Relentless Flame (Hell to Pay) (22 page)

Damn it, where was a book to read when he needed it?

Maybe sunshine and nature would divert him.

He cleared his throat so as not to startle her as he walked into the kitchen. “Want to sit on the porch?”

When she glanced up, those inquisitive brown eyes, framed by the glasses, pinned him.

He indulged in a sudden fantasy of her lying beneath him, naked. Except for those glasses. She should leave those on; they were cute.

Kristus
, he needed to get out of this cabin before his mind and balls exploded.

She wiped her hands on the towel.

He groaned.

“Sure.” Her stiff frame belied her light tone. Probably worried he’d try to stab her again. He was an idiot. Here she tried to hide her terror of him, and all he could think of was his own carnal needs.

Praying that he wasn’t making a foolish choice, he motioned for her to precede him out the door. He scanned the area and inhaled. No sign of danger. For now.

She perched in the double porch swing and scooted over to make room, but her jaw remained set.

Her lack of trust hurt, but he deserved her doubt. Somehow, though, he’d try to prove that he would never hurt her.

After dubiously assessing the s-hooks suspending the swing from the rafters, he shrugged.

Hannah had the temerity to giggle when the wood creaked as he eased into the swing. When Dante growled at her, she laughed even more. The tense line of her shoulders relaxed, and she rested her hand on the arm.

He didn’t care that her lack of fear came at the cost to his pride.

Satisfied the seat wouldn’t drop out from beneath him, he, too, relaxed, dropping an arm behind her on the back of the swing. Strands of her silky hair slid over his hand, sending sparks of sensation up his entire arm. But he didn’t move a muscle.

She fingered the supporting chain at the end of the armrest. “So you’re really Swedish?”

“
Ja, definitivt
. Definitely.”

“Not a strong accent.” Gold glints like effervescent bubbles swirled in her brown irises.

His heart thumped. Nerves? What happened to the great Dante, waylaid by this slip of a women? Ridiculous.

He swallowed. “Depends on the mood and location. Don’t need the accent in this country. Also, it’s been a long time since I visited Sweden. Too many memories. Doesn’t matter. No one is left.”

“Three hundred years ago. For real?”

“I would not lie.”

She pursed her lips. “So, what was your home like?”

Leaning back on the wooden slats, he sighed. “Ahh, my province was called
Vårmland
. I lived in a small village, really more a collection of small farms. The village doesn’t even exist now. A beautiful, lush region with thousands of streams and creeks. Like western Oregon near Portland, only the hills are softer, more rolling. Lots of lakes.”

“Was it cold? Did it snow a lot?”

“I was young then and didn’t know any different, but yes, there was a tremendous amount of snow. But when spring came with the flowers, it was spectacular. And the summer days lasted forever.”

“Family?”

The chair creaked as he pushed the swing. The gentle rocking combined with a cool fall breeze to calm his strained nerves.

“My
fader
died early on in the Great Northern War, doing his duty for the Swedish Empire.
Moder
carried on with my help and that of my brother, Lars. He and I were near inseparable. Even in war.”

“Sounds like a good family.”

When she rested her head against his arm, he swallowed a lump in his throat.

“Yes. Our family had love, happiness, and ... lots of hard work.” He laughed. “And sometimes the switch when Lars and I did wrong.”

“How often did you get in trouble?”

“Often enough. But I always ran faster than Lars.”

The river rushed along in the background. Leaves rustled. Light wind moved pieces of her strawberry blonde hair over his arm. He’d love nothing more than to sit here with her forever.

She pressed her cheek to his shoulder. That simple act twisted something both sweet and terrible in his chest.

Hold still. Don’t mess anything up. Keep rocking the swing.

Damn it, this perfect moment would never last.

When she rolled her head to look up at him, a sick dread dropped like a rock into his gut.

“So what were you and Allie talking about before we left? She and Peter gave me strange looks, and you seemed really upset. Did I do something wrong?”

Dante cupped her shoulder reassuringly while struggling to formulate an answer. Could he answer honestly? He might be an oaf, but he generally told the truth.

“Absolutely not. It’s nothing to worry about.”

She blinked. “I don’t believe you.”

Did she need the truth? She was already a marked woman. Maybe she deserved to know. He rubbed his neck with his free hand.

“Ah, Allie has a ... gift, too.”

“Can she heal people?”

When Hannah gazed up at him like that, all hopeful and trusting, he wanted to kiss the tip of her nose, wrap her in his arms, and keep everything bad in this world far, far away.

Damn it.

“No, Allie’s ability is different. She sees death when she touches some people.”

“Wow.” Then her expression changed. “Oh. She saw mine?”

His silence answered her.

Damn those earnest, gold-glinting eyes. “Is she ever wrong?”

“Once she had a vision of her niece’s death, and she prevented it from occurring.”

“But it would’ve happened if she hadn’t intervened?”

“Yes.”

“So she’s never wrong.”

“No.”

She leaned forward, elbows on knees, and pressed her face into her hands. “Oh. Well, that’s that, isn’t it? You don’t think I have a way to survive this mess ... intact. Allie’s never-wrong death-seeking ability agrees with you. Done.”

“No.”

She laughed sadly. “You’re a contract killer who is semi-immortal, and I’m about to be dead.”

“No.”

When she planted her feet on the porch, the swing stopped. “I’m a marked woman. Brandon isn’t going to stop. Your friends’ lives are at risk because of me. Oh no, Allie’s baby—”

“It’s not your fault.” He dropped a hand onto her thin shoulder.

“Answer me. If I hadn’t met you, if I weren’t ... the way I am ... none of this mess would be occurring, right?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Seems pretty cut and dried to me.” She stared off in the distance. “Actually, it sounds like it’s not healthy for anyone to be around me. Who’d want to take the risk?”

“Hannah. No.”

She was wrong.

He needed to prove it.

Giving in, he pulled her back into his shoulder and tilted her chin toward him. When he touched his mouth to hers, she tasted like hope and light. Her lips were the sweetest ambrosia, and he could sip at them forever.

Damn that word again, forever.
Jåvlar
. There was no forever.

But he did have right now. And right now, he wanted to erase her fear, to keep her safe.

For once in his unnatural existence, his base sexual needs took a back seat to something more, an emotion he refused to name.

He would give her comfort, however small a kindness it might be in this insane situation. Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he tucked her deeper into his embrace and bent his head to take the kiss deeper.

As she pressed up toward him, a tiny cry escaped her lips. He kissed her forehead, her chin, her cheeks, and then back to her soft mouth. The taste of salty moisture stopped him cold, and he lifted his head.

“
Ålskling
?” He pulled a strand of hair off of her damp cheek.

She fisted his shirt and pressed her forehead to his chest. “Don’t ask me anything. Please.” Her hoarse entreaty ripped him to the core.

More. He needed more contact, to envelop her more, protect her more. Reassure her.

Of what? That nothing bad would happen? He might be unnaturally strong, but he couldn’t keep that promise of total safety.

So what did he have to offer?

Himself. Such as he was.

Jåvlar
.

He drew her over onto his lap and settled her legs on either side of his thighs. The slight weight of her frame barely registered. Snaking his arms around her waist, he tucked her tightly to his chest. She fit perfectly in every way. He’d do anything to protect her. Do anything to have her forever.

What was he thinking?

Burying a hand in her hair, he let the silky strands slip through his fingers. When those cinnamon-brown eyes drifted closed, he pulled her head to rest next to his neck. As he massaged her soft scalp, the gold hair glinted with coppery sparks in the sunshine.

With her lips resting on his neck, he lost the ability to think straight. And when she brushed her mouth beneath his jaw, the movement sent a lightning bolt of desire straight into the part of his body trapped beneath her hips. He ground his teeth together, employing sheer willpower to keep his hands from traveling over her body. Sweat prickled his forehead.

She drew back and tipped her chin up, the movement exposing the hollow between her collarbones. Where he’d almost lost control. He froze. Guilt gripped his stomach and squeezed.

It took a superhuman act of strength to meet her gaze. But the expression on her face didn’t condemn him, didn’t blame him.

Instead, those warm eyes studied him. She blinked. Her tongue darted out to wet her lips.

The thuds of his heart reverberated in his head until he lost all coherent thought. Fixated on the sweet hollow at the base of her neck, he swallowed.

Unable to resist, he dipped his head and brushed his mouth over her neck. When he tasted her skin, she shuddered. The wave of satisfaction from her reaction stunned him and whetted his need for more. Even still, he kept one arm around her waist and a hand resting lightly on the back of her neck.

With a shy smile, she rose up on her knees, trailing her soft lips over his jaw, up to his ear. A sensual electrical charge shot through him at the warm breath at his sensitive earlobe. He clenched his hand in her hair, and she squeaked.

“Sorry.” Basic language skills had become a challenge for him.

“Not okay?” she said.

Her moist lips were swollen, parted and ripe for the taking. But he wouldn’t take, not from her. And that restraint went against every fiber of his being.

However, he’d become a different man—a better man—for her, if that was what she needed.

“What you’re doing is very okay. You are a dangerous woman.”

When she kissed his mouth, he struggled to hold still.

“If you keep it up, I will lose what’s left of my mind,” he groaned.

He gently took her lower lip in his teeth until she gasped.

Tightening his grip on her neck, he grinned. “But losing my mind is okay.”

She bent back to his ear, her light nips making his groin tighten. She made him crazy. Forget the knife compulsion. Right now, his desire for her trumped the hungry blade times ten.

Sliding his hand from her neck down her back, he kept a loose grip around her tiny waist.

When she leaned back, she trailed her fingers over his chest and abdomen, making his muscles jump. What would those hands feel like on other areas of his anatomy? His mouth went dry.

He shifted his legs wider, trying something, anything, to relieve the pressure in his jeans. All that maneuver accomplished was planting her cute derriere more firmly onto the one mutinous area of his body that was about to detonate. Amazing what this slip of a woman did to him. He wanted her. Badly.

When her hands drifted lower on his belly, he caught her wrists in his hand.

“Hannah, I need you.” He nodded toward the cabin. “In there. Now.”

Swallowing convulsively when she sat down firmly on his lap, Dante struggled to concentrate. His nether region had ideas of its own, and it was becoming more insistent by the minute.

“I want you,” he repeated.

She didn’t move. Air stirred her hair around her shoulders.

He let go of her hands and rested his palms on her hips.

Her brow furrowed as she opened her mouth and closed it.

Trying again, he said, “I need you. But not if you don’t want, if you can’t—”

Who the hell can form a sentence with a woman sitting on his
kryssbåge?

“I will do whatever you want. Or not.” He mentally slapped his palm to his forehead. How had the eloquent Dante been reduced to a few sputtered words?

He hoped he could keep his promise. At some point you couldn’t unexplode a grenade. But he’d stop for her. It might render him a permanent eunuch when his balls burst into flames, but he would do whatever she needed him to do. However she needed him to do it.

For a torturously long time, he held her loosely at the waist as she sat on his groin, blithely unaware of the devastating effect her butt had on him. He suffered, but what beautiful torture.

After what seemed like centuries, she pinned him with a questioning expression. “You truly want me?”

“Like I’ve never wanted any woman in over 300 years.”

Please believe me,
ålskling
.

Tears shimmered. “Even knowing ... all that’s happened to me? That I’m damaged?”

“I want you. The good and the not so good. All of you. For me. Only for me.”

He traced his fingers over the small of her back, pleased when she arched into his hands. “Truly, I care that you have suffered horrible things, and I would do anything to take those away. But you are not defined by another person’s cowardly act. You are Hannah, beautiful and strong. You seduce me like no woman has since the beginning of my entire existence.”

She studied him with soulful eyes. He fought to hold her gaze and also remain still. Give her time. Be patient. His gut clenched.

She finally answered him. “Yes.”

“Yes?” He had to consciously close his gaping mouth.

Glancing toward the cabin door, she said, “Please, Dante.”

When she laced her fingers around the back of his neck to kiss him again, her whole body trembled.

He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and waist, trying to surround her as much as possible. With her legs locked around his waist, he stood and walked into the cabin, kissing her, murmuring reassurances. She weighed next to nothing, which only made him want to protect her more.