“Go ahead. At least get us a few miles across the border; then I’ll take over. Holy bovines, Dixon! They didn’t find it! We don’t have to go to the gulags! We don’t have to get conditionally married just to have wild, sweaty, naked-bunny sex!”
“A fact I’m profoundly grateful for, because at this point the naked bunny sex is uppermost in my mind.”
“Really?” She shot me a coy look. “Because you can’t stand to be parted from me for more than a few minutes?”
“Yes,” I said, waiting for the count of four before adding, “And the fact that they didn’t get you tucked into your corset properly.”
She looked down and gave a little shriek when she realized her breast had breached the confines of the corset. She stuffed it back down inside with a little giggle.
As we drove deeper into Russia, I was possessed with a sense of well-being, of the fates, for once, casting a benign look my way and turning the wheels that allowed me to face the future with a song on my lips and a throb in my loins that was wholly due to Paulie.
“But not in an STD manner,” I said, and then laughed.
“Huh?”
“I was laughing at myself because you aren’t the onlyone who is having symptoms in your genitals that could be grossly misinterpreted.”
“Are you burning, too?” she asked with raised eyebrows.
“No, but I am throbbing.”
“That sounds bad. Then again, so does burning. Is it a good throb?”
“Very good.”
“Excellent.” She patted me on the knee and then turned her attention to the scenery we were passing, no doubt making mental notes to add to her journal.
I smiled at nothing, feeling that, at last, life was good.
Paulina Rostakova’s Adventures
AUGUST 2
9:34 p.m.
Small town in middle of Russia, hotel room, lying exhaustedly on bed, waiting for Dixon to return with food
We had a lovely night in Yekaterinburg, even though Dixon didn’t want to do anything but stay in the hotel room and do naked-bunny-sex things to each other.
“This is a very historic city,” I pointed out to him from the comfort of a small bed-and-breakfast on the fringe of the city. The place came with a small barn in the back, which we used to lock away the Thomas Flyer, allowing us to spend the night with each other rather than watching the car, figuring the likelihood of the Essex team finding us at a B&B would be much smaller than had we stayed at one of the mainstream hotels. “Czar Nicholas and his family were killed here. You can go look at the spot where their bodies were found. That sounds like... well, not fun, exactly. But interesting.”
“Interesting to someone fascinated with government assassinations, perhaps,” Dixon said, frowning at his phone. “Roger says they should be in Yekaterina shortly.They were delayed because the Essex car had a breakdown. A radiator hose, evidently.”
“Rats. I would have liked for them to be held up as long as they held us up.”
“I suppose we shouldn’t be grateful that they had any sort of a breakdown, but I admit I’m petty enough to consider it an act of karma.” He looked up. “You weren’t serious about seeing the place the czar was killed, were you?”
“Actually, I was, kind of. Remember, I’m half Russian, and Dad always said we have Romanov blood.”
He glanced at his watch. “It’s rather late.”
“Not even nine. Come on. We’ve gone halfway around the world and we haven’t even had any time for touristy things. Let’s stretch our legs and look at the site.”
“I hate to take the Flyer out in case the Essex team are around and see it—”
“We’ll take a taxi. Come on!” I danced out of the room, dragging a somewhat reluctant Dixon with me. I would let him rest, but he’d had a nap in the car while I drove, so I took no pity on his plaintive remarks about being no good to anyone in his current state.
“According to the notes I took before we left,” I said, consulting my phone once we were in the taxi and on our way, “we are on the route that the original race took in 1908. Just think of it—more than a hundred years ago, another Thomas Flyer drove down these streets. Kind of gives you shivers, huh?”
