Marta had listened with her little arms folded over her chest. When he’d finished lying his ass off she’d nodded, picked up a stick that she’d found on the ground and proceeded to chase him around the dimly lit street cursing him out as she left welts on his arms, back and legs until he’d finally had enough. He’d promised never to try to leave her again, threw the stick away and gave her a swat on the bottom for hitting before he’d thrown her over his shoulder and carried her away from the orphanage.
“So, this is your way of telling me that you’re not interested?” he asked, biting back a pleased smile, because he’d seen this little scenario play out a hundred different times in those corny made-for-TV movies that Marta used to make him watch. God, how he’d hated those damn movies, but Marta had always insisted on making him watch them with her. Most of them shared the same plot, the same one that Cloe was currently trying to feed him.
She wanted to push him away, probably for his own good and while he appreciated the concern, he wasn’t going anywhere. Especially now that he knew that she cared for him.
“I don’t do relationships, Christofer. I’m sorry if you thought this was leading somewhere,” she said, absently staring off as her fingers continued to toy with the leaf in her hands.
“I see,” he said, letting the pieces of leaf fall from his hand before he grabbed another leaf and began toying with it while he enjoyed himself.
“Good,” she said, nodding slowly as she looked off.
Biting back a smile, he sighed heavily. “I understand.”
“Good,” she murmured after a slight hesitation and a nod. “That’s good.”
“Well,” he said, absently scratching his chest as dropped the leaf and pushed away from the tree. “I guess that’s it then,” he said with a shrug as he walked away.
*-*-*-*
She absently nodded as his words registered and when they did…
“Wait, what?” she asked as he walked away. “What do you mean that’s it?” she demanded, annoyed and more than a little confused that he could walk away so easily after everything that they’d gone through. She hadn’t expected or wanted begging, but a word or two to try to convince her to reconsider would have been appreciated. Her anger had her walking after him.
With every step that she took over the rock and twig laden ground, her annoyance and confusion morphed into irritation and anger. While she’d been trying to send him away as gently as possible to keep him safe because she loved him, he’d taken her words as an excuse to ditch her ass.
“I appreciate you letting me down gently,” he said with a shrug and a barely-there glance over his shoulder as he continued to walk away.
“Yeah, I can tell,” she said dryly, wincing when a twig snapped beneath her foot and bit into her skin.
He pointed to his right. “If you’re looking for the main road, you’ll want to head that way.”
“And where are you going?” she demanded, rushing to catch up with him, but just as soon as she did, his long strides quickly put space between them once again.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he mused as she struggled to catch up with him again, tempted to kick his ass as another twig broke beneath her foot. “I was thinking that it might be time to take a vacation.”
“A vacation?” she repeated back, sure that she’d misheard him.
“Yeah,” he said, letting out a sigh as he reached back and rubbed his neck, “I could really use a vacation. Somewhere tropical.”
“A tropical vacation,” she repeated back suspiciously as a thought occurred to her.
Christofer would never abandon a woman that needed him. His sense of duty was too well ingrained too ignore. He’d move heaven and hell to take care of a woman that he felt responsible for and she knew damn well that he felt responsible for her. It wasn’t flattering to be considered a responsibility, but to him, she was one. He would never just walk away like this, not this easily and certainly not to go on a vacation, which meant…….
The bastard was toying with her.
She hitched her blanket up higher, narrowed her eyes on the bastard and quickened her pace until she’d caught up with him and then she kept going, deciding that she had way too much shit on her mind to play this game. If he wanted to be an asshole then that was more than fine with her. Here she was trying to give him an out to keep him safe and he was toying with her? Seriously?
Oh, he could go fuck him-
“In a rush to get away from me, mein Schatz?” the bastard asked teasingly as he easily caught up with her.
“Fuck off, asshole,” she snapped, quickening her pace yet again, but it was pointless since the bastard’s long legs made it easy for him to keep up with her.
“Ouch,” he said with a mock wince, further pissing her off. “What happened to the gentle let down?”
“It went on vacation!” she snapped, wondering how she’d ended up falling in love with the big jerk.
Out of all the men that she’d known in her life she had to fall for the one that drove her insane and pissed her off. Then again, this could just be a side effect of Stockholm syndrome, which at this point she was ninety-nine percent positive that she was suffering from. How else could she explain the fact that she hadn’t kicked his ass yet? Not only that, but she’d actually slept with him!
God, she was pathetic.
Maybe the bastard was onto something with his asinine vacation plans. Since she apparently had some deranged shifter, leagues of vampires, demons and shifters after her, she might as well go away and hide out on some tropical island until this whole thing blew over. She’d never been on a real vacation before. At least, she hadn’t been on one since she was a kid.
There sure as hell wasn’t anything stopping her from going now. She had plenty of money in the bank, no responsibilities, and no job to worry about. Granted, she’d been saving her money to buy a house when she’d finally had enough of the life of a live-in nurse, but since that was obviously never going to happen…
Why not?
Why shouldn’t she go hide out on a tropical island, lounging on the beach while hot cabana boys served her fruity drinks with umbrellas all day? She’d more than earned it. With every step she took towards God only knew where, the idea of running off to hide on a tropical island and getting over the jerk behind her sounded better and better.
Granted, she didn’t have her ID, credit cards, bankcard, cash or clothes for that matter, but those were all minor problems that could easily be taken care of with a quick call to the agency. They wouldn’t be happy that she was taking a vacation, but she really didn’t care since her career as a home care nurse was probably over now. Since she doubted that there was a high demand for home care nurses that lived off blood and had an army of monsters after her, she was probably going to have to quit.
She hated quitting, but she really didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. She wouldn’t put anyone else at risk, not even the jackass walking next to her, who wasn’t even trying to hide that cocky grin of his.
“So, you’re in love with me, huh?” he suddenly announced, taking her off guard so that she didn’t see the branch lying across her path until it was too late.
Without missing a step, Christofer reached out, caught her elbow and steadied her while she tried to figure out an appropriate response that wouldn’t include the words, “fuck” and “off.” Since she couldn’t seem to make her frustrated brain work, she settled for just pretending that he hadn’t called her out on the stupidest thing that she’d ever done.
“Nope,” she said, lying her frustrated ass off.
“Really?” he asked, still sounding smug.
The bastard.
“Really.”
“I see,” he murmured, sounding thoughtful as she distracted herself with everything that she was going to have to do in order to get some semblance of a life back.
She was going to have to find some clothes, get her hands on a computer and have some money wired to her. Then she was going
to have to hole up in a hotel for a few days while she waited for the agency to ship her emergency pack to her. It was something that the agency required of every employee that lived out of a suitcase. The pack held duplicates of her ID, bankcards, credit cards, passport and birth certificate. It was a safeguard just in case things got lost or stolen, or you were assigned to a patient with dementia who liked to set things on fire, which happened to her, twice.
“Where are you headed off to?” Christofer asked conversationally as he reached out and pushed a branch out of her way.
“To find a good travel agent,” she said, storming off.
“Running away from our love?” he asked, making her lips twitch despite the fact that she wanted to kick him in the balls.
“Something like that,” she said, trying to keep a straight face, but that damn boyish grin of his had her heart skipping a beat.
“So, isn’t this the part of the story where you start sobbing hysterically as you profess your undying love for me and start worshipping my body with your mouth?” he asked, sounding so damn hopeful that she couldn’t help but laugh.
Damn him!
She was supposed to be pushing him away for his own good, not finding him irresistibly charming and sweet. Normally she didn’t have a problem getting a guy to split, but with Christofer she couldn’t seem to make the stubborn bastard let her go. Granted, she hadn’t tried the direct route, something that she normally saved as a last resort when a guy just didn’t seem to comprehend that she’d grown bored and moved on.
It wasn’t something that she wanted to do, not with Christofer, but if it meant keeping him safe then-
“Or, maybe this is the part of the story where I confess that I am head over heels in love with you and can’t imagine living a single day of the rest of my life without you,” he confessed, all signs of humor gone from his tone as he took her by surprise, sent her heart skipping and her brain turned to mush, which was probably how she missed the fact that the trail that she was following veered off to the right of a steep incline.
Chapter 45
“You’re an asshole,” Cloe declared as she shoved away from him and awkwardly climbed to her feet so that she could continue to storm away from him as though they hadn’t just fallen fifty feet down the hill that he hadn’t seen coming until the last second.
“You’re welcome,” he said dryly as he pushed off the ground and sat up.
“I’m welcome?” she repeated in disgust as she whirled around and stormed back over to him so that she could glare down at him through beautiful red eyes. “I wouldn’t have fallen down that hill if it wasn’t for you!”
“How is it my fault that you tripped over your own two feet?” he asked innocently, loving the scent of anger rolling off her. Not because he was a sick bastard, but because beneath the scent of anger was arousal.
God, she smelled fucking fantastic.
Okay, maybe he was a sick bastard, because he couldn’t help but smile as the scent of her anger intensified right along with the scent of her arousal. He shifted back a bit until he felt his back come in contact with the large boulder behind him. He sighed with satisfaction as she glared down at him. He could smell the blood rushing to swell her breasts and harden her nipples and wondered if she’d consider letting him feed from her there one day. Probably not, but just the thought of feeding from her as he suckled her nipple had his cock hardening painfully.
“You bastard!” she hissed, as he relaxed back against the boulder, licking his lips as he smelled her sex swell.
She opened her mouth to say something else, but abruptly shut it, narrowed her eyes on him and then with a snort of disgust, demanded, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Hmmm?” he murmured, barely registering her reaction or the fact that she’d moved closer to him so that she could glare down at him.
“You’re getting turned on? Now?” she demanded, the sound of disgust in her voice should have been enough to knock some sense into him, but sadly, it wasn’t.
“Yes,” he answered with absolutely no shame as he ran his eyes over her, devouring every last detail from her hair tangled with tiny sticks and leaves down to her dirt smudged face, the torn blanket covered in dirt and grass stains that she had wrapped around her body all the way down to her beautiful dirt smudged feet.
“Seriously?” she snapped, looking down at herself in disgust. “I look like I was dragged through a tornado and this is turning you on?”
He reached up and grabbed her hand, giving it a gentle pull before she could react. He yanked her down on top of him, giving her the choice to straddle him or fall over. “You always turn me on,” he admitted, reaching up and cupping the back of her neck. He pulled her down for a kiss as she settled on his lap, the blanket bunching up around her hips to accommodate the move.
“You are a deeply disturbed individual,” she whispered against his lips as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and threaded her fingers through his hair as she returned his kiss.
“Yes, I am,” he said, dropping his hands to her bare legs where the blanket bunched and running his hands up her smooth legs, forcing the blanket up even higher until he came in contact with her cotton panties.
She ended the kiss with a sigh as she sat back on his thighs, putting some space between them, which was probably for the best given the situation. “We should get going.”
“Yes, we should,” he said, sighing heavily because he knew that she was right.
They should be moving their asses, finding a car and getting as far away from here as possible, but the problem was, he had no idea where they should go. For the first time in his life he had the freedom to go and do whatever he wanted, but all he wanted to do was to find someplace to keep Cloe safe and he had no clue where that was.
“Do you think they’ve gotten loose yet?” she asked quietly, dropping her arms from his shoulders so that she could toy with his shirt.
He focused on the forest around them, listening for any signs that they were being hunted, but after a minute he shook his head and murmured, “No.”
“They’re probably going to be pissed when they get free,” she said, all of her attention zeroed in on her fingers as they toyed with the hem of the tee shirt that someone had dressed him in when he’d been knocked out.
“Probably,” he agreed, thinking about everything that they’d told him and now that they’d escaped, a sense of unease settled over him, making him wonder if he’d fucked up by taking Cloe away.
“Do you think it’s true?”
“What’s true?” he asked, reaching up and pushing a strand of her tangled hair behind her ear.
“About what they said about a shifter marking me,” she said, swallowing nervously as she shifted her gaze up to meet his.
He bit back a sigh as he reluctantly nodded and moved his hands to her shoulders, moving them down her back as far as the blanket would allow, needing to offer her some comfort for the pain she’d gone through. He didn’t think they were lying. He wasn’t foolish enough to think that their group was above bullshitting them to get what they wanted, but because of what Seth had explained to him. Seth, shit! He hadn’t thought of the vampire since this whole thing started. He owed it to the vampire after all these years of helping him keep his sanity to make sure that he was okay.
Just as soon as they were settled, he would……..
“What the hell?” he muttered as his hands moved over smooth skin. Heart pounding in his chest, he leaned forward, jerked the blanket away from her and turned her just enough so that he could get a good look at her back. What he saw there had him swallowing back a curse as he traced her back with trembling fingers.
“What?” Cloe asked, shifting anxiously on his lap. “What the hell is going on?”
“Your back,” he choked out.
“What about it?”
“The scars…..,” he said, shaking his head in an attempt to make sense of what he was seeing. “They’re gone.”
“Go
ne?” she asked, her tone disbelieving as she reached back and ran her fingers over her back, looking for scars that were no longer there.
“Oh, my God,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion. “How did they do that?” she asked, wrapping her arms around her bare breasts as she sat back down on his thighs, but she wouldn’t look at him, probably afraid that he’d see her eyes tearing up.
When he hesitated, she looked up at him through watery eyes. “How?” she demanded through clenched teeth.