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Ah, hell, why not?
"Okay," he said into the thick, leaden silence. "Okay, I'll accept that. Now, why are you helping
me?"
She dropped her eyes for a moment, then looked up again, with a spark of defiance in her
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expression. "Because I got you into this," she said. "The scales have to be balanced before we
decide on anything else; that's kitsune law and custom. I got you into this, but now I've gotten
you out of this. You have to release me from that debt."
But he shook his head slightly. She was not going to get off the hook that easily. He was still
Underhill, and so was the Mach I; springing him from Madoc Skean's little reception didn't even
things out. "Sorry," he told her. "I can't do that. I'm not out of this yet, I'm only out of
Madoc's clutches, and that may just be temporarily. I can't release you from your debt until I'm
back in my world, and my car, too."
She flinched, but she nodded; she obviously saw the justice of his demand. Her cheeks were so pale
that he longed to touch her and reassure her.
He wanted to do more than just touch her, if it came down to that. Unbidden dream-memories told
him of any number of ways this could go
But this wasn't a dream. He couldn't make that kind of assumption.
He tore his gaze away from hers and stared out the windshield again, trying to calm the chaos of
his mind and heart.
He just wasn't certain how to act did he behave as if she was a stranger, or as if she really was
the person he had dreamed about? This was as confusing as all hell; it felt as if he knew her, as
if he had known her intimately for years! It was all those damned dreams, where she'd figured as
his lover. They'd had a solid feeling, a reality to them, that made the current situation
positively schizoid. He didn't know her in any sense; they'd never met before she'd nailed that
glove to his Mustang. Yet at the same time, all the little things she did, the tiny quirks of
behavior, the ways she reacted, the bits of body language, were all exactly the way he
"remembered."
"I hate to ask you what your dreams were about, if they were anything like mine," she whispered
across his confusion.
"If you knew," he replied, trying desperately to make a joke about it, "you'd slap me into next
week."
"Oh, I don't know about that," she said, which was exactly what he would have expected her to say
if this was a dream, and not at all what he had rationally expected to hear. He looked over at her
in startlement to find her smiling wanly at him. "After all, I am half-kitsune. We have a certain
reputation; one that's been known to attract even dragons."
His body reacted in a predictable manner before his mind took over and gathered up all the reins
firmly. This isn't the time or the place, he told his galloping libido firmly. We're surrounded by
potential enemies, we're exhausted and on top of that, the front seat of a '69 Mustang is
absolutely impossible. These are bucket seats. The backseat is practically nonexistent. You'd have
to be a contortionist.
"Trust me," he said firmly. "You'd smack me so hard I'd lose teeth."
He closed his eyes for a moment just for a few seconds
It was long enough; she struck as swiftly as a cobra. Before he could open them again, she'd
writhed around in her seat, leaning over the center console, and planted her mouth firmly on his.
One hand snuck around behind the back of his head, holding him so he couldn't jerk away.
Not that he wanted to!
Without the use of anything as confusing as words, she was letting him know that her dreams had
probably been along the same lines as his own. And in no uncertain terms, she was telling him that
she had enjoyed those dreams.
When she'd succeeded in setting every nerve afire and causing a complete meltdown of his brain,
she let him go, returning to her seat with a teasing smile on her lips. "I don't think I would
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