“Mr. Innes says he can get a mutton quickie past his mate if ‘tis early enough, but ‘twill be safer to forego port for a better excuse. Yule perhaps.”
Duff chuckled. “Tell him six then. Call the kitchen at Highlander and have them to do up a mutton saddle with roasted potatoes for the pair of us and have it ready to serve at six fifteen.”
“Very good, sir.”
CHAPTER 2
Glen closed the phone as Rosie opened the door of his office and strolled in smiling. She was wearing a backpack over her shoulder that was girlie-looking, made out of something like bronze satin, kind of vintage, kind of cute. Everything about Rosie was kind of cute except her nymphomania. And that was definitely hot.
“You ready?”
He looked at his watch. Three o’clock. Right on time. “Aye, my darlin’,” Glen said with his very best attempt at an Irish lilt. Rosie laughed and nodded toward the door in a gesture of, “Let’s go.”
Glen had promised Elora he’d get to the bottom of the cause of the Elf Fae War four months before. He didn’t like making excuses about the delay, but a few things had come up: Animal House, filling in for Sol, a major search and rescue operation for the real Storm with simultaneous makeover for a Storm pretender, Rosie… well, Rosie, aliens trying to demolish Jefferson Unit on his watch, and Sol dying having left him in charge and without naming a real replacement. Criminently!
A lesser person might have succumbed to a nervous breakdown, but he, the Great Glen, had managed to manage. More importantly, he emerged with the best lead so far. He’d promised Elora that he would pursue it as soon as he could get away for a week or so. Now the week was at hand. Jefferson was put back together. The people who had converged on J.U. from every corner of the globe to pay their respects to Sol had all returned to their respective stations of duty and things were quiet.
He was going to get away for a few days with his girl and do the Lady Laiken the favor of a secret mission at the same time. Of course it didn’t hurt that his girl was first class transportation personified. Just the sort of companion needed for an impossible journey such as the one on which they were about to embark.
He had a very fine evening planned beginning with a ride through the passes, courtesy of his very lovely date, to Doolin, Ireland, where they would eat pub food at Gussie O’Connor’s until they were ready to burst at the seams, see how many pipes and fiddles could cram into one pub on a fine Irish night, then snuggle together in a warm bed at Mrs. McGann’s, thousands of miles away from where either of them was expected to be. Perfect.
Everything about Glen’s first night in Ireland with Rosie was as wonderful as each of them had hoped it would be.
When they woke on their first morning after having slept together, Glen found out that there were a lot of unusual aspects to having a girlfriend like Rosie. He snuggled close to give her a morning kiss.
She turned her head and said, “Ew. No. Morning breath.”
He said, “I don’t care,” and started to gather her close when she simply disappeared out of his arms. “Hey! No fair!”
He heard her giggle in the bath when the water came on. They were lucky to get a room with a bath. He threw back the covers and stood up, intending to stomp after her and show her who was boss, but was stifled by a gasp. The shock of the cold air in the room momentarily froze him in place. He looked down and realized that his privates had shriveled to miniature replicas of themselves and decided that he’d rather not present himself to Rosie in that condition after all.
She opened the bathroom door and looked at him with a question on her face.
“Cold,” was all he could offer.
She laughed at him. “Get in the bed, big baby. I know how to fix that.” Gently pushing him back under the covers, she eased her body on top of him. “You are cold.”
He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.
“How can you possibly be so warm?”
As she began moving her body back and forth over his, creating the most delicious friction, she kissed the hollow of his throat, raised up and gave him a smile that was erotic and evil at the same time. “Maybe I have hellfire and brimstone in my veins, just like the Dante myths.”
The light that originated behind his eyes was trained on her like a beam and made her catch her breath. She was sure that what she was seeing was what love looked like.
“Maybe, but it feels like heaven. So I don’t care. Just keep doing that.”
As he slid his ice cold hands over the cheeks of her exquisitely curved derriere she jumped straight up with an, “Eek!”
He laughed, grabbed her around the middle with both arms and rolled her onto her back. “You got something for me?”
“Thanks to your magical womanly warming techniques, I do have something for you. You want it?”
She grinned. “Only if you can manage with no hands.”
“No hands, huh?”
“Let me see what I can do about that.”