“Or maybe I can just lace your sisters’ food with a sedative and have them sleep throughout the flight.”
She guffawed. “Don’t mess with such stuff. I might be the one who ends up ingesting the sleeping curse, and then where would you be?”
“In Frustrationland.” He exhaled heavily. “Fine. We’ll do it your way. But if they don’t sleep...”
“They will, they will. They spend half their lives sleeping like cats.” At his resigned mutter, she took one of his hands to her lips before placing it on her heart. “Cheer up. This will work beautifully, you’ll see.”
That incredible emerald of his eyes, what she could look into forever, seemed to catch fire. “Anything with you works beyond beautifully. It’s why I’m in such a state.”
Scalding joy surged from her depths to drench every nerve ending. It was beyond incredible that he felt as uncontrollably passionate about her as she did about him. Those early days of exquisite intensity were indescribable. And though she didn’t hope things would remain on this level, this time of pure passion was worth anything. It would be unforgettable, and she’d cherish it forever.
He gathered her to his hard length, as if he really couldn’t withstand not touching her for more than minutes. “I want more of you constantly. I feel vicious toward anything that can deprive me of you even temporarily.”
“Think happy thoughts. At least nothing vicious. Zee and Fay can’t withstand a drop of your aggression.”
“Zee and Fay, eh? You don’t expect me to call them that?”
“Why not? And I’m Jen, by the way.”
“No. You’re Jenan.”
Her smile widened at his proprietorial attitude as she again wondered how she adored things from him that she’d abhorred from others. “All my life, when anyone called me Jenan, always meaning madness, they regretted it.”
“You’re my Jenan. My madness. Anyone else who trifles with your name and that meaning of it will regret it.”
“Don’t go all Terminator on me, or I will end up without relatives.”
“Relatives who provoke you and sneer at your name and character? They certainly deserve terminating.”
“Let me fight my own battles, okay?”
His ominous expression eased as he bowed his head in concession. “Until you call on my intervention.”
She rewarded his newfound flexibility with a loving nip of his chin. As he groaned, tried to deepen the intimacy, she pulled away with a sigh of regret.
“About Zee and Fay... Since they were babies, they adored that I came up with abbreviations for their names. Especially Fayza. She hates her name even more than I do mine.”
“You’re more a mother to them than an older sister.”
It was a statement. A very astute one. Though the girls’ mother—her stepmother—was alive and well, she wasn’t maternal in the least, and she’d left both girls to the care of relatives and hired help from birth. Jen had intervened early, making them her responsibility. Even after she’d left for the States, she’d had them with her there every summer and holiday possible. She sure had the lion’s share in raising the girls.
She sighed. “They’re my girls. I’m the one who’d do anything at all for them.”
Something...enormous flared in his eyes.
She was thinking she’d only guess at its significance, unable to trespass on what felt like an intensely personal reaction, when he ended any speculation.
“I feel the same way about my brothers.”
She blinked. “I thought you were an only child.”
“I am. Those brothers are ones of my choosing, our bond not one of blood, but forged in trials of fire.”
“Your Black Castle partners.”
She wasn’t asking, just stating. He nodded. She wished he’d elaborate about them, about how he’d chosen them, about their trials.
But she was never one for probing such deep privacies. He’d tell her when and if he wished.
“So Fay and Zee? Will you call them that? For me?”
“For you. You’ve invoked the binding spell that makes me do anything.” Indulgence and self-deprecation twitched on his lips. “No one has ever made me change my mind once it’s made up. You’re seriously messing with it, ya jenani.”
Her heart hitched again. “Only fair, since you’re scrambling mine big-time.”
He opened his mouth to object, and she rose on tiptoes and closed it with an ardent kiss.
Before he deepened it, she stepped away, giggling. “You probably don’t have to worry about them anyway. I bet being exposed to you will excite them so much, they’ll be exhausted in a couple of hours.”