LITMIR.BIZ

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ground, she said, “I never even offered you anything.”

      He raised his eyebrows. “Anything?”

      “A refreshment.” She knew that he favored seltzer water, with ice and a twist of lemon. She did, too, a habit she’d picked up from him.

      “A refreshment? Who says things like that?” A smile returned to his face. “Except for those old TV sitcom housewives. All you need is a ruffled apron to complete the picture.”

      “Smarty.” She shrugged it off. “Maybe I was born in the wrong era.”

      “Maybe I was, too. Only, I would be a greaser.” He slipped on his sunglasses, peering at her from beneath the tinted glass like a rabble-rouser. “Me and my fast cars.”

      She’d never been to one of his races, but she’d gotten used to knowing where he went, who he socialized with, even which women he took to bed.

      Was it any wonder she was antsy about him being in her room? She’d spent far too much time beneath her covers thinking about the hot and sexy things his lovers sometimes said about him. One overzealous starlet had even blogged about her naughty escapades with him. Of course, he wasn’t the only playboy who’d rung this woman’s bell or who’d been mentioned in the blog. But he was the only one Carol cared about.

      “So, do you want something to drink?” she asked.

      He removed the glasses. “Sure.”

      They went into the kitchen, and she poured the drinks. When they returned to the living room, she was still fighting her wayward thoughts.

      She just hoped that she was able to relax and enjoy herself on their trip, without her fantasies going wild. Because there was nothing tame about the battle raging inside her or how badly she needed to contain it.

      * * *

      Time went by in a busy blur, and now Jake was sitting beside Carol on his private jet, en route to the Caribbean. Normally he slept on long flights, shutting out the boredom, but he was wide-awake on this journey, fascinated by every move his traveling companion made.

      With her reddish blond hair falling against her summer-white blouse, she looked soft and pretty, framed by the intermittent clouds billowing past her window. She’d been peering out the glass for a while, gazing at the ocean.

      Finally, she turned back to him. She wasn’t a frantic flyer. But she wasn’t as comfortable in the air as he was, either. The aircraft was too big to land on the private island where they were going, so they’d be landing on another island, then taking a helicopter to their final destination.

      “I researched the Caribbean,” she said.

      “You did?” He leaned a little closer, getting a deeper whiff of the fragrance she wore. It smelled crisp and fresh, like grapefruit, mixed with summer greens. “For what kind of information?”

      “All kinds.” She exaggerated a shiver. “You should have seen the snakes and spiders and scorpions I uncovered. Luckily our island doesn’t have any of those things, at least not poisonous ones. No crocodiles, either.”

      He shifted in his seat. “Did you think Lena would choose a location with all that?”

      “I just wanted to be sure. I didn’t want to get bitten by some scary creature.”

      If he could get away with sinking his teeth into her, he would do it. “We’re going to be fine.”

      “I packed a first-aid kit, just in case. We still need to watch out for jellyfish and things like that.”

      The only safety precaution Jake ever packed was condoms. Of course he’d skipped them this trip since it wasn’t going to be a romantic adventure. Then again, he probably had some stored away in the side zipper compartment of his luggage, where he normally kept them. But none of that mattered since he and Carol weren’t going to be together. Nor should he even be thinking about it.

      “Speaking of scary creatures,” she said.

      He snapped back to attention. “What?”

      “You have lots of strange beings on you.”

      He glanced down. Clearly she was talking about his tattoos.

      She gestured to his right arm, which was the one closest to her. “What’s the spidery-looking thing in the middle?”

      “That’s a depiction of Uncta.”

      “The deity who steals fire?”

      Jake nodded. “And he is a spider, of sorts. He was able to appear in both human form and as a giant bronze spider. In his human form, he would entertain in his big fancy lair and offer advice to his guests. He told prophecies, too.”

      She gave Uncta’s image a tentative touch, using the very tips of her nails. “I wonder what advice he would give you.” She followed the lines of the drawing. “Or prophecies.”

      “I don’t know.” Jake wished her fingers on his flesh didn’t feel so damned good. He imagined her clawing his back with those neatly manicured nails.

      She moved on to another one of his tattoos: a beautiful young woman draped in a white gown, her long black hair blowing in the wind. “Is she a deity, too?”

      “Yes.” He tried to focus on his answer, instead of how Carol was making him feel. “Her father is the god of the sun and her mother is the goddess of the moon.”

      “And what’s her specialty?”

      “She introduced corn to the people, providing the first seeds that led to the first harvest. Even today, she still wanders through cornfields, blessing the crops, looking like an angel from above. Or so the legend goes.”

      “And who is this?” Another question. Another touch.

      One by one, he explained who each of the deities on his arms were. The two gigantic birds that created lightning and thunder. The hunting god who taught wolves how to howl. The female ruler of the swamplands who provided vegetation that was safe to use for medicine. Overall, he had ten mythical beings tattooed on his body, each with their own purpose. Carol seemed particularly fascinated with the human grasshopper goddess who ruled a subterranean world known as an earth-womb.

      “She’s the mother of the unliving,” Jake said. “Not the dead, but the spirits who are waiting to be born.”

      “What’s her name?”

      “Eskeilay.”

      Carol repeated it, using the same rhythmic inflection he’d used. Then she asked, “Do you think your future children are with her, waiting to emerge?”

      Jake shot her an incredulous look. “Seriously? Can you see me being a dad? There’s no way I’m ever having kids.”

      “I suppose it was a silly question.” She smiled like an imp. “But it seems like a waste of Eskeilay’s powers, to just sit there on your arm in her bendy grasshopper pose, with her antennae poking out of her head, with no little Jacob Waters babies floating around.”

      “Listen to you, being funny.” He rubbed the spot where Eskeilay was. It was starting to tingle, almost as if the goddess was coming to life. “It wasn’t like that in the beginning. The first spirits waiting to be born weren’t babies. They were just people, living in Eskeilay’s world. But when it got too overcrowded, they evacuated, and on their way to earth, they accidentally trampled some grasshoppers, including Eskeilay’s own mother. Needless to say, she was pissed. So the opening to earth was blocked, and the rest of the people trapped underground were turned into ants.”

      “Oh, that’s just great. Now whenever I see an ant, I’m going to think of that.”

      “Sorry. But you know how mythology is. Something disturbing always happens. But in this case, it also explains how ants came to be and why they live in holes in the ground,” he explained. “These stories are based on what I was told. There are other Choctaw

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