Page 27

CHAPTER 27

Maarja couldn’t look away from Dante’s face: his faint confident smile, the gold that flowed beneath his bitter-brown eyes, the determined jut of chin, the carved stone of his bones.

“That’s not a choice!”

“In our world, it is.”

“It’s not our world, it’s yours!”

“You are a Daire. The Daire. You are one of J?nos’s tribe. Think what you like; you were born to this world, same as me.”

“You don’t think I’ll use this knife on you.”

He toed off his shoes. “I have no doubt you will do it in the right circumstances. But I’m not afraid to die, and you won’t kill to preserve your own skin. For you to kill, it’s got to be a higher cause.”

Was that true? How could he know that about her when she didn’t know it herself?

He moved forward, slow enough to not impale himself on his own knife, but fast enough to challenge her. “Two choices, Maarja. Blood and freedom. Or sex and knowing you’re bound to me until the day we die. Because you’re mine.”

Her eyes narrowed. His insolent assurance pushed her to the edge of a precipitous cliff. She put pressure on the tip of the blade, just enough to bite into his skin over his breastbone. Blood welled up, trickled down.

He no doubt felt the pain, but he didn’t seem surprised, and he didn’t stop, maneuvering her toward the giant bed. He added, “And I’m yours.”

She came to a halt.

He came to a halt.

He shrugged out of his shirt. His hands went to his belt; he unbuckled and unzipped, dropped his pants and stepped out, closer to her.

The knifepoint slid farther beneath his skin. It bumped up against hard bone.

“Mine.” She tasted the word. He claimed her and wanted her to claim him. Possession worked both ways…if she agreed.

She looked him over.

He was beautiful. A Viking’s body: tall, long-limbed, with warm brown skin marred from previous battles…and the explosion that killed his father. His face, stony cold and without expression, could frighten a woman if she failed to look deep beneath the surface, but Maarja saw what drove him: the metal-sharp resolve to extricate himself and his family from the endless cycle of vengeance and murder. He had the intelligence to do it; all he needed to do was outmaneuver his enemies, to make them reveal themselves so he could neutralize them.

He trusted her to be at his side.

For a good reason—she’d risked her life to save his mother.

And for a stupid reason—because he’d taken her virginity.

He stood with one foot in the Old World; he believed in fate. She might think that was ridiculous, but…six hundred plus years was long enough for the cycle of possession and murder to exist. She trusted him to finish this vendetta.

She needed to clarify only one thing. “You and me, forever. No one else, ever.”

“Forever isn’t long enough for me to learn you: your mind, your body, your heart.”

“So yes?”

“You and me forever. No one else,” he promised. “Do you believe me?”

“You may be a ruthless bastard, but you’re not a liar.”

He barked a laugh.

She took the blade away from his chest and presented it to him.

He accepted it and without looking, threw it so hard she heard the thump as it buried itself in whatever target he’d chosen. That half smile on his face would frighten a lesser woman, but Maarja… Well, yes, she was afraid. A little.

“Why are you afraid?” Putting his hands to her shoulders, he pushed the remnants of her T-shirt and bra to the floor. “I don’t want to kill you.”

Either he was reading her mind or she was talking to herself. Probably talking to herself, the drawback of living alone for so long. “No, for what you want, I must be alive and pliant.”

“Eager would be nice.”

“But—”

“But you’re new, barely touched.” He slid his hands down her spine to her bottom, rubbed her panties as if the smooth cotton and the shape underneath pleasured him. “I hurt you once. You’ll have to trust me not to hurt you again.”

She cleared her throat. “It might be…not easy.”

“To trust me? Or to take me?”

“Yes?”

“Those are my jobs. To prove myself to you. And to make it easy, this second time. To make it good. I know how to pleasure you.”

She stood naked, bare…well, except for her panties and house slippers. Yet he didn’t look at her body. He focused on her face, molten gold flowing beneath the dark stone of his eyes. He compelled her, and she couldn’t look away.

“Maarja, it’s not all about the pain, is it?”

Hypnotized by his voice, she shook her head.

“You’re letting me touch you, and this time you’re not driven by grief and need for comfort.” His hands slid up her spine, his fingers spanned her waist, and he pressed as if he wanted to support her as her knees weakened. “You’re thinking coolly, wondering about the long years ahead. Even more than that, you’re revealing yourself, and you’re trusting me not to injure your body or mock your passions.”

She nodded. For a man, he was insightful. She did fear embracing him, letting go of her reserve.

“It comes down to trust, Maarja.” He pulled her tight against him. Blood from his wound smeared her chest, and his boxers didn’t provide much of a barrier against his erection. He was hard and hot, and she knew she’d had him inside her, but he seemed impossibly big. “Do you trust me to make this good for you?”

Funny. Trusting him to be good in bed wasn’t an issue. This guy had that look about him. Maybe it was the way he walked, or his swift reactions, or his slow hands. Probably it was the way he concentrated on her, as if no one else existed for him, as if the world could end and as long as he was in her arms, he wouldn’t notice.

“I trust you. This is about me. Last time, I was out of control. You used your tongue on me—”

His hands flexed. His dick grew. He breathed through his open mouth as if he needed all the air in the room. “God, yes.”

“I made a lot of noise, and I let you do things I’d read about and heard about, but… Well, most of my friends say most men are in such a rush to get to the main event that they don’t do the good stuff.”

His lips barely moved as he asked, “Are you worried I won’t do enough good stuff, or that I’ll do more?”

“I don’t know if you’re going to do more or less, but I think that you’re going to make me lose my sense of self and scream. In a good way. When I come back to myself, I won’t be the same.” She started to feel foolish, unable to explain what she felt. “I’ll have left part of myself in you, and I know I said I’d belong to you as long as you belong to me, but I don’t want to be the only one who has emotions invested here.”

“You want me to leave a part of myself with you, and when we’re finished, I’ll be so deep inside you I’ll never leave. You’ll know my mind and soul. Since the first time I saw the little girl you were, I wanted you to grow up. I imagined you were mine. I’ve been waiting so long. Now, here you are. Here I am.” He nudged her chin around. “Look at the bottle. Look at the way that little lamp brings the red glass and the blue stone alive. When the two of us mate, we’ll create a different color in the world, one that has never been seen before.”