Time Thief: A Time Thief Novel (27 page)

“No, and I ought to punish you for even thinking I’d get together with you if I was interested in someone else, but I’m going to let it go because, for one, I can see by your expression that you’re actually worried about that, and for another, I’m about twelve seconds away from ripping off all your clothes and having my way with you. And I can’t do that if I’m busy being mad at you.”

“Twelve seconds?” He looked at his watch. “Do you want me to count down the last five seconds?”

She laughed again and moved away from him, pulling her shirt over her head as she did so. “I think what I like the most about you is your sense of humor. You never fail to make me laugh. I want you naked, Peter. Even with everyone in the camp knowing what we’re doing, I want you right this very second.”

He was never one to turn down a reasonable request from a woman, he mused as he stripped himself of his clothing, and even though he had already informed Kiya that he would not, in fact, be making love to her, he decided that it would be churlish to deny her when she so obviously needed him.

Yes. It was for her benefit that he would do this. He would prove to her once and for all that she was meant to be with him for the rest of their time on earth.

“R
emove your clothing, and lie back so that I might touch you.”

I dragged my gaze up from where I’d been ogling Peter’s bare chest and arms and all the rest of him—and the rest of him was well worth the time spent ogling—and looked at his expression to decide if he was actually serious in thinking he could order me around like that, or if he was so aroused that he just sounded bossy and arrogant.

“You, sir, are nuts if you think I’m going to respond to commands,” I told him, deciding he was being high-handed. As if demanding that I marry him weren’t enough, now he seemed to think he could direct our lovemaking. “I’m all for sharing experiences, and letting the other person have their fun time, and whatnot, but I am not a doormat, Peter, sexually or otherwise. You can’t just tell me to lie back and get naked and expect me to do it. Even if I did, I’d be so annoyed that I wouldn’t enjoy anything you did to me, and I gather that is the point of you being so incredibly pigheaded that you think you can become Mr. Lovemaking Bossy Pants.”

“I don’t remember you speaking this much last night,” he said somewhat thoughtfully. “You moaned, yes. You
groaned, as well. And at one point, you hummed a happy little song of sexual completeness, but you did not chatter on and on when I was trying to provide you with intense pleasure. Are you suddenly shy? Does the fact that my family are all around us bother you? Is the presence of Lenore Faa causing you to have second thoughts about the rightness of our sexual joining?”

I stopped wriggling out of my pants (I wasn’t aware that I was, in fact, complying with his demand to strip until that moment), and glared at him. “You didn’t just tell me that I talk too much! You couldn’t. Not even you, a man who claims to never have been in love with a sexual partner, would be so downright stupid as to tell the woman he was about to pleasure to the very tips of her toes that she talked too much. You didn’t just say that, did you, Peter?”

“No,” he said gravely. “I like the fact that you feel comfortable telling me everything you think. I enjoy seeing how your mind works. However, there is a time and a place for narration, and this is a time for you to be lying naked on that foul sleeping bag, so that I might do all the things to you that I’ve wanted to do to you since I saw you in the forest.”

I was about to protest, but the thought that he had been as attracted to me as I had been to him eased my annoyance. Instead of telling him that there was no time where communication was not a good thing, I removed my pants, socks, and underwear. “Right.” I lolled back on the sheet I had bought, and looked expectantly at him. “I’m naked and lying down. What exactly is on your list of things that you wish to do to me?”

“I know what I’d like to do to you, but it doesn’t matter if you’re naked or not,” a voice said from beyond the
confines of the tent. “Except so much as it makes the beating more effective.”

“Eep!” I stared at Peter for a moment, my face burning with the knowledge that Andrew—it had to be Andrew—was standing just outside the tent listening to us. But what did I expect? Any man who would bash a woman on the head from whom he had just stolen time was not a man who would afford privacy where it was due.

Peter looked just as shocked as I was, an expression that quickly changed to one of fury. He dropped my ankle, which he had picked up prefatory, I was guessing, to kissing his way up my leg, and spun around on his knees, clearly about to exit the tent and confront his cousin.

“Peter! Stop!” I hissed, grabbing at his foot.

He pushed back the flap of the tent, pausing to glance back at me. “Why?”

“You’re naked,” I pointed out, gesturing toward his torso.

“Andrew Faa will just have to bear the sight of my nudity,” he said with mingled anger and dignity, and left the tent.

I hurriedly pulled on the nearest thing at hand (Peter’s shirt), and grabbed his jeans before scrambling out of the tent. I crawled out and stood up, turning to find Peter striding over to where his cousin stood, while not twenty feet away, two women and assorted children stood like stone statues next to their minivan.

In unison, their heads swiveled from the sight of naked Peter to me, struggling to button up his shirt so my boobs weren’t hanging out. “Oh,” I said, freezing at the sight of the wives and kids. From around the far side of the van, the two other cousins emerged, both of them
stopping to stare at Peter and me. “Um. Hi. We…uh…weren’t just doing what you think we were doing in the tent.”

“It seems to me pretty clear that you were,” Gregory said from where he sat, his chair rocked back to lean against Mrs. Faa’s RV. “Not that I eavesdropped, you understand, but you weren’t being very quiet.”

My blush cranked up to a level that I had previously thought impossible. “Great,” I told Peter. “Everyone here knows we were about to go off to boink-land.”

One of the wives squeaked and, grabbing two of the littlest kids, hustled them off to their RV. The second wife did likewise, casting an appalled look over her shoulder at me.

“I’m so sorry,” I called to them both, waving Peter’s jeans toward him. “I didn’t mean to say that in front of the little ones. But I did tell him to put his pants on before he left the tent, so that part isn’t my fault.”

“Do not speak to the women!” Andrew spat, little flecks of spittle accompanying the words. “You are not fit to be in their presence!”

“I’ve had enough of you tonight,” Peter snarled, heading to where Andrew stood in the center of the clearing. “If you ever again threaten Kiya, even obliquely, I will see to it that you spend the rest of your blighted life regretting it.”

“Peter,” I whispered loudly, glancing worriedly over at Mrs. Faa’s RV. Thus far, she hadn’t emerged, and I wanted to keep it that way. I had a feeling I was in enough trouble with her, and didn’t need to add another scene to the balance.

“I’ll say whatever I want to say,” Andrew replied to Peter, his eyes narrowing. “You are nothing to us, son of
a mortal. Less than nothing. Take your whore and leave our camp.”

“Oh!” I gasped, my worry and concern that Peter might do something to cause problems evaporating in the face of that untoward insult. “I am not a whore! I admit that we had no idea that we could be overheard so easily while we were in the tent, but that doesn’t give you the right to call me names! In fact, since I know you won’t take it back, I’ll just make sure you don’t even say it!”

Peter turned his head toward me. “Kiya—”

One of the wives squeaked just as she had before I reset time a few seconds, and grabbed her kids, rushing them to their RV. The second followed after giving me a speaking look. “Sorry,” I called, digging through the pockets of Peter’s jeans to look for some money to throw at Andrew.

“Kiya!” Peter, en route to confront Andrew, stopped to turn a stern look upon me. “What did I tell you about doing this?”

“He called me a whore! I’m not going to stand for that. Where’s your wallet?” I said, going from pocket to pocket.

“I will take care of him. Stay out of this. I have no money in my pants—it’s in my wallet, which is in your tent.”

Without a word, Gregory settled the chair on the ground, stood up, and reached into his own pocket before walking a few steps over to me and handing me a handful of silver coins.

“Thank you,” I said, smiling at him before throwing a couple of the silver dollars at Andrew’s feet. “Now, let’s get a few things straight here, Mr. Potty Mouth. One—”

Andrew looked aghast at the coins at his feet. He stared at them as if he couldn’t believe they were there; then his gaze touched on me, anger quickly replacing the confusion. “Take your whore and leave!” he thundered, interrupting me.

“Hey! You’re not supposed to be able to do that. Fine! This is war now!”

“No, it is not.” Peter grabbed my arm just as I stole a few more seconds from Andrew.

The wives squeaked. The kids were hustled.

“Ha! Take that!” I couldn’t help but tell Andrew.

He looked confused. “Take what?”

I stuck my hand in Peter’s pockets again, then remembered he had no money in them. Without a word, Gregory handed me a couple more coins, which I threw at Andrew’s head just as Peter walked over to me (again) and, taking my arm, hauled me backward toward the tent.

“What the hell?” Andrew yelled, ducking to avoid being struck by the coins.

Peter ignored him, gently pushing me to the tent. “That was uncalled-for.”

“What was?” I asked, trying to appear innocent.

“You stole time from him.”

“Yes, but he called me a whore. Twice. Wait just a minute.” I would have stopped, but I was conscious that if either of the women had looked out the window of her respective RV, she’d get another eyeful of Peter. I waited until we got back inside the tent to ask, “How do you know that I stole time? Everything was reset when I did it, wasn’t it?”

“In a manner of speaking. It’s possible to steal time from Travellers, but only very small quantities. The
greater the amount of time you try to take, the higher the chances are that you will fail.”

“So you can’t take big chunks of time from other Travellers? Damn.” There went my plans to have Peter steal time enough to make Andrew an infant again. If he wanted to act like a big ole baby, then he could just be one.

“I didn’t say that. I said that if you try to take a large amount of time, you have a higher chance to fail.”

“Fail meaning you don’t get the time?”

“Fail meaning you risk killing the Traveller or yourself.” His voice was grim, but his expression was grimmer. “Kiya, I know that you have not been exposed to Travellers before, but you need to listen to me when I tell you not to steal time. It is not only morally wrong; it is dangerous. I thought you learned that fact.”

“Yes, but doesn’t the intent have something to do with that? Mrs. Faa said that it was the shuvani person that you had to appease when it came to paying for the debt, right? So if you do take time from someone bad, isn’t it easier to get away with it than if you do what I did with that motel hussy, and steal time solely for your own benefit?”

“What do you think you just did with Andrew?”

I plumped down on the sleeping bag. “He had it coming. The rat.”

“I agree that he was acting inappropriately, but I was attempting to deal with the situation in a manner that won’t have karmic repercussions on either of us,” Peter grumbled.

“Yes. Stark naked.” I shot a look at his groin, which was now quiescent. “In full view of your cousins-in-law.
I have to say, I don’t mind that you aren’t an overly modest person, but I really don’t like you parading around in front of other women while naked. Nothing good can come of that.”

He zipped closed the flap of the tent and gestured toward the mattress and sleeping bag. “Your jealousy is gratifying to my ego, but unnecessary, I assure you. I don’t particularly care what my cousins’ wives think of me. Would you please lie back down so that we can recommence?”

“You’re crazy if you think we’re going to continue.” I pointed to the back wall of the tent, which faced the compound. “Not when someone could be lurking just outside listening to us.”

“Then we will have to be quiet, won’t we?” he said, picking up my ankle.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Was that another dig about me talking too much?”

“No. It was a hint that I am so desperate to make love to you that not even my annoying family can stop me. Lie back, please.”

In the end, I let him have his way. I liked to think it was because I was altruistic and caring, and obviously the man needed a sexual release, but my id and egos have never let me lie to myself, and they weren’t about to start now.

Peter started kissing his way up my leg, murmuring words that caressed almost as much as his mouth, his hands stroking my flesh in a way that had me whipped into a frenzy in no time. I writhed, I squirmed, I stroked and touched and teased him just as much as he stroked and touched and teased me. I kept my moans to a whispered
level, and by the time his mouth had moved up to very sensitive ground, I was more or less one giant blob of orgasmic Kiya.

“Please,” I begged when he lifted his head to gently bite my hip.

“Please what?” he asked, his voice soft and husky at the same time.

“Please do whatever else you want, because I really like your list so far,” I managed to get out.

He chuckled against my belly, then moved upward, catching my legs under his arms as he did so. “My list is long and varied, my fair beauty, and I plan on enacting every single item on it. But for now, this will have to do.”

“Condom?” I gasped as he nudged forward into me.

He paused, looking down at me with eyes so beautiful, they made me want to dive into their violet depths. “Do I need one? We are going to be married.”

“Possibly. Maybe. I don’t know. Oh, hell, no, we don’t need one. I’m on birth control, and I assume you don’t have any diseases, and I don’t either, so—hooyah!”