The next night, after dinner, Isla was on her hands and knees, scrubbing the kitchen floor, with her hair tied back when the other women found her.

Mel, Zara, and Lucy all filed into the kitchen.

“Jesus, do you ever stop helping, woman?” Mel exclaimed.

“I can’t help it,” Isla said, wiping sweat from her forehead and tossing the rag into the sudsy bucket beside her. “This whole ‘waiting for Dalyer to show up’ thing has got me on edge. I need something to take the tension away.”

“I hear you,” Zara said, glancing nervously at Lucy and Mel.

Isla cocked her head to one side. She was suddenly catching some very strange vibes from the group.

“That’s actually why we wanted to find you,” Lucy said. “We had an idea for how to cut the tension, at least in our own personal relationships. But we need you to show us how.”

Understanding bloomed over Isla’s face as she grinned a brilliant smile at her friends. “You guys want me to show you how to strip!”

Mel grinned and flashed a thumbs-up while Zara’s face went bright pink and she covered her eyes for a second.

“I think I’ll just be an observer,” she said, rubbing a hand over her very pregnant belly. “I’ll take notes for when I’m not carting a watermelon around.”

“No way,” Isla said, washing her hands off in the sink. “I’ve seen you up there, Zara. If you can shift into a dragon and fight 400 feet above ground while you’re pregnant, then you can strip pregnant.”

“Nobody is gonna want to see that!” Zara insisted.

“Girl, please,” Mel said, waving one hand through the air. “We’ve all seen the way Solar looks at you.”

“Yeah,” Lucy chimed in. “Like every second he isn’t spending face-planted in your lady parts is a moment wasted.”

Zara went even pinker while Isla threw her head back and laughed. “They’re right, Zar. Let’s go find an empty room. Is there any way to play music?”

“I brought my iPod,” Mel said. “It’s up in my room. But it’s not very loud.”

“Better than nothing,” Isla said. “Trust me. You want music.”

Mel ran off to get it while the other three chatted as they moved through the house.

“What are you girls doing?” Felice asked as she passed them in the hall.

Isla ignored the fact that Zara looked like she wanted to roll over and die at that question. “I’m teaching them how to strip for their dudes. Wanna come?”

Felice let out a musical little laugh. “That’s an art I mastered a long time ago. Trust me.”

Isla laughed too, held up her hand. “Get it, Felice.”

The two women high-fived and went on their way. As far as potential mother-in-laws went, Felice was pretty much tip-top.

Mel came puffing up to them right as Isla chose the right room for them. Enough space, no furniture, and a big old mirror on one side.

"Okay," she said. "The first thing you have to know is that men are idiots."

The women let loose with a round of surprised laughter.

"No, I'm serious," Isla said. "It's rule number one because it doesn't matter what you do in front of him. Pick your teeth, burp, whatever, he's gonna think it's hot if you're stripping your clothes off at the same time for him."

Isla kicked off her tennis shoes and walked a line away from them and back. Obviously getting her game face on. "So, the goal is to turn yourself on here, cuz your man is already gonna be turned on."

"I wish we had a pole," Zara said, surprising all of them.

"Me, too," Isla said. “It’s really hard to get good at the pole, but just a little sexy slide down is like boner 101. But trust me. There's plenty to do without it."

When the men found them, the women were all on their knees, imitating Isla who was facing them.

O opened his mouth to say something, but Solar silently clapped his hand over O's mouth, not wanting his friend to break whatever spell was over his woman. Zara was stripping? Jesus Christ, just fucking slit his throat right now. Since she'd gotten pregnant, Solar had tried to be a little more careful with her, not fuck her every which way. But as he watched her sink down and then slink back up, twisting her hips, he realized that this was really gonna test his resolve.

The women followed Isla's very specific directions.

"Okay, so you sink down. And then like one more inch. Here's where you lean forward. Flash a little shot of cleave." She exhibited, the space between her breasts a dark, exciting valley.

“And then when you push back up, that's when you rip your shirt off. And then it's straight into the crawl that we talked about."

"You're gonna have to show us," Lucy said. "It's too complicated otherwise."

"Alright," Isla shrugged. Completely comfortable. When she rose, she saw the men all crowded in the doorway, Idris included. And it added a little spice to her smile. She had no problem stripping for men. Especially Idris. The men could thank her later for what she'd just taught their girls.

Idris's eyes heated when he realized that she was going through with this.

She backed up. Marching forward, her hips spun like a pendulum. She slid forward, hitting her knees and dropping down, like she was riding a bull. Or a man. She dropped down even further, like she was really taking it deep, her hands up in her hair tossing it around. And then she was springing back up, her shirt whipping off in one hand. Her bra was baby blue and silky and barely containing her. She fell forward onto her hands, crawling forward with nothing but Idris in her eyes.

And then he was striding forward, swooping her off the ground and striding out of the room.

Amos did the same. He and Lucy were gone in a flash.

O simply took Mel by her face, kissing her and twisting her to the ground with him. "We call dibs on this room!" he called.

Solar gently scooped Zara up off the floor, his mind filled with the images of what he'd just seen her doing.

"Shut the door on your way out!" O hollered behind him.

Solar strode out into the hallway, thinking desperately of how far away their tent was. Too far. Just then, the door to a very handy coat closet seemed to jump right out at him. "I'm not making it to our tent, Zar."

"Neither am I,” she gasped against his neck where she'd just been kissing him.

He dragged her, completely delighted with the two of them, to the closet and slammed the door behind them.

Whatever tension they'd all been feeling was cut like cake.

 

***

 

Idris fell with Isla to the bed. He’d just fucked her against the door like a madman. And maybe he was. At the very least, Idris knew that he was a broken man. Absolutely smashed in pieces. Seeing her strip again was like an absolute punch to the jugular. It hit him, all at once, how much he loved her. How long he’d loved her. How much he needed her. By his side. Forever.

But also how much he needed it to be her choice, too. He remembered how she’d looked that night, lying on the floor, half dead after Ivan had had his way with her. He needed her to know that she didn’t have to make decisions from a place of fear anymore. She needed to make them from a place of love.

First things first. He needed her to know how much he loved her. Without a doubt. So he went about it the clearest way he knew how.

Crawling over top of her, he penned her in, as had become something of a habit of his. Taking her chin in one hand, he made sure she was looking right at him.

“Isla,” he said. “I’m so ass-backwards, jump-off-a-cliff, crazy-fucked in love with you.”

Despite the hand on her chin, Isla’s mouth fell open. She started to say something but he quickly used his hand to clamp her mouth shut.

“No, listen to me,” he continued. “I don’t want you to say anything. I just want you to know. And if you still have shit to say in the morning, you can tell me then. But right now, tonight, I just want to tell you.”

He took a deep breath, because his heart was jumping. “I love you so much and I think I have for a really long time. Longer than was even sane. I loved you before I even talked to you. I loved you when you were Lala Royal. I think, even then, I knew you were Isla in here.” He laid a palm over her chest and could feel her galloping heart. Whether from the sex they just had or his words, he’d never know.

“I want to be with you,” he plunged on. “The way that Amos and Lucy are. And O and Mel, and Solar and Zara. I want you to be the other part of me. The part of my heart that walks around outside my body. I want you to be my partner in everything. For as long as I live.”

Isla’s eyes filled with tears. As they spilled over his hand, still firmly over her mouth, he hoped to god they were happy tears. But he couldn’t take that risk right now. If she told him she loved him back, said that she wanted the same thing, then he’d always wonder if it was because she was too afraid to go back to the human realm. That she was just making the best of her new life here. His heart couldn’t take it.

He slid his hand away from her mouth and she took in a breath like she was about to talk.

“Please,” he said, falling beside her and bringing her into his side. “Don’t say anything tonight. Let’s just sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.”

He could tell she didn’t like it. That she wanted badly to talk. But she respected his wishes. And after twenty or so minutes, her breathing became even. She would never know that he watched her sleep for hours that night. That she looked so peaceful. And that it brought up a fury within him. A need to protect her that was so potent, he could taste it.