No Rest for the Wicked

26

"Good morning, Katja."

She mumbled something in answer. When he'd woken, she was draped over his chest, half on him, panting with sleep. He grinned, savoring the feeling. She would deny it, but his Bride liked sleeping with him. He could get used to this ultimate luxury—blond curls spilling over his chest and warm woman in his arms, his for the taking. Was she, after last night?

She'd given him the most pleasure he'd ever experienced, and she'd also given him a teasing hint of what more he could find with her. He squeezed her even closer. When she said something he didn't catch, he let up. "Sorry."

She sounded half-asleep when she asked, "Why're you always worried 'bout crushing me?"

He stared at the ceiling. "My size has not put me in good stead with women." What a vast understatement.

"Did last night," she murmured, with a yawn against him. "Your size was a panty remover."

Panty remover? He drew her up by the shoulders, and she blinked at him sleepily like a kitten peeled off a couch.

"Whaa?" she muttered. "That in good enough stead?"

He chuckled, settling her back, using his whole hand to cup her face against him. How could a few well-placed words begin undoing centuries of doubt—?

She shot up in bed, eyes wide. "We've landed?"

"About an hour ago. I turned the Do Not Disturb key, and the pilots left."

"What time is it?" She sprang from the bed. Naked. She dashed to the bathroom, started the shower, then flashed by on her way to the closet for clothes. So very naked.

He glanced at the bedside clock. "It's six-forty here." Where exactly was here? All he knew was that the pinpricks of sun coming through the shades were bright.

"I've got a car coming at seven!"

He sat back with his arms behind his head and knew his grin was one of pure masculine satisfaction. He'd never seen a woman get dressed before. He never wanted to miss it again.

This was what he'd imagined having a wife would be like. Seeing her dressing, enjoying tantalizing views of her beautiful body. But with her, the reality was so much better.

He hadn't, for instance, envisioned his wife's complete lack of modesty or wicked bed play. He hadn't imagined that her stunning eyes could burn with such absolute purpose and drive—or go silvery with desire.

She caught her ankle in the strap of her bag and stumbled forward, righting herself with a kind of preternatural grace. When she bit out a curse, he chuckled again.

She peered around the bathroom door and quirked an eyebrow until he raised his hands in surrender.

Soon he was treated to the light scents of her shampoo and soap that would be mixed with her own luscious scent. When he imagined her working soap over her sleek body, he shot to his feet. Not wasting a second, he stripped off his jeans and traced into the shower.

She cried out with a start, glanced down at his erection, then back up with her face flushed. Regrettably, she was already rinsed clean, and before he could touch her, she hopped out. She secured a towel around her torso and twisted one up around her hair, then dashed from the steamy room. He heard cabinets slamming in the bedroom as she hurried.

He didn't understand this obsessive need of hers to win. "Why are you so rabid about this prize?" he called out from under the water. "I've told you a hundred times before, the key will not work." He found an unopened bar of soap that didn't smell feminine and tore open the monogrammed seal.

She entered again, still in her towel, and squeezed toothpaste onto her pink toothbrush. She answered while brushing. "Ill ew." Will to.

Just as she finished brushing and exited, he finished showering, then grabbed the last towel.

On her way past the bathroom door once more, she tossed his jeans at him. He dried off, stabbed his legs in, and entered the hall—plowing right into her.

He should have known, in such a small area. Careless...

His hand shot out to catch her, but she easily checked her fall with one light step back. Her hands flew to his chest, then relaxed to rest there, rubbing a few remaining drops of water. She didn't give him that hurt look. No, she tilted her head and studied his chest, her tiny fang pressing against her bottom lip, her eyes growing silver.

Just as he was about to pick her up on the way back to the bed, she shimmied by, then hastened down the hall, hips gently swaying under her towel. Perfect for me. Suddenly, he was completely respectful of fate, since it had had blooded him with exactly the right female.

When she was out of his sight, the silky underthings in her opened clothes bag caught his attention. Kneeling down to root through them, he picked out a scant black bra and matching panties that resembled no more than artfully arranged strings. He stood and clenched them in his fists, groaning to recall tugging her silk panties aside the night before. He'd shuddered to find them so very wet...

She appeared, one hand on her hip, the other raised for her underwear. He reluctantly handed it over. When she turned and began dressing under the towel, he said, "I know a bit about the subject of time travel. And I know this key can't work. Have you ever studied the laws of general relativity?" he asked slowly, not imagining why she would have. His head tilted with each word, gaze locked on the edge of the fluttering towel. He needn't have bothered angling for a peek. She dropped the towel as soon as her underwear was on—in other words, when the string was in place.

He hissed in a breath. Again, his feet shuffled to keep himself from falling over. That ass is going to be the death of me.

"I know a bit about the subject myself," she said over her shoulder as she donned her bra. "And since the mid-twentieth century, it's been widely accepted among physicists that the possibility of time travel can be reconciled within the laws of general relativity."

His brows drew together. Perhaps he shouldn't have spoken to her so slowly. But then her words sank in. General relativity was only one argument against time travel. "Even if that were so, time travel is not compatible with the law of conservation of energy. You cannot remove matter and energy from one sphere without creating a vacuum. Nor can you take it and force it into another sphere."

Mercifully, she shimmied into her low-slung pants, though she had to bend over briefly, with her breasts threatening to spill out. Half dressed, she began combing out her long, wet hair. He sat back against the headboard once more and savored every sight.

"True. But only if you believe that all matter and energy are interconnected on a global scale," she said.

Could she be any sexier than at this moment, brushing her hair, discussing one of his favorite subjects? Somehow he managed to speak. "It must be. In a closed system, all is integrated."

Twisting the mass of curls into a knot on her head, she bared that graceful neck he couldn't seem to keep his lips from. "The earth isn't a closed system," she said with absolute authority. "There are bridges to other dimensions, even other populations like the Lore. I've been to some."

What? he thought dumbly. Christ, he believed her about this. Though it went against everything he'd learned.

And just like that, one of the foundational beliefs of his life collapsed while a slip of a female traipsed by in a silken black bra.

Shaken, he redoubled his efforts to concentrate. He wanted to convince her of this. And to be honest, he wanted to impress her. "And what about the Grandfather Paradox? What happens when a time traveler has a quantum-mechanical intrusion with his past self or his ancestors?"

"What if he kills his own grandfather? Well, if one believes tachyons—"

"You know what a tachyon is?" he nearly shouted.

She hooked her shirt at her thumbs, readying it to pull on. While she was under the tight fabric, he heard her say, "Subatomic particle. Travels faster than the speed of light." He had closed his jaw by the time she'd drawn it on all the way.

"How do you understand these things?" And how could this blooding be so precise?

"My dad was a god, and they tend to be quick like that. I inherited."

"Of course." He didn't like to be reminded of this. Riora had asked him, "Do you have any idea how high you reach for one such as her?" Yes, Riora. Yes, I do. Every day, he had a better idea, and it was killing him. He shook himself. "Tachyons are hypothetical. Their existence would threaten laws of science—"

"Like radioactivity did?" she asked in a mild tone, glancing up from lacing her boots to cast him a too-pleasant smile.

He exhaled a long breath. She was referring to a time in the early nineteen hundreds when physicists couldn't account for the phenomenon of radioactivity. They had to remain confused, embattled, until the theory of quantum mechanics was proposed.

"Clever analogy," he said, beyond impressed. Had she convinced him? No, there were dozens of other arguments to prove one couldn't go back into the past to change the future. But never had he been so glad to agree to disagree; he'd die if he didn't kiss her.