Which is how I ended up in the kitchen, up to my elbows in flour and chocolate, making cookies with Marilee.

Or, I made cookies while Marilee did her nails.

“Look,” she said, delicately blowing on a newly painted purple nail while I pounded butter into mush with my new and improved muscles. “Pretty, huh?”

High from the scent of the lacquer, I agreed. “Very nice.” I pounded more butter. “I think I have some of this figured out, by the way.”

“What’s that?”

“The whole ability-swapping thing.” I watched her stiffen. “Are you the one in charge?”

“You know what? I find that music is instrumental in making good cookies.” Careful of her nails, she cranked up the radio.

I waited until Kanye West stopped rapping before turning the radio off again. “It’s just that I don’t see Axel being in charge.”

“Axel is a good man,” she said, surprising me by responding. “He’s just not into…”

“Subterfuge? Lying?” I set aside the bowl of dough. “Manipulating?”

“Hey, there’s no manipulating going on here. We just…didn’t expect you, that’s all.”

“Yeah, I get that part. What goes in here next?”

She blew on another nail. “Whatever you think is best.”

“What would you have put in next?”

She blew on another nail. “Oh, this and that.”

I’d bet my next breath she’d never made a successful batch of cookies in her life. “Chocolate…or pepper?”

“Either.”

“There is no pepper in chocolate chip cookies, Marilee.”

Suddenly she got very busy applying daisy decals on her thumbs.

“You’re not a chef,” I said.

“You know what? Thanks for your help, but fun time’s over.” Careful with her nails, she guided me to the door, then gave me a little push, nearly shutting my nose in it. “Appreciate it,” she said through the hole I’d caused earlier, “but I’ll take it from here.”

Ten bucks said she’d screw up those cookies. “No pepper,” I said.

“I know.”

Uh-huh, right. Hoping Rach had fared better than I had in the getting-answers department, I went looking for her.

Only she was nowhere to be found, and I know this because I searched the entire inn, up and down and up again, a very bad feeling growing in my chest.

Axel was in the foyer with Serena and William, the three of them talking about their hike. “Have any of you seen Rach?” I asked.

“Dude, hopefully she’s taken a chill pill,” Axel said.

Yeah. A chill pill. I went out the back door and stared into the woods, my concern growing by leaps and bounds.

She wouldn’t have gone out there again, not alone, would she?

Then I heard it, a low humming noise, of a compressor or pump or something mechanical. I followed the sound around the corner of the house, to a side deck.

Rach stood next to a hot tub. The water bubbled enticingly from the jets, the steam rising into the air behind her like a halo.

“Look what I found,” she said. “Inviting, don’t you think?”

What was inviting was her. Too bad she wasn’t in the tub, all wet and flushed and…wet. But my mind could plug in the picture, no problem. Her bare skin would be gleaming and slick, her breasts just above the water, nipples hard and wet-

“Kel?”

I shook it off, barely. Extremely relieved to see her, naked and gleaming or otherwise, I nearly yanked her into my arms and kissed us both stupid, but luckily, some sort of common sense prevailed.

“Later,” she whispered, and if I wasn’t mistaken, she smelled like chocolate mint.

It took me a minute to realize she probably didn’t mean that later I could kiss us both stupid and maybe get to that naked-and-gleaming part of the program, but that later she’d show me whatever she’d found on her search.

“Why do you smell like chocolate?”

She tightened her lips and looked guilty, but she didn’t say a word.

She didn’t have to. I’d have bet every last penny that her search had yielded a cookie stash.

I leaned back against the edge of the tub, but I didn’t realize she’d put all her weight against me. Strong as I was, I hadn’t received any grace in the swap, so when I lost my balance, tumbling back into the water, Rachel came with me, clothes and all.

The hot water closed in over my head, engulfing me in its cocoonlike warmth, and when I broke the surface, so did an equally drenched Rach.

She tossed her hair out of her face and looked at me blandly as she swiped beneath her eyes to clean away streaked mascara. “You know, there are easier ways to get me wet.”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to-”

“No?” She sighed. “Well, that’s just a shame.”

With that she rose out of the water, just like in my fantasy, except in clothes, her pale shirt clinging to her like the hottest wet T-shirt I’d ever seen, her jeans also clinging to her every single curve and dip.

“Nice water temp,” she said. “Maybe we can come back here tonight, and stargaze.”

I couldn’t respond because my tongue had become stuck to the roof of my mouth.

She pulled her shirt away from her skin. The material broke free with a suction noise that tugged at my groin and made me want to drop to my knees and worship her body. Then she merely walked away.

Pretty much the story of my life when it came to her.

Chapter 14

Still Kellan’s view…

Marilee burned the bottoms of my cookies and then blamed the oven, bringing us into the kitchen to taste them anyway after we’d changed out of our wet clothes.

I knew her hospitality wasn’t kindness but a way to keep us from snooping.

“Is there something that you’d like us not to find?” Rachel finally asked so politely, it took Marilee a moment to realize what she’d said.

“Of course not,” Marilee said. “Mi casa es su casa.” She laughed. “I’m learning Spanish on tape.”

Rachel smiled. “¿Es usted que planea en dormir con Axel?”

Marilee looked at her blankly. “Um, I don’t think I got to that chapter yet.”

“I asked if you planned on doing Axel.”

Marilee folded, then refolded, a kitchen towel. “That’s something we haven’t quite worked out yet.”

“But you want to,” Rachel said.

“Yes,” Marilee admitted. “But to be honest, I was hoping he’d make the first move. That boy is as slow as molasses; nothing can rush him. Drives me crazy.”

“Yeah.” Rachel sighed as if she commiserated greatly.

I looked at her. I wasn’t as slow as molasses.

Was I?

But she had made the first move…

Fine. I still wasn’t as slow as molasses, because there’d never been a first move to make before now-at least, that I knew of.

“You could make the first move,” Rach pointed out to Marilee, carefully not looking at me. “I know it’s always preferable when they do it, but sometimes, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.”

Really? Had I been a “gotta do”?

“You’re being awfully nice,” Marilee said, sounding just a little unsure.

“I’m not used to being at odds with someone,” Rachel said. “I hate that we got off on the wrong foot.”

The women looked at each other. Rach smiled, and then, unbelievably, so did Marilee.

Bonding right before my eyes.

“Well, this is good,” I said. “Except for the whole missing-information part.”

Marilee looked at her watch, and moved to the door. “Oops, would you look at the time? I’ve got to-”

“Go,” I said in unison with her. “Yeah, imagine that-” But I was talking to myself, because Marilee had vanished.

“I almost had her. Before you screwed it up,” Rach said.

“What? You had nothing.”

“She’s not so bad, Kel.”

I stared at her. “Is this a girl thing?”

“Probably.”

Marilee popped her head back in. “Oh, I forgot. William and Serena want you to play a game with them in the den.”

More conspiracy. “What game?” I asked, but Marilee was already gone.

“Probably Monopoly,” Rach said. “Come on. Maybe we can wheedle something more from them.”

Not Monopoly. No, William and Serena wanted to play Sensual Truth or Dare, a game for couples, that was pretty much self-explanatory.

“Oh boy,” Rach said, and glanced at me.

“Come on,” Serena said, and patted the couch.

I stood there. “Uh…”

“Oh, don’t be shy,” Serena said, and got up to pull us to some seats.

Truth or Dare. Fine and dandy for her and William, a couple obviously at ease with their sexuality in regards to each other.

But I felt like I was sitting on a time bomb with a lit fuse.

William went first, and picked truth. “Tell a secret to the person on your right,” he read.

I was on his right. “Tell me about the swap.”

“Dare,” William decided, switching, and smoothly turned the card over for his resulting dare. “Instead of telling a secret to the person on your right, do something to them.”

“Wait!” Serena hopped up from his left and squished herself in between us so that now she was on his right.

“Go,” she said breathlessly.

William smiled at her, then slipped off her sandals and gave her a slow, languid foot massage, which had Serena melting boneless into her chair with a moan so sensual, it got to me. She lay back, eyes closed, breathing shallow, nipples hard. I glanced at Rachel, who looked as turned on as Serena.

At her turn, Serena chose truth. “Choose a secret to share.”

“I know which secret I want to hear about,” I said.

Still looking hot and bothered, Serena smiled. “I’m glad it was you two.”

I looked at Rachel, who looked back at me. “What do you mean?”

But Serena’s smile became mysterious, and she shook her head. “That’s my secret. That’s it.”

And there was no getting her to say more.

When it was my turn, I picked truth, afraid of the dare.