“Okay, here we go again.”
I steeled myself for the sudden flash of pain and felt Cris doing likewise. I met her gaze and felt such affection for someone who was willing to go through so much pain without any gain for herself. I could see why Rafe had fallen for her.
Stabbing pain radiated from above Rafe’s heart as his flesh glowed in the pattern I recognized as his personal healing spell. I sucked air and tried not to tense up against the pain. In seconds, the glow faded and the pain began to ebb.
“Well, that one wasn’t so bad,” I said between gasps.
“Maybe because only one of us was burned,” Rafe commented dryly.
“True, can’t argue with that. Do you want to go right into another one?”
“No, let’s take a short break to let the pain subside. I’m in a hurry, but there’s no point in killing ourselves.”
He canceled the circle’s energy and dropped out of our meshing as he rose to his feet. Cris and I maintained the mesh and watched him rise. I could feel Cris’s desire to drag Rafe off to bed again and it made me long for another bout with them both. She turned to me and smiled as she felt my thoughts.
Rafe offered a hand to Cris and me. We each took one and rose beside him.
Cris raised a hand to where Rafe had burned the tat on his ribcage, just above his heart. Her fingers traced the memory of the pattern. “Fascinating that you can burn a tattoo in your flesh without leaving a sign of it on the outside.”
“Lucky really,” Rafe said. “I read Bradbury’s Illustrated Man as a kid. I wouldn’t want to go through life with that many tattoos.”
“I’ve read it too, although I didn’t read it until after you left last fall. I’ve never had a tattoo and very little desire to alter my skin. That you had all these tats made me want to learn something about it.”
“And?” Rafe asked.
“Perhaps, Illustrated Man wasn’t the best book for learning about tattoos.”
Rafe laughed. I didn’t get it, but then I’d never read the book.
“Maybe you should have read the back cover before picking it up,” Rafe said.
“Yes, something I usually do, but I downloaded the Kindle version.”
“Oh?”
“Excuse me,” I interrupted. “But since I’m the only one who hasn’t read it, could you tell me why it’s amusing?”
“The book is a collection of short stories with the common theme being each is represented by a tattoo on ‘The Illustrated Man.’ It has little to do with tattoos,” Rafe said.
“Imagine my chagrin,” Cris said.
I shrugged. It didn’t seem that funny to me.
“The coffee has been ready. Can I pour you a cup?” Rafe said, crossing the circle’s perimeter and moving into the kitchen.
“Yes, thank you,” Cris said.
“Me, too,” I added as I headed for the bathroom. I used the facilities and peered out the small window at the trees on the cabin’s uphill slope. It was dark and I triggered my enhanced senses tat. The night lit up, but other than some granite boulders and a little undergrowth, there was nothing but evergreens. I was still jumpy from being woken up by that damn Cyclops. Rafe said it was one of the Titans. What was a Titan anyway? I’d have to ask Rafe about it when we had a moment.
I cancelled my tat and went back into the main room.
Cris and Rafe were leaning against the kitchen counter and sipping at their coffee. Rafe held a mug out to me as I approached and I took it, gratefully.
“Want to move in front of the fire?” Rafe asked, looking at Cris.
She still had the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Joe’s cabin didn’t have central heat, but the fireplace was beginning to warm the room up, or so I thought, but as I’ve found, temperature variations don’t bother Wanderers.
“That would be nice,” Cris said.
The three of us went to the leather-clad sofa. Rafe tossed a few more logs onto the fire and then turned. Without speaking, Cris and I had sat to either end on the sofa, leaving just enough room for Rafe to sit between us. He did so without comment and found Cris and me leaning against him while we watched the fire.
“This is nice,” Cris said.
“Hmm, yes,” I echoed as I felt her thoughts turn toward making love to Rafe on the rug in front of the fire.
“It’s nice,” Rafe added. “But it’s not getting the solution to my problems any closer.”
“Spoil sport,” Cris said.
I could feel her desire being tamped down. For a moment, I thought it was Rafe’s doing. God knows he tried to do it often enough when he started training me. But no, he still wasn’t in the meshing. Could he do it without being meshed? Nah, probably not.
I was itching to do the things Cris was thinking of, but I knew how Rafe was when he got his business on. It would be difficult to drag him into bed until he accomplished what he was after. Right now, that was to get more of his tats restored. I couldn’t blame him. He still had less tats than I did and I’d only been burning tats since November.
I finished my coffee and noticed that most of Cris’s randy thoughts had faded away. I guess she’d given up on getting him into bed anytime soon.
For a brief moment, I thought about seeing if she wanted to join just me in the bedroom. But I shook the thought aside before she picked up on it. Sex with Cris and Rafe was great, but it wouldn’t be the same without Rafe. I was still getting used to the fact that
