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“Well, crap,” I said, and passed out.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dory, Cairo
I awoke to sunlight streaming through diaphanous white curtains, which were ruffling in a breeze coming across a balcony. The wind smelled like butterscotch, which confused me. Until I realized who was sprawled across me, like a big, sweaty blanket.
Well, in fairness, Louis-Cesare didn’t sweat, but he was warm enough to make me do so. Not to mention that Cairo in November still gets into the upper seventies during the day. During the day, I thought, blinking at the sunlight, and wondering why that phrase—
I sat up. “Damn it!”
“It’s all right,” Louis-Cesare said.
“How the hell is it all right? We’ve lost even more time and—what are you doing?” I demanded, as he scooped me up into his arms.
“Bath time.”
“Bath time my ass! Put me down!”
And he did—in the big sandstone pool that was masquerading as a bathtub.
I got out, of course, for any number of reasons, the first of which was that I was still dressed. Someone—hopefully my husband—had put me into one of the filmy nightgowns I’d brought along because this was supposed to be my honeymoon. But because it was my honeymoon, I hadn’t actually worn any of them for more than five minutes.
And this proved to be no exception.
“Give that back!” I said, and grabbed for the swath of silk that a supercilious bastard had just pulled over my head.
I missed.
“After you’ve bathed,” the bastard said, and started the faucets running.
That wouldn’t have been so bad except that the pool had a rain shower built into the ceiling that wasn’t so much a shower head as a waterfall. It had to be three-foot square and it started bucketing down, resulting in my slipping and falling onto my still bruised ass. It hurt, but when I started to complain about it, all I got was a mouthful of water.
Louis-Cesare got in beside me, not having had to waste time stripping because he never wore anything to bed anyway, and started soaping up my back. He didn’t use the loofa on a stick, which would have been rough on my still healing skin, but rather his hands. Which somehow managed to be both incredibly strong and completely gentle at the same time. I groaned and leaned my cheek on the cool stone side of the tub, just for a minute.
“That’s not fair,” I mumbled. “That’s cheating.”
He didn’t reply. He also didn’t stop. Not until my muscles were putty and my spine was liquid and I was about to slip under the water because I was so relaxed. Which I shouldn’t be; I had things to do, important things, and—
“The jet is fueling up as we speak.”
I looked over my shoulder. “The jet?”
“The senate’s airplane.” An auburn eyebrow went north. “The one we came here in?”
I tried to think, which wasn’t easy with the rhythmic kneading going on. “Where is it going?”
“We.”
“What?”
“Where are we going,” Louis-Cesare corrected, then got up briefly to drip across the floor and grab something out of his clothes. As usual, he’d flung them down beside the bed, because there was supposed to be a servant to pick them up. There weren’t any; the egalitarianism that was a hallmark of Hassani’s court ensured that the rooms were cleaned, but anything we threw down stayed where we’d dropped it.
That had left me acting as a substitute valet all week, if I didn’t want people to think we were complete slobs, but I didn’t mind so much at the moment. Didn’t mind at all, I thought, checking out the shift and play of sleek muscles in what had been called the best butt in history. Of course, it had been called that by me, but still. It had been called that.
The view was impressive, and that was before he turned around to walk back over and hand me something. He got back in the tub while I looked it over. And maybe it was because I had just woken up, but I didn’t get it. “Did I leave this downstairs?”
It was his turn to look puzzled. “Quoi?”
