“And it was terrifying,” he said. He rolled closer to place one of his big hands on my belly. “I was scared every minute you were lying there. But it did give me a lot of time to think.”

I shifted my chin to stare over my other shoulder, suddenly unable to look Anyan full in the face.

“See, that’s where our stories diverge,” I said, to the table lamp next to me. “I didn’t have that time. To think, I mean. I was dreaming, and not even my own dreams, but the creature’s.”

Anyan’s fingers, which had begun a restless little dancing caress, stilled on my stomach.

“Are you saying that you don’t feel anything for me?” he asked. If I hadn’t known the barghest so well at this point, I wouldn’t have recognized the flatness in his voice.

“No,” I said quickly, rolling over to face him so that he could see my own expression. “That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying that, from my perspective, one minute we were a possibility, and the next moment I woke up and we were naked. Well, I was naked. How come you’re never naked?”

“Focus, Jane,” Anyan said, his voice all rumbly where I’d ended up pressed against him.

“Right, sorry. Anyway, what I was trying to say is that I want to know why. What changed when I was asleep? Why me? Why now?”

“Because you deserve it,” he said, leaning forward to nip at my lower lip.

“What does that mean?” I mumbled, against his lips, then pulled back enough to say what I was most afraid of. “Do I ‘deserve’ it just cuz I saved us? Because I got hurt?”

“No, you daft girl,” he said, nipping again at my lip, this time more sharply. I felt an answering twinge in my belly.

“It’s not just because you got hurt, or because you saved my life. It’s because of everything you are, and how I feel when I’m around you.”

My eyes must have been big as saucers as they ever so slowly met his.

“The reason I want to be with you, little minx, is because you make me feel relaxed in a way I haven’t, in a really long time. At the same time, you make me feel focused, like I finally have something I really want again. When I’m around you, I have no idea what you’ll do next, or how I’ll react. It’s like you strip away all my experience.”

Not all his experience, hopefully, butted in my libido.

“So,” he continued, first taking my chin in hand and turning my face, because I’d gone back to giving him my nervous side-eye, “while you were lying there, in that coma, all I could think about was how my life would change if you were no longer in it. I realized how much I’d come to want you—to see you, to talk to you, to touch you. And I knew that if you died in that bed, in my bed, I’d be really, really pissed off.”

I couldn’t help but giggle. “Royally pissed off?”

“Royally,” he replied, but while his tone was light his expression was very serious.

“Would you have run off to expose your sparkly chest to the humans in Italy?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I guess you probably didn’t read Twilight.”

He didn’t bother to answer, but kissed me instead. I kissed him back. It felt like we were agreeing on something, and it felt good.

“So,” he said, pulling back just enough to speak but leaving his forehead resting against mine, “can we date?”

My heart practically exploded in my chest. My breath caught; I might actually have hiccoughed. A thousand responses raced through my head even as my brain threatened to shut down and do a cerebral happy dance.

Naturally, the most inappropriate response possible won the short but intense battle for utterance. My heart may have felt like it was buoyed on the wings of a thousand intoxicated doves, but I couldn’t let him know that and still hold up my head.

“What?” I asked, pulling away from him. “You’re like four-hundred-million years old. And you want to date?”

He gave me the stink eye.

“Seriously, you’re so old. What did people do for dates when you were a puppy? If you club me over the head and take me to your cave, I’ll be traumatized. You can’t pull that shit on a girl who’s half seal. We have a history.”

“Jane, I’m serious.”

“So am I! Seriously, you’re old. And you want to date. When we’ve almost already had sex and there’s a war about to start, or started, or who knows what. And you want to date?”

Anyan’s long nose twitched as he sniffed, clearly offended.

“What’s wrong with dating?” he asked.

“You’re old,” I said. “Old people don’t date.”

“I’ll give you old,” he said, and suddenly I was on my back and Anyan was hovering above me.

Score one for the libido, my brain said, admiringly. Said libido bowed deeply, while my virtue threw up its hands in defeat.

Anyan’s hands found my hair, knotting themselves in my still shower-damp tresses and tugging gently. I sighed, arching my back up to press myself into his body, and then his lips were on mine. Unlike our kiss before, this kiss was a hungry one: all teeth and tongue. I answered him with a ferocity that didn’t surprise me. I felt like a starving woman, and Anyan was my wheel of brie.

His mouth made its way over to my ear, sucking and nipping gently at the lobe before he worked himself down my neck. I knew I was in trouble when his gentle kisses turned into a rough bite at that soft spot where my shoulder met my neck, and I nearly bucked him off me it felt so good. He had this domineering way about him that totally ketchuped my tater tots—it was like he knew what I wanted more than I did.

It was scary, and gorgeous, and gods it felt good. So I was as surprised as Anyan when I stopped him by gently pushing on his chest.

“I think we should wait,” I said, when he’d backed up enough for me to look him in the eyes.

“Wait?” Anyan asked, looking confused.

“I can’t believe I just said that, but yes. The thing is, I don’t want this to be Ryu all over again.”

A stormy look passed over the barghest’s face when I said my ex’s name, and I cursed myself.

“I mean, you’re not Ryu, and I don’t feel about you the way I felt about Ryu, and I can’t believe I’m still saying the name ‘Ryu.’ I’ll stop now. But I actually liked what you said. About dating. About getting to know each better and taking things as they come. I don’t want to take things slow, or fast, or whatever—I just want things to be right.”

Anyan sighed, rolling over onto his side and cuddling me close.

“Using the dating thing against me, eh?” he asked. I smiled against his pecs, wishing we were naked and biting but also knowing that how we were right now was how it should be.

“Sorry, but I do think it’s a good idea,” I said, raising my eyes to meet his.

“Don’t be. You’re right. And besides, this will be more fun.”

“Fun?”

“Yes, fun. This means that I get to work to seduce you.”

“Ooh la la,” I said, raising my chin to kiss his freshly shaven jaw. Anyan let me kiss him, then he withdrew, looking down at me with a predatory little grin.

“I’m serious, you. I admit, my seduction skills are a little rusty. But I’m going to look forward to getting you alone whenever I can, and making you want me. Eventually I’ll get you to where you’re begging. And then, little girl, I’m going to show you what begging really means.”

With those words the barghest ran one big hand slowly down my back to cup my ass. He squeezed, the look in his eyes making me want to call out for a tarp.

I think I wheezed.

“Now go to sleep, Jane. Tomorrow I’m going to start training you on that ax.”

Anyan rolled over to sleep, leaving me staring at the ceiling.

Even my libido was fairly certain we were in way over our heads.

CHAPTER FOUR

Anyan was using his coach voice, but a quiet version as we were in the postage-stamp sized backyard of the house we’d misappropriated. Luckily it had a very high privacy fence around it—otherwise the neighbors might have looked out to see what looked like a reenactment of Conan the Barbarian Midget.

“Good, but keep your right wrist strong,” the barghest told me. “You don’t want to let the head waver: you want the blade to cut true.”

I frowned in concentration, feeling the sweat on my brow streaming down my face. At that point in our practice, my wrists, forearms, triceps, and shoulders felt like they were on fire, while my abs and lower back ached with a dull pain. But I did as I was told, steadying my right hand up the haft of the labrys well above my left, then slashing forward, bringing my right hand down the haft as I did so, so that it met my left.

“Better. But we’ll need quite a bit of practice to get those arms strong enough,” Anyan said. “Had enough for today?”

I nodded quickly, wanting to sit down on the ground and not move till someone fetched me. Instead I let the double head of the labrys clunk on the grass, with the haft resting against my leg as I fanned my sore hands in the air.