Knights and Kink Romance Boxed Set (85 page)

Dr. Kavanaugh glances at me and seems to notice my
discomfort. “It’s been quite a while since old Phil here found true
love,” he says, giving me a toothy old-man grin.

“Right,” I say weakly.

Dr. Kavanaugh puts his stethoscope to my chest and
listens for a moment. “I’ve got some good news for you, Lisa. Your
latest blood work came back with a reduced white count, which means
your IV antibiotic knocked out the infection. And from what I can
hear, your heart seems to be working just fine.” The grizzled old
doctor chuckles. I notice for the first time that Syr Phillip’s
recent tongue-dance has set my heartbeat to approximately the rate
of a hummingbird’s.

“I was gonna arrange to have you discharged this
evening, Lisa,” Dr. Kavanaugh continues. “Unless, of course, you
and Phil here have an urgent need for that bed there.”

I feel my face go hot. “I think I can be responsible
for Lisa’s health and safety from here on out,” Syr Phillip
offers.

Dr. Kavanaugh signs something on a clipboard. “All
right then, Phil. Lisa, you can go ahead and pack up your things. A
nurse’ll be up to wheel you out right after she gives you the last
dose of painkillers. I’ve written up some instructions for
administering your rabies shots at home—you’ll need to complete
those as a precaution. Just do me a favor and steer clear of ahhhh,
swordplay
for a week or two, okay?” Dr. Kavanaugh gives Syr
Phillip another playful jab to the arm, and if I’m not mistaken, he
makes a subtle gesture towards Phillip’s crotch.

Swordplay?

Now it’s Syr Phillip’s turn to blush.

PART TWO

Chapter
14

“You’ve only got
one
sick day left this year,
Lisa,” Brad, my boss at the Delco plant, hisses at me as I finally
drag my rabies-shot-weary body back into work on Wednesday morning.
“Which is pretty bad, considering it’s only May.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry,” I whine, rubbing the
sore spot on my belly. “But between the hospital stay and the
rabies shots, I just haven’t been feeling myself lately.” I already
used four of my seven annual sick days in January after coming down
with what I thought was SARS, but turned out to be garden-variety
flu. And I just burned sick days number five and six recovering
from the Blood and Roses Tournament.

“Whatever you say, Lisa,” Brad mumbles, smirking.
“Although I hear from Pegeen that you were up to a lot more than
just getting rabies over the weekend.”

I catch a glance of Pegeen’s cargo-panted behind
over by the punch clock. She’s leaning over to retie her new suede
Sketchers instead of keeping an eye on the transistor assembly line
like she’s supposed to.

“I’m sure Pegeen told you a lot of things,” I
chuckle at Brad. Although I still have a couple of bones to pick
with her over ditching me at the tournament, overall I’m pleased as
punch Pegeen dragged me to my first SCA event. After all, I
wouldn’t be Syr Phillip’s official new make-out partner in both the
medieval and the mundane worlds if she hadn’t.

Unfortunately, I am still
only
Syr Phillip’s
make-out partner. We haven’t had the opportunity to progress to
being sexual partners yet. But I’m working on that. For now, I’ll
just have to content myself with daydreaming about Syr Phillip’s
gorgeous blue eyes and razor-cut biceps. . .

Brad taps his shift clipboard on my forehead. “Lisa?
Hello? You in there?”

“Huh? Yeah. I’m here, I’m here.”

Brad sighs and shakes his head. “You look like you
just took a trip to Mind-Fuck City.”

“Well, not exactly.”

Need-To-Get-Laid-Right-Now City is more like it.

“Anyhow Lisa,” Brad says, tapping his shift
clipboard with a pencil, “I’m gonna fill you in on what you missed
around here during your little medieval vacation.”

“Brad, for the last time, it
wasn’t
a
vacation. I was legitimately ill.”

“Yeah, whatever. Anyway, we had a parts changeover
while you were out, so you’re gonna have to change all your
inspection procedures. Get a new procedures binder together and
bring it to me for review before you take your next coffee break.
You and I will go down the line and supervise all the new assembly
tasks together after lunch.”

“Great!” I shriek, feigning excitement.

Brad gives me a clicking-pistol gesture and laughs.
“I thought you’d be glad to hear that,” he says, and then
disappears into his opaque-glass office.

There is nothing about my crappy line forewoman’s
job at AC Delco Assembly I loathe more than changing my inspection
procedures. My dyslexia makes the task of matching up the old
procedures column with the new one pure torture, and Brad knows it.
Brad is single, over forty, bald, and fat as a partridge. I have
discovered that single, over-forty bald fat men consider it their
personal responsibility to torture single women in their twenties
like me at every opportunity as a kind of payback for their own
failures with women. And Brad has been giving me that payback in
various forms almost every day since I started working at AC Delco
six years ago.

I trudge over to my desk and start flipping through
my procedures binder. I pick up a pencil stub and chew it a few
times in agitation. Before I get a chance to make a single note
though, Pegeen saunters up.

“Howdy, stranger,” she says. There is a slight edge
to her voice.

“Hi,” I murmur, not looking up from my procedures
binder. I tear out the now-dated procedure pages and grab some
blank ones from the stack I keep in my top drawer.

“Lisa, I just wanted to tell you that I’m really
sorry about everything that happened over the weekend.”

“Why?”

“Well, you
did
just barely miss getting
killed in a house fire, plus you got attacked by that dog, not to
mention—“

“Pegeen, it’s okay, really. Even considering the
whole rabies scare and missing two days of work, I had a really
great time doing all that SCA stuff.”

Pegeen brightens. “Seriously?”

“You bet. I never thought I’d say this, but I had a
lot of fun getting dressed up and hanging out with a bunch of
strangers in weird outfits. Not to mention the fact that I hooked
up with a major hunk of burning knight.”

Pegeen’s eyes fly wide. “Don’t tell me you slept
with Syr Phillip already!”

“I haven’t.”

Now Pegeen’s eyes get even wider. “Well, why the
hell not?”

“Pegeen, I have been a little under the weather for
the past couple days. Plus, he lives in Columbus. That’s over two
hours away. Realistically, I’ll only get to see him on
weekends.”

“That’s no excuse! Even considering how frigid you
usually are, with the electricity you two were generating at the
event on Saturday, you guys should have done it
at least
six
times by now.”

I clear my throat. “By
your
standards, maybe.
However, most women in the world are not out-of-control nymphos
like you, Pegeen.”

Pegeen rests a hand on my left shoulder. “I’m
telling you this for your own good, Lees. You need to do the nasty
with Syr Phillip ASAP. While you still can.” Pegeen’s tone is
grave.

I blink a couple of times. “What the hell do you
mean?”

“I mean, Lisa, that Syr Phillip has never exactly
been the monogamous type. At least that’s what everyone says.
You’ve gotta strike while the iron is hot, otherwise he’ll go stick
his iron into someone else. Know what I mean?”

“Not really.”

Pegeen sighs and shakes her head. “Don’t be blind.
The signs are all there if you’re willing to look for them.”

I slam my binder shut. “You’re just saying that
because you’re jealous.”

Pegeen laughs. “Why would I be jealous when I have
Arundel?”

“If Arundel’s like any of your other boyfriends,
he’ll only last another week or two,” I snarl.

Pegeen pulls up a folding chair and sits down.
“Lisa, we’ve been best friends for practically our entire lives.
Can we just stop arguing for two minutes, please? I’m trying to
tell you something really important here.”

I fold my hands onto my dirty desk blotter and stare
at her. “Shoot.”

Pegeen gazes at me carefully, then stares at her
hands for a moment. I notice that her palms are sweating. “Lisa, I
know that you and Syr Phillip are just starting to get to know each
other right now, and that you’re very attracted to him. And that’s
great. I’m thrilled to see you having fun with a man for a change,
especially after what happened between you and Jacob. But I just
want to warn you that while it’s fine to have fun with a guy for a
little while, I know that’s not usually the way you operate. You
tend to get really—well,
attached.”

“Pegeen, this may be news to you, but there’s
nothing wrong with trying to have an actual
relationship
with a guy. There’s more to men than blowjobs and free cellphones,
you know—“

Pegeen holds up her hand. “Let me finish. All I’m
trying to say here is, go ahead and have some fun with Syr Phillip
for a while. Just don’t get too
attached.”

I feel the bile of defensiveness rising in the back
of my throat. “Why not? What the hell do you know about it?”

“Not too much. But I think I know enough to tell you
that Syr Phillip isn’t the kind of guy you should get too attached
to.”

“Pegeen—“

“Just watch your back, okay? I’m telling you as your
best friend.” With that, Pegeen goes back over to her end of the
factory floor.

I stare at the blank pages of my procedures binder
and grind my teeth a little. Syr Phillip warned me that others
would speak ill of him, would tell me to steer clear of him, would
tell me that he was a womanizer and a cheat. Duchess Danyel even
made playboy remarks about him right in front of me, although I
thought she was just being facetious at the time. And then there’s
the fact that Syr Phillip seems to generate a mysterious sensuality
whenever he’s in Duchess Danyel’s presence, despite the fact she’s
at least twenty-five years his senior. Does the old Duchess know
Syr Phillip in a way that I don’t? Even worse, does she know him in
the deep, intimate way that I desperately wish I did?

Of course not. That’s ridiculous.

I think back to the moment back at Ohio Caverns when
we were together holding sweaty, anticipating hands in a damp,
rust-covered cave. The exact moment when Syr Phillip told me that
one of the many consequences of being his favored lady would be
bearing the brunt of nasty rumors about him and his romantic
history, his tendency to love and leave.

Didn’t he? Didn’t he tell me this would happen?

Didn’t he also tell me not to listen?

Of course. Of
course
Syr Phillip wouldn’t
want me to listen to anything that reflected badly on him. That’s
human nature, of course. But why was he so sure that it would
happen at all? And why warn me about it in the first place? Truth
be told, I never once met a man who even went so far as to admit he
dated anyone seriously before he went out with me. All my past
boyfriends—the very few that there are—liked to pretend that while
they weren’t exactly virgins, the possibility of them ever having
any sexual feelings for any woman besides me at any point in their
lives was as remote as a desert gas station. Small wonder I never
figured out Jacob was married until the last possible second.

I try in vain to clear my head, and finally resolve
to pick up my pencil to begin revising my procedures manual. But
before I have a chance to make a single note, my Nokia buzzes from
its spot on my belt clip.

“Hello?”

“Hi Lisa, it’s Phil Dawson.”

Phil Dawson?
I don’t know any Phil Dawson.
The voice is vaguely familiar, but the crackle of my cell phone’s
signal and the whir of the assembly line make it hard to tell whose
voice it is.

The vaguely familiar male voice clears its throat.
“Lisa, it’s Syr Phillip.”

“Oh! Right!” I exclaim. “I keep forgetting you have,
you know, a
regular
name.”

“Most people do have regular names, Lisa. How are
you?” Syr Phillip sounds a little breathless. I wonder if it’s
because he’s talking to me. I know
I’m
already starting to
show some signs of arousal just from hearing his voice. I notice
suddenly that I’m sweating, and my pants feel a little too
tight.

I glance up and notice Brad shooting me a dirty
look. We’re not supposed to take cell phone calls while on shift.
“I’m uhhhh, fine,” I say, my voice a near-whisper. “I’m sort of at
work right now.”

“So?” Syr Phillip’s voice goes from somewhat
breathless to somewhat agitated.

“So, it means I really can’t talk. Can I call you
back when I go on my coffee break?”

“Lisa, I really need to see you.”

“When?”

“As soon as possible.” Syr Phillip has gone back to
breathless again. “I really, really need to see you as soon as
possible.”

The urgency in Syr Phillip’s voice is making my
crotch get a little hot inside my too-tight Old Navys. “Why?” I
ask, although I’m hoping I already know the answer.

Syr Phillip makes a noise, something between a cough
and a grunt of pleasure. Or at least that’s what it sounds like. I
suppose it could just be cell phone static, too.

The grunt-coughing stops abruptly. “Did you hear
what I just said, Lisa?”

“No. You sort of got garbled up, I guess,” I say,
crestfallen.

“I was just saying that I need to talk to you about
a few things. I also wanted to see how you’re recovering from the
weekend.”

“I’m doing fine. A little sore from all those rabies
shots, but fine.”

“Glad to hear it,” he says. “But that’s not the only
reason I’m calling. There are some important SCA events coming up
soon and I would just like to—well, see if you’re up to
accompanying me to them—and also to talk to you a little bit about
what happened at Lady Ramona’s house. The house fire and the Tuchux
raid are quite the controversy in SCA circles right now, as you
might imagine.”