Until Forever by Johanna Lindsey Page B

forward to getting him into her car. Would it frighten him, or simply awe him? Or would he relate to it instead as transportation to get him into a battle more quickly? She was going to start laughing if she didn’t stop imagining how he was going to react next, and get the image out of her mind of him wildly waving a sword out of an open window as he raced past tanks and mobile rocket launchers.
    “As for metal,” she continued, “it can be made into just about any shape or size now, just like plastic and fiberglass and—anyway, factories produce the parts, other factories put them together, and the results are the conveniences of the modern age, which we who live here pretty much take for granted. You’ll be seeing many of these modern wonders for yourself. Just don’t ask me to explain how things work. Technology is not my field of expertise.”
    To that he merely snorted, and she had to allow that she might not be making much sense to him again. He was back to examining what he was holding, and only now did he notice what was inside the base tube.
    Roseleen grinned and suggested, pointing, “Hold this part, and turn the bottom.”
    He did, and his eyes flared as the colored stick shot out of the tube, then disappeared back into it again when he turned the base in the opposite direction. In and out it went for nearly a full minute as he played with it just as a child would with a new discovery.
    But finally he got around to asking, “What is this used for?”
    At least this was an explanation she could handle, and on a simple level that he could easily grasp. “To give color to the lips, women’s lips that is.”
    “Why?”
    Her smile was self-directed. “I’ve often wondered that myself. It’s just one of the many cosmetics women use to enhance their looks.”
    He glanced at her lips then, and stared at them for so long that the heat started generating in her belly again. She couldn’t believe how easily he could turn her on, but that’s just what his eyes were doing to her.
    She was about to turn away in the interest of sheer self-preservation when his gaze returned to the mauve lipstick, and he remarked, “You have not used this.”
    Somehow, she got her voice to respond, breathless as it was, “No, I rarely do.”
    He handed it to her. “Show me.”
    It was a command. He actually expected to be obeyed without an argument. She didn’t care at the moment. She’d do anything to get her mind off how tempted she was to throw herself at him.
    Briskly and efficiently, she smoothed the lipstick over her lips, rubbed them together, then, because she’d done it without a mirror for guidance, automatically ran a finger down the center of her top lip to erase any color that might have strayed from the lip line.
    When she glanced back at him, she was met with the pointed question, “What does it taste like?” and she knew in what direction his own thoughts had just gone—if they hadn’t been there already.
    “You’re not finding out,” she replied, her voice sharp with warning.
    He responded by taking the lipstick from her again and slowly, too slowly, running it down the center of his tongue. All the while, he watched her staring spellbound at his mouth.
    Finally, his lips curled, and as her eyes jumped up to his, she heard him say, “’Tis not—distasteful, but I would rather taste you.”
    She groaned and in desperation dragged the picnic basket over to him. “Here, eat!” she fairly shouted. “I’m going for a walk.”
    Walk, hell, she practically ran in the opposite direction, deeper into the meadow, and his laughter followed her every step of the way.

11
    T horn watched her while she wandered about the meadow. He wanted to see her hair loose and blowing in the breeze. He wanted to see her lips parted for him again, and that sensual heat in her eyes that she could not hide. He wanted to feel her softness beneath him again, and to know that she very much liked being there.
    She fascinated