Claire Delacroix (15 page)

Viviane smiled. He was so determined to not take credit for the generosity of what he had done. “And one that you returned to me.” She kissed his cheek, a little disappointed when he didn’t even incline his head to touch his lips to hers.

“You should garb yourself,” he growled. “There is a chill in the air this day.”

And he pushed past her into the small room.

Viviane’s shoulders sagged for only an instant. He was a man with a mission, that’s what he was. She shouldn’t be disappointed. No, he was just being protective of her. It
was
cold in here, but Viviane didn’t plan to linger around naked for long.

She was looking forward to that shower.

Maybe he was still feeling uncertain. Barb was always saying that men were unbelievably dense about such things, which Viviane understood to mean that they missed subtlety.

She discarded subtlety, right then and there, and followed Niall into the tiny room. She pressed herself against his back and smiled to herself when he caught his breath. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her hips against his buttocks, running one toe over his foot and up his leg.

“Viviane!” Niall whispered, his voice wonderfully strained.

Viviane decided subtlety was over-rated. She flattened her hands and ran them over his chest, closing her eyes as the thick pelt of hair ran through her fingers. She felt the outline of each rib, she inhaled deeply of his scent, she felt her own desire stir once more.

“I think we should return to bed,” she whispered. “I think I should touch you the way you have touched me, I think we should spend this morning learning all there is to know of each other.”

But when Viviane looked past his shoulder into the mirror, fully expecting to have the man’s avid attention, Niall was frowning at the sink basin as though it was personally offensive. He didn’t even glance up at her reflection, his lips were drawn tight, and he stood as taut as a bowstring.

“This is no garderobe,” he said tersely, reminding her that he had other priorities. “There is no course of water, no means of disposal...”

First things first.

“Yes, it is! You see?” Viviane reached around his waist and turned on the taps with a triumphant flick of her wrist. Niall features brightened and he hunkered down before the taps, moving easily away from her and stepping out of her embrace as though he was unaware of it.

Her presence was apparently forgotten and Viviane didn’t welcome the change.

It was absolutely no consolation to recall that she had spent half a day herself playing with the taps when she first arrived. Theirs was a fearsome magic - yet one that in a mere month, she had come to take for granted.

Viviane folded her arms across her chest, a very feminine part of her not liking being upstaged by plumbing, however marvelous it might be.

Niall tried to peer up the spout. “From whence does the water come?”

So, he hadn’t
completely
forgotten her! “It’s conjured up by magic.”

Niall cast her one of those skeptical glances she was starting to associate with him. “Magic,” he muttered, then snorted, his attention on the taps again.

Viviane waited, but Niall might as well have been alone, for all the attention he was going to give her. Clearly, she was going to be part of this discovery only if she explained things.

Well, she could do that. Viviane stepped forward, summoning her best smile, and put herself firmly between Niall and the current object of his fascination.

“You see, you just turn these knobs. On and off, hot and cold. This one plugs the hole - see? You just pull it up and down and it holds the water as long as you like. There’s the most wonderful soap right here -” she passed it under his nose for him to smell “- and behind the looking glass - you’ll never believe this! - there’s a secret cavern.”

She opened it with a gesture. “It opens with only the merest touch of the fingertips. Obviously, it’s there for offerings for the pixie of the looking glass. She doesn’t seem to be interested in my offerings, though.” Viviane removed the wilted flower left there a few days before, as well as the piece of chocolate that she had been so sure the pixie would like. She frowned. “Maybe it’s a boy pixie, or maybe what I leave there isn’t good enough for an offering. What do you think?”

But Niall’s eyes narrowed as he leaned closer to the taps. He was busy, turning the water on and off, on and off, his attention fixed on the changing flow. He played with the plug, he peered up the spout, he watched the basin fill and the water spill through the overflow.

Viviane waved the piece of chocolate at him, just to get his attention, but Niall ignored her. Her shoulders slumped as she wondered whether he had heard anything she had said.

And then she wondered what she could have done to have so lost his attention. If only her mother had told her more about things between women and men, this would have been a lot easier. Viviane wondered whether there was something she should have done this morning to please Niall, and hated that she didn’t know the answer.

Just when Viviane thought the taps couldn’t occupy him any longer, he opened the little cabinet beneath the sink.

“Aha!” Niall murmured at the array of gleaming metal there, and fell to his knees. He tapped and listened, managing to fit his head into the tiny space to study the pipes.

Viviane might as well have been part of the wallpaper. She thought rather longingly of the way they had begun the day, not to mention the way that she’d like to pick up where they had left off. Well, maybe she could solve the basic problem and get them back to where they had started.

It was worth a try.

Viviane cleared her throat pointedly, though Niall didn’t look up - at least not until she lifted the lid of the toilet. He bumped his head on the top of the cupboard and winced, though that didn’t seem to affect his interest.

In the toilet.

Viviane flatly refused to believe that any magic serving bodily functions was more interesting than she was. At least not for more than a few moments.

“And this is the toilet you were looking for. You see, it really is very clever, you sit and well...” She felt herself blush. “Well, you can guess that part, but then it all goes away.”

“Aye?” He peered at the bowl, then looked behind it.

“Like this!” Viviane flicked the lever, pleased with her showmanship when Niall jumped backward at the noisy flushing of the bowl. A heartbeat later, he swatted beside it, unceremoniously laying claim to the lever and flushing it himself. He chuckled to himself, repeating the deed.

Then he leaned close to listen and did it again. And again. And one more time.

He might as well have been alone. When he murmured to himself, that was enough.

“You’re not supposed to flush it unless you have to,” Viviane said a little more snippily than she had intended. “Barb says it’s bad for the water table, though how you could make a table of water, I don’t know. It must be some kind of magical trick they do here in Avalon and the flushing affects how well it works...”

Viviane’s words caught in her throat as Niall’s fingers fell on the lid of the box at the back. Before she knew what he was about, he had removed it, displaying the innards of the magical device to the eye. Viviane cried out in dismay, certain some vengeful being would retaliate for the intrusion, but Niall took no notice of her whatsoever.

And the toilet didn’t seem inclined to take vengeance for Niall abusing it so.

Viviane crept closer and looked at the array of bars and balls submerged in water there, curious despite herself. She couldn’t see any sign of a being in charge, vengeful or otherwise, but then, it had probably hidden away in the blink of an eye, once it had known that Niall was going to expose it. The fey didn’t like to be spied upon or have their dwellings invaded. Everyone knew that.

Except apparently Niall. He plunged his hand into the water there and flicked at the innards with one fingertip.

“You shouldn’t touch them!” Viviane hissed, clutching his arm. “You’ll muck up the magic! Who knows what will happen to you? You could be struck with lightning or banished from the realm, cursed for all your days and nights.”

Niall cast a telling glance her way. “You fret overmuch. This is no magic.”

Before Viviane could argue, he pulled on something with a fingertip. The toilet flushed, even though he hadn’t touched the flushing lever.

This time Viviane jumped backward, though Niall almost smiled.

He shook his head and pursed his lips, looking as satisfied as a large cat after a hot meal. “Now, where does the impulse begin?”

He straddled the seat, both hands in the tank, water up to his elbows as he explored. Some of the water splashed on the floor, but Niall was as oblivious to that as he was to Viviane. A frown marred his brow as he touched and wiggled, his concentration complete.

She had lost him to a magical garderobe.

His obliviousness to her naked presence was a startling contrast to earlier this morning and Viviane didn’t much like the change. She thought she had a good idea how to get his attention back again, although it was her last real possibility.

“Well,” she said with a breezy confidence she wasn’t quite feeling “if you think that is a marvel, you will be amazed by this!” Viviane hauled back the drape over the shower stall, feeling triumphant when Niall glanced up.

She turned on the torrent of water, making sure the blend was nice and hot, then flicked a victorious glance his way. “You see, it’s a small room made specifically for washing, like standing beneath a waterfall, but right in the warmth and comfort of this room. It’s perfect! And people here take it for granted so much that they bathe within it once or even twice a day.”

Viviane was uncertain how he would respond to her bold suggestion, but was still intent upon making it. “It has always seemed to me that the room is large enough to be shared, but perhaps we could find out for certain this morning.”

Niall stood up and leaned into the stall, toyed with the taps, eyed the drain, then shook his head.

“’Tis just as the smaller one,” he concluded, shook the water droplets out of his hair, and bowed his head once more over the innards of the toilet.

“But this one is for washing all over.” Viviane waited, but to no avail. “You climb into it naked and there’s plenty of room for two. I’m sure of it!”

Niall’s brow furrowed with concentration. He didn’t even answer her. Viviane tapped her toe, she let the steam fill the washroom.

But Niall didn’t even look up. She danced her fingertips over his shoulder, but he just shrugged off her touch.

Well, it was clear enough that just about anything was more interesting than she was this morning, though she had certainly tried to set matters to rights. Viviane couldn’t solve Niall’s mood alone, particularly when he wasn’t helping her any.

Maybe he just needed some time alone.

Well, she had to go to work anyhow.

Viviane lifted her chin and marched into the shower, taking great delight in generously using her favorite shower gel. She wasn’t about to let him forget she was here, that she was naked, that she was willing, and that this shower could be shared. The washroom filled with the perfume of roses and Viviane knew it, but Niall’s shadow still hunkered over the new object of his affection.

Viviane hummed, loudly and off-key, just to make sure he didn’t completely forget she was there. She ‘inadvertently’ got him wet, when she had to reach past him for a nail brush, making good and sure in the process that he couldn’t miss seeing her naked and wet.

Niall barely glanced up.

She brushed her hip against him, laying a hand on his shoulder and practically poked her breast in his ear when she reached for the soap beside the sink. She apologized prettily, citing the small confines of the room, knowing full well that she had left a dribble of scented shower foam on the nape of his neck.

Niall wiped it off without glancing her way.

And Viviane finally became angry.

How dare he treat her with such disinterest? How dare he follow her all the way to Avalon, prove himself her own knight in shining armor, then simply forget about her?

That was not the way any of the books proceeded and certainly not the way hers was written. No! Niall should have been right here in this shower with her, running his big hands over her body, lathering up that shower gel and making her moan.

Well, it wasn’t as though she hadn’t made things crystal clear!

Viviane scrubbed with rising annoyance, wondering what else she could have possibly done. Her temper had just about come to a full simmer when Niall cried “
aha
!” and the toilet gurgled as it flushed with gusto.

The water in the shower turned so icy cold that Viviane screamed.

She jumped out onto the mat, shivering from head to toe, and earned herself only the most cursory glance from the man of her dreams.

“You end this ritual most hastily,” he commented with an innocence that made her wonder whether he truly had no idea what he had done. She glared at him, but he was supremely oblivious, his tinkering fingers back at his self-appointed task.

He even whistled slightly under his breath.

Curse him! Viviane scrubbed herself off, then threw the wet towel at his head. She stormed off to dress for work without wasting a backward glance. She wouldn’t give him the pleasure of any more of her attention. After all, few hours of being alone would show him the delights of her company and remind him of all he was missing.

Wouldn’t it?

The toilet flushed once more as Viviane descended the stairs, her anger rising another notch at the certainty that Niall didn’t even know she was gone.

Men!

* * *

But Niall knew.

Oh, he knew and he wished he did not. ’Twas only after the door slammed behind Viviane and the chamber echoed with silence that he heaved a sigh of relief. It had nigh taken every vestige of determination within him to not lunge into the shower after Viviane and take her against that shower wall.

Even now, he was not convinced he could trust himself to not run after her and beg for another chance to lay claim to her many charms. Aye, Viviane was a dangerous beauty, one whose witchery was readily forgotten when she smiled and chattered with such easy charm.