Tryp called someone from Jonas’s office to get them a room at the Bellagio. Jonas had evidently gone to New York City during the impromptu break to scout Madison Square Garden because Killer Valentine was supposed to play there in June. Luckily, Jonas’s office people got Tryp and Elfie a suite somewhere way in the top within ten minutes, and a bellhop met them at the private entrance in the back when they drove up.
Tryp staggered out of the car, stretching.
Elfie’s legs were trembling as she stood on the pavement in the warm early evening, and she wanted to rip off the stupid, ridiculous white dress.
Tryp tossed the car keys to the bellhop who snatched them out of the air, grinning, and he handed Tryp a tag as he passed by. Inside the entrance, they rode up the elevator to their room.
Elfie didn’t let go of his hand the whole way.
When they got inside the suite and the door latched behind them, Tryp tugged on her hand, spun her into his arms, and lifted her to press her against the wall with his body. The long, white dress wrapped them both when she hooked her legs around his tight waist. His warm mouth landed on hers, and she opened her lips for him. His kiss was hard, desperate, like he had been craving her for hours, or maybe that was how she felt. She clutched him closer, their tongues swirling over each other, trying to get enough.
Eventually, he kissed her more softly, tapering off. His chest pressed against her with each rough breath. Finally, he muttered, “Good God, I need a shower. And food. After that, you want to go out?”
“Seriously?” Her butt was numb from sitting in the car, and her skin was still shivering. She wanted to crawl into his arms and cry, but being held against his body and necking were so much better.
He grabbed her under her butt and around her back and carried her into the blazing white living room. She slid down his body, landing on the couch, where she flopped backward into the down cushions.
Tryp sat beside her on couch, bending the fluffy cushions toward him. “It’s only eight o’clock.”
“Are you serious? It feels like the middle of next week!”
“We could hit a nightclub, maybe go dancing. Well, maybe not dancing.” He pried off his shoes and peeled off a sock. The sole of his foot wept blood.
“Oh, my God! Tryfon!” She rolled off the couch and looked at the hamburger on the bottom of his foot. A line of welts and blood circled the back of his ankle, too. “I could have at least driven the car!”
“You were so tired,” he said.
“What the hell happened?”
He shrugged. “I ran seven point five miles in loafers. Got a few blisters, I suppose.”
Elfie called down to the front desk for antiseptics and bandages.
“I still need to take a shower,” he said, sniffing inside his shirt gingerly. “I reek.”
If he showered, half his blood would run out his feet and down the drain. “Aren’t you worried that Rade and Grayson will tease you about smelling all prissy if you shower?”
His wan grin distressed her more. “You’re all I have to worry about.”
She sat on the floor beside his feet and eased his other sock off. He didn’t hiss or anything as the thin fabric tore away his scabs, just watched her with his big, dark eyes.
She said, “I’m sorry. That must have hurt.”
“I’m all right.” He reached out and touched the stupid puffy bun on her head, running his hand down the back of her neck. He seemed to study it for a minute, but then he began pulling the hairpins out of the crease.
“You don’t like it?” she asked, joking because she hated it.
He shook his head and kept tugging the pins out until the bun fell off the back of her head and her blond hair uncoiled to the floor where she sat. He gently combed it with his hands. “It’s been bothering me for hours.”
His fingers threading through her hair soothed her, and she rested her cheek on his palm, hard with calluses from his drumsticks.
“You are so beautiful,” he said, his voice almost breathless.
“Come on,” she said, looking at the carpet.
“Oh, yes, you are. You’re absolutely gorgeous. Physically, too. Your face is perfect. I love the way you look, but you’re brave, and generous, too. And smart. I couldn’t believe it in the church when you were shooting off pyrotechnics like a fire goddess.”
Elfie liked the term fire goddess. She should have it silk-screened on her work shirts like a name tag.
Tryp continued, “Not every woman out there would help a guy rescue his ex-girlfriend, especially after you thought I was dead.”
She had to know, even though it was going to hurt. “Did Sariah break your heart today, Tryp?”
“No.” He arranged Elfie’s long hair over her shoulders. “It didn’t even occur to me that she might think I was rescuing her so I could marry her.”
No way. “Not even after all these years?”
“No.”
“It occurred to me.”
“Oh, God. I’m so sorry, Elfie. I was fourteen when they threw me out. I had a crush on her when I was a kid. It wore off a long time ago. I fucked up her life, and I wanted to make amends. It was a good thing she decided to let me down easy. I don’t want to even contemplate how it could have gone otherwise.”
“Would you have married her?”
“Of course not. I don’t love her. Oh, like a sister, maybe. I’ve told you that I had a lot of sisters, and you saw what I meant by a lot. But that’s not love. Not really.”
“It’s not?” she asked. His fingers trickling over her shoulders sent shivers through her skin.
“No,” he said. “It’s not at all.” He took a deep breath and sat back. “I’d appreciate it if you’d order us some room service. I really need a shower.”
He stood, frowning at his feet, and Elfie looked up at him from where she kneeled on the floor. Looked like she wasn’t going to have to pry him out of a bottle tonight after all.
“I’ll be right back.” Tryp left her kneeling there and limped toward the bathroom, leaving dark footprints on the navy blue carpeting.
Elfie brought her legs around and leaned back against the couch. She reached over and knocked the room service menu off the end table beside her, took a look, and ordered five different meals and a bottle of white wine.
“No,” she said. “Cancel that. Make it champagne.”
“Are we celebrating something tonight?” the lady asked.
“Just being alive and free.”
The lady giggled. “Well, those’re certainly better than the alternatives.”
“Better make it two bottles.” The menu rattled in Elfie’s hand as she clutched it.
She looked around the opulent suite, pretty sure it was the one Xan and Cadell had stayed in a while back.
For some reason, she was still wearing that stupid white dress. That much, at least, she could fix.
The bellhop brought their suitcases on a luggage cart and set them up in the master bedroom. Behind the closed bathroom door, the shower hissed, and Elfie resisted the urge to check on him.
After the bellhop left, she pressed her ear to the door for just a second. Behind the whirr of the water, Tryp was humming in his sweet baritone, and she listened, just to hear him, because for a few hours that day, she had believed she wouldn’t ever hear him sing again.
Afterward, Elfie dug into Tryp’s suitcase, finding a tee shirt for herself to wear. The long ribbon of condoms was still in the net pocket in the lid. She showered in the bathroom of the other bedroom, washing away the fear stink and desert dust and pyrotechnics ash and slimy oil from Kumen’s hand around her wrist, and then she pulled Tryp’s shirt over herself.
She held onto the side of the sink and stared at herself in the mirror. This was what Kumen had lusted after? This pale young woman with thin cheekbones and grayish eyes? Why would anyone want this?
No, that was how she had survived the last two years, hiding herself in bulky cargo pants, filling her pockets with explosives, and scraping her hair back into a knot, all to make sure no one looked at her and saw anything they wanted.
That ended here. Now.
Tonight.
She unclipped the hotel’s blow dryer from the wall. Make-up would take just a few more minutes.
By the time she got back to the living room about nine o’clock, dressed in the sapphire blue take-me-dancing dress and with her long, blond hair curling to her waist, Tryp was sitting on the couch, trying to bandage one of his feet. Tension trembled in his body as he grasped his ankle and struggled to reach his own foot. Under his tee shirt, his abs quaked.
By the door, the room service carts stood piled with silver domes.
“Here,” she said, sitting at his feet again. “Let me do that.”
He let go of his foot and snapped back on the couch. “Evidently the trainers at that gym didn’t focus on flexibility.” When he looked at her, his eyes traveled up and down her hair and that blue dress, and his lids half-lowered over his eyes. “You look great.”
“Thanks. Hand me the gauze.”
He handed the bandages over to her and stretched his leg out.
She made quick work of squeezing the antiseptic gel on his shredded flesh and taping several gauze pads in place on both his feet. “There. Maybe you should take an aspirin or something.”
He ran his hand down her hair. “I’m fine, now. And I see that you ordered champagne. Good call.”
“I hope so.”
For dinner, Elfie picked at a couple of the dishes—the chateaubriand, the lobster, and the chicken stuffed full of cheesy something that she couldn’t identify—while Tryp scarfed the rest of it. He ate about half of each one first, then watched to make sure she had set her silverware aside and folded her napkin, then ate the rest of it like he had dozens of siblings competing for the food. He was a twenty-one year old man who hadn’t eaten in fifteen hours, had run almost eight miles, and carried a lot of muscle that burned calories night and day. He ate like he was starving.
Elfie drank more champagne.
Tryp watched as she drained her second glass, offered her a refill, and popped the cork on the second bottle to fill her glass halfway.
“More,” she said.
He topped it off, watching her eyes. “Do you want to go out tonight? The good nightclubs are just opening their doors.”
She laughed at him, but the wine was going to her head. She felt buzzy. “From the ankles down, you look like The Mummy.”
“And you don’t find that sexy?”
“Only vampires are sexy. Not mummies.”
“If you have much more of this champagne, you might change your mind.”
This was it.
Elfie took a big, deliberate gulp of champagne, walked around the table, and grabbed the champagne bottle that was still mostly full. “Yep, I changed my mind. Mummies are sexy. Let’s go.”
He looked up at her, and a lazy smile stretched his full lips. He stood, reaching for her hand, and Elfie was relieved that he was limping a lot less with the gauze taped on his feet.
She took a few steps toward the bedroom, but Tryp’s arms snaked around her from behind. He lifted her, cradling her back and under her knees, and kissed her, just a whisper of his lips on hers. Elfie touched his smooth cheeks. He must have shaved when he had showered.
“Your feet?” she asked.
“I can’t even feel them. I can only feel you in my arms.” He carried her to the bed and laid her down among the pillows before climbing in and stretching out beside her. His long legs dangled off the end of the bed.
“You’re okay with staying in?” she asked.
“I think it’s a great idea.” He kissed her again. “The dancing was just an excuse to have you in my arms. I think the guy holding a gun to my head tonight made me reevaluate things.”
“Me, too.” She rolled on her side, pressing her body against his. “Make love to me.”
His breath hitched. “Why now?”
She dragged her leg over his, feeling the rough denim seam on the inside of her thigh. “I almost was raped today.”
Tryp’s hand tightened on her hip, and his lips thinned. “I was trying to get back to you. I was in time. I would have gotten you out, though you did a great job burning the temple down.”
“I know. You came back, and you were there and you saved me. I know. But Kumen wanted me because I was a virgin. And my step-father always made a big deal out of the fact that I was a virgin. When I was nine, he took me to a virginity cotillion, and I pledged my virginity to him. I signed a paper, and he gave me a diamond purity ring. I was nine.”
Tryp closed his eyes. “That’s twisted, and you saw what I’m used to.”
“Freaks and pervs are attracted to virginity. And I don’t want those kind of men even thinking about me anymore.”
He caressed her, down her side. “I can protect you. I’ll protect you from all of them. This isn’t a decision to make out of fear.”
“It isn’t fear now. I have been afraid, every minute, for so long of what will happen. I was afraid that they’re right, that I’ll be less valuable somehow, that I’ll lose something. I’ve been burying myself in cargo pants and shapeless tee shirts and threatening any guy who gets physically close to me with explosives.”
He smiled a little and shifted his weight to press his body closer to hers. “It’s effective.”
“I don’t want to be afraid anymore. I want to move past it. I want to prove to myself that it’s not losing anything. It’s adding. It’s adding a part of life that I haven’t explored because I was afraid, but now I want to add it to my life. I want to add you to my life. No matter what else happens between us in the future, I want to have this with you. I want you.”
Tryp slid his hand around behind her back and pressed, tightening their bodies against each other. The tight blue skirt rode up Elfie’s thigh, and his warmth crept through her dress. “Your first time should be with someone you love, not some dirty rocker.”
She searched his dark eyes. This was one last moment that she could hold hope in her heart, but she had to know. “Did you mean what you said when that guy was taking you away?”
Tryp swallowed hard, like he was breaking up a lump in his throat. “Every word. When Teancum dragged me off, I was trying to look at you so that I could think about you when he shot me.”
“When I thought you were dead, I wanted to die, too.”
He stroked her face with his knuckles. “I would never want that. I wanted you to survive, and get out, and live.”
“I felt like I was dying. It seemed so wrong that the whole world didn’t curl up and die. I love you, Tryfon.”
He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her neck.
Held so tightly to him, the shampoo’s herbal scent from his damp curls filled her nose, and she dipped her head to kiss his neck. A shock wave fluttered through his body wedged between her arms and legs.
She whispered into his ear, “Make love to me.”
He groaned into her neck and pushed her over on her back, kissing her mouth. His tongue slipped between her lips again, touching hers, and he kissed her deeper. His hands roamed her body, stroking first her arms and thighs, then curving around her breasts. He rolled her to him and found the zipper up the back of her dress, released it, then slipped the straps down her arms and ran his lips over her shoulders.
She arched into him, and he pushed her against the long, hard muscles of his body. He hadn’t done this before, this rough pressing, probably because he had been holding himself back.
Her heart pounded through her body, and she gasped every time he grabbed her body against his, or his teeth raked the skin on her shoulder, or he pressed his thigh between her legs and her body flushed with desire.
He pushed her dress down her body and drew it off her legs, leaving her bare except for panties. His eyes brightened when he looked at her skin. He stripped his shirt off, baring his rippled torso and bands of strong muscle, and all that glorious tattoo ink, and gathered her against his hot skin.
Elfie held tight to him, kissing him back, running her lips and hands over him, and feeling his skin all along herself.
He used his whole body to press her backward onto the bed and rolled above her, his dark eyes locked on hers the whole time.
As his body blotted out the lights, Elfie sucked air in, but she was not the same little girl who was afraid when her step-father stood over her bed, not after burning down the temple, escaping the cult, and rescuing Sariah. Elfie ran her hands over Tryp’s broad shoulders, feeling his powerful muscles contract under her palms when he moved. This was Tryfon. This was now. Nothing else mattered.
“I love you,” she whispered, holding him.
Tryp drew back, and the light touched her face. Passion glazed his dark eyes, and his skin was flushed. He said, “Let’s get married.”
Elfie’s held onto his shoulders because the bed tilted under her. “I—what?”
“Let’s get married,” he said.
“We can’t!” Blood rushed in her body, and her heart raced.
“Why not?”
“Because!”
“You don’t want to get married?” he asked, concern dawning in his eyes.
“Yes, but—”
He grinned. “Then what?”
“Well, my last wedding didn’t go so well.”
“We’ll buy rings at the shops downstairs. I’ll buy you anything you want. Something huge that a rock star’s wife would wear.”
“The ring isn’t the important part.”
“The important part is that we love each other,” he said. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to have a family with you.”
“Tryp, look, we’ve just been through a traumatic situation. You’ve just seen all those guys you grew up with and all those kids, and it’s messed with your head.”
“I’m fine. I’m better than fine. I feel better than I have for so long. It’s like that rifle vacuumed all the darkness and crazy out of my head, and I know what I really want for the first time, and I want you. I want us to be together. We do everything great together.”
“Like what?” She hoped she didn’t sound too sarcastic because she was interested in his answer.
He grinned. “Pick up women in bars.”
She rolled her eyes. “We so totally failed at that. We didn’t get you laid even once.”
“But we had a great time. And I took a beautiful blonde back to my hotel room both times. It was my fault that I didn’t seal the deal.”
“I don’t count,” she said.
“You count. You’ve always counted to me.”
She settled her arms more firmly around his neck. “Come on. Make love to me.”
Tryp sat up, his dark eyes glittering, and swirled the covers around his waist. “Not until we’re married.”
“What!” She sat up and crammed a pillow to her chest, covering herself.
Tryp said, “If you love me, you’ll wait.”
“I beg your pardon!”
“I’m saving myself.”
“Since when? You are so totally the biggest manwhore—”
“Heavenly Father spoke to me and granted me a second virginity.”
“This is patently the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard and pretty creepy considering what we’re been through today.”
He tucked the bedspread securely around his waist, but he laid down beside her. “I love you, Elfie. When you’re with me, I don’t feel alone. I have been so alone since I was fourteen, and I want us to always be together, not just tonight, not just this tour, but forever. Let’s get married. Please, marry me.”
“Really?” She sat back, studying the earnestness in his dark eyes. “You’re serious?”
“It literally took someone pointing a gun at my head to wake me up, but I meant every word that I said to Kumen and when they were dragging me away. Any man would be lucky to marry you. I want to be that guy, and I want you to be my wife. Every time I look at you, all I can think is mine, and I want to growl at other men.”
“It’s all so sudden.”
“Let’s go buy rings. Let’s get a license. Let’s get you a dress and me, a suit. Let’s get married.”
The pillow against Elfie’s chest calmed the shaking in her body. “I thought you were kidding.”
“I’m not kidding. We’re in Las Vegas. We can be married in a few hours.” The dead calm in his dark eyes convinced her like nothing else.
She couldn’t seem to draw a breath. “Okay. Let’s go.”
He grinned. “This time, we’ll save the pyrotechnics for the wedding night.”