Time Thief: A Time Thief Novel

by Katie MacAlister

  “Time,” I gasped, finally getting my hair untangled from his shirt. I flung it onto the ground, growled at the sight of his now-naked chest, and jerked the jeans right off his body, like a waiter pulling a tablecloth out from under a full set of dishes.

  “What about it?” he asked, trying to pull my torso back in range of his mouth at the same time his hands were busy removing my underwear.

  “What about what? Holy jebus, man!” His underwear had come off with the jeans. I stared in wonder at the magnificent sight that greeted my eyes. “You are like…woof! That’s…impressive.”

  “What is?” he asked, his words obscured by my breast, which was once again quite happily in his mouth. I squirmed in pleasure and tried to twist in such a way that I could reach his very impressive penis, and yet continue to allow him to do all those wonderful things he was doing to me.

  “Huh? Oh, your penis.”

  “Ah. Thank you.” He looked modest for a moment. “I don’t have any complaints about it, although I will admit that around you it has been a bit less than comfortable. I trust that it won’t pose a problem later?”

  “Later?” I stopped nipping at his collarbone, glancing back at where his penis saluted me with a jaunty little bob. “In what way would it pose a problem? Wait a minute, just what are you planning on doing with it? I told you that I’m not into anything kinky! No back-door action! No weird foot fetish stuff! No mushroom stamping!”

  “I don’t plan on…what the hell is mushroom stamping?”

  I squinted at him. “You don’t need to know.”

  Those glorious violet eyes looked heavenward for a couple of seconds. “You referenced my size, Kiya. I was simply trying to ascertain, without saying it in so many words because, as I’ve mentioned, I am a gentleman, and we do not discuss things like lady parts unless it is absolutely necessary, which I’ve yet to find it to be unless the lady in question was indisposed, and then it’s not so much a discussion of her parts, but of her general sense of disinterest…. Where was I?”

  “Lady parts?” I asked hopefully, gesturing to mine.

  “Ah. Yes. Very nice.”

  “Thank you. I trimmed last night in your honor. Well, to be honest, I was going to trim anyway, because there’s nothing more off-putting than having your pubes running rampant in your pants, but you probably don’t want that mental picture, so we’ll just go back to whatever it is you were saying.”

  He took a deep breath. I much appreciated what it did to his chest and gave his nearer nipple a little lick in gratitude. “I was trying to ask you if you anticipated any trouble with your comfort in accommodating such a size.”

  I eyed the penis in question. It bobbed again. “You’re not obscenely made. Not like porn-star quality, which is good because there is such a thing as too much. No, you’re just beefy, and that’s fine. I don’t anticipate any problem. Does that ease your mind?”

  “Infinitely so.” He returned to kissing a hot, wet path back to my first breast, which made it incredibly happy. “I love your breasts. They are just the perfect size for my hands and mouth. I would like to see them covered in the massage oil that I don’t yet have.”

  “I would like that, as well. Whoa, you are really, really hard, aren’t you?” I struggled to get one hand back in order to touch his genitals, but it was a difficult position to hold. “And hot. Really hot. You don’t have a fever down there, do you? An infection or something?”

  He released my breast with a wet popping noise, and leveled an outraged look at me. “Are you saying that I look like I have a venereal disease?”

  “No! Of course not! I would never! It’s just that your penis is really hot. Is that normal?”

  His brows lowered. “It is perfectly normal. You are simply consumed with lust and thus can’t differentiate between a normal penis temperature and that of one that is infected. Now cease moving around so that I can lick your belly. I wish to admire your job of trimming, and plan on taking in the scenery on the way down there.”

  I giggled, allowing him to pull me up even higher. “I like how you talk. It’s part formal, part old-world. And you get bonus points for doing more than grunting right now. Most men don’t like to talk during sex.”

  “This isn’t sex. This is foreplay. And I was born in a small village in Romania, so much of my linguistic pattern comes from there.”

  “I thought you said your mom was—oh merciful heavens, yes! Your thumb! Do that again!—I thought she was American?”

  His fingers, which had preceded his mouth, had done an intricate little dance in my aforementioned lady parts, leaving me cross-eyed and twitching with all sorts of wonderful emotions.

  “I said she was mortal, and she was. Will you cease attempting to escape my hold? I wish to do wicked things to you with my tongue.”

  “Oh, I’m totally on board with that, but I want you to feel the love, too.”

  He stopped kissing my belly and looked up at me with round eyes.

  “So to speak,” I added, bending backward to wrap my fingers around his penis. As I said, it wasn’t a comfortable position, but I was determined that he have his share of the fun, too. “I am nothing if not a thoughtful lover,” I informed him.

  “I can tell that you are,” he said, and for a few seconds, his eyes crossed, as well, as I started up a rhythm that I felt he’d enjoy. “However, at this moment, I’m more interested in driving you wild with desire.”

  “You’re succeeding,” I gasped when he flipped me over onto my back, and nipped at my hip before continuing his tour to regions southward. “Peter, I—no, seriously, that is the best thing I’ve ever felt in my life—I don’t think I’m going to last much longer.”

  “Then, my easily aroused beauty, I believe we have come to the part of the evening where I ask you if you prefer that I use a condom.”

  “I would, yes. It’s not that I’m not using something myself, but I just think until we know each other better that it would be a good idea.”

  He gave my belly button a lick and a kiss, rolled off me, and padded over to where his duffel bag was sitting on a small table.

  “You have the nicest butt I’ve ever seen on a man,” I said conversationally.

  “And you’ve seen a lot of men’s asses?” he asked, parroting my comment earlier.

  “No, actually, I haven’t. Just a couple in person, but you know, there are such things as pictures and movies, and I have a pretty good idea of what the general male populace sits on, and you, sir, have a very nice specimen.”

  “I will be happy to return the compliment,” he said, handing me a condom package.

  “Oooh. I get to put it on you?”

  “I thought it might help you resolve yourself to my beefiness,” he said pleasantly, but that was basically the last coherent thing he said for the next sixty seconds. He moaned, he groaned, he muttered things in a language I didn’t understand, he clutched huge handfuls of the sheet, and writhed in absolute pleasure as I worked the condom down the length of him.

  “Was it good for you?” I asked, laughing, as he panted beneath me.

  He opened both of his eyes and glared at me.

  “You did that on purpose.”

  “Did what?” I batted my lashes in innocence.

  He growled, flipped me onto the side of the bed, and, before I knew it, had me spread-eagle, and was looming above me. “You made that the best condom application ever performed.”

  “Well, I don’t want to appear immodest, but I did try to make it a memorable experience since I know most men don’t like wearing them, and I wanted to show my appreciation for the fact that you offered, which was really niiiiiiiiiiiii! Peter!”

  Suddenly, he was there, beefy-filled condom and all, thrusting inside me in a manner that left me as the incoherent one. The way he moved was pure magic, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he had been gifted with some supernatural sex powers, because it wasn’t more than a few minutes before I was shattering into the most intense orgasm I�
��d ever experienced.

  Luckily for all my overly sensitive parts, he was just as quick off the mark as I was, and I dug my fingers into the thick muscles of his behind as he arched his back, and gave himself up to his own moment of rapture.

  “You’re fast,” I told him some minutes later, when I could think again. I was grateful that my egos and id were so sated by the experience that they didn’t have a thing to say other than to weakly demand that we do it again.

  He opened one eye to look at where I was draped across his still-heaving and damp chest, my legs tangled around his, my chin resting on my hands. His hands moved to my butt, where he squeezed a cheek. “That is not a nice thing to say, woman.”

  “I didn’t mean it as an insult.” I kissed his collarbone. His hands stopped squeezing my butt and switched to gentle little swirls, instead. “Honestly, I’m glad you’re fast, because evidently with you I’m fast, too, although I don’t remember being that way with other men. So, it’s kind of nice that we’re both a little excitable, and don’t waste time getting to the brass ring.”

  “Any other woman in the world would complain that I didn’t spend enough time ensuring her pleasure,” he grumbled, closing his eyes again. “But not you.”

  “Nope, not me. Am I staying the night?” I asked, not sure whether he wanted me to. “Or would you prefer I take off?”

  “You’re staying here, where I know you’re safe,” he said, pulling the blankets over us and switching off the bedside light.

  I relaxed into him, feeling warm and comfortable, and emotionally engaged on a level that I hadn’t been for many years.

  He would be very easy to fall in love with, my id said with a happy sigh. We should do that.

  Let’s just take this one step at a time, the ego told us all. There’s no sense in rushing into something.

  Just because he smells nice, and is fabulous at sex, and has a wicked sense of humor that for some reason he doesn’t seem to want people to know about, doesn’t mean that he’s the man for us, my superego agreed.

  Perhaps not, I told my inner voices. But it’s sure starting to look like he is.

  ELEVEN

  “It’s too bad that tub isn’t big enough for two. You’d think they’d have that for a honeymoon suite,” I commented the next morning as I gave myself up to the luxury of a second hot bath in as many days. “When will your little light friend be back?”

  “Not until I let him know it’s safe to return. He’ll be very aware of the fact that you did not leave last night.”

  “I feel bad about making him stay out all night by himself,” I said, uncomfortable at the pang of guilt that soured an otherwise wonderful memory of the hours we’d just spent.

  “Don’t. Sunil loves surveillance. He enjoys seeing who goes where and with whom. He’ll be back bristling with information about what he saw all night.”

  “Sounds like you know him well. Are you ready to tell me how you guys got connected?”

  “No.” Peter was dressing in the main room, but he popped his head around the door to answer me, paused zipping up his pants when he saw me soaping up my breasts, and before you could say “Two people in a tub” there was a splash, and he was kneeling between my calves, buck naked.

  “Let me help you with that,” he ordered, taking the washcloth away from me and using his hands to spread the soapy bubbles around my breasts. “Move your legs aside.”

  “If I move my legs any more—,” I said, pulling them up so he had more room. There really wasn’t anywhere comfortable to put them other than to let them dangle over the sides of the tub. “I’m going to be very exposed, and—hoobah! Peter! Holy jebus, you’re massive!”

  “I thought the word was ‘beefy’? By the saints, woman, if you tighten those muscles any more, you’re going to squeeze it off.”

  He lunged forward, a tiny tidal wave of water washing over my chest as our bodies met in the manner that guaranteed a happy, if untidy, bath for both of us. Almost immediately, the wet, soapy friction of his body moving against mine sent me to the stars and back again.

  “I swear,” I panted a few minutes later, my legs wrapped around his hips, his body slumped on mine as we both tried to catch our breath from the fast and furious lovemaking, “you’re getting faster. But damn. It’s so good, I can’t complain.”

  “I’ve asked you not to tell me I was fast. Men don’t like to hear that. We like to hear that we’ve pleasured our women to the tips of their delicate little toes and back again. We like to hear that we’re manly men who could break concrete with our penises if we so chose. We want to know that we drive you to the very borders of sanity with the intense amount of pleasure we bring you. And if we are swift doing so because our women have hair-trigger responses, then fine, but we would appreciate the emphasis to lie on our skill, and not our speed.”

  I pinched his adorable, wet butt. He pulled his head up from where he had been panting on my neck, and suddenly grinned at me, his hair mussed and damp from the inevitable splashing, his eyes smoky from our activities. It was a grin that melted my heart, and I didn’t need to hear my egos warning me that I was going to be a goner if I didn’t separate myself from this adorable, needy, wonderful man.

  “You’re damned good, and you know it,” I said once I recovered from that grin.

  He gave me a sloppy kiss, and climbed out of the tub, leaving me to sigh in sated pleasure as I watched him dry off. “I expect better than just ‘damned good,’ but that will have to wait for another time. I have things to do today, and I assume you are expected back at Lenore Faa’s caravan.”

  “How come you call her by her full name, and not Grandma or Nana or any of the other normal grandmother names?” I asked as I got out of the tub, my legs a bit wobbly from all the unexpected muscle usage.

  “Would you call a woman who refuses to acknowledge you ‘grandmother’ even if she was that person?”

  I patted myself dry with the only other towel, and shook out the clothing I’d worn the night before. “I suppose that would sting a little. What is it you have to do today?”

  “Meet with Dalton.”

  I froze in the act of pulling on my jeans, hopping to the door on one leg to ask, “Who?”

  “My boss. We had arranged to meet last night, but he wasn’t at our rendezvous point. I was supposed to give him the DNA evidence I collected at the crime scene, but that’s been stolen.” He gave me a long look.

  “Don’t you even think it, Peter,” I warned, suddenly hurt that he could imagine I’d do something so heinous as to take his important evidence.

  His eyes glittered for a moment before his shoulders slumped. “I don’t think you took it. Not now. I admit I was a bit suspicious at first, what with you being a Traveller, and in Lenore Faa’s camp, but that was before I knew you.”

  “Before you knew I was honest and aboveboard, and would never do such a thing?”

  “Before I knew you had no idea what you really were.”

  I glared at him. He was in the middle of putting on his shoes and missed it, drat it all.

  “Well, if you want to be pedantic, we don’t really know each other,” I said slowly as I finished dressing. “I mean, not deep down knowing, do we?”

  “I know you’re not a thief,” he said, then corrected himself. “Not a thief of anything but time.”

  I touched my lips briefly. “Yeah, well, lesson learned there, trust me. I’m not going to be stealing anything, especially not time. That karma thing is nasty.”

  “It can be,” he agreed.

  “How do you get around it?”

  “I don’t steal time.”

  “Never?”

  “Never.”

  “Did you used to in the past, but you gave it up for Lent or something?”

  His expression turned to granite. “Those days are well past me. It’s the present that matters now.”

  Judging by the closed expression on his face, he wasn’t planning on expounding on the subject. I wondered what
it was that made him stiffen up. It had to be something serious.

  I weighed my innate curiosity and desire to know about him with the desire to not force confidences, and opted to go with the latter. He’d tell me in his own good time. And if that didn’t occur naturally in the next couple of days, I’d see that it had a helping hand.

  “Give Dalton my best,” I said, gathering up my things preparatory to heading out. “I hope his allergies are better.”

  Peter looked at me like I was a three-headed llama.

  I smiled, and briefly explained how I knew him. “Small world, huh?” I concluded.

  “Evidently.” Peter slid his gun into its holster, watching me for a few seconds before he added, “I don’t suppose if I asked you to give up the job taking care of Lenore Faa’s dogs, you’d do so.”

  I paused in the act of combing my hair, turning from the mirror to look at him. “Not unless you had a really good reason why I should. She’s paying me the money I need to get Eloise running properly. I don’t have a job, and the weather isn’t bad for camping, so it’s a win-win situation.”

  “And if I gave you the money you needed?”

  I set down my comb. “I wouldn’t take it. Peter, are you trying to say something but don’t want to come right out and say it? Because if you’re having postcoitus regrets, and want me out of the area—”

  “Christos, no,” he exclaimed, making an aborted gesture. “I don’t like you in that camp. My cousins are ruthless, and they’ve already stolen time from you.”

  “Tiny bits. Just a few seconds here and there. Not that I like it at all, and I made a big stink when your…er…William is your father, isn’t he?”

  Peter’s lips tightened until they were a thin, unhappy line.

  “Yeah, I don’t like him, either. Apologies about saying that about your dad, but he really rubs me the wrong way. Anyway, when he tried pulling that crap on me yesterday afternoon, I made a big deal about it to your grandma, and she stopped it. So I’m not worried about him stealing more.”