Gone With the Witch (17 page)

At the edge of the lake, Storm shook her head. "This
isn't right." She looked toward the stars and closed her
eyes. "She's hurt, and her cry has a gurgle in it, like water is filling her nose and mouth."

Aiden thought of Storm's experience at the mall, and it worried him that, this time, she wasn't running headlong toward a rescue.

Without a word, Storm bolted in another direction,
down a hill and into some woods, Aiden right behind her.

When they got to a rope bridge high over a rocky
stream, Storm stopped so fast, Aiden passed her and was halfway across the bridge before he realized she wasn't behind him. He'd lost her. Where had she gone?

"Storm?" he called.
"Storm?
Where the hell did you
go?"

Below the rope bridge, miles below, it seemed, he saw
her climbing over a sharp outcropping of rocks. Adrenaline
shot through him as he backtracked and took the hill at a
ru
n.

He heard Storm scream, got distracted, tripped, rolled,
and came to a stop at the same outcropping, but Storm was
gone.

Aiden climbed over the rocks, but he still couldn't see her.

She wasn't nuts.
He
was nuts for letting her get hurt. If something happened to
her ..
.

On the opposite side of the rocks, he found that the
steep hill continued, and he followed it down. Then he saw
something shimmering in the moonlight, the sea horse, hanging down Storm's back. Far above him, she clung to the edge of a bigger rock cliff than the first, trying to get a toehold.

Something moved at the edge of the water.
The girl.
His heart tripped. Helplessness grabbed him by the
throat.

"Hold on, Storm," he called, going for the girl.

"Hurry," Storm said, glancing back. "She'll drown"

The child lay at the edge of the stream, her body nearly submerged. Thank God for the stream's irregular flow; water covered her face erratically, so she could take air every now and then. As Aiden got closer, the child's gurgling finally reached
his
ears.

"I'm gonna take you out of the water," he told the kid, glancing up at Storm, praying she wasn't heading for disaster.

"My arm," the girl said. "It hurts"

Aiden got in the water and placed an arm behind her
back and another beneath her knees. She screamed anyway
until he set her down in the dirt.

Then he stood directly beneath Storm. "Jump, Storm," he called. "I'm going to catch you."

That fast, she let go ... and landed on him.

The girl's giggle told him she was going to be fine,
though his sprained cock was another matter.

"Did 'I squish you?" Storm asked, getting up and going to the girl.

"I think her arm's broken," Aiden said. "Let's splint it before we take her back to camp."

A half hour later, Aiden carried Leslie the long way
around the rocks and up the steep incline, with Storm at his
back, trying to keep him from falling with Leslie in his
arms, though Storm stumbled a few times herself.

When they emerged from the woods, people came run
ning. Leslie's parents repeated their thanks. The police and
a news crew were waiting, as was the ambulance that whisked Leslie off to the hospital.

Aiden asked the news crew to turn off their cameras. All they needed was for the dragon tail wagon to be filmed and
recognized.

The police took his statement.

Everyone in the campground must be there, Aiden
thought as he got slapped on the back, though the girls' parents had known who really saved her.

He found Storm standing as if in a daze, watching the road the ambulance had taken.

"Can 'I take your picture?" a camper asked her.

"No, please," Aiden said, placing his arm around
Storm's shoulder to walk her back to his coach.

Aiden took her inside, turned on the shower, stripped her, and got in with her. He shampooed her hair, washed her face, and scrubbed the dirt from beneath her broken nails. Afterward, he wrapped her in a towel and put antiseptic ointment on her scratches while he stood there still
dressed and dripping on the rug, then he pointed her to
ward the bedroom. "Go roll up in a blanket. I'll be with you
in a
minute."
He stripped and showered.

When he got to the bedroom, a towel wrapped around his waist, he found her wide awake. It was seven in the morning by then, and if they'd gotten more than an hour's sleep, he'd be surprised.

He lay down beside her and took her in his arms, gazed into her wide, wide eyes. "Why are you looking so lost? She's safe"

Storm rolled tight into him. "While I was looking for
her, I ...
felt
her parents' anxiety, which was making it
hard for me to hear Leslie. I guess—I know—that when
you found me staring after the ambulance, I was sharing their joy at her safe return. 'I never felt the love of a family before. The feelings were so foreign and so utterly amazing. 'I think 'I was ... wallowing ... in
love."

"You looked like you'd been shot and didn't know
enough to fall."

She buried her nose in his chest hair. "I felt like I'd been
shot."

"Why?"

She looked up at him. "Because I didn't know until then
what family love felt like. Didn't know what I'd missed.”

“You have a family.
Your sisters."

"Our love started in the womb. It's unconditional.
Maybe 'I take it for granted, but
it's
sibling love. Until that
moment, I didn't know how different that was from mother
love or father love"

"I wish I'd felt it," Aiden said. It would have been new to him, too.

She cupped his cheek. "It was the most beautiful feeling
in the world."

"You deserved it for finding her."

"I didn't do anything but use the gift I've been given
.. .
twice
this trip." She
smiled,
the light coming back into her
blue green eyes. "Wait till I tell my sisters that 'I have a gift
for finding lost children. They thought I was crazy, but they're wrong! I could dance, I'm so happy. You wanna dance?"

God she was beautiful.
Breathtaking.

"Cat got your tongue?" she asked.

"No,
he's
got my slippers."

"I'm sorry Warlock fell in love with your slippers.”

“
Very expensive Italian leather," Aiden said, "but you could make it up to me"

"How?" she asked, looking rather kitten like, herself, in the way she moved her body into a naturally seductive, feline pose. He wanted to know more about the child hidden
inside the seductress, as much as he wanted to know the
sex storm
goth
with attitude, in the biblical sense. Except that he needed to get both of them past the stupidest mistake he'd ever made.

Though he'd be forced to confess, he got hard thinking
about what he wanted to do to her, which must have set off
some kind of witchy hot button, because she began rotating
her hips, kissing his neck, working her hand beneath his towel, and generally arousing the hell out of him.

Maybe if he got her good and ready, she was already halfway there, she'd be too hot to let anything stop them—please God—and maybe he'd confess, and she'd accept the results with equilibrium, and they'd have an amazing sex storm conflagration.

Still, she
could
turn from him in disgust ... If his towel fell before she was primed, D-day would ar
ri
ve precipitously, and he might never ... arrive.

Better he should initiate the unveiling, rather than run from it.

The fact was
,
he couldn't stand the suspense.

No more games, no more running.

Aiden stood, turned on the light, and whipped off his towel.

Storm focused, gasped, and reared back.

The object of her shock shriveled in embarrassment.

Chapter Twenty-Three

A surge of disbelief shivered through Storm.

She stood on her knees and inched forward for a closer look.
Weird
was the first word that came to mind,
joke,
the
second.

Except that it was real. The mortified look on Aiden's face said it all, and her heart went out to him. "You have a
penis tattooed on your dragon
. '
I mean, a dragon tattooed
on your penis."

"I figured you'd notice."

"It's kinda ... pink, hot pink."

"Pale violet red," Aiden said.
"With maroon trim."

"Yeah, that ... with its tail curled down your thigh and wings halfway to your waist
. '
I guess 'I would notice. No wonder you wear boxers."

Storm reached for his dragon but pulled back and
looked up at him. "I'm not the only one who acts before they think." She indicated the dragon. "I submit exhibit
A ... which is raising its head and looking up at me as if it could devour me for breakfast."

"It could."

"That's the longest dragon neck I've ever seen.”

“Why, thank you, Storm."

"Did you ever notice that when he raises his head, his wings seem to get wider, as if for flight?"

"I'm looking at it from the wrong angle."

"What possessed you in the first place?"

"Liquor and plenty of it, a need to prove my independence, and a bet I wanted to win."

"How rational of
you."

"Hey, the tattoo artist was a Tahitian beauty, as were her
topless multitalented assistants, who held my balls and my dick, and did wicked things to keep me entertained
. '
I had a
bet to win. I love women. I'd been dumped. We had our
moments."

"Topless assistants.
No wonder you didn't notice it was pink."

Aiden opened his mouth and closed it again.

It was both the weirdest and most arousing thing she'd ever seen. "How did you stay long that long?"

"The tattoo artist's assistants handled ... everything,
but to be truthful, it isn't all that arousing getting needled, and it's less bloody if you're not hard."

"Did it hurt?"

"Not as bad as I expected. There's skin anesthesia and
new methods. It barely scabbed. It's a tame version of what
I've seen out there."

"It doesn't look tame now. Did you win the bet?"

"Yeah, for what that's worth, but I lost my sex life ... un
til you ... maybe. That's the part I didn't think through. How
I would feel about revealing my ... lapse in judgment ... to a woman."

"How have other women reacted?"

"You're the first who's seen it, and you're shocked out
of your
mind."

"Well, not out of my mind. You must have expected
some surp
ri
se, or you wouldn't have gone celibate.”

“
It's hideous," he said.

"No, it's ... kind of a turn on, the way it's looking up at me, all expectant-like. And it's my favorite color. But why did you do it?" She patted the bed beside her.

He hesitated,
then
he accepted her invitation to join her
on the bed. "I'd been dumped ... again. That can only
happen so many times in a man's life before he does
something ... brainless."

"Claudette dumped you."

Aiden nodded. "King and Morgan wanted to cheer me up, so they took me sailing to the islands, and over a week that I now remember as humiliating, 'I let this happen."