“Then you must be willing to fight," Mircea responded. "Life is not a gift, Raphael; it's a challenge. Rise to it!”

“Pritkin and Mircea mixed like oil and water, only not so well.”

“And then Mircea finally let me down, only to get his hands inside the coat and push me against the wall.“I’m dirty,” I protested.He waggled his eyebrows. “Promise?”“Mircea!” I laughed in spite of myself…”

“I’m beginning to sense a theme,” Mircea said, tossing his suit coat over a buckskin-covered chair. A moose head with huge, outspread antlers loomed over it, its bright glass eyes looking oddly lifelike in the low light. Mircea took in the room, his expression slightly repulsed yet fascinated. “I believe there is only one thing to say at this point.”What’s that?”Yee haw,” he said gravely, and took me down like a rodeo calf.”

“Mircea leaned over to refill my wineglass, and a section of his bare chest showed under the robe, along with a hint of dusky nipple. It's a good thing I'm too stuffed to move, I thought hazily. I would so have jumped that.”

“Mess with my weed again and I’ll be informing Daddy that there was an early casualty on the mission.” I saw him wince at my designation for Mircea and grinned.”

“Mircea must have heard us come in, but he continued what he was doing.He stood with his back to us, the candlelight on his bare skin causing his muscles to fall into sharp relief. He’d washed the river gunk out of his hair and now he threw it back, the water droplets shimmering in the light. The scene looked for all the world like a really good romance novel cover.”