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She took in the room. It was ordinary, just a regular hotel room with one king-size bed flanked by nightstands on either side, a small table near the window with two chairs, a long narrow built-in desk along the wall, and a flat screen television above it. It was one of the few places that she would never forget. The desk also had a vanity bench with a mirror. She sat in front of it, struggling to tame her hair.
She’d stuck it under a plastic cap when she showered, but now she had to deal with spending the night in a ponytail instead of the braid she normally slept in. Working a brush through the snarls was proving to be both painful and challenging.
And worth it.
Her lips curved. Case told her he liked her hair in its ponytail. Anything that got him all hot and bothered was a definite plus.
She heard the shower turn off. Case would be out in a few minutes and she wanted her hair issues solved before then. Nyx wore the khakis and white polo they bought yesterday. Her two flights today were relatively short, and she was saving the leggings for the flight from Lima to LAX. It was a nine-hour monster trek, and that was if there weren’t any delays.
After working out the last knot, she put down her brush and looked at herself in the mirror. She didn’t see anything unfamiliar, but Nyx felt as if everything had changed last night. Love. It wasn’t on her to-do list for a couple more years, but the universe had other plans.
Case entered the room, dressed only in a pair of jeans and his pendant while he towel-dried his hair. Her breath caught in her throat. Not because of how gorgeous he was—although he was more than handsome—but because of how much she loved him. Nyx didn’t think she was capable of falling as fast as she had, as hard as she had. A week ago, he’d saved her at the Huarona site. Today, she couldn’t imagine her life without him.
He caught her staring and his smile was smug.
“I’m curious about your pendant.” Lame dodge, but whatever. “It looks Norse.”
Tossing his towel on the far end of the narrow desk, he came over and crouched in front of her, holding it out so she could see it. “It is Norse. It’s a bind rune for protection.” Some of his good cheer slipped. “I caught my mom at the right time to tell her I enlisted. She wasn’t having withdrawals, and she wasn’t high, so it registered with her. Before I left, she gave me this.”
Her last gift to him since his mom died while he was in boot camp. “She loved you.” Case began to close down and she quickly returned to the pendant. “What’s a bind rune? Do you know?”
Nodding, he explained, “It’s when two or more runes are laid on top of each other to create one character. This one has a rune to ward off unfriendly forces and a second rune to create inner strength.”
He pulled it over his head, and before Nyx realized what he was doing, put it around her neck. “Case, what are you?—?”
“It’s a protection rune. You need it more than I do right now.”
“I do not. I’ll be on a plane out of here in a few hours and you’ll be staying. You need it. Besides, I can’t take this. It means too much to you.”
With one finger, he pulled her polo far enough away from her skin to drop the pendant behind it. “You can give it back to me when I come to LA.”
“Are you coming to Los Angeles?”
“If you want me to.”
“Oh, I definitely want,” she said, resting her hands on his shoulders. “Waiting for you to cash in my V-card? That was the best decision I ever made. You were so worth the wait.”
That was the closest she could manage to telling him she loved him. It was too soon to say the actual words, but she did love him and would love him for the rest of her life even if he didn’t feel the same way about her. She kissed him, slowly, sweetly, with all the emotion she felt for him.
“Case?”
“What, Fireball?”
“Why’d you wear condoms every time we made love? You know I’m using birth control.”
He straightened and moved to lean his hips against the desk, facing her. “Because you were worried about an unplanned pregnancy and no birth control is a hundred percent effective. I figured the odds of two simultaneous failures have to be minuscule, right?”
Nyx stared at him, and if she weren’t already head-over-heels in love with him, what he just said would have done it. He listened to her. He knew she wanted to finish school. He knew, and he took care of her.
“No STDs, I promise.” He frowned. “Although you should have quizzed me about that last night before anything happened.”
Slowly, Nyx stood and moved to stand between his legs. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she kissed his chin. “You’re one of the most honorable men I know. If you had anything I needed to worry about, you would have told me. Thank you for caring about me.”
“You can’t rely on a man’s honor?—”
“I wasn’t relying on just any man’s honor. I was relying on your honor. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you wouldn’t have detailed anything I needed to be concerned about before you took me to bed.”
Case scowled and Nyx knew it was because he couldn’t disagree with her. He would have told her. He kissed her lips, lingered, but it was a sweet kiss, not a prelude to more.