Nothing but delight in her gasp when he thrust inside her and she fell apart, her climax turning her golden.
“Apollo,” she moaned.
The way she said his name… sultry and breathy and… something more, something deep as the earth and just as old, just as profound.
He came quick and hard,her namelike an old prayer to an ancient god, wrenched from his lips as they gasped near her ear, in the lovely, warm home that was the nape of her neck.
She lay panting and happy on scorched wood, almost purring in the pool of sunlight cascading across them when the fog rolled in.Typical for the morning here.She gave a little shiver, and he gathered her up, took her to the small sofa that he’d kept in the room when he’d refurnished it into a forge.He lay down upon it and settled her atop him.They wouldn’t have long to enjoy the press of body against body before Mrs.Collins woke up and began to poke about.
“We did it,” she said with a breathy laugh, ear pressed to his chest.She drew a spiral on his muscle, narrowing in and widening outward, again and again.“The secret to true alchemy.The transmutation of lead to gold.Us.”She looked up at him, eyes wide with wonder.“An apprentice and a woman.”
He kissed the tip of her nose, and she settled back down on him again.That she’d done this thing was no wonder.She was Sybil.
“No wonder Stone wants it,” she mused.“Lead to gold.The man who possesses this device also possesses power.Wealth.Everything his heart desires.”She yawned.“No wonder he was willing to kidnap me to get it.”
If the master alchemist had been willing to steal Sybil to get a theoretical device, what would he do once he discovered the fairy tale was real?It was, technically, Apollo’s job to apprise him of these little details.
Where Sybil was.
What she was doing.
What would Stone do for the information Apollo had?
What would he give Apollo for it?
Power.
Money.
Titles.
Everything Apollo had ever wanted.
And the key to it all had fallen asleep on his chest, listening to the cursed beating of his heart.
20
ONE LAST TIME
Sybil had thought she’d been mistress of Apollo’s many moods.She’d seen them all, after all—defiant and angry, hopeless and despairing, lusty and aroused, tired and amused.Even slightly murderous.But she realized now—sitting across from him in the fog-thick garden behind the house—she’d never seen him brooding.
Apollo brooding was a fascinating study.The lock of hair falling over his forehead, hiding the gleam of one eye.The hunched shoulders, the gaze that seemed to look years into the future without liking what he saw there.He tapped one fingernail on the tabletop, his muscles winding up each lift and drop to the slowest rhythm imaginable.
Also, Apollo brooding did fascinating things to her.She wanted to dive deep beneath his skin, peek between his ribs, and spy on the mutterings of his heart.She wanted to round the table and climb into his lap, kiss him until the brooding went away.But she did not simply wish to banish the brood from his brows with a little sensual distraction.She wanted to know what caused it, to take up arms against that evil and defeat it entirely.
My she was fanciful.
“I’d like to go into town today,” she said in her cheeriest voice.“To speak with an alewife.”
He grunted.
“Mrs.Collins was telling me about her.She may be using a combination of alchemy and potions to brew her beer.”
No response.
“I thought I might strip down and bathe naked in a barrel of the stuff.”
He stared off into the fog.It had been thick without relief for days and seemed to grow more impenetrable by the minute.
