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“So you can have a family of your own.” Uncle Kristian is thirty-four, and there are plenty of women who’d kill to marry him and have his children. In our world, dangerous men make the best husbands because they’re willing to cross any lines to protect their families.
He runs his gaze over my face and murmurs, “You’re my family, princess. Any daughter of mine could never be as clever and adorable as you.”
I’m having trouble with the clasp of his necklace, and my arms are still around his neck. “Don’t you want a wife? I’ve never even seen you with a girlfriend.”
He puts his hands on my shoulders and rubs the tension in my muscles with his strong fingers. “There is no space in my heart for another woman. It’s already full of you.”
“Flatterer,” I tell him with a smile, and my eyes close for a moment as I enjoy the way he finds all the tension I’ve been carrying and makes it melt away.
“Why are you asking me about a wife? Are you thinking about a husband?”
It feels good here, standing between his spread knees and basking in the heat coming off his broad chest. The house is silent and dark all around us. I rarely get Uncle Kristian all to myself these days. It’s going to be hell for him to have me pick all that gravel out piece by piece, so I’ll have to distract him.
I open my eyes and flash a teasing smile at him. “I’m sixteen. Of course I am.”
The clasp of his necklace pops open and I lay the chain on the table next to him.
“Liar,” he counters immediately, and then frowns. “Who?”
“Someone handsome,” I say slowly, reaching for the tweezers. Uncle Kristian is studying me so intently that he barely notices as I pick a piece of gravel out of a scrape and set it on the table. “Strong and clever, too.”
“How have you been meeting handsome, strong, and clever men behind my back?” he demands to know.
My father and Uncle Kristian have strong opinions about who I should be dating and the man I might marry. Both of them agree that any teenage boy who lays a finger on me should be put up against a wall and shot. Any prospective husbands should be dealt with in the same brutal way, according to Uncle Kristian, and before his diagnosis, Dad would have agreed with him. Since facing his mortality, I think he’s warming to the idea that I should get married as soon as possible so I’m protected if anything happens to him. I don’t agree with him, because I’ll always have Uncle Kristian if anything happens to Dad, but it’s a good distraction right now to wind up my overprotective uncle.
I smile mysteriously at Uncle Kristian and stroke my fingers along his bare shoulder until I come to another piece of gravel and dig it out. He doesn’t even wince.
“He’s wild but always dependable. He commands the attention of any room he walks into without even trying.”
I pluck another piece of gravel out of his shoulder and then another. Soon his cuts are free of debris, and the pieces lay shiny red with blood on the table as Uncle Kristian’s shoulder bleeds more than ever.
“Oh, you poor thing,” I murmur, picking up a cotton pad to soak up the droplets.
Uncle Kristian doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, he’s smiling as I dab at his cuts.
“You’re teasing me, aren’t you? I would have noticed if a man like that had been sniffing around my niece. You’re making him up out of thin air.”
I cast him a look beneath my lashes. I’m not making him up. I have in all but name and the color of his eyes and hair described my Uncle Kristian. It’s a pity that I already know exactly what I want in a future husband, but the man I’ll someday marry will never measure up.
“You caught me,” I say with a smile, and reach for the bottle of antiseptic. This will be worse than picking out the gravel, so I’ll have to distract him even more. “I’ll have to settle for someone weak or stupid who can’t protect me or our children.”
“Like hell you will. You’re not settling for shit, princess. Now quit winding me up and get on with that antiseptic.”
I look at him in surprise. “You knew what I was up to all along?”
“I always know what you’re up to. Now get that stuff in my cuts.”
“I hate hurting you,” I mutter, putting a cotton pad over the bottle and upending it until the cotton is soaked.
“Don’t worry. I like it when it’s you.”
My eyes widen. I understand the words he just said, but there’s some meaning I’m missing. The answer is glimmering in his bright blue eyes, but I can’t tell what it is.
“What do you mean?” I ask, and for some reason, I feel my cheeks heat.
“What I say, princess,” he murmurs, stroking my long hair back from my neck so it falls down my back. “I like it when it’s you.”
I apply the pad gently to one of Uncle Kristian’s cuts. He hisses through his teeth and his body tenses. As I keep working over the scrapes, he leans back on his hands and breathes harder. The rise and fall of his chest and the muscles of his stomach clenching and flexing against the pain are so distracting that I can’t stop glancing at his body. I work slower and slower, but Uncle Kristian doesn’t seem to mind one bit.
