
I didn’t stop, though tiredness was a weight that made my body ache. Stopping gave me time to think about Mom and the kids and what they might have gone through while I was away, and those were thoughts I just couldn’t handle right now.
I made my way around the Hebrides and Orkney Islands and finally swam down through the North Sea to the Moray Firth near Inverness. Night had leeched the warmth from the sky by the time I got near the River Ness, and the lights of the city washed brightness across the river. I swam upstream for as long as I could, then, when the water would no longer cover or hide my dragon form, shifted shape and swam toward the shore.