The Art of Stealing Time

spent together. What would your family say to that?”

He smiled, making the eye crinkles return. “A few months ago my grandmother would have had the biggest fit you had ever in your life seen. She would have banned me from the family, named us both mahrime, and forbidden anyone to ever mention either us or our children again. She would have notified all the other Traveller families of this exile and demanded that they honor it. We would have, in effect, ceased to exist for every living Traveller.”

“What’s changed in the last few months that would alter that?”

“Many things, but mostly me.”

I thought about what he said. “And you consider the annihilation of your heritage not of concern?”

“It wouldn’t happen. Not only am I my grandmother’s favorite out of all my cousins, but Peter has done much to soften her previous view on marriage to outsiders. She might raise a fuss, but she’d soon come about. She did so with Peter, and although things are not overly affectionate between them, she has named him as family before the annual gathering of Travellers.”

I bit back the urge to say “Bully for her,” and instead contented myself with a simple “It proves my point, however. We aren’t meant to be together, Gregory.”

He reached out and put a hand on my breast. I stared down at it in shock for a second or two. I couldn’t believe he just stuck out his hand and copped a grope! Then the tingling started again, and I watched in amazement as he lifted his hand about half an inch from my breast. Little snakes of blue-white light snapped and twisted like miniature lightning.

“That . . . that’s not just static electricity, is it?” I asked, wondering why a shock to my boob wasn’t hurting me. On the contrary, the sensation of his hand above my breast just made it feel warm and tingly, and very, very sensitized.

“In a way, yes.” His hand slid down my breastbone to my stomach, still not actually touching me but leaving a trail of electricity that sent out tendrils of pleasure all over my body. “Travellers can harness lightning, which is basically just a very large static charge that explodes with a tremendous amount of energy. This is a very personalized version of that.”

“So this is something you do often?” I asked, watching with concern as his hand moved lower and hovered over my pubic bone. I was half braced to move away if the mini-lightning touched sensitive parts, but just as it did elsewhere, the electricity that came from his hand triggered only an arousing sensation that buzzed up and down my skin. “Oooh,” I said in a long breath as his hand circled my crotch before moving on down one leg.

“No. I’ve never been able to manufacture porraimos with another woman. My cousin and I were speaking of this just the other day. He said he can with his wife, but I’ve always heard that it’s a rare phenomenon.” He waggled his fingers over the tip of my shoe, and inside it my toes wiggled in happiness. Then he moved to the other leg and started up it. My crotch was extremely happy at the thought of a return visit.

“Porraimos? That’s the word for . . . er . . . personal lightning?”

“The word itself means many things. One definition is ‘devouring.’ Another is ‘opening,’ and that is what it means to Travellers—it means to open oneself up to another person, and to the elements, and to all that is or will ever be. That it happens at all proves just how wrong you are.”

I clutched handfuls of grass as he swirled lightning over my groin, belly, and breasts. The sensation of tingling moved into heat, making me feel as if I was burning from the inside out. “In what way?” I managed to gasp out, my back arching as he held both hands about an inch above my breasts.

“Porraimos only happens when the two people share an inalienable bond.” He leaned down, his mouth claiming mine at the same time his hands closed on my needy breasts. Even through my shirt and the mail, his touch made the fire inside me roar to an inferno of desire. I pulled his body down onto mine, kissing him for all I was worth, sliding my hands under his shirt in order to stroke the smooth swoops and valleys of muscles that made up his back. Carefully, I twined my tongue around his, careful to avoid the spot where his tooth was missing even though I knew the wound had long since healed.

His words echoed in my head, going around and around until they became a chant. We were meant for each other. We had a rare bond, one that few people experienced. It would be the sheerest folly to discard such a gift, wouldn’t it?

It would. I gave myself up to the feelings that his touch had triggered, feelings that whipped through me until I felt like I was caught in an whirlwind of passion, desire, and heat so great I thought it would surely consume me.

“Gwen, tell me now if you really do not want me,” he said against my lips, his hand pulling the mail up my body. “Because I won’t be able to stop if I kiss you just one more time.”

I said nothing, but wrapped one leg around him and kissed him with the power of all my tangled emotions. I knew what I was doing wasn’t smart, wasn’t the least bit wise, and certainly was going to mean a world of trouble not only for myself and my mothers but for my heart, but at that moment nothing really mattered but Gregory.

And then suddenly he was gone, having leaped up off me with a strangled oath. I sat up, bereft, my body still humming its happy little song of anticipation. Gregory stood twisted to the side, trying to see behind him.

“Your damned horse bit my ass!” His face was filled with outrage as he turned to show me the tear in his pants.

I collapsed laughing when he charged over to where Bottom was standing, an innocent expression on his horsey face while Gregory threatened him with all sorts of dire punishments. I was well aware that I’d just had a very, very narrow escape.

The question was whether I would be so lucky the next time.

NINE

“How’s your behind?”

Gregory pulled his thoughts from the dark place they’d gone ever since the scene some hours earlier, and experimentally flexed a butt cheek. “It’s better. No thanks to that carnivore you’ve been riding.”

Gwen stifled a giggle, but he heard it nonetheless, and he managed to share a sour look between both her and the horse she led, all the while adopting a martyred air.

“Sorry,” she said with contriteness that didn’t for one minute fool him. “I know that being on the receiving end of those teeth isn’t funny, but if you could have seen the look on your face when he did it . . .”

Her words trailed away again, leaving her throat working as she fought to keep from laughing out loud.

He thinned his lips and looked straight ahead. They were walking the horses in order to let them have a break from constant riding, and he had found the exercise beneficial to his thoughts. If nothing else, marching across the landscape made it hard for one to be aroused. “It’s not the bite I object to so much as it is the interruption. I can now attest to the fact that it’s impossible to seduce a sweetly ripe maiden when one’s ass has been manhandled. Or in this case, horsehandled.”

Gwen lost her fight and whooped with laughter.

“Sorry,” she said, dabbing at her eyes. “‘Horsehandled’ pushed me over the edge.”

“Delighted to provide amusement.” He tried to preserve his injured mien, but failed. Even if his posterior was the one that had suffered the abuse, it had been a very funny—if wholly frustrating—moment.

“Ugh.” Gwen pulled her mail shirt out from her plump, tempting breasts and tried to generate a breeze. “Not to be gross, but I’m just a giant ball of sweat in this mail. I don’t suppose there’s an afterlife hotel around here where I can take a shower?”

“I doubt that any such facility exists. However . . .” He squinted into the distance. “Yes, the woman at the stables said we should let the horses have a rest at a small lake. We are more than halfway to the camp, assuming that water ahead is the lake she mentioned.”

“A lake.” She made a face that turned into a shrug. “It’s no hot shower, but if there aren’t leeches or water moccasins or anything icky like that, it sounds like heaven. Ha. Afterlife. Heaven.”

He looked at her.