Chapter Thirty-Six
––––––––
VICTORIA WAS FURIOUS that she’d allowed herself to be sucked in by the knight’s charm. “You fudging idiot,” she growled at herself as she climbed into his truck. She’d never driven before, but this seemed like a good time to learn.
Some part of her must have expected this date to turn into a disaster, because she’d paid close attention to Cam’s every move since they’d left the base. She managed to start the ignition, then turned the truck around in fits and starts, almost scraping it on a tree in the process.
“It would serve him right if I totaled his baby,” she snarled quietly, cutting a look at the hulking warrior. He sat on the blanket, wearing the ridiculous purple suit with his huge shoulders slumped sadly.
It was dark by the time she reached the entrance to the base. Vic didn’t trust her rudimentary skills to negotiate her way around the second boulder, since she was too new to driving. She left the truck and headed the rest of the way on foot.
All three of her neighbors were waiting in the doorway. None of them looked surprised to see her returning alone.
“You owe me a hundred bucks,” Grace said to Amaros smugly.
“I guess you figured out how to drive,” Zoe said in commiseration as Victoria strode over to them.
“Your friend is a genuine moron,” Vic said to Amaros, pushing past him to follow the girls inside.
“I’m aware,” Amaros said, sounding resigned rather than angry. “What did he do this time?” he asked.
Vic was too angry to describe Camriel’s actions, so she turned and unzipped her jacket. “He did this,” she declared.
Amaros saw her shirt had been torn apart and gave her an apologetic look. “Cam’s never dated anyone before,” he said lamely. “He has no idea what he’s doing.”
“Show us,” Grace requested, plucking at the back of her jacket.
Victoria whirled around, still holding her jacket open. Zoe and the teen gasped in reaction at the sight of her ruined shirt. “What the hell was he thinking?” Zoe asked in dismay.
“Did he say anything, or did he just attack you?” Grace asked, face paling slightly.
Closing her jacket, Vic zipped it back up. “He said something so fudging stupid that I can feel my IQ dropping even as I’m repeating it in my head,” she said in annoyance.
“Tell us,” Zoe urged her, just as worried as Grace.
“He said he was going to ravage me and make me his forever,” Victoria said, grimacing as she spoke.
Grace frowned, then realization dawned on her. “Wait a minute, I’ve read that somewhere,” she said, turning to trot down the hallway. “Follow me,” she said over her shoulder.
They followed her to the great room and she headed straight for the bookcase.
“I think it’s in this one,” she said, plucking an ancient romance book from a shelf.
Flicking through it, she stopped at a page.
“Yep, he definitely got it from this book, or from one of the others,” she decided.
She grabbed another one and held it up to show Victoria the cover.
“What the fudge is that?” Vic asked, curling her upper lip at the image. A man with long blond locks was clutching a woman in a fancy gown to his chest. The man was wearing a white ruffled shirt that was open to his waist.
“I believe they’re called bodice rippers,” Zoe said. “They used to be popular back in the nineteen eighties and nineties, or so one of the ladies from church said.”
They all looked at Victoria’s now zipped jacket, then Grace burst into laughter. “I thought I was going nuts when the books kept getting moved around,” she said, gasping for air. “Camriel has secretly been reading them this whole time!”
“I don’t know if that’s pathetic, or adorable,” Zoe said, wiping her eyes with the tissue Amaros handed to her.
“My second told me he would do anything to win over his mate when he met her,” Amaros said. “I can’t blame him for seeking assistance from any source he can find.”
Victoria started to feel bad about how she’d reacted. “That’s why he’s wearing that fudging awful purple suit and ugly blue blouse?” she asked incredulously, pointing at the romance book.
The girls cracked up at the blouse comment. “Yep,” Grace nodded with tears streaming down her face. “God help that big lug, but he really did try.”
Groaning, Vic shook her head. “Everything was going so well up to that point,” she said in frustration. “We had a tasty snack and a couple of glasses of wine, then we watched the sun set. He kissed me and it was the best kiss of my life. Then he had to go and turn into a caveman and ruined it.”
“Has he completely blown his chance with you, Victoria?” Amaros asked in concern.
She could see how tense and worried he was. Camriel would never be able to achieve the destiny that Fate had set up for him if she rejected him. Apparently, neither would she. “Not completely,” she said reluctantly. “But I’m going to need him to keep his distance for a while.”
“We’ll make sure he doesn’t bother you until you’re ready to talk to him,” Zoe vowed.
“Here, take these with you,” Grace said, picking up a stack of books.
“Will we still see you at nine in the morning?” Zoe asked as they escorted her to the back exit.
“Of course,” Vic replied, forcing herself to grin. “You can teach me how to drive properly on the way to and from our book looting trip.”
“Deal,” Zoe agreed.
Frustrated at how the date had ended, Victoria hurried to her cabin. A storm was brewing and she didn’t want the books to become saturated. She’d left her weapons behind, but would pick them up in the morning.
She let herself into the cabin, put the books on the small table and lit the fire. “He ruined my best shirt,” Vic complained, opening her jacket to see how bad the damage was. She didn’t have any sewing skills, but the garment was beyond repair anyway.
Her treacherous body recalled how good it had felt to have his hands and lips on her. Shaking her head, she refused to dwell on how long it had been since she’d been naked with a guy. Obviously, Camriel had a lot to learn about modern women.
“He should have read new books rather than something that was written decades ago,” she complained.
Muttering to herself, she began the laborious project of heating water up to have a hot shower. She washed her hair and quickly soaped herself, managing to rinse everything off moments before she ran out of water.
“That was totally worth it,” Vic declared, feeling far more relaxed now. She felt sorry for Zoe and Grace that they didn’t have her setup. They didn’t have any showers at all in their base. It wasn’t the same using a washcloth and hot water from a pot.
It would take a lot of work to install plumbing throughout all three wings. Somehow, she was sure Amaros and his knights would eventually be able to pull it off. For now, she was the only one who had access to hot showers.
“I should let Zoe and Grace borrow my bathroom,” she figured as she got dressed and dried her hair. “Amaros can use it if he wants to. Camriel could get bent even if he was coated in fudging elephant crap from head to toe.”
The warrior was on her shiz list right now. It was going to take time for her annoyance with him to fade. Until it did, she didn’t want to see or speak to the man.