Out of This World

“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