“You flatter me, Amore, with your beauty and talent, but I fear there is no way I could satisfy you.” There, that sounded flattering enough to get him off the island without her dropping him in the middle of the ocean as shark bait.
The world tilted for a second or two then everything went back to normal. “What the hell was that about?”
Wide lilac eyes blinked up at him innocently. “What was what?”
“Everything went…” He trailed off, not sure what had happened or if it would happen again. Maybe with everything he’d been through, his mind was finally shutting down or at least turning off a few switches?
“So, you were saying how desirable and delicious I am?” she prompted when he didn’t continue.
“Yeah, you’re hot, sexy and any man would give up an arm or leg to spend time with you, but I’m afraid I’m the exception. Everything in my mind, body and soul is screaming for Kendil.”
A coy look darkened her eyes. “Even if I promised to fulfil every sexual fantasy and fetish you’ve ever had? Would you like to see me with another woman, another man, both? I can make every naughty dream you’ve ever had come true.”
He swallowed, not in temptation but because no matter how sexy and erotic she got, Amore would never be Kendil. If she wasn’t Kendil, Teague simply couldn’t find the will to react. “Like I said before, you’re very attractive, but someone else holds my heart and body.”
Just like that the sexy vamp faded and Teague was left looking into understanding and concerned eyes with no sexual pull. “Excuse me please for my behaviour. I so enjoy tangling with Christmas elves, but I should not have done so at your expense. It’s been so long since I’ve had the freedom to chose my own lovers or even have one. Lord Cupid is a very stern master.”
Her sorrow filled the air around him until he could almost breathe Amore’s salty tears on his tongue. “Please, don’t…”
“Don’t what? Don’t be jealous of the elf who has the very thing most people would die to experience and she just throws it away? Don’t be angry that I, who have lived hundreds upon hundreds of years, will never know such devotion for myself? I cannot do what you ask.”
One dainty hand swept pink tears off her cheeks as she stalked back to him. Everything in her stance and face screamed anger and injury, but stupidity or sheer stubbornness kept Teague’s feet buried in the sand.
“Even now I can feel the beat of your heart as it reaches for hers. In all my lifetimes, I’ve seen but a few immortals granted their true heart’s dream. Now one of the least important of us is given the immense gift of a life-mate and what does she do?” Her generous breasts bounced as Amore waved her arms in the air. “Kendil throws love away, just tosses it aside like she’ll find another the next aisle over.”
“If you’re saying these things to make me feel worse…you’ve succeeded. If you’re trying to cheer me up, you’re failing completely.”
“I’m saying nothing, but the truth. I am jealous of what Kendil has so carelessly thrown away.” Again she wiped the tears trailing down her soft-looking cheeks.
Discussing this much emotion made him feel awkward. Like most men, Teague preferred action to words. This whole touchy feely discussion left him uncomfortable no matter how close to home it hit.
“So…what do you want from me, really?” By now he knew she didn’t want him for sex or to fulfil his every fantasy, like some nympho genie come to life.
She sniffed a few times before answering him. Even that, she made look sexy. Too bad his heart and cock were already spoken for.
“I guess I wanted a chance to make Kendil hurt…at least for a little while. She had everything in the palm of her hand and tossed it away like stale chocolate. If for a few moments of time I could make her feel the pain that lives in my heart…”
Understanding dawned on him. “You wanted her to think she’d lost me forever. To break her heart.”
Pink curls covered her face as Amore’s head tilted down. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. “Yes, that is what I wanted. Her pain as a sort of price to be paid for not appreciating what she’d been given. It was small and petty of me, but I could not help myself.”
It made sense, in a weird, female sort of way. “So what now? You keep me here until you think Kendil’s pain has paid a big enough price?”
Her pink tongue darted out to moisten her perfectly pink bowed lips. “No, no, my foolishness and jealousy will accomplish nothing. We will return and you will be reunited with your love.”
He didn’t know what to say so Teague knew better than to open his mouth. In the past, silence had served him better around women than taking a chance on speaking.
The beach swirled and tilted once more before a loud pop echoed in his ears. Then he heard the most glorious sound in the world. Kendil cursing his name in her oh-so-unique Christmas elf way.
Chapter Five
“That rotten, dirty, disease-ridden human,” Kendil exclaimed as she watched Teague disappeared from sight with the slutty Vinion. “Have a few doubts and the man runs off with the first tramp he finds. Wait until he gets home. I’ll geld his ass.”
“Kendil, is that any way for an elf of mine to talk?”
Kendil whirled around, lost in her grief and power. The sight of the kindest man she knew, who happened to be her boss, standing before her threw her off balance. With a wet splat, she landed in the snow, ass first.
“Nick?” She asked it as a question, but already knew the answer.
“Yes, yes it’s me. Now what in the name of the North Star are you doing?”
Jumping to her feet and dusting the snow from her butt gave her only a few minutes to stall as she tried to think of something to tell Nick. Something, anything, but the truth.
“Amore has my mortal…I mean not my mortal, but the one I was protecting. I was going to get him back and return him to his people. After all, Tasha has found the perfect place for the second workshop so we need to get busy.”
Large hands cupped her shoulders gently. “Kendil, I’m Santa. I know the truth, remember?”
Unwanted tears welled up in her eyes and before she knew it, Kendil found herself embraced within the comforting circle of Nick’s arms.
“How did I screw everything up so badly?”
He patted her head and stroked her hair. “Now there, Kendil, my girl, fear will send the bravest of us running for cover. You’ve just never run into anything you fear more than losing Teague.”
The words pricked her pride, but her heart understood them well enough. She’d been willing to throw away the possibility of fifty years with the man she loved, in order to avoid being hurt later.
As if reading her mind, and Kendil wouldn’t put it past the sly old man, Nick spoke as he set her from him. “Love isn’t a washer or dryer, Kendil. It doesn’t come with guarantees. It’s a matter of freeing your heart and trusting someone else in your soul.”
Her mind finally understood what her heart had been trying to tell her. Nick had just managed to put it into words.
“You are a brilliant, brilliant man, Nick. Mary is lucky to have you.” Kendil threw her arms around the older man in an exuberant hug. “Now I’ve got to get my man away from the sticky fingers of that Vinion.”
“Bring your man by the house for dinner one night. You know Mary will want a chance to look him over.” Nick said before disappearing.
Her brain flew through all the words spoken tonight, by herself, Teague and finally Nick. She’d been looking for someone to promise her a love without pain, but such a thing did not exist. If she wanted Teague in her life, then she’d have to take a chance and accept the good with the bad.
It had taken her a few moments to understand what Teague had been telling her. Any amount of time they spent together, regardless of years, days or minutes, would be better than the best day spent alone. She’d raced through the cavern, barely remembering to dress herself, when she’d heard voices. Knowing no other mortal could have made th
e climb, Kendil slowed her pace until she stood hidden on the other side of the small opening.
“You want to go someplace warm and tell me exactly what you and your fellow Vinions have been up to and how it involves me and my men?” she’d heard Teague ask in his all too sexy commanding voice.
Then the dreaded answer, perky and happy as she knew it would be. “Yes, wait right here. I’ll get you out of this weather. I really hate the cold. I’m more of a spring and summer being. This cold is something I do not like at all. Those elves are unnatural to thrive in temperatures this extreme.”
Why that little bitch! Kendil had stepped around the stone to confront the slut, but had found nothing. It wasn’t until she looked up that she saw them—two human shapes floating above her head, talking and laughing in a bubble of solitude. She’d bet this year’s candy cane crop the Vinion wouldn’t argue or fight with Teague. Oh no, she’d coo and rub his shoulders, all the while telling him how wonderful and strong he was. In other words, she’d do everything Kendil hadn’t.
Well no more. Kendil had found her own set of balls, as it were, and she refused to let go of her man without a fight. Teague Jester was her own true love and no two-bit strumpet of Cupid’s would get between her and her man.
Spreading her feet apart, Kendil used all the considerable strength in her legs to propel herself up and through the hussy’s bubble of protection. Turned out the little hussy had conjured up a hot tropical get-away for the two of them.
Teague’s eyes widened as she crashed through. “Kendil!”
“I leave you alone for five minutes and you’re already chasing another woman. That’s so low even for a human,” she scolded him, while stepping between the two new best buddies. Did the Vinion seriously think she could shove her pink head between Kendil and her man? If so, the bitch of Cupid had another thing coming.
“Former human,” Teague told her with a wide happy smile as his eyes lit up with love and sensuous promises.
Her steps faltered at his words and the sincerity shining through his navy blue eyes. “What?”
He nodded his head. “It seems there’s a little bit more to those arrows than we thought. Being hit with it and finding true love is only part of the aspect of their powers. Since true love really does conquer all, it seems I’ve been made as you are, my love. Not a snow elf exactly. More like an immortal-former-mortal in training.”
Kendil knew her mouth hung open, but she couldn’t help her reaction. Hadn’t she just come to terms with loving and losing him? Now to discover he’d live out her lifespan with her, it was too much for even an immortal Christmas elf to take in, and she sank to her knees. What had been the point of all the pondering and wavering if she hadn’t had to?
Then she understood. If she hadn’t been willing to risk everything, to open her heart and soul to this man, Kendil would never have known how true and deep their love ran.
“Are you sure? Absolutely positive his life has been expanded?” she demanded of the other female. It would be just like the gag-playing trollop to promise them something this wonderful then yank it out of their hands.
“Of course I am!” Cupid’s hooker looked affronted that her word would be questioned. “As I told handsome over there, getting you two to fall in love was the only way to break Cupid’s hold over me. Love can’t be forced, bought or bartered. It must be freely given with an open heart. Once you both admitted your feelings, Teague’s years expanded to match yours. The downside is, when you die, so does he. Within hours or minutes of your death, he’ll follow. On the bright side, only getting your head chopped off will succeed in killing you, so you’ll both have long, long lives.”
“Good,” Teague said with a relieved smile. “I wouldn’t want to live in a world without Kendil in it.”
Astonished, she stared up at him from her position on the floor. “Really?” She couldn’t keep the hopeful note out of her voice.
Carefully, he knelt by her side. “Of course I wouldn’t want to live without you. Leaving you in the cave almost ripped my soul apart. Though I think you were the one who threw me out. Not a very nice way to show a man you care, Kendil.”
Tears leaked over her lids and she was powerless to stop them. “Oh, Teague, I’m sorry I was such a fool. I love you. I came to find you and tell you that. Someone very wise and kind reminded me that the most extraordinary things in life never come with guarantees. Also that I didn’t care how much time we had together so long as we could spend it in each other’s arms. You mean everything to me. I would have been grateful for fifty years and now I’m overwhelmed with the thought of having hundreds of years to love you.”
“I love you so much, Kendil. My life wouldn’t be worth living if you didn’t love me, too.” He pressed kisses along her neck and ear as he knelt beside her. “Don’t ever leave me like that again. It felt like my heart was bleeding out in my chest.”
“Well, I’d say my work here is done,” the Vinion muttered. Amore shook her pink spiral curls and ran a hand down her side. “There’s a surfer waiting for me in the islands. Please feel free to use the floating bubble, but for the sake of immortals all over the world, shield it. No one wants to see a Christmas elf’s wide naked ass.” With those words spoken she disappeared, her snarky laughter echoing in the air around them.
“I, for one, would love to see this Christmas elf’s ass and anything else she cared to show me,” Teague teased her gently. “But I’ll have to take a really close look at the ass in question to make a valid finding.”
“I do love you, Teague. No matter if we have five minutes or five centuries together. You are the only man I’ll ever love.“ She wrapped her arms around her man and squeezed him tight. “And if you find my behind anything but praiseworthy and perfect—”
“Shut up and kiss me, woman.”
Kendil shook her head and tried to step back, but Teague’s strength had increased along with his lifespan. “Teague, really we need to discuss your career and what to do with the rest of the mortals here.”
He laughed and swung her around in a big circle. “If they’re smart, they’ll find their own special piece of Christmas magic to fall in love with.”
She sniffed and wiped a few stray tears into his neck. “You had to be created just for me. There’s no one else on this planet or any other that could make me this happy.”
“Damn straight,” he growled and pushed her to her back before climbing over her. “I love you. I won’t ever leave you and you’ll marry me so you can’t ever back out or throw me out again.”
As she magically made their clothes disappear, she whispered back, “Yes, Teague. Yes, to everything.”
Then they forgot everything but each other as passion, once more, took them over and love carried them away on the promises of forever.
About the Author
I was lucky enough to travel all over the world as a child. I experienced life through many different cultures and countries. No matter where I went stories would pop up in my mind. It took a while for me to figure out exactly what those tales were trying to tell me, but eventually I understood. Five years later I’m happily typing away to the tune of the voices in my head.
I’m addicted to anything to do with mythology, regardless of culture. I can be bribed with good coffee or Diet Coke. I will bore strangers to tears with pictures and stories of my fabulous nephews and nieces. Nothing like kids to keep you humble and honest, especially when they consider the plumber to have a cooler and more glamorous career than their aunt, the writer.
Have a question, an addiction you want to share? Please shoot me an e-mail. I love to hear from readers.
Email: [email protected].
Allie loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at http://www.total-e-bound.com.
Also by Allie Standifer
Club Botticelli: Beguiling Briley
Club Botticelli: Enticing Emma
Club Botticelli: Ordering Olivia
TEMPERED BY ICE
Brenna Zinn
Dedication
To Allie and Desiree.
Your creativity, talent, and tenacity continually inspire me. Thank you for being the wonderful friends you are.
Trademarks Acknowledgement
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Nomex: E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company
Star Wars: Lucasfilms
Grinch: Dr. Seuss
WWF: Titan Sports Inc.
Nerf: Hasbro Inc.
Superman: Warner Brothers and DC Comics
Chapter One
Could anything else with this mission go wrong?
After delays in having orders signed, bad weather at his home base in Germany, a plane breakdown in Argentina, and now this, the answer had better the hell be no.
Colonel Axel Cole pushed back the heavy pack he’d been trying to open and stood, giving his long legs a much-needed stretch. Though the middle of summer in the South Pole, the temperature still dipped well below zero, and his gloved fingers were too numb and clumsy to be of any use with the pack’s clips. Despite the sub-freezing temperature, he’d have to bare his hands to the cold if he was ever going to get into his pack and find his GPS.
Damned Navy pilots! Because of their miscalculation, he’d missed his jump target by almost a mile. Axel took a step, feeling the crunch of the ice-encrusted landscape then sinking into the softer snow below, making the going frustratingly slow. At forty-three, he could run a mile on uneven terrain with a full pack in less than fourteen minutes without breaking a sweat. But this…this was ridiculous. Luckily, the winds had been mild enough to make the jump, though they were steadily growing stronger. Regardless, to find his supply crate before rendezvousing with the rest of the soldiers here to train, he’d have to get a move on.
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