Would Rafe once again allow Alex and me to stroke our passions after training without feeling left out? I’ve always been a one-man woman, or at least a one-man at a time woman. The few lovers I’ve had were not remotely simultaneous. I think the closest two were nearly a year apart. But as soon as I fell in with Rafe, I had found myself jumping from his bed into Alex’s almost before the bed grew cool. There were extenuating circumstances as I mentioned with the training, but still… I felt a little quiver go through my loins as I thought of the two men and I smiled. Both men were conscientious lovers with totally different techniques. Rafe had decades of experience with I couldn’t guess how many partners while Alex had probably had no more than a couple of partners. I might find that having two lovers was not something as objectionable as I would have thought.
It wouldn’t be fair to sleep with Alex after training and leave Rafe with no one. I don’t think he’d be jealous, but my sense of fair play meant I would have to come up with a way that no one got left out. I felt my smile broadening, yes; I’d have to come up with a way to keep both men satisfied. After all, it was the right thing to do.
Chapter 23
raphael
We reached the south side of Atlanta and I directed Beast to an unoccupied baseball diamond just north of Interstate 85. As soon as he landed, I slipped from his back and took a couple of paces away from him, stretching to get my muscles used to walking again, while I waited for Tess to join me.
Maia landed in the infield, not twenty yards from Beast and Tess slipped a leg over her neck and slid to the ground, kicking up a small cloud of dust as she did.
“What’s up, Rafe? Why’d you stop here?”
“We need to call Cris and give her a heads up that we’re coming. I guess I could have done it while flying, but if she doesn’t answer we might have to use a locator spell to track her,” I said. I felt in my pocket for the lock of hair that she’d given me when we’d parted. I kept it wrapped in a tight circle inside a small metal case I’d purchased for just that reason.
“You have her address, don’t you?”
“Sure, but I don’t know if she’s at home or working.”
“Well?”
I pulled out my phone and called up Cris’s contact info. I hit the dial button and listened to the phone ringing at the other end. Did young people still call it dialing? I hadn’t seen a rotary phone in nearly thirty years, unless you count old movies.
“Tess, what do you call it when you punch someone’s number into your cell phone and place a call?”
Her face wrinkled up and she cocked her head to the side. “Huh? I call it dialing. Why?”
“Just wondering. Do you know why you call it dialing?”
“Of course, I’ve seen that old phones had dials. That’s why it’s called dialing.”
Hmmm, I would have thought they’d call it something else by now.
Cris voice came out of my phone’s speaker. “Rafe, what a pleasant surprise. I’ve been thinking of you a lot lately and I was wondering if I could mentally convince you to call.”
Her voice was as sweet as I remembered.
“What? Have you been trying a new spell on me?” I asked, a little taken aback.
Her laugh was almost musical in tone. “No, silly. I just thought that you might pick up on my thoughts and call me.”
“Oh, well, I guess that worked then.”
“So, were you calling to tell me how much you missed me or just checking in again?”
“Ah,” I glanced toward Tess and she was studying me closely. “Well, of course I miss you, but that’s not why I called.”
“Oh? What’s wrong?”
“Why do you assume something’s wrong?” I asked.
“Rafe, I know what you do. You’re always going to be in a jam with some damn nasty or another. If you’re not calling for the reasons I mentioned, then something must be wrong.”
I frowned. It was disconcerting that the woman knew me so well. It wasn’t my fault. The first time we’d met she’d seen right through my attempts at misdirection and gotten a good look at my soul. Damn few people on the planet can read souls through a person’s eyes and Cris was one of them. It’d allowed her instant access to what I was really like. Surprisingly, she had still been willing to risk her own life to help me.
“Okay, Cris, you’re right. I’m in a spot of trouble and you might be able to help, I don’t know.”
“Great…ah, not that you’re in trouble, but that I may be able to help. When will you be here?”
“I’ll have to check a map, but I’m just outside of Atlanta.”
“Well, you should have given me more time so I could have baked a cake.” She paused for just a moment and then asked, “I guess Tess is with you?”
“Certainly, it’s like we’re attached at the hip. We don’t go anywhere alone.”
“That’s okay; I’ll get a guest room set up. Do you have my address or will you be using a locator spell?”
“I figured I’d save the spell for when it was really necessary. Is your house easy to find using maps?”
“It’s a cinch. I’m on
