Free bedeviled & beyond 04 - bedeviled & belittled by sam cheever Page B

could blast their way through, eventually, but I’d be long gone out of my back entrance by then.”
    “You don’t trust the dragons much do you?”
    “I don’t trust anybody much. It’s what’s kept me alive this long.”
    The narrow passageway opened up into a much larger space, filled with comfortable looking furnishings and enveloped in a warm, golden light. He’d done a pretty good job of making livable space out of a cave. The rocky dirt floor was covered with an array of colorful rugs, and tapestries hung from the rough-hewn walls to warm and soften the rooms.
    A heavy leather divan and two oversized chairs covered in the same rich, chocolate-brown leather were clustered together in the center of the space, facing a wood burning stove with a thick pipe that carried smoke up through the rock ceiling high above our heads and out, presumably, into the sky beyond the cave.
    On the far side of the cavern was a small food preparation area, and another human sized door leading in the opposite direction from whence we’d come. “Is that your back door?”
    He glanced in the direction I’d jerked my head and nodded. “As well as my personal hygiene area. Come, I’ll show you where you can get cleaned up.
    I followed him down a short, low-ceilinged passageway, toward the sound of rushing water. We emerged into a fairly large cavern with a small waterfall and a pool on one end. The cavern felt like a sauna and steam danced above the small pool.
    I nearly had an orgasm on the spot thinking about immersing myself in the hot, clean water.
    “Since you left your bag back at the caverns, I think I have some clothes that might fit you. There’s soap and shampoo beside the pool, towels stacked there.” He pointed toward a small table stacked with neatly folded cloth in bright colors. It was like an old-fashioned bathroom. I liked it.
    I turned to him with a smile. “Thanks, this is great.”
    Nodding, he turned away and left. I wasted no time stripping off my ruined clothes and stepping into the pool with them.
    The water was hot enough to sting the center of my low back when I stepped into it, but I quickly got used to it and it felt wonderful. The pool was hip deep, and there was a wide, flat rock on one side I could sit on.
    I groaned with pleasure and lay on my back for a long moment, just floating on the surface. My hair floated lazily around my head in the hot, mineralized water.
    My muscles started to loosen and my mind wandered, considering the problems facing Glynus. Unfortunately, those thoughts quickly morphed to the Slayer. I realized with a jolt that I didn’t even know his name. I needed a name if I was gonna fantasize about throwing him to the floor and ravishing him.
    Or did I?
    My mind formed a picture of him and then set about stripping him naked, imagining the finely sculpted muscles and nicely packaged sexuality of a perfect male creature.
    There was little chance he’d fit my mental description, but it didn’t matter, since it was purely an academic exercise. I had no intention of finding out what he looked like naked for real.
    I floated happily, a grin on my face, and pictured him bending over me, his full, soft lips touching mine, pulling my breath away and sending spirals of delight to tighten at my sexual core. I played his face through my mind, savoring the hard angles of his jaw and the soft outline of his full lips. My traitorous psyche filled in the outlines with hot, knee-melting detail and went farther, drawing the silhouette of his broad shoulders, narrow hips, and long, muscular legs.
    When my mind got to the shoulder length, silky black hair and long-lashed blue eyes I realized, with a start, that I was picturing Dialle. He’d nudged into my subconscious and shoved the other guy right out when I wasn’t looking.
    I embraced the change, feeling the guilt I’d been ignoring at the back of my subconscious sliding away to leave only delight as my hands slipped lazily over my belly. I