“Recently, I learned something very important about my lovely Emma. Something tragic.” He paused here for emphasis. “She told me she had never before been wooed.” He pressed a dramatic hand to his heart. “Can you imagine something so terrible?”

Yes, I could. Nuclear war. Sad kittens. The rumored worldwide chocolate shortage. But for the sake of argument I kept my mouth shut and let him keep talking, even though my heart pounded and every cell of my body shook. I was not a center-of-attention kind of girl.

Which was too bad, apparently.

“So I made it my mission to woo the fair Emma. With the help of all of you, who delivered the signs of my affections to her all day long, so she might know she is constantly in my thoughts, and always will be. And now I ask you, my dear Emma!”

I almost dropped the rose I was holding, because he threw out an arm, gesturing to where I stood in the back, and all the patrons turned to look at me. It took a moment to realize I was muttering under my breath. “Oh, no. Oh no oh no oh no oh no . . .” The memory of my very public, very projectile-vomity stage fright from my college days was suddenly in the forefront of my mind. That would create the wrong impression here.

“Deep breaths, gorgeous.” Mitch planted one huge hand square in the middle of my back and gave me a little shove, propelling me down the center aisle toward the stage, where my pirate awaited me. He hopped to the ground and met me toward the front of the aisle.

“I ask you, Emma.” His voice was softer now, pitched lower, more for me and less for the world at large. He extended a hand to me and I didn’t hesitate to take it. When his hand closed around mine, solid and sure, all my shaking stopped and the apprehension drained away even as he led me onto the stage. He wouldn’t let me barf in front of all these people. With my hand in his, I felt safe. I was still aware of the audience, but the world that mattered had shrunk down to the two of us. “Would you say that you have been successfully wooed on this day?” The accent was Captain Blackthorne’s, but the words, the voice, were all Simon.

His eyes smiled down into mine, and I knew I looked utterly ridiculous in my blue and white wench ensemble all but covered with red roses. But I also knew, as I smiled back at him, that I had never been so happy, and never felt so much a part of something in my life. Not only Simon, but the entire Faire around us, had become my home.

“Aye, sir.” I stuck the rose I still carried behind his ear. “I have indeed been wooed.”

His smile became a grin, then a laugh, and without any further warning he slid one arm around my back, the other around my shoulders, and he dipped me, as though we were the romantic finale of a black-and-white movie, and while my head spun from the change in equilibrium he kissed me, to the cheers of everyone. His mouth on mine did nothing to stop my head from spinning, but his hands were supportive and strong. He wouldn’t let me fall.

Once he let me up again and we were off the stage, he drew me close into an embrace as the clapping died down. “Come over tonight,” he said, softly enough so only I could hear him. “Wear the roses.”

I shook my head. “I’m filthy. All covered in roses and Faire dirt. I should wash up first.”

“No.” He brushed his mouth against mine one more time before murmuring into my ear. “I can’t wait that long. Come over now. I’ll take care of you.” When his voice was pitched that low I felt it deep in my chest, and there was no way I could say no.

It wasn’t hard for me to arrange for Caitlin to get a ride home with one of her friends that night, so I drove straight to Simon’s place. Upstairs in his bedroom he slid the flower crown off my head, then plucked the roses from my hair and my dress slowly, one at a time, letting each fall to the floor, to the bed. He spent an eternity taking my hair down, carefully leaving the pins on his bedside table, winding the loose strands of hair in his fingers as they were freed.

“I can’t get enough of your hair,” he murmured as he unlaced my bodice slowly, drawing the garment off my shoulders. My chemise slipped down over one shoulder and his mouth lingered on the skin that had been exposed. He took just as much care with the rest of the layers of my outfit, untying and unpinning, peeling fabric from me like removing petals from a flower. As I did the same for him, stripping away his clothes, he kept coming back to my hair, drawing it over my shoulders, teasing my skin with the ends of it. “The way it curls around my fingers like it’s alive . . . I can’t get enough of it, enough of you. I’ve never . . .” He sucked in a breath and didn’t finish that sentence, choosing instead to kiss me deeply and lead me into the shower.

We spent an inordinate amount of time soaping each other up, removing every trace of dust and dirt from a day spent in the woods. I took full advantage of the opportunity to really explore him. He had a runner’s body, lean and muscled. I stroked my hands down powerful thighs, kneading the muscles there, before I sank to my knees in front of him. I tilted my head up to watch the water sluice down his stomach, and his eyes burned down into mine as he watched me take him into my mouth. He let out a guttural sound and one hand cupped the back of my head, gripping my hair without pulling.

“Not fair,” he gasped. “I’m supposed to be wooing you. This . . .” There was a dull thud as the back of his head hit the shower wall. “This is the other way around.”

I didn’t care, and I let him know with every lick that I was exactly where I wanted to be. We tested the limits of his house’s hot water heater, and I was impressed with its capacity.

I should have known when Simon said he’d take care of me, he didn’t mean it as innuendo. Well, not entirely. After our inordinately long shower he wrapped me in his bathrobe and started a load of laundry so my Faire outfit would be clean for the next day. We ordered takeout and enjoyed a cozy night in.

Later that night he got his revenge for the shower, alternating the teasing caress of an errant rose petal across my skin with a slow stroke of his tongue or a whisper of breath until my body quivered underneath his. My mouth searched blindly for him, kissing anything I could reach: cheek, chin, throat. I bit down on his shoulder and he gasped in a shock of indrawn breath. By the time he grabbed for a condom and then pushed inside of me, we were both beyond ready, and we rocked together mindlessly, racing for climax, surging together.

Afterward he took my mouth in a lazy, sated kiss that went on for days. “Now, my dear Emily,” he said. “Now you can say you’ve been wooed.”

Twenty

My mind was still full of roses when I went to work at the bookstore on Tuesday. Chris had asked me to take care of opening the shop on my own, so it was safe to say she had gotten into this whole having-an-employee thing. Little by little, over the weeks she had taught me almost everything there was to know about running the shop. After setting up the coffee counter and unlocking the front door, I got the front register ready to go. The morning progressed in what had become a comforting routine. A few people who worked downtown had started making a point of ducking in for a morning coffee and pastry. I thrilled inside every time; my idea had actually worked. Business wasn’t exactly brisk, but I wasn’t bored, either.

When Chris got in later that morning she gave me a knowing smile; roses were on her mind too.

“Nice weekend?” She sounded casual, almost disinterested. As if she hadn’t seen me adorned with roses, being elaborately kissed in front of a crowd.

“Yeah.” I kept my voice equally nonchalant as I finished making her vanilla latte. Her favorite. I knew that by now. “Pretty good.”

Chris snickered and took a sip of her latte, closing her eyes with a smile. “You’re getting pretty good. Are you sure you’ve never been a barista? Never put in time at a Starbucks?”

“Nope. I could make more money at a bar. But I have to say, this is a lot more fun.”

“The coffee?”

“All of it.” I gestured around, encompassing the entire store. “I’ve enjoyed helping you out, setting all of this up.”

“This wouldn’t exist without you. Well, the store would, obviously, since it’s been here. But all this . . .”

“It wasn’t much,” I protested. “A few tables and chairs.”

“And our new book club has its first meeting next month. And Nicole said a writers’ group called over the weekend. They want to have meetings here. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but I couldn’t have done it on my own. Organizing it all.” She tipped her cup at me in acknowledgment. “That’s something you’re very good at.”

“Oh.” The compliment flustered me, and I busied myself by wiping down the counter. “I don’t know about that. I just . . . I get an idea in my head of how things could be, and if I can make them happen I do it. Doesn’t seem like much.”

“Well, it is. Stacey keeps saying she can’t believe it’s only your first year at Faire. You have everything so well organized at the tavern.”

I laughed. “That’s where my years at working in bars comes in handy. A bar is a bar, even if it’s out in the woods.” But I couldn’t keep the smile off my face or the pink out of my cheeks. People had been talking about me. In a good way. That wasn’t something I was used to.