Dee decided that she definitely had a preference for a man with an imagination. Who knew what pleasure pink pop beads could incite when pulled across some of the more sensitive areas of the body. Then again, they were also a great hit wrapped around a rousing erect penis. She couldn’t wait to see what Danny had in mind for the boa.

‘You’ll marry me, of course,’ Danny murmured, pulling her more snugly into his arms. ‘After all, I’ve stolen your virtue.’

Busy running her fingers through the curiously soft hair that traced Danny’s sternum, Dee chuckled. ‘You can’t steal something that was offered on a silver platter.’

He yawned. ‘Nevertheless, my honor demands it.’

‘Consider your honor upheld. Right now I can’t think past what we’re going to do next. I have to say that I’m sorry it took so long to find out what fun this is.’

‘I’m not. If you’d found out sooner, it wouldn’t have been with me.’

‘It was meant to be, I think.’

‘True. After all, the first person you failed to shift with just happens to be your one true love.’

‘It might also be because he’s the first one who tried to make sure I had an orgasm first. Maybe it was a protective mechanism.’

‘Nah. I prefer the true love idea.’

‘If you must.’ She could hear his heart, and it soothed her. She’d never been this close to a human before. Oh, she’d held Lizzie and Mare, but she’d never been given the gift of a lover’s comfort.

‘I really do want to marry you,’ he said, lazily stroking her hair. ‘Did I tell you I love you?’

‘Better than that,’ she said, spreading her hand over his heart. ‘You showed me. I am honored by your offer.’

‘You’re not allowed to say no.’

‘I have two sisters to think of, Danny.’

‘Let ‘em get their own husbands.’

‘Until they do, we need to stick together just to survive.’

‘I work, too, ya know.’

Dee lifted her head so she could face him. ‘Could you work from Salem’s Fork? We could live here to save money. I could stay in the bank. That way I could be here for the girls.’

He stroked her cheek with his thumb. ‘What if I can’t? What if you need to come to Chicago with me?’

She frowned. ‘I don’t think we’d have the money to commute. Could you wait? The situation here can’t last that much longer. Especially if we can finally take care of Xan.’

‘You’d give me up for your sisters?’

‘Give up is not the idea. Postpone at most. I have a responsibility to them, Danny. I mean, right now Lizzie hasn’t even been able to hold down a job.’

‘Why?’

She shrugged. ‘She’s distracted by trying to change straw into gold. She thinks it would save us all. I think Lizzie’s greatest gift is that she loves us enough to try.’

‘And Mare?’

‘Mare will be okay. But if I could stay, I could help out.’

‘So if I could base my activities out of Salem’s Fork, you’d marry me?’

‘Before you could get the question out. I know it wouldn’t be easy. Neither of us makes a lot of money, and you’d need to travel. But we could make it work.’ She knew her smile was anxious. She wasn’t sure her heart could stand a rejection.

‘What about me?’ he asked very quietly.

‘If you’re close,’ she said, ‘we’d have more time for impulse activity. I mean, we’re not really far from anywhere. And I get three weeks’ vacation at the bank.’

‘And your art?’

She briefly closed her eyes. ‘I don’t want to lose my anonymity.’

‘If I could guarantee you that you won’t?’

She frowned. ‘There is no artist protection program, Danny.’

‘I know people.’

She considered it. ‘I’ve always wanted to share my vision. I just can’t bear the idea of intrusion. Do you understand?’

Danny pulled her down to him for a brief, searing kiss. ‘Better than you know, sweetheart. So if I move here and promise to keep you anonymous, you’d live off my less than stellar salary until you can sell paintings?’

‘I’d hope we’d share all the responsibility. But of course. Although I think you’re setting too high a store on those paintings.’

‘And I think I’m not.’ He kissed her again. ‘Okay, missy. You have a deal. When do we ask your sisters’ permission?’

‘When Mare wears a gray suit. Don’t worry. They love you already. Mare will offer to have your babies if you take my attention away from her. Hey, I don’t suppose you could help me talk her into college.’

Danny laughed. ‘Mare? Oh, Dee, don’t waste your breath. Mare’s going to end up creating something wonderfully bizarre, like, oh, an interactive movie-watching game that everybody’s going to want, and she’s going to become a cultural phenomenon.’

Dee sighed and settled back on Danny’s chest. ‘Fine. Outvoted again.’

‘I will do one thing for you.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Show you why I bought the feather boa.’ She was up again and smiling. ‘Boas make me hot.’ Danny James could look very smug when he wanted to. ‘I thought they would.’


Lizzie opened her eyes, slowly letting them adjust to the predawn light. She was lying sprawled across Elric’s perfect body, exhausted and deliciously, perfectly happy. She had no idea where, or when, or how she’d gone – at some point the arcs of color had speared through her body, turning it into tiny shards of crimson, blue, and gold, fairy dust spread across the universe until it settled back into lavender and then into flesh once more. It had been endless, glorious, and instinctively she tightened her grip on Elric’s shoulder, afraid he’d gone.

He murmured something sleepily, but his arm was locked around her back, and there was no way she could escape. No way she wanted to.

The door to her room was open. Someone must have come in to check on her during the night and she could only guess they’d found nothing. Lizzie and her phantom lover had vanished, at least for the time being, which was probably just as well. She wasn’t sure either of her sisters could have withstood the shock of seeing peaceful little Lizzie turning into…

What had she turned into? A raging sex addict? If you considered exactly what she’d done, what he’d gotten her to do with nothing more than a gentle tug, then she was the most wanton creature on the face of this earth. Except that she wanted no one but him.

The bastard was right after all. They were in love, bonded, and there was no breaking away. No safe life in the suburbs with a mini-van and two children. There’d be children all right, but the thought of what they might produce was enough to send chills through the heart of any prospective mother. A child with both their gifts would be something to reckon with, indeed.

She turned her face to look at him. He looked so young, so beautiful. And most astonishing of all, he was hers.

The door closed and locked again, and he opened his eyes to meet hers. ‘Has someone been snooping around?’ he murmured.

‘Probably my sisters. Are you ready to meet them officially?’

‘God, no,’ he said, sliding his hand up the smooth line of her back. ‘I can think of much better ways to spend our time. Even if we have more than our fair share I don’t want to waste a minute of it.’

She slid back down in the bed, back on the purple sheets, and smiled at him. ‘Don’t you think the next fifty years will be enough?’

He made a face. ‘I think it’ll be more than that,’ he said. ‘And even then it won’t be enough.’

‘Are you asking me to marry you?’

‘No. It’s a foregone conclusion.’ At least this morning he didn’t seem nearly as upset over the notion. In fact, he seemed quite smug. ‘The way I figure it, if an average life span is ninety years, then we’re both about one third of the way through it.’

‘So another sixty years, then.’

He shook his head. ‘You forgot what I taught you about traditional alchemy. There are two main quests. One is to change base metals into gold. The other is to prolong life. You’ve already crossed that border, though I’m not sure when. I expect we’ll die within hours of each other, a very long time from now.’

‘What border?’

He didn’t answer. ‘You don’t mind marrying an older man?’ he said instead.

‘For all I know you’re younger than I am,’ Lizzie said. ‘And I’d marry you no matter how old you are.’ She looked into his deep lavender eyes, wondering if hers had the same translucent glow. ‘Er… exactly how old are you?’

He reached up and pulled her down to his mouth, kissing her. ‘Older,’ he said.

‘How old?’ she persisted.

He put his mouth against her ear, hot and sweet and arousing. ‘Physically, I’m in my late twenties. Mentally, I’m about thirty-five. In actual years…’ He hesitated.

‘In actual years?’ she prompted.

‘Ninety-three,’ he whispered.

And she let out a shriek of laughter that woke the entire house.


Dee had long since lost hope of ever waking to the sight of a man in her room. But when she woke up, there he was. Lying on his side, head propped on his hand, just watching her.

‘You really will marry me,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t just dreaming.’

Dee laid her hand against his heart. ‘And all my worldly goods endow. Unfortunately the sum of that is three business suits, a handful of bird feathers, and a closet of acrylic paint.’

She’d thought he’d been beautiful last night. This morning he was glorious, a celebration of sensuality in her sterile bed. His beard shadowed the hard angles of his jaw, adding a rakish air to his smile. His eyes were sleepy and sated. He was naked to his hips where the crisp white sheet pooled just south of his navel to expose her favorite torso on earth. She’d traced every inch of it last night with her tongue. She’d followed the hair that decorated his chest straight down to where his cock rose to meet her and tasted that, too. Then when it had gotten too cold up on the mountain, they’d gathered their blankets and snuck inside the house, giggling like teenagers, and she’d explored all over again.

Danny never looked away from her as he traced a lazy hand along her jaw to dip into the hollow of her throat. ‘And you really won’t mind that we’ll have to pinch pennies.’

Dee savored the shivers his touch unleashed. ‘I live to hear Lincoln scream.’

‘You probably won’t be able to go on research trips with me.’

She sighed. ‘So all that talk of Montmartre?’

‘To get you to have sex with me.’

‘It worked. I’ll save up my own money and go. But I am going… one of these days.’

He just kept watching her. At first Dee felt cherished. Slowly, though, she began to suspect that his contemplation wasn’t all infatuation. He was just too quiet. Too still. After the night they’d had last night, he should be singing like Domingo. He should at least praise the luster of her eyes, or the fact that she was double-jointed.

‘Dee, I have a confession to make.’

She fell back against her pillow and shut her eyes. ‘Oh, hell. I knew it was too good to be true. I looked like your mother after all.’

‘Like my who?’

‘If I did and you didn’t mind, then I’m afraid you’re just too gothic for me. You’ll have to leave. Just don’t sell my story to The Enquirer.’

‘Nothing short of the News of the World, I promise. What the hell are you talking about?’

She cracked an eye open. ‘It’s my usual party trick. Why else did you think I was so frantic?’

‘You turn into… whoa, that is out there.’

‘The fact that you seem surprised is a good thing.’ She rose up on her own elbow to face him. ‘So if it wasn’t that -and I thank all the powers of the universe that it wasn’t -what is it?’

Danny stopped making eye contact. Dee felt that loss right in her solar plexus where all her dread lived.

‘What?’ she demanded. ‘Your wife needs you? Your gay lover needs you? Your bishop needs you? What?’

‘I’m, uh, not who you think I am.’

That brought her all the way to a sitting position. ‘I really think this demands an explanation.’

Danny reached for one of her hands. She slapped him away.

‘You said it yourself,’ he defended himself. ‘You can’t bear the notoriety. To have people think they have the right to you. That they know you. I, uh, I guess I’m here under an assumed name.’

‘You’re not Danny James.’

‘I am. Daniel James Mark-’

He never got the rest out. The figurative light went on in a blinding flash, and Dee shoved him ass first off the bed. They should have heard the thud across town. Dee found she didn’t care. She leaned over the side to see him sprawled naked on her hardwood floor, his dignity in serious disarray. It would have been easier if he didn’t look as if he were posing for a portrait titled The Male Animal Recumbent.