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“Were you here these past six hours while I was bingeing on you?”
His delight with her honesty rumbled from his depths. “You can binge on me in an open-ended buffet.”
“No, I can’t. You know it can’t work. It’s why I walked away. It’s why you let me.”
“I have another explanation for why I did. I was an idiot.”
“No, you weren’t. The problem is, together we’re so mind-blowing that you want more, against your better judgment.”
“Judgments change, and mine wasn’t better—I just thought it was better. It isn’t. Also, mind-blowing is a problem I want indefinitely. I want us to be together.”
She stilled, frowned. “Define together.”
“Be together. Live together.”
Those elegant eyebrows rose. “On the strength of one night?”
“Two now. Three. We started our relationship by almost dying and killing for each other. Then we proceeded to almost die or kill each other with too much pleasure. I think we’ve hit on the perfect combination.”
She shook her head, started to put distance between them. “Vidar, I’ve spent the past week writhing in withdrawal. I want you with such an intensity it’s a literal pain….”
He plastered her against his sizzling flesh. “And now I can be there to relieve that pain day or night.”
She again braced her palms against his chest. “It’s not that simple, and you know it. You’re…immortal, a warrior of some sort…”
“And you’re afraid I’d drag you into mortal danger.”
“Will you let me complete my own sentences?” He raised a hand in concession. “From the way you call people ‘mortals,’ it’s clear this…perishability is what defines us to you. I’d be a liability to you.”
That was her concern? Would he ever chart her unpredictability? He gathered her tighter. “You were a lifesaving asset that first night.”
“Only because I put myself in ‘mortal danger,’ and you survived to save me. What if next time you had to die to do it? I can’t be your Achilles’ heel.”
“You won’t be. I’ll take every precaution so that no one will ever tie you to me.” She began to shake her head again and he stopped her with a solemn look. “I’ll walk away in only one instance. If you don’t want me.”
“Oh, I don’t. As I just spent hours proving.” She bent for a compulsive kiss, drew away, sighed. “We were foolish to think one night, or two or ten, can quench this fire.” Exactly what he’d thought. “So if you promise I won’t be a handicap, we can be…together until it burns itself out.”
Exactly what he didn’t think would happen. This would only burn brighter.
But he’d let her find that out for herself. And that he’d keep her safe.
She threw him another curve. “And promise, if I leave again, you won’t come after me.”
His heart compressed. She was already planning the next end.
But he had to promise her freedom. If one day her desire burned out, he had to let her go.
“You have my word.” She nodded, her tremulous smile tinged with melancholy. She knew her desire wouldn’t end, too, was only making provisions for his best interests. His heart expanded again. “Now, don’t you want to know everything about me?”
Her lips quirked. “Being together doesn’t mean poking my nose into your affairs.”
He glided a hand indulgently up and down her silky back and bottom. “What if I want that delightful nose there?”
She arched into his caresses like a feline. “You don’t strike me as the kind who opens the book of his life to others.”
He laughed at the understatement. “You could say that again. One of my job descriptions is Trickster.”
She grinned at him. “Then this truthful compulsion has to be a side effect of a blow to your head that night.”
