Chapter Four #3
And blink awake with the gasping breathlessness of being caught in the middle of a wet dream. One she chose not to fight, her face flaming brighter as she slid her hand between her legs and stole a defiantly selfish moment for herself.
She came downstairs the next morning fighting her unsettling mood while admitting to herself that giving in to that moment of weakness hadn’t been the wisest decision because it was occupying far too much of her thoughts.
The sight of the sofa bed neatly put away and Valenti already setting out their breakfast only added to her disgruntlement.
But it was the idea of another day filled with sombre, brooding silence that finally made her set down her orange juice with a sharp click. Which immediately earned her a narrow-eyed glare.
‘I would like my phone back,’ she said.
He stilled. ‘What’s the point? There’s no reception out here.’
‘Why don’t we both accept that this is a failed experiment and be done with it?’
Thunder rolled across his brows. ‘A failed experiment?’
‘Jà. You made a promise, I get that. But don’t you think it’s better to throw in the towel than to make things worse?’
‘It doesn’t work that way.’
‘Pray tell, how does it work? How many wards have you successfully managed to fit into your very busy life?’ she asked, ignoring the barbs of jealousy darting like destructive fireworks through her system.
‘You’re my first. Most definitely my last.’ Something forbidding and intensely intriguing pulsed in his voice, making her emotions roil that much faster.
‘Because I’m the worst burden you ever imagined you would be asked to carry?’ she pushed with a compulsion she couldn’t fight.
A spark, not quite so harrowing but intense nevertheless, lit his eyes. ‘Not quite.’
She sucked in an audible breath, dragged both hands through her hair. ‘I’m hanging on by a thread here, Your Highness.’
The smallest quirk of a self-deprecating smile twitched across his face before his brooding expression settled in once more.
‘What was that about?’ She waved a hand over that expression.
For several beats he didn’t respond. Then, ‘You think you know what frustration is, litla?’
Litla. Little one. The sound of his deep, gruff voice wrapped around that endearment sent shafts of heat through her body. ‘Don’t call me that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it suggests a fondness that we both know is a lie.’
His nostrils flared. ‘It’s interesting you’re protesting about threads, yet you keep pulling at mine,’ he rasped.
The shrug she attempted seemed to require monumental effort. ‘It should bother you only if it’s one of two things.’ She flicked a finger out. ‘One, that it’s untrue.’ Then another finger. ‘Or even the merest hint of it aggravates you greatly.’
Slowly he leaned forward, unapologetically into her space. His silver eyes were bullets, aimed with deadly accuracy for her most vulnerable spots.
‘Consider a third option.’
‘Which is?’ Dammit, why did her voice quiver like a leaf in a hurricane? And why the hell couldn’t she stop the searing need to lean in just as boldly as he had, breathe him in until he filled every corner of her being?
‘That I couldn’t walk away from you, even if I tried.’
The pulse intensified, turned into a mesmerising drumbeat that fused with her heartbeat. Fast. Slow. Fast. Setting more fireworks along the way through her bloodstream. Robbing her of breath. Making him the only thing she could see. Smell. Yearn to taste.
‘And do you want to? Be honest.’
His hand shot out, making her gasp as he curled one long finger beneath her chin to ensure her gaze remained pinned on his.
For the longest time he examined her face like a specimen he was endlessly fascinated with.
And just when she thought she’d burst out of her skin with all the sensations flooding her, he spoke.
‘Let’s be clear about one thing. I will never lie to you.
’ Still holding her captive, he thumbed the skin beneath her lower lip, a place Lotte would’ve bet a great deal of money wasn’t erogenous.
And yet here she was, experiencing definite, unrelenting arousal in the form of her nipples pebbling, her sex plumping and a supremely carnal moan building, building, building at the back of her throat.
It was proof of her rash yearning that she came within a whisker of believing him. ‘Oh come on. You wear me like an unwanted cloak you can’t wait to cast off. I’m giving you permission to shed me once and for all.’
‘It’s not up to me—’
‘Of course it is,’ she interrupted because she couldn’t bear to hear it. Just as it bruised her to admit what she said next. ‘Gunnar doesn’t give a damn one way or another. Which begs the question. Why are you putting us both through this torment?’
He speared her an openly derisive look. ‘It’s a torment to live a life of luxury being waited on hand and foot?’
‘It is when it comes with the baggage of guilt and martyrdom you wear like badges of honour.’
In the deathly silence that followed his face lost layers of colour, his chest rising and falling as fury boiled around him. ‘What did you just say to me?’
Since she’d already pulled the pin, she might as well throw the grenade. ‘Would you even be here if it wasn’t for Helga?’
‘Lotte.’ Her name was an icy warning.
‘I’ll answer it for you. No, you wouldn’t. And somehow, I’ve been swept into a remorse crusade I never asked for.’
His chest expanded, quiet deadly fury wafting off him. He grasped her arms and propelled her one step back into the cabin wall. ‘Watch yourself, litla.’
She laughed and the acid of it scoured her throat.
‘There you go proving my point. I’m twenty-two years old, Valenti.
Your continuing to treat me like a child is pathetic and insulting.
She was my sister! And you know the absolute worst thing?
In all these years nobody has bothered to tell me what happened.
Gunnar clams up when I ask him or quickly finds somewhere else to be.
And you? I only so much as hint at her memory and you turn into the Hulk.
Did either of you bother to check what your silence means for those who weren’t there?
That what our imagination conjures up might be worse than the actual thing? ’
His lips twisted, his features haunted. ‘Nothing you ever imagine can be worse.’
‘Well pardon me if I don’t take your word for it. If I’m fed up to the gills of being fobbed off by dismissive selfishness disguised as well-meaning concern.’
Shock and fury warred on his chiselled face. ‘You think a blow-by-blow recounting will make you feel better?’
‘Feel better? No. Offer some sort of closure? Yes.’ Her voice lost a little volume partly due to her building grief and because she was exhausted from being left behind, being left out in the cold. ‘She was my hero. She meant something to me too.’
He prowled to the window, and against the silhouette of white, his giant frame filled every corner of her vision. Her world. Again she was struck by the harsh reality that soon she would not have this. That the next time Valenti walked away from her would be the last time she set eyes on him.
Fresh desolate sadness filled her, but she held it under wraps when he started to speak in deep, rumbling tones entirely devoid of inflection as he scraped his fingers through his hair. ‘I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.’
‘I know. Neither would I.’
He didn’t acknowledge that. She touched his shoulder, felt his muscle twitch beneath her finger. ‘Valenti…’
‘Stop. Enough.’
‘No, you stop. I’m not going to let you keep pushing me away. I know this is the last place you want to be. But since you’re too stubborn to do things my way, you’ll have to suffer the consequences of my presence and everything that entails.’
‘Dios mio. You’re fucking impossible,’ he muttered under his breath.
Somehow, hearing him swear made him a little bit human. A tiny bit flawed and more approachable. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment. Maybe.’
He turned fully to face her, and her breath strangled in her throat. ‘To answer your questions, no. I do not want to be anywhere else,’ he rasped hoarsely.