Oh. Wow.

“Written in the sky?” I breathed.

“Me to you, you to me for all the kingdom to see.”

Holy crap.

Then something else occurred to me.

“Uh-oh,” I whispered.

“Pardon?”

“Uh-oh,” I repeated.

“Uh what?”

I guess they didn’t have uh-oh here either.

I moved around that. “Noctorno, I am not the other half to your soul. The other Cora is.”

“Gods,” he hissed, losing patience.

“No!” I cried. “It’s true. If you could get in trouble being with –”

I stopped speaking when he pressed closer.

“Excellent try, love, but it’s not going to work.”

“No, seriously –”

His hands spanned my h*ps and I quit talking.

“The she-god wrote that you’re the other half to my soul which meant I had to bind myself to you but it didn’t mean I couldn’t bed whoever I wanted and I do. So even if you aren’t the Cora of my world, as you lie that you aren’t, none of the gods would give a toss if I kiss you, touch you, taste you and drive into you and they also wouldn’t give a toss that I let you do the same to me, except, obviously, the last so let’s just say they won’t mind if you ride me.” His face dipped closer and he finished with, “Hard.”

His words were coarse but even so I was stuck on something he said earlier and therefore asked with disbelief, “You’ve cheated on me?”

He grinned and his grin was wicked. “If you’re not my wife, then no.”

“You’ve cheated on me!” I cried.

“So you’re my wife?”

“No!”

“Then no.”

Ugh!

“Move away,” I demanded, my hands going to his wrists and pushing.

“No, now that I’ve put up with this rubbish, you earn your food and clothes and, I’m warning you, now I’m hungrier than I was before so I’ll not tolerate anymore of this absurdity.”

“I’m not being absurd!” My voice was rising. “I’m telling you the truth!”

He kept my gaze even as he shook his head. “Make no mistake, Cora, I’ll eat in front of you and you’ll wear that nightgown until it falls off, if it comes to that.”

“Fine!” I snapped. “Great!” I fairly shouted. “Do what you will. I’ll not earn one more thing from you!”

He nodded his head once, muttered, “Your choice,” let me go and moved away.

And that, apparently, was that.

Jerk!

I stood against the stone, realized I was breathing heavily and watched him go.

Well, that didn’t work.

“You know what?” I asked him as he crouched by one of the sacks and started pulling stuff out. He turned his head to me and I kept going. “When your Cora comes back, and I hope to God she does, not only so I can go home but also so I can get away from you, you’re going to feel just like the ass**le, jerk, scumbag you are!”

He looked back into the sack, mumbling, “I’ll take that chance.”

Argh!

Chapter Seven

Only Stupid People Get Bored

I woke the next morning half on and totally wrapped around Noctorno again.

Great. Just great.

Why couldn’t my unconscious self hate him as much as my conscious self, I ask you?

I rolled away, landing on my back and he rolled with me, landing mostly on my body.

Fabulous.

I opened my eyes and looked into his.

Jeez, it totally sucked he was so freaking gorgeous.

“Good morning, love,” he murmured.

I glared at him thinking there was not one damned thing good about it. First, I had a headache. Second, I was starving. Third, I needed a bath, with soap. Fourth, I was sick and damned tired of wearing this nightgown. Fifth, I was tired and damned sick of this cave. Sixth, I had to go to the bathroom and that meant he had to go with me which was humiliating. Seventh, he was there and I hated him no matter how gorgeous he was. And last, I was still not home.

Needless to say, yesterday did not go well. He took me to answer nature’s call twice more and when I was back in the cave he left (taking the jugs and sacks with him, the king of all ultimate jerks) and came back after filling the one with water which he informed me I could partake of at will. This was good for I could dehydrate faster than starve but it was bad because drinking water made nature call.

Other than that, he spent most of the day somewhere else (but close, I could hear him doing such things as murmuring to his horse, chopping wood and what I guessed was sharpening weapons) and I spent most of the day alone, getting hungrier and hungrier by the minute, bored out of my skull at the same time scared beyond reason.

I wanted to go home.

“I need coffee,” I informed him because I did. I knew my headache wasn’t because I was hungry. I knew it was because my system desperately needed caffeine.

“Coffee sounds good,” he whispered, his eyes moving to my mouth.

Oh God. Here we go.

All right.

Whatever!

“Okay, fine,” I snapped. “What do I have to do for a cup of coffee?”

His eyes moved back to mine and they were smiling. “Why don’t you do what you think a cup of coffee is worth and, when you’re done, I’ll tell you if you’ve earned it.”

I glared at him a second, willing my eyes to annihilate him.

This didn’t happen so I spat, “I hate you.”

The smile didn’t fade from his eyes when he replied, “I don’t care.”

What…

Eh…

Ver!

Oh well. Fuck it. A girl like me would do a lot for caffeine and seeing as I was a girl like me, there it was.

Both my hands went to either side of his face, my foot went into the hides, I pushed off, rolling into him, taking him to his back with me on top and I kissed him, hard, open-mouthed, wet, long and hot.

God, oh God, oh God but I wished he didn’t taste so f**king good.

When I was done, one of his arms was locked under my shoulder blades the other one was locked tight around my waist.

I lifted my head and said (unfortunately breathlessly, so good was that kiss), “Does that earn me coffee?”

“Sweets,” he murmured, his rough voice rougher, his sexy eyes sexier and his arm moving from under my shoulder blades so that his fingers could slide up the back of my neck into my hair, “that was so bloody magnificent, you get coffee and porridge.”

Yippee!