"Whose home?" he interjected.
At once she had an idea as to what he was doing. She swallowed. "Well, Blooey's and Hambone's and yours, of course…"
"And yours," he said quietly, waiting.
"And mine," she agreed softly.
He cradled her to him. "I deeded over half the house to you, baby."
She gasped. "When did you do that?"
"Before we left for the Vineyard."
"Tyber, you shouldn't have! This house means so much to you. It's your dream."
"You are my dream. The house is simply a place where we can realize that dream. It's important to me that you understand that. It's important to me that you understand what you mean to me. Wherever we go, as long as we are together, that's the dream."
Her eyes filled with tears at his beautiful words of love. "Tyber… I just can't think of anything to say to follow that, except that I feel exactly the same way. I love you."
He kissed her. It was not an erotic kiss. It was a forever kiss of deep and abiding feeling. She felt it to her argyle-covered toes.
But what started out as pure love soon became pure passion. As heat flared between them, Tyber groaned against her lips, slipping his tongue inside her mouth. A small current of air, a combination of surprise and excitement, went from her mouth to his. A tingle breath.
A sweet tremor ran through him.
Zanita sighed against his warm lips. Surprising her, his hands suddenly splayed beneath her arms, lifting her up level with his face. His voice was raw against her throat and surely hot enough to melt all the snow in the field surrounding them. "Put your legs around my waist, baby."
"Like this?" Her legs went securely around him, tightening about his waist. The hard bulge under his zipper pressed tightly against her groin. The placement was highly intoxicating to both of them.
A sound of raw pleasure burst from him. "God, yes."
Zanita vocalized ardently against the folds of his ear. "I want you inside, Tyber… right now."
He groaned, deep and rough. "Are you trying to kill me?"
She nibbled on the curve of his sexy bottom lip. "Yes, with the little death, la petite mart. Right now, Tyber." Boldly her hand snaked down between her thighs and deftly unbuttoned his pants, releasing him.
"You're right, it is cold out here," he teased, tugging sharply on her earlobe.
She laughed, a happy sound in the night. "I'll make you warm," she promised.
"Oh, I know you will." Pirate lips pressed to the center of her chest, just above the scoop neckline of her nightgown. They were followed by a hot tongue dipping low under the edge of the fabric. He bit the tip of her breast gently over the flannel. "Remind me to bring you out here again in the spring."
"Why?" Her lips skimmed the top of his head; the supple chestnut strands shifted seductively against her mouth, chin, and throat.
"So I can wrap you in that lace we brought back." She felt his smile. "This flannel is too damn thick."
"You're spoiled." To show him how spoiled, her hand stroked his manhood, circling the thick length in a snug clasp. Her thighs drew closer around his hips at the same time.
A shiver traveled through him at her bold action. "You're right," he drawled hoarsely. "I'm spoiled for you." His hand reached under her gown to cup a warm buttock. "You know, baby, these make great winter hand-warmers." He playfully squeezed the round globes. "Come to think of it—year round."
"Stop that. I am not your personal human glove—" She stopped, her mouth forming an "O" as she realized what she had just inadvertently said.
He threw back his head and roared with laughter.
She turned beet red. "I didn't mean that the way it—Oh!"
He sank inside her, proving that she could be a very nice glove indeed. "Feels so nice, so warm…" he whispered against her lips before taking them in a scalding siege. He moved his hips in on her, gliding easily back and forth in the slick channel. "Like cashmere," he rasped.
"Oh god." Zanita was both abashed and excited by his intimate allusion.
Tyber kept moving inside her, steady, slow, with languid transitions. The rhythmic cadence reflected the aura of the night.
He was simply perfect.
For her.
"Look up, Zanita, at the stars." He moaned huskily, lost in the moment. In her.
She did as he instructed. All across the sky, streaking lights blazed across the heavens. "It's—it's so beautiful!" The presence of eternity was above and inside her. Transitory life fused to everlasting essence.
Love.
Her arms encircled his neck tighter.
He had known about the meteor shower. Her pirate-physicist had anticipated the event and carefully woven it into the fabric of their lives. A beautifully illustrated lesson on the nature of yin/yang, light/dark, man/woman.
The dual nature of all things came home to her.
In that moment, she truly understood the underlying principles of quantum theory; the bridge between Eastern mysticism and high-energy physics.
The moment of their ultimate release lasted forever; the moment was instantaneous.
Zanita rested her forehead against his; it was slightly damp. As they regained their breath, the cool, dry night evaporated the moisture from their skin. The scent of wood smoke tinged the air.
Tyber glanced over her shoulder. Then did a double take. He squinted, trying to focus on something in the distance.
"What is it?" Zanita turned slightly in his arms to see what it was that had caught his attention.
There, against the sky, on a hillock, twelve hogs marched. They snuffled gleefully across the landscape, illuminated by the moonlight. The Lenny Bruces of the hog world.
Zanita was shocked. Joe Sprit's hogs had busted loose again! In a dazzling display of individuality, they were stomping through the fields in the middle of the night.
"What are they doing all the way out here?"
"Apparently, there's only so much a feng shui master can do," Tyber commented drily. "Some of us,"—he nodded to the Hogs, who were disappearing over the rise—"just need to be out and about every now and then to experience life."
She smiled, watching until the last squiggly tail was lost to sight. "So tell me, Tyber, are we actually married or not?"
An unholy light came into his pastel eyes. The left corner of that sensual mouth lifted in a sardonic grin. "I don't think I'm going to tell you."
Her mouth dropped open. "What do you mean, you're not going to tell me!"
He stared at her, waiting.
She bit her lower lip. If Tyber didn't tell her, then she would be forever wondering if they were or weren't. Something sounded familiar about that. It had a ring of duality to it…
Suddenly she broke into a huge smile and hugged him to her tightly.
Theoretically, like Schrödinger's infamous cat, as long as she didn't "lift that box," they would be… yet might not be.
It was the perfect cosmic solution.
She sighed happily.
And that was how Tyberius Augustus Evans, genius extraordinaire, won the challenge to solve their life together. He created a perpetual mystery machine.
Sometimes it was good to be a physicist.