Footsteps came closer, then stopped beside me. I feigned sleep. “Crash, I’m disappointed,” the other man said, not bothering to keep his voice quiet. As if he didn’t care if he woke me.

“What?” Crash’s voice was wary. He was no doubt wondering what the hell I was doing in his bed.

“She’s rather old and . . . less hardened than I would have thought you’d choose to break your fast with. Soft. Feminine.”

Old? I was forty-one! Not a hundred and three!

And soft? Some men liked . . .

“I like a woman with some curves on her,” Crash said. “I like to have something to hold onto in the bedroom.”

Jaysus lord in heaven, my heart rate shot through the roof. Don’t start panting. That would give me away.

“I can see that.” His words dashed my growing heat.

I deliberately took a big breath, mumbled “asshole” under my breath, and rolled so my back was to the both of them. The blanket shifted down to the curve of my waist and I had to fight not to pull it up. Someone lifted it to cover my shoulder.

Their footsteps receded, but I stayed put. Just in case they came back. Which was a good thing since they paused at the door.

“And Crash?”

“What?”

“Consider your new friend’s life on the line if you don’t get the crucible to me in time.”

The door clicked shut, and I was plunged back into a semi-darkness that smelled like a wood-burning fire, the salty ocean, and something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

I waited quietly until the door creaked open.

“He’s gone,” Crash said as he stepped into the room. “And what are you doing in my bed?”

“What?” Feish strode in past him. “You said you have a man already!”

I sat up and the blanket slid down a little. “Yeah, well, it saved your butt and mine, didn’t it?”

“No, it didn’t.” Crash stared at me hard and I stared right back, unblinking under those lovely eyes of his. “If he’d thought you were just a lost tourist, which was what I was going to tell him, he would have sent you on your way. Now he thinks you’re important to me because you were in my bed, which means he’ll—”

“Kill me if you don’t make a mysterious crucible for him?” I slid my legs out from under the covers, holding one knee to my torso as I reached for my bra on the floor. “Yeah, I heard him. Who is he, anyway?”

“Your dog is going to be mad!” Feish glared at me as she threw my shirt and pants at my face. “Get out of his bed! Out, out!”