Page 67 of Hot & Heavy

"Really, even when I entered these shops, the traders would not let her come in, but I told Sam to sit outside on the pavement and wait for me. And she did just that. Didn't you, sweet cat?"

Ian glanced down at the cat, which was indeed sitting next to Maddie like a docile pet. "How come she never behaves like that for me?"

"You handle her incorrectly." The implication was that he handled Maddie incorrectly, too. If she only knew how tempted I am to handle her!

While Maddie was looking at him and not at the cat, he could swear Sam stuck out her tongue at him.

"Well, since we're here, we might as well get you some clothes. You can't wear the same thing every day." She was wearing the T-shirt and latex pants she'd put on this morning. Lordy, Lordy!

Her face lit up. "I love to buy… and trade. Would it be immodest of me to say I have a talent for trading?

The merchants at Birka and Hedeby know me well, and respect the hard bargains I make with them."

Okaaaay. Birka and Hedeby again. I'll have to ask Geek where they are.

So a-shopping they did go.

She went nuts over some weaving loom or whatever the jumble of wood was in the window of an antique shop. "I had a hand loom like that one time. I did not have much idle time, but when I did, I loved to sit and weave." She sighed.

He was getting used to her sighs. Not!

They continued walking, but she kept looking over her shoulder at the loom. And Ian did not miss the fact that, while they were walking, lots of people— mostly men, dammit!—did a double take when glancing at Maddie. Her pale hair hung in a long, single braid down her back. Her facial features were sharp. Her lips were full and sexy… really sexy. She walked like she was the queen of the strip mall on long, long legs. And he wasn't even going to look at her breasts… though a couple dozen men were.

"That forehead vein is throbbing again," Maddie pointed out.

Something else is throbbing, too. "You bring that out in me."

"I do not!"

He shrugged. "By the way, what did you mean about washing my clothes? I didn't think there was any detergent left by the washing machine."

"Detergent. Mash-sheen." She sounded both words out, and when he just shook his head at her continuing game of "What is that?" she replied, "I washed your garments in that metal trough in your kitchen. I used the hard soap that was there. Then I hung them out to dry."

The dingbat washed my clothes. "I'm afraid to ask. Where did you hang them? I don't have a clothesline."

"Out on the railing of the wooden platform behind your house."

Oh, good Lord! "The deck?"

"Yea, the deck. And what a problem I had with your pant-teas and mine, not to mention my breast harness. The wind kept blowing them out onto the sand." Her face brightened. "But I took a rod down from your window covering in the kitchen and anchored it between two chairs. With the garments strung along the rod, they are drying nicely."

"My pan-panties?" he sputtered out. "Holy hell, Maddie! You washed my jockey shorts? By hand?"

"Yea, I did." She must have noticed the stormy expression on his face, because she glared at him, hands on hips, and said, "Say thank you."

He barely choked out the words, but he said, "Thank you." Man, we'd better get this shopping expedition over quick. One of the guys might come over early for our meeting tonight. I'll never hear the end of it if they see my tighty whities blowing in the wind, next to her "harness."

For the next two hours, Ian enjoyed the wonderful pleasure/torture of watching Maddie try on tight jeans, revealing shirts, short skirts, sandals and sneakers, all of which she marveled over like a kid in a toy store. In the process, he saw up close and personal that Maddie had been telling the truth. Her "harness"

had been left at home on his deck rail.

The lingerie section was particularly embarrassing to him. Maddie held up one sexy bra after another, continually referring to them as harnesses. "I wear a 34-see," she told him. Like I need to know that! As for panties, they settled for hip-hugging silk scraps, which he was not imagining on her body. Uh-uh. Not him. When he suggested that she try a thong, she examined it closely, then made a scoffing sound.

Looking up at him impishly, she said, "I'll wear a thong if you will." They didn't buy any thongs.

Now they were headed toward their last stop… the grocery store at the end of the strip mall. Maddie's eyes went wide, even wider than they had on first seeing an aircraft, or all the clothing items in the boutique, or his freakin' kitchen.

"This must be heaven." She sighed orgasmically. No, no, no! I did not think that word orgasmically.