me incensed, but the whole idea that a group of people won’t allow family members to marry outside of said family—for one, it’s unhealthy. You need diversity in a gene pool. For another, it’s . . . well, unhealthy mentally and emotionally as well.”
“Alas, I’m not joking.” He smiled at me, the warmth from it not only reaching his eyes but kindling something that made me feel as if I had butterflies in my stomach. “That is one reason why I am here.”
I wasn’t sure at first what he was alluding to, but then it struck me like a bolt of lightning that occasionally flashed in the distance. Dear goddess in all the good, green things! He meant me! He was defying his own people just to be with me. It boggled my mind, but it made sense. The kiss, the way he was flirting with me, the constant hand-holding . . . it was all explained if the reason for him being in Anwyn was that he had followed me here based on an instantaneous attraction.
“Gregory, I . . . I don’t know what to say. I’m flattered, naturally. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who’s risked getting in trouble just to be with me, but I have to tell you that even though you have a really nice way of kissing, I’m not looking for a man in my life, especially a husband.”
It was his turn to look startled. “I suspect that you are under the impression that I just proposed to you. Is that so?”
I felt a blush crawl up from my neck to my face. “Well . . . yes. Didn’t you?”
“No.”
The blush deepened before I realized what that meant. I released his hand only to wallop him on the arm. “Oh, I get it! It’s just fine for you to kiss me silly, and make me spend far too long imagining just what you look like without your clothes on, and to have what amounts to an unhealthy obsession with your chin and mouth and that little spot behind your ears where your hair curls. That’s fine, but to make an honest woman out of me isn’t? You, sir, are a bastard! A great, big, hairy pustule of a bastard!”
“All that because I didn’t propose to you?” He shook his head as if in wonder.
“No, all that because evidently you believe I’m the sort of woman who goes around kissing men in dungeons, and holding their hands, and indulging in extremely smutty fantasies about them, but am not worthy so far as your family is concerned. Of all the self-righteous, bigoted—”
“Gwen,” he said, stopping me with a little laugh that had my hackles bristling. “Stop. I didn’t realize that you wanted to marry me.”
“I don’t!” I was quick to say.
“And yet you are upset that I didn’t ask you?” He put a finger under my chin and tipped my face (filled with embarrassment) up so he could better torment me by looking at me with eyes that were the color of expensive blue topazes. “I meant no insult,
“Stop calling me that,” I said irritably. “I’m not your sweet.”
“Ah, but you are,” he said in that complacent manner that was starting to annoy me. I’ve always hated it when people remain calm while I’m all riled up. How dare he not be emotional, too! “Or at least, I’d like you to think you are.”
I reeled back, sure that he had just insulted me again, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the way of another passing herd of tourists. “Do not say whatever biting thing you are about to say. I did not mean to give insult to you. I simply meant that I would like you to be my sweetheart.”
“But not enough to marry me,” I snapped and jerked my arm from his grasp, still incensed.
He sighed. “Do you want to marry me?”
“No! Of course not! I don’t even know you, and I’m sure that when I do know you, I won’t want to because I will have found out that you’re the most irritating, frustrating, heinous man alive.”
“Heinous?” He looked thoughtful. “I suppose there are worse things to be called. No, do not flare up at me again. As it happens, I agree with you.”
I stopped thinking about punching him on his formerly abused nose. “You do?”
“Yes. I prefer having some sort of a relationship established with a woman before I engage in sexual acts. I’ve lived long enough to know the difference between a casual relationship and one that holds the promise of an eternity spent in bliss. So you see, about that we are of one mind.”
“Oh?” I eyed him. “Just how old are you that you have achieved this state of wisdom?”
“Sixty-four.”
My eyes widened. “You’re what?”
“I was born in 1949. I am the youngest of all my cousins, although not the youngest of the entire family. Several of my cousins have reproduced.”
“Great. I’m older than you.”
“Really? You look the same age as me, but admittedly that is common amongst members of the Otherworld. Would you smite me if I were to ask how old you are?”
“I was born in 1888. Lovely. Now I can’t date you even if I could get past your family’s massive prejudice against non-Travellers.”
“I see nothing that would prohibit us from having a relationship just because you were born almost fifty years before me. It matters little to our kind, after all.” He paused, looked surprised, then continued. “You are serious, are you not?”
“Yes. People would say I was a cradle robber. I’m fifty years older than you, Gregory!”
“You look like you’re age thirty at most.”
“Thank you, but the fact remains that I’m a hundred and twenty-five, and you’re just a baby!”
A roguish twinkle filled his pretty eyes. “If I told you that I liked older women—”
“I’d punch you on your nose and break it again,” I said, waving a fist at him.
He laughed and grabbed my hand, then to my utter surprise, pulled me up tight against his chest and said, “You are delightful, do you know that? You always seem to say exactly the opposite of what I’m expecting.”
I opened my mouth to tell him to unhand me in front of all the tourists and workpeople who trotted about doing their daily chores when his mouth settled on mine with a possessiveness that simultaneously annoyed me (I wasn’t an object to be possessive about!) and thrilled me to my toes (dear god and goddess, the man had to be the world’s best kisser).
His mouth teased mine, coerced mine, pleaded with mine to yield to his. And of course, it did, allowing his tongue entrance, where it swanned around the place like it owned it. I wanted to be irritated about that, but I was too busy clutching his shoulders to keep from swooning. And then when he made a little noise in the back of his throat, the softest little exhalation of pure pleasure, I melted, my fingers sliding through his golden hair as I pressed myself against him in a shameless manner that my breasts and thighs and female parts wholly embraced. I touched my tongue to his, and melted even more, uncaring that we were snogging in full view of anyone who glanced our way. The sounds of tittering and electronic beeps and clicks indicated that the tourists had returned, but not even the thought of them brought sanity to me.
“OK,” I admitted when I managed to peel my mouth from his. “You win the award for kissing.”
“Oddly, I was just thinking the same thing about you.” His eyes were soft and somewhat smoky with what I recognized was purest desire.
A rush of feminine knowledge swept over me, making me very aware of all the differences between us. “You’re so hard,” I couldn’t help but say when I swept my hands down his shoulders to his biceps.
“Extremely so, to the point that it’s going to be painful to walk.”
I couldn’t help a little wiggle that had him groaning and clutching at my hips. “And if you do that again, I may very well throw all my much-lauded manners to the wind and haul you onto the nearest bale of hay, where I will ravish you as you deserve.”
I would be lying if I said I didn’t, for at least two minutes, consider letting him do just that, but at long last, better judgment won out and I managed to get my raging hormones under control.
Gregory had used the time I was doing so to speak to a young boy who was scooping up grain and pouring it into a metal bucket. The lad disappeared into the stable and returned with a blond woman with jagged cropped hair.
“I’m Clarence, the chief groom.”
“Clarice?” Gregory asked.
She studied him. “Do I
“Well—”
