Beds and Blazes (13 page)

Three walnuts careened over Hazel’s head, plopping to the moss beneath her, and one fell on her forehead with a plunk. “That was supposed to be a surprise, Fiona!” Hazel complained, rubbing her head and scowling.

“Oh—whoops! Just pretend you’re surprised, okay, Dora?” Fiona’s eyes lit up as she parted a group of apple leaves. “This is going to be the best apple crop ever, ladies!”

Geneva strummed a close to her song. “Want back up, Dora? Lowell’s still in bed.” When Dora nodded, the amenable dryad tilted her head towards her juniper tree and closed her eyes. Immediately, the branches shifted into place so that Dora could ascend with ease.

“Thanks, Geneva.” Dora climbed back up and snuggled next to Lowell on the sweet-smelling bed. The juniper’s branches themselves formed the frame and a thick elf-woven pad of rushes served as the padding. The elves were not only talented home-builders and mattress-makers. Lowell had revealed one of their finest inventions—an indiscernible birth control device he wore when they made love. “Just so you don’t need to worry,” he’d explained gruffly.

From the castle, Lowell had brought along a pillow for each of them and a plush quilt, and Dora had decided on the first night that there was no more desirable bed in the whole world.

“Although,” she whispered into Lowell’s ear, “the company may have something to do with that.” Lowell, eyes shut, grinned and kissed her. “What’ll we do today, Lowell? I’m curious about the naiads, and I haven’t seen any trolls yet, either. And I’m curious about that leprechaun you were talking about earlier—can we visit him? And what’s an Irish sprite doing in Prescott Woods?”

“Sounds like we’re going leprechaun hunting,” Lowell chuckled. “Even if we don’t find the little guy, we can have fun trying. He’s more slippery than a gnome. But I’ve got an idea about what I want to do first.” He reached beneath the quilt and cupped one hand around Dora’s rear.

“Ahh, so romantic!” a female voice cooed close to Dora’s head. She turned to see Geneva in the crook of the tree, smiling blissfully.

“Mm-hm, sure is.” Fiona paused in her perusal of the young apples to look over at the juniper tree.

Hazel scampered up the trunk and popped her head over the edge of the mattress. “You guys want any help up here?” She ran her deep green eyes down Lowell’s frame and stopped just below his waist. “We know just how Lowell likes it.”

“Ah, ladies, many thanks, but not today,” Lowell answered. Dora chuckled to see the deep crimson of his cheeks and gave him a fond peck on the cheek. He produced another elven invention from beneath his pillow, commissioned especially for this trip. “We’ll see you in a bit, girls.” He held aloft a palm-sized green sphere and squeezed its sides. At once, a shimmering tented dome opened over the mattress.

“Aw, phooey,” Dora heard Hazel complain from outside the barrier. “They’re still shutting us out.”

“No matter, Hazel. Come on up into my apple tree and let me see if I can tempt you with something else,” Fiona told her. Dora heard the thump-thump of dropping feet and the rustle of leaves in the tree nearest her. “You too, Geneva. Let’s play Dora and Lowell, shall we girls? I’ll be Dora! Oooh, check out my glossy black hair—I’m sooo beautiful and voluptuous, aren’t you jealous?”

“And I’m Lowell!” Hazel chortled in a deep voice. “Arrrgh, arrrgh, arrrgh, lookit my beard! Kinya guess what I’ve got under this here kilt?”

Geneva giggled with delight. “And I’m me, after Dora and Lowell decide that they’ll let us in on their play! Lucky, lucky me—here I come, gonna shake up your tree and strip off your bark! Grr-ruff-ruff-ruff!”

“Dryads.” Lowell rolled his eyes and turned to Dora. “They get a little silly here in the woods, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, don’t be afraid.” Dora pulled the quilt off him. “I’m certainly not. They’re fun, and who knows what we’ll do in the future with them, right Lowell? Forever’s a long time.” She stroked his thickening erection and lifted her shoulder. “We’ll have plenty of chances to try things out in these woods of ours.” Lowell’s eyes glittered as she straddled him and held his cock between her legs.

“I wish you could see yourself right now, woman. With that shiny deep green behind you, all aglow in the morning light, and your hair falling around your shoulders, and those glorious curves of yours…” He wrapped his hands around her waist and groaned as she eased down onto his shaft. “You’re a goddess, Dora. My queen.” He ran his hands over her hips and grinned. “Know what you make me think of, lovely lady?” Dora lifted an eyebrow in response. “Whittling.”

“Whittling!” she shot back. “The hell you say! I thought you loved my curves, Lowell! And, from what I understand, this figure is as good as it’s gonna get, now that I’m one of the Fair Folk. Like it or lump it, Lowell Rossi.” She lifted up from his lap until he was barely inside her and glowered at him.

“Oh, hush, Dora! You know good and well that your body excites me like no other woman’s possibly could. I love you and I adore the meat on your bones.” He squeezed her hips and brought her down a notch or two. “It’s just that I realised that being with you makes the world around me make sense. You bring out the best parts of me and let me see the good in everything else. The only other thing that’s done that for me is scraping a knife on a piece of oak. I whittled when my father brought me to these woods, transforming our family in one swift stroke, and it helped feel as though I had a little bit of control left in my own life. I thought that if I could make something beautiful out of a chunk of wood, there was something special and worthy about me.” He pulled her a bit lower onto his lap. “You make me feel that way, Dora. You’re my whittling stick.”

“You have a poet’s soul, my love, whether you know it or not.” She smiled and spread her palms over his broad chest. “And you set me on fire, Lowell. Whittle away—I love being your stick.” She lowered herself until he was fully sheathed inside her, then slowly ground her hips against him. Her breasts swayed with the movement and Lowell raised his hands to caress them, then stroked the twisted burn scars on her back.

“I thank all that is good that you are here, well and whole, in my arms,” he murmured. Birdsong without the tent mingled with the dryads’ giggles of delight.

She smiled and rolled her hips in a tight circle, undulating her stomach as she did when belly dancing with Carmen. Lowell growled and she felt his cock thicken inside her. “Let’s take it slow this morning, okay?” she murmured.

Dora clenched her muscles around him and lowered her face to his for a lingering kiss. Lowell flipped her onto her back and traced a path down her neck with the tip of his tongue, then began a slow rhythm that set the tree mattress swinging in the juniper branches.

“That sounds perfect, Dora. We’ve got all the time in the world.”

Also available from Total-E-Bound Publishing:

A Ghost on Two Wheels

Bebe Balocca

Excerpt

Chapter One

“Barney!” I lean out of the back door and holler up into the meadow. “Barney, damn it, come on in!” As I have for the past several days, I hope to see him dart out from our rickety barn, his namesake and his favourite haunt, and plummet down the gentle slope to our back door like a ginger lightning bolt. Barney enjoys nothing more than lurking in that dusty old barn, chasing field mice and sparrows and lizards, then resting after his hunts in my lap.

We inherited Barney when we bought this old farmhouse ten years ago. After we moved in, we told Mack Grayden, the owner, that we’d found a cat in the barn.

Mack had shrugged and spat on the ground. “Just an old barn cat,” the crusty old man had grunted. “And I got no use for him where I’m going. Keep him or call animal control to pick him up, don’t matter none to me. Reckon you might want a good mouser, though. Keep mice from gettin’ into the place.”

We decided to give the unnamed mouser a trial period. I set out dry cat food in a dish, and the cat acted like it was wild salmon on a bed of caviar. Apparently Mack had never fed the cat at all and had just left him to fend for himself with mice and lizards and whatever else he could catch. The poor, scrawny thing was just skin and bones. We fattened him up, got him checked out at the vet, and invited him into the house. Our hand-me-down cat proved to be a well-adjusted and contented pet, as well as a very, very good eater. He’d rolled with the punches delivered by his neglectful previous owner Mack, and was more than ready for the next phase of his life. Now Barney, as we named the orange barn cat, is part of our family, a huge, tough tomcat who sleeps at the foot of our bed and curls next to me while I write, as loyal as any dog.

I wait and I hope, but there’s no lightning bolt this morning.

Michael comes up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist. “I’m afraid he’s gone, babe,” he says quietly, and plants a kiss on my neck. “He’s been missing for six days now.”

Fear stings the back of my throat and I swallow painfully. I just can’t bring myself to believe it. “He’s been gone for a week before and come back, hungry and filthy and covered in burrs. He’s probably just out hunting,” I insist. I cup my hands around my mouth and shout once more into the air. “
Barney!
Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!”

Michael leaves me to my yelling and walks to the coffee pot.

I shut the back door with a sigh. “You think he’s really gone for good?” I ask quietly.

Michael pours two cups of coffee and sloshes some cream in the mug intended for me. He hands it to me and answers carefully. “Barney’s an old cat, Ivy,” he says quietly. “And he was starting to move pretty slowly. He’s had a good, long life, but he may have gone off to die if he felt the time was near. Outdoor cats do that sometimes, you know.” He sees me bite my lip and quickly adds, “But I could be wrong. He could show up any minute, begging for some Fancy Feast and a nap in your lap. What do I know, right?” He smiles at me over his coffee cup, blue eyes glinting warmly.

Two months into his biannual buzz-cut has given a nicely tousled look to his wavy black hair. I love how he can’t be bothered with frequent haircuts, yet manages to look devastatingly hot with his hair at every length from shaved to shaggy. I think that now is my favourite hair length on him, though—long enough to run my fingers through his short waves, and still short enough to stand up on its ends.

“Wanna go for a ride this afternoon?” Michael asks. “I’ve got an appointment this morning, but we could get a nice little putt in after lunch. It’s going to be gorgeous today. I’ve got the Chief waxed and ready to ride.” He clears his throat before continuing. “I thought today would be a good day to get started on our new tats. Joe and Chloe have time for both of us at two o’clock.”

He says this casually, but I know it’s as meaningful to him as it is to me. For our tenth anniversary of being together, we’re getting each other’s names tattooed over our hearts. Michael and I aren’t married, but we have a bond that goes deeper than any ’till death do us part’ vow spoken in a church. I’ve given myself to him, forever and ever, no matter what, and he’s given himself to me. We have grown together like two trees planted side by side. Our branches are locked and tangled as they grow up to the sun, and, far beneath the surface, our roots are fused together. We’ll never be separated.

These tattoos were my idea. Although Michael is a tattoo artist, and has his share of ink on his gorgeously muscled body, I’m a tattoo virgin. It’s not that I don’t appreciate body art—I’m crazy about Michael’s tats. I love to trace my fingers over the intricate Celtic knot on his biceps and the crescent moon on his wrist. The stark tribal tat stretching across his shoulders is my favourite. It gorgeously accents the beefy width of his back when he’s shirtless. The reason I’ve yet to go under the tattoo gun myself, though, is that for most of my life I’ve been unable to settle on any particular image. I just didn’t feel strongly enough about anything to mark myself with it for the rest of my life. Also, I’ll confess that I’m a big chicken when it comes to pain. Tattoos look like they hurt.

A few years ago, though, when I knew beyond a doubt that Michael was my forever mate, I started dreaming of getting his name over my left breast. I want it right over my heart, so I can hold my palm on it and feel my own heartbeat through his name. I figure I’ll just deal with the pain when it comes, although the thought of a tattoo needle plunging into my skin makes my stomach clench into knots and flop around like a spastic fish.

After I convinced him that I wouldn’t regret it—and how could I ever regret having my true lover’s name printed on my skin?—we talked about how our tats would look and drew up sketches for Joe and Chloe to use. Michael loves the idea of getting my name over his heart, too. He wants to have my name surrounded by tendrils of ivy. Easy enough, right? ‘Ivy’ encased in ivy. I’m getting Michael’s name in a heart drawn from gears and pipes and chains, an homage to Michael’s Indian Chief motorcycle and his love of all things mechanical. Plus, it looks cool.

“So how about that ride?” He plops down into a kitchen chair and asks again, “Do you have much work to do? Can you fit in a putt and then an appointment at Tattoo Maxx? I’ve been looking forward to getting inked with you, Ivy, for a long time, and I think today’s the perfect day for it.”

My heart lurches in my chest as though it, too, were both scared and eager to feel the bite of the tattoo gun. “I’ve just got a few hours of work,” I answer. “I need to polish up that article for the
Gazette
, and then I can take off for the rest of the day. Is that college kid coming back to get colour added to his sleeve?”

Michael nods and sips his black coffee. “Yeah, I’m going to start colouring in Brent’s tiger today, but a sleeve like he’s getting is going to take another visit or two after this one before I finish up.” He glances at the wall clock and rises. “Kid’s gonna be here in ten minutes,” he says. “So I’m going to head out to the shop.”