For whatever the reason, he felt the need to protect her. He had a suspicion, however, that she wouldn’t enjoy that sentiment.

Io took a deep breath. “OK, we’re going to do this again, because if nothing else, it’s keeping me from worrying about the state of my brain. I said you’re thinking about a dog, and you said—”

“I believe I said that I was thinking about a dog, not you,” he interrupted, considering the fracas that would follow if he should attempt to install her in his house. The temptation she posed him would surely disturb his peace of mind, if nothing else.

The noise of more air being sucked in registered on his ears.

“And you said that some dude would be familiar with dogs’ illnesses, and I said who, and you said yes.”

“I did.” Perhaps he could house her somewhere in town where she wouldn’t distract him with that silken flesh, and those long legs, and the small, but pert, breasts that looked like they were made just for his hands. And mouth. And possibly other parts of him.

“Who is the dude?”

“He is, yes.”

“So help me god,” Io said, breathing heavily through her nose, “if you say ‘Who’s on first?’ I’m going to deck you good and proper.”

“First what?” he asked, confused now.

“I don’t know! Wait, he’s on third base! Hahahahah!” Io sounded the slightest bit hysterical.

He cast her a wary glance, wondering if she might not be as deranged as she kept claiming. “If you don’t know Huebe, why are you convinced he’s first at anything?”

“Aaaargh!” Io screamed, her arms flailing wildly, causing Thor to take exception to such behavior, and before he could say “hasenpfeffer,” once again she was on the ground spitting out dirt and grass.

By the time he had dusted her off, and worked out that she was saying the English word “who” instead of Huebe, he decided that she would be one mass of bruises if he allowed her to continue to ride on her own. Without further ado, he mounted Demeter, reached down with one hand, and told her to swing herself up in front of him.

To his surprise (and no little pleasure) she did so without any objection, settling sideways across his thighs, one arm wrapped around his waist while the other clutched his jacket front.

“All right, but only because your horse doesn’t like me at all,” she said, her breath skittering across his cheek in a way that left his groin heavy and in bad need of a woman’s attention. “Can we shift into third now, please?”

“I’ve shifted as much as I can,” he replied, trying to squeeze a little extra room for her between his body and the pommel, which he knew had to be pressed uncomfortably against her thigh.

Her long, luscious thigh.

“That’s not what I meant. Can we go fast?”

He tied the reins of Thor to his saddle, and pressed his heels to Demeter. She didn’t care to have two people on her back, and did a little dance of annoyance that he quelled with a muttered imprecation about females.

“Who, now?” Io asked.

“Huebe, not who.”

The look she gave him by rights should have dropped him dead on the spot, but of course, he couldn’t die. Not anymore.

“Take a look at my face. Do you see my expression? Does it scare you? It should, because this is the expression of a woman who’s fallen off a horse too many times to put up with more shenanigans of the verbal variety. Got that? Good. What female, exactly, were you muttering those bad things about?”

“Demeter. Although I was also close to speaking my thoughts about your thighs, but I felt that, given the present circumstances, you would not care to hear them.”

She blinked again at him. “Hear my thighs?”

“My thoughts. You can’t hear thighs. Not unless they were wrapped around one’s head rubbing against the ears.” And just the thought of that was enough to almost bring him to his knees. Metaphorically speaking.

Io froze for a moment, her fingers tight on his jacket front. “Why, oh, why did I leave my pink penguin at home?”

Nikola wasn’t sure how to best answer that question, but being in a somewhat benevolent mood despite the insistent throb of his personal parts, he made an attempt at answering it. “Perhaps penguins were not allowed on the ship that you sailed on to Europe. However, I will admit that I have never seen a pink penguin, and I take quite an interest in natural history. The only descriptions I’ve read all state that they are in shades of white, black, and gray, some of which have slight touches of color around the head.”

“No, it’s not…er…it’s not a real penguin.” For some reason, Io seemed flustered by this turn in conversation. He was more than intrigued by that phenomenon. “It’s my Tingleator. It’s shaped like a penguin, you see.”

He frowned, but not because they were approaching a shaded section of the road into the valley below. He had no difficulty seeing the road even in the darkest of nights. No, his was a frown of incomprehension, and that was something he disliked intensely. He hated feeling left out of knowledge. “I am unfamiliar with a Tingleator. You will describe it to me.”

“Sorry, that may have been too regional. It’s my hoe, you know?”

His frown deepened.

“My hoe for the ladygarden.”

Perhaps she was mad. Her conversation certainly didn’t make too much sense. “You wish to discuss gardening?”

“No, it’s not that kind of garden. Oh, god, you’re going to make me spell it out, aren’t you?” Her breath teased his cheek again as she sighed. “Because my life couldn’t be any more embarrassing than sitting on some strange man’s lap talking about vibrators.”

“Woman! You are doing this deliberately!” Nikola had reached the end of his patience. He stopped the horse, shifting Io slightly so as to be able to reach into one of his coat pockets.

“Huh? What have I done? Eek! Stop moving like that or I’ll fall again, and I’ve reached my limit of daily falls from a horse!” She wrapped both arms around him, her eyes huge as he struggled to extract his hand from his pocket. “Oh my god you’re going to shoot me!”

“I’m not, but I will admit that it is a tempting thought. Cease struggling or Demeter will object. If you release my arm, I can move it.”

Her eyes narrowed on his. “You’re just going to pull out a gun or Mace or something and get revenge on me because…because…well, hell, I don’t know why you’d want revenge on me. I’m the one who’s been dumped on the ground all night long.”

By sheer dint of superb horsemanship, Nikola managed to keep control not only of his mount and the interested Thor, who kept bumping his back in hopes of treats, but the wildcat in his arms. “I am simply tired of you flaunting your knowledge at me,” he snapped, pulling his hand from his pocket. In it was a small memorandum journal.

“I’m what? What knowledge?” Io stopped struggling and watched with curiosity as he flipped open the journal, and wrote with a small pencil that had seen better days.

“Your words. You are using them deliberately to show me that I am inferior to you, and that I will not have. Is ‘ladygarden’ one word or two? And this ‘vibrator’—is it a proper noun?”

She started to laugh, causing Demeter to lay back her ears in warning. Nikola, with one eye on his annoyed horse, tucked away his journal after making a few notes, and sent Demeter into a fast trot.

Io stopped laughing, eeped, and clung to him in a highly gratifying manner for a few minutes before evidently realizing he wasn’t going to allow her to fall.

She loosened her hold on his arms and gave him a long look from those lovely eyes. “You seriously think I’m using words you’re not familiar with on purpose?”

“I have told you that I have an excellent grasp on the English language. I have not been to the colonies, but I understand that English is spoken there. You seem to have no difficulty in understanding my speech; therefore, you are deliberately attempting to confuse and belittle me linguistically.”

“I can assure you, Nikola,” she said with a telltale twitch of her lips, “that I am not trying to do either. I don’t play the superior game with people, and even if I did, I certainly wouldn’t with someone for whom English isn’t a first language. I’m horrible at languages, so honestly, I’m impressed with anyone who can speak more than one.”

“I will accept your apology for making me feel inferior,” he said magnanimously.

“I didn’t apologize—”

“But only because you will now proceed to explain the phrases I do not understand. Let us commence with ‘ladygarden.’”

She started laughing again, but after a few false starts, and quite a number of blushes, he was finally able to store the words ‘ladygarden,’ ‘vibrator,’ and ‘love rocket’ away in his mental dictionary.

“Do women from the colonies use phalluses frequently?” he was driven to ask as they neared the outskirts of town.

“It’s no longer a colony…. Oh, skip it. Yes, women in the U.S. use lots of vibrators. And…er…other things. Nonvibratory ones.”

“Why?”

She blinked at him again. He was beginning to find it a wholly endearing gesture. “Why do they use a vibrator?”

“Yes, why? Are there not enough men in the colonies?”

She took a deep breath. He enjoyed the effect that action had on her chest, one breast of which was pressed against him. He began sorting through conversational gambits to pick out the ones that would continue to make her take deep breaths. “Some women,” she said with obvious emphasis, “don’t need a man in their life. Some of us are quite happy as we are, and like to be in control of our sexual needs and gratification, rather than leaving it to a man who may or may not get his jollies in two minutes flat and leave us lying there unfulfilled and so frustrated we could scream.” She took another deep breath, and his penis commended the action. “Not that I’m speaking from experience, you understand.”