by LJ Evans
“Promise me something,” I said.
Cillian just stared.
“Promise me you’ll protect him first and me second.”
“My job is to protect you both,” he said. “There isn’t an either-or to the situation.”
“If you don’t promise me that he’ll be your first priority, I’m not coming with you. I’ll just stay here and wait for them to show up.”
“That would be ridiculous and rash,” he grunted. Both were things I’d told Dax I wasn’t, but this was nonnegotiable.
“He’s… He doesn’t deserve to get dragged into my mess. He’s avoided the Moris and our fucked-up world his whole life. I won’t let it be the reason he gets hurt.”
“Then listen to what we say and stay alert. That’s the best thing you can do for him.”
“Promise me,” I demanded, hands on my hips, eyes narrowing.
He stared at me for a long moment and then gave a curt nod.
I had a feeling it was as close as I was going to get to a promise from him. I’d take it. I’d use it against him if I had to, but I was hoping there wouldn’t be a need.
Dax came out of the bedroom with a grimness to his face that spoke of the seriousness of the conversation he’d just had with Dawson. His gaze flew between Cillian and me, mere inches from each other, and his jaw clenched, but he didn’t say anything, and we didn’t offer.
Instead, we left the apartment and made our way down to the first set of vehicles that would take us to Vanya’s hidden cottage along the coast.
♫ ♫ ♫
At some point, after we’d changed cars for the third time to shake any tails, I’d fallen asleep. When I woke, I was leaning against Dax with his arm around me like a shield. I sat up, pushing away slightly, but his arm lingered. Outside the window, the ocean crashed against a steep cliff with the late afternoon sunshine bouncing off the water. The road we were on was skinny and crooked, but it soon gave way to wider streets and a handful of buildings that felt like more of a pitstop than an actual town. The stores and restaurants all had a seaside, touristy feel in both their names and their appearance.
We blew past the businesses and up another tiny road that crawled up the cliff overlooking the shoreline. Cillian turned off onto a driveway shrouded with trees and shrubs. If you didn’t know it was there, the drive would have been difficult to find.
Dax had said it was Vanya’s cottage, but I probably should have known that the house wouldn’t really be cottage-like because Vanya did splashy better than old Jada ever had. This house looked like it might have been transported from England—an old manor home with ivy and brick along with shutters painted blue. It was two stories and big enough that I was sure Dax and I could put a comfortable distance between us.
We had Cillian and Terrence in the car with us and six more security guards in the vehicle behind us—a team of eight that would protect us for however long we decided to hide out. I wasn’t sure I could handle the thought of eight more people dying to keep me safe, but hopefully, we’d lost any tail we might have had leaving the city.
Whoever had sent the note had given me a week to take care of things. Maybe that meant they’d stay away for that long and give us time to figure out who they were.
Cillian turned to us as he put the car in park. “Stay here while we clear the house.”
Both men got out of the car, leaving us in silence.
“Does your father know you’re here? With me? Putting your life at risk for a Mori?” I asked now that we were alone.
Dax tried to hide the wince that went through him at my question.
“He knows I’m with you.”
“You don’t need to stay. You’ve gotten me here. Now go back to France. Get as far away as you can.”
“No.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Armaud. There’s no reason to put yourself in danger,” I grunted.
He pushed a stray hair from my face. It was a mess after falling asleep with it wet the night before. I’d barely been able to reach up to brush it this morning, let alone put it up as I’d really wanted to do.
“I’ve left you twice before when every fiber of my being told me not to. I won’t make the same mistake again.”
The words made my heart bleed, wanting them to be true but knowing the cost of making them a reality would be too great.
I ignored his tenderness, glaring at him instead. “If you expect to be stuck to my hip like some long-lost conjoined twin, you can rid yourself of that notion right now.”
His eyes lowered, a small smile stealing over his lips. “Being attached to your hip doesn’t sound like a hardship.”
I clenched my fingers, wishing for my phone.
“Flirting with me isn’t going to happen either.”
“No, mon amour? We have to fill our days somehow,” he said, voice going down a notch as his finger grazed my cheek, running down to my lips where they lingered for a second.
My entire body heated, the sore muscles taking a back seat as endorphins flew through my veins at Dax’s deep voice talking sweet nothings. There’d been a time in my life when I would have given anything for that.
I pushed his hand away and turned to open the door. He put an arm on my elbow to stop me.
“Cillian asked us to wait here while they cleared the house.”
“I’m just getting some air.”
I slid out, my head spinning slightly as my feet hit the gravel drive. I was sure the light-headedness was from lack of food as much as my injuries. I hadn’t had much to eat in the last couple of days. I put my hands to my ears, pushing them shut and then letting them go. They ached from the slight elevation change of the road, and the ringing seemed to be back in full force. It was enough to drive me over the edge, straining my already brittle and tired nerves. Even after sleeping in the car, I was still exhausted.
The passenger door on the other side slammed shut, and Dax joined me. He leaned up against the vehicle and looked down into my face.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said quietly.
I wished with every fiber of my being that I could believe him.
Dax
JUST ONE KISS
“Send me to heaven, baby
With your lips, yeah.”
Performed by Imelda May and Noel Gallagher
Written by Rossi / May / Jolliffe-bran
Vanya’s cottage was more English manor house than any cottage I’d ever known. It had rooms for all eight of the security detail as well as a suite right out of some historical novel. The his-and-her bedrooms in the main suite were joined by a gigantic bathroom and a sitting room full of Victorian furniture, antique wallpaper, and soft reds and golds you might expect from an Austen novel come to life. Setting Jada and me up in the suite meant I could keep the door open between the two bedrooms and hear her if she called for help.
She didn’t seem as happy with this prospect as I was, but she didn’t fight me on it either. What I would have preferred was to have her in the same bed with me again. That single thought was a shot to the heart because I’d denied my feelings for her for too long. In the past few years, it had been tantalizing to flirt and tease and push at the wall of sexual tension between us every time we met. We’d both done it, knowing we’d walk away without having satisfied the building desire. Our denial had become some sort of twisted reward and punishment all rolled together. But now… Now my brain and my body knew I wanted more, that I was tearing down the barrier we’d always refused to cross.
I helped her unpack, but this time she didn’t sit it out. She bent back and forth from the suitcase to the rods to hang things or to shove them in drawers in the closet. After the ten minutes it took to put her small collection of clothes away, I could tell she’d worn herself out again, even if she’d never admit it.
“Why don’t you rest while I go figure out what we’re doing for dinner?” I asked, trying to keep it casual without any demand.
She nodded, and I wondered if it was because she agreed she needed to rest or if she just wanted to escape my presence for a few moments.
I left her and found my way to the gourmet kitchen that was a delightful mix of modern and eighteenth-century. As I opened the refrigerator and cupboards, I realized Vanya must have had a grocery service come by, because the shelves were stocked with more than I’d expected. Enough that I could make a poor imitation of my father’s macaroni and cheese as well as an onion soup. Comfort food I’d loved growing up. Even when we’d had a full-time, live-in chef, Papa had always made it himself whenever I needed cheering. Just like he’d been the one to teach me to cook the basics as I got older, saying every person should know how to prepare a few meals.
I busied myself with making enough food for the ten people in the house. After placing the dishes in the oven, I went to the library I remembered from my last stay with Vanya. I searched the shelves, lips quirking upon seeing the translation of The Sound of the Waves by Yukio Mishima. Not quite a Romeo and Juliet retelling, but I hoped Jada would get the humor behind it. The forbidden-ness of the couple.
Returning to the kitchen, I made sure Cillian and the men knew dinner was waiting for them and then made a tray of food for Jada and me. When I knocked softly on Jada’s door, there was no answer. I pushed it open to find her asleep on the bed with all her clothes and shoes on. She’d passed out, and I almost retreated in order to let her rest, but then she mumbled something in her dreams.
“No… I won’t.” Her words were soft but full of fear. She tossed and turned, a gasp of pain bringing her fully awake in a sitting position, clutching at her side.
Our eyes met across the dimly lit room. The light from the open doorway of my bedroom was the only light into hers.
“You’re awake. Perfectly timed,” I said, stepping in farther.
She looked disoriented at first before a grimace took over, pain and reality invading. Her eyes took me in, lingering on the tray in my hand.
“What’s all this?”
“Food and entertainment,” I said.
Her eyes fell to my lips, strolling down my body before returning to my face, making it difficult to not fling the food to the ground and pull her into me, bruised body be damned. I set the tray on the bed and made my way to her. I tugged at the boots on her feet.
“What are you doing, Armaud?” she asked, voice still husky from sleep.
“Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to put your shoes on your bed?” I asked.
“Get off of me.” She pushed and reached for the shoes at the same time, resulting in a groan of pain escaping her lips.
“Stop being so stubborn,” I said and gently pulled at her other shoe. “Do you want to change into something more comfortable?” I asked, looking down at the fitted pants and sweater she’d thrown on that morning. Stylish. Modern. Completely Jada. Between Cara and Yuriko, they’d done a good job assembling a Jada-worthy wardrobe at the last minute.
“Stop being nice, or I’m going to have to stab you with something.”
I chuckled as she slowly slid off the bed and went into the closet while I turned on a bedside lamp and piled the pillows up for her to lean against. When she came out, she was in another sleep shirt like she’d worn the night before, all bare legs and no bra, her pebbled tips showing clearly through the thin silk.
I swallowed and turned away, patting the bed.
“Come eat.”
“Where’d you get all this?” she asked.
“I made it.”
She eyed the bowls. “You did? Or you had someone make it?”
“I can cook. Just because you don’t know this about me doesn’t make it not true.”
I helped her back up on the bed, and she grunted a thanks. I toed off my sneakers and then joined her. She looked at me with suspicion.
“What? I can’t eat what I made?” I said, trying to keep things light so I wouldn’t think of all her soft skin on display underneath the blankets.
Like the night before at my apartment, we ate in silence for a few moments.
“What’s the book for?” she asked.
“I told you, entertainment.”
“Can’t we just watch a movie or something?”
I shook my head. “Vanya uses this place to escape the world, so no TVs allowed.”
She stared at me for a moment. “That’s not very hospitable of him. What about his guests?”
“I think I’m the only person he’s ever had here besides his partners.”
She stared at me.
“What?” I asked.
“Are you trying to tell me that you’re bi? Or pan? Or something? Were you and Vanya an item?”
I chuckled. “No. You’ve never seen me with a guy, have you?”
“That doesn’t mean you weren’t hiding it.”
“If I were bi, or pan, or something,” I said, throwing her words back at her, “I wouldn’t care to hide it.”
She pushed the bowls away.
“Done?” I asked.
She nodded, and I took the tray and set it outside the door to deal with later. As I came back to the bed, I picked up the book and sank on top of the covers, determined to keep our skin as far apart as possible.
“Where’s my book?” she asked.
“You don’t need one. I’m going to read to you,” I told her. “Just close your pretty little eyes and relax.”
“Who are you, and what have you done with the real Dax Armaud?” she demanded.
I grinned. “This is the real Dax Armaud. The suave guy you see out and about is the act. Don’t you remember me telling you how much I loved books?”
It was one of our early, teenage conversations. I wondered if she’d purposefully buried the memories, whereas they were all painted in vivid Technicolor in my brain, kept safe in a special vault with her name written on it.
After I’d read a few pages, all the while trying to ignore her eyes on me, she interrupted me by saying, “It’s better in Japanese.”
“You’ve read it?” I asked, surprised.
She nodded. “The question is, have you? Or is this your first time?”
I set the book down and met her gaze. “There was a time in my life where I read Japanese literature almost exclusively.”
Her eyes widened just a hair, glancing down to my mouth and then back up. God, I’d love to kiss her. To have those goddamn perfect lips on mine. To caress the soft shape. To taste her once more. She watched my hand as I slowly reached up to tuck a stray strand away from her face much as I had earlier. When I withdrew just as slowly, her gaze followed the movement.
“You can’t say things like that. It isn’t fair. To either of us,” she told me, eyes glimmering with anger but also longing.
I didn’t look away. I took in how her breathing had increased and how her chest heaved more under the covers. I took in the way her mouth parted and her tongue ran along her bottom lip in nervous energy. I felt the increase of my own breath in response, the tingling that took over every fiber of my being as energy zipped between us.
“I hate this,” I told her softly, and she instantly bristled.
“Well, I didn’t fucking ask you to bring me here.”
“That isn’t what I meant. I hate that I’m attracted to you with a force I can’t forget but will only hurt the people I love most. I hate that I left you alone like every person in your life has done and that you let me. I hate that there’s a target on your head I can do nothing about.”
She didn’t fly back at me with another angry comment, which meant she understood, if not agreed with, everything I’d said.
“It’s just sexual tension, Armaud. Nothing more. We had one half of a screw one time in a bed in Benita’s chateau. You never gave us a chance to get it out of our systems. You always ran.”
A knife twisted in my gut. I had run. But the mention of the time I’d woken up with her mouth around me made me go h
ard instantly, pulse increasing. The memory of what she tasted like when I’d flipped her on her back and lost myself to my tongue between her legs made me want to repeat that performance, to give her relief without having her move her sore body to receive it.
“Your theory is, if we’d continued to make love to each other up against every piece of furniture and wall we found, we’d have already moved on?” I asked, my voice deepening as each word pummeled me with fantasies. Images of doing just that. Taking her on every piece of furniture in this room…in the cottage…in every single building I owned.
Jada shrugged. “We’ve both gotten tired of every other person we’ve been with.”
She wasn’t any other person I’d been with. She was the aching void I’d tried unsuccessfully to fill.
“You’re wrong, mon bijou,” I said, tossing the book aside, moving in closer to her, careful of her bruised body but putting myself right up against her. I looked down into her eyes flickering with a desire that caused a flame to burst inside me. “The one taste we had of each other proved the goddamn opposite. If I was fully inside you, I’d never want to let you walk away. I’d want to have you tied to my veins to inhale whenever I had a chance to breathe. I’d want our skin permanently grafted together so we’d never be apart.”
“You’re sick, Armaud,” she said.
Her hand curled around my bicep. I wasn’t sure if she’d intended to push me away or pull me closer, but instead, it just rested there, the warmth of her coasting over me, the smell of her filling my lungs. Lemongrass and mint.
“It’s how a man should feel about a woman,” I told her, the longing in her eyes an echo of what crawled through me.
“Possession isn’t love,” she responded.
“It isn’t possession if the feeling is mutual…if you needed me tied to your very being as well.”
My hand trailed a path up her arm, over her shoulder, and to her neck. I gripped the back of it, my thumb grazing her cheek, careful to skip her wounds.