9

Ice clawed at my flesh. I clung to Nevan with both arms around his neck. His biceps flexed and tautened around me as he adjusted and strengthened his hold. I tried to speak, to ask where he was taking me, but couldn't. If my body still existed, my mind must've detached from it. I rocketed through an abyss, numb except for the pinching, slashing ice.

Whump. My feet touched down with a gentleness incongruous with the noise I'd heard. Or sensed. Or something. Sunlight swaddled me in its delicate warmth. A forest encircled us and I understood, on a visceral level, we had teleported to another spot in the same woods, in the vicinity of the falls. I strained to hear the rumbling of the water, but detected nothing more than birds twittering.

Nevan's embrace crushed me. No wonder I couldn't catch my breath. With my face mashed against his chest, I croaked, "You're squishing me."

He loosened his hold. "Sorry, love, I don't often travel with a passenger. And I assumed ye wouldn't appreciate it if I dropped ye."

"Absolutely not."

"I will never let you go." He combed his fingers through my hair. "Are ye all right?"

"Yeah." I propped my chin on his chest. "Glad to be back on the ground."

A relieved smile accompanied his sigh. "As am I."

I hesitated for a moment, entranced by the odd safety of being in his arms, before I pushed away. "Travis found the dead guy. In the trunk of my car."

A vein throbbed in his forehead. "Did he now."

"Could Skeiron have put it there?"

"I've no idea. Can't imagine why he'd bother mucking about with a corpse." His brows cinched together. "Someone else must've killed the poor fellow and waited for the right moment to plant the body, to place the blame squarely on you."

"Great." I rubbed my arms, scratching my elbow. "I have at least two mortal enemies. I love being popular."

"Your enemies aren't mortal. I'm quite certain, given the body thief's actions, he or she is no more mortal than Skeiron is."

"Thanks for the awesome pep talk."

His forehead wrinkled. "Pep talk?"

"Forget it." I surveyed the vicinity, arms belted around me like a straitjacket. "I shouldn't have run. It was stupid, I know. I should've trusted the law to straighten out this mess. That's what normal people do."

Nevan harrumphed. "The innocent often suffer at the whim of any legal system."

"Do elemental beings have a legal system?"

"Of course." He canted his head, lips parted slightly. "When you mentioned the law, were you referring to the sheriff?"

"Not sure. Travis did seem halfway sincere when he offered to help."

With a hmt noise, Nevan began to scraped his finger across his thumb in repetitive jerks.

It was my turn to smirk. "Jealous much?"

"Of a human? Bah." He waved a dismissive hand.

If he wanted to swim in denial, fine. "You said you can help me. How?"

"Hmm," he said, with a teasing glint in his eyes. "Let me think."

"You don't have a plan?" I was in no mood for jokes. Panic amped up my volume and elevated my pitch to a higher octave. "You swept me away, promising to fix things, and you don't even have a — "

Nevan snared me in his arms. I sucked in a sharp breath. He cradled my face in one hand, his thumb caressing the corner of my mouth, eliciting wave of heat that bloomed out into my whole body. "Hush, darlin'. I have a plan."

The intimacy of our position had me squirming against him. "You do?"

"Resurrect the dead fellow."

"You can — I mean, you seriously could — bring someone back from the dead?"

"I cannot do it personally, mind you, but I can access the magic." He pulled me hard against him, both arms folded around me. "We've got a journey ahead of us."

"A trip? Where to?"

"Through the veil. Into the Unseen realm."

"I thought we already crossed the veil thingy."

"Not quite. I brought us a short ways from the scene of the crime, as it were. We have yet to pierce the veil — the barrier between your world and mine."

My head throbbed, most likely from information overload. More than my head throbbed, thanks to the disconcerting way he'd bound our bodies together. The way Nevan exposed my deepest needs, inflaming them beyond reason, scared me more than being framed for murder.

"Are ye ready?" he asked.

Too many discomfiting layers to that question. I ignored all but the most obvious. "Take me there."

Nevan studied me for a moment, apparently uncertain whether I meant what I'd said or if I comprehended the gravity of my decision. Maybe I didn't. He'd explained and presented me with the option. I'd granted my permission. More than that, despite vowing never to do it again, I'd made the decision to trust a man.

A breeze fanned over us, feathering my hair across my shoulders and my chest. A stray lock flew across my lips and spilled down again to tickle my collarbone and stray over Nevan's hand, where it still rested there on my bare skin.

His gaze skipped down to my breasts, then blazed straight into my eyes. His chest heaved once. The swelling length of his erection strained against his loincloth but somehow stayed contained beneath it.

A bolt of searing need tore through me. Images rolled past my mind's eye, vivid to the point of making my skin tingle and my sex throb. I hungered for him to see me exposed before him and lay those big hands on my naked body. I craved the rasp of his tongue on my —

Noooo, I would not finish that thought. Passions of all kinds, sexual and emotional, must be restrained or bad things would follow.

His tongue rolled over his lower lip. "Tell me one thing first. Why does the sheriff call you ice princess?"

"You have to know now?"

"I would like to know, that's all."

I knotted a lock of my hair around my finger. Why not tell him? Maybe the truth would squelch his desire and I'd be safe again. Do you want to be safe? I wound the lock tighter, until it strangled my finger, then shook it off. "After I shot Calder, I told Travis everything that happened. Everything. Even the incredibly personal stuff, because I thought he needed to know in order to help me. Back then, I still believed he would help."

Nevan turned his hand over, skating the back of it down my breastbone until it encountered my T-shirt's neckline. He hovered his hand there, a millimeter from my skin. "He arrested you."

"Yeah." I linked my hands over my belly, only to let them drop away. "Weird thing is, he didn't yell at me about murdering his brother. He started calling me ice princess instead."

Nevan withdrew his hand. "Why?"

"Because I… well… " Spit it out, you coward. "When I told Travis what Calder had done to me, I also told him what I am. For some reason, it enraged him."

"And what precisely are you?"

My stomach churned, but I took a deep breath and told him what I'd never told anyone else except Travis and Calder. "I'm a virgin."

Nevan's mouth fell open and quickly clapped shut. His brows arched before knitting together. As the lines smoothed out of his forehead, he gave a slow nod. "That explains quite a few things."

"Really. Such as?"

"Why you forbade me to kiss you, for one. And why you're uncomfortable with my lack of clothing."

The ache in my head spread to my neck. Once again, he'd bared my secrets without the slightest effort. It made me feel as transparent as glass.

He rubbed his chin. "But your virginity hardly makes you cold and remote, as the term ice princess implies."

I stuffed my hands in my jeans pockets. "According to Travis, I string men along with tacit promises of sex, only to shut them down when they make a move." I cast my gaze to the ground as the old knot cinched tight in my gut. "He said I like to torture men and that's how I drove Calder over the edge. I deserved what happened, he said. I'm a rotten tease."

Was that my voice, so small and pathetic? I'd thought I could bury the past, but it kept rising up like a zombie to terrorize me.

Because I let it. Because keeping it alive gave me a fantastic excuse to hide inside myself. Never a victim again.

"Lindsey — "

"Forget it." I lifted my gaze to Nevan's and swung my hands at my sides. "I told you I'd cross the veil with you. Take me already."

His lips twitched with suppressed humor. "Well now, I thought it'd take far longer for ye to beg me to take ye."

My rebuttal turned into a choked grunt. After a few seconds, I managed to speak. "I didn't mean it like that. And I was not begging."

"I heard a note of… " He gave a soft chuckle, his mouth forming a slight smile. "Desperation."

"What you heard was frustration."

His smile broadened into a grin that set off glittering sparks in his eyes. "I'd be more than happy to assist ye with your frustration."

Cripes, I'd done it again. I had to start thinking before I spoke. Maybe I ought to write the words down and read them three times first. "Let's get this veil-crossing thing over with."

With one fingertip, he charted a path down my breastbone until my shirt's neckline interrupted the journey. "The next time you beg me to take you, best make certain of your meaning, because I will take you at your word."

The sight of his penis peeking out from under the loincloth ripped away any response I might've formulated. I gave myself an actual shake, like a dog shedding water, but the discomfort lingered. "Take me to the damn Unseen realm."

Nevan surveyed the tree branches as if hunting for something, but then gave up the search. "Before I can take you there, I must make certain you have the touch. If you don't, the veil will not open for you."

"I don't understand."

"You must have a touch of the Unseen realm in you."

"And how do you figure out if I have it?"

"With a test." He twisted his mouth into a grimace. "You may not like what's involved."

"Just tell me."

"I must enchant you."

"Enchant?" My throat tightened, my jaw too. "That's what you did to Sandy."

His grimace dug in deeper. "Yes."

The blonde girl's face, dazed and befuddled, flashed in my mind. My muscles seemed to calcify, freezing me in place. "How is it any different from what you've been doing to me all along?"

"I've done nothing — to you." He slanted forward, his face hovering above mine, his breaths slow and deliberate. "I have never enchanted you, I swear it."

His fevered gaze bounced from my eyes to my lips and back again.

I laid a hand on my chest, but the tickle behind my ribs refused to quit.

"Not once," he said, "have I used magic on you. I wouldn't, unless I sensed the touch in you. And I haven't sensed it — yet." He closed his hands around my upper arms. "I do not wish to do this, but it's the only way. You must believe me."

Though the silent please in his tone had my lips straining to smile, I clamped them between my teeth. He was all but begging me to believe him, and if I wanted to fix the mess I'd stumbled into, I had no choice except to trust him. To let him enchant me. And kiss me.

My lips tingled. I became acutely aware of my hand on my chest — the warmth of it on my bare skin, the way my wrist brushed against my breast — and the feel of his hands on my arms. God, I wanted him to kiss me, like I'd never wanted anything.

He let his hands fall away from my arms and shifted his weight to one hip. "If you still wish to cross over into the Unseen realm, we should do this quickly. The sheriff, that persistent beggar, will soon find us."

Boy, my two cavemen totally despised each other. I couldn't understand the depth of their dislike, because it struck me as jealousy, which made no sense. Nevan being jealous, I could see. But Travis?

No time to worry about it. I had to fix my life, and a single viable option was available to me.

"Okay," I said. "If enchantment's what we have to do, I give you permission to go ahead with it."

He marveled at me as if I were a goddess incarnate, descended straight from the heavens, shimmering with remnants of stardust.

A rock settled in my gut. He'd called me intriguing and unusual, but then he also said he didn't want to enchant me. Maybe he didn't want to do it because I wasn't Sandy. I lacked the va-va-voom all men seemed to crave. Then again, he had gaped at my breasts.

He gripped the nape of his neck in one hand, his head lowered. "There is more."

"You can tell me."

His fingers, woven with mine, tensed. He expelled a ragged breath and wrapped his other hand around our joined fingers. "The test requires intimate contact."

"We are not having sex right here in the woods."

"Not that intimate." He started to chuckle, but stifled it. He watched me with uncertainty in his eyes. "You know of what I speak."

I let out the breath I hadn't realized I was holding. "A kiss."

"Yes. But I promised to keep my lips away from yours."

My mouth watered as my body began to ache in places I wished it wouldn't. "You have my permission. One kiss."

He took one large step backward. Though the gap between us measured less than an arm's length, the withdrawal of his body seemed to strip the oxygen from the air. His eyes burned with twirling flames of every color, spinning faster the longer he beheld me. My gaze traveled down to his lips, full and ripe and parted for a deep kiss. He swiped his tongue across his lower lip, leaving it glistening and slick.

"What are you doing?" I breathed.

"Unleashing my ethereal senses."

The erotic undertone in his voice brushed warmth across my skin, stirring the hairs on my arms and the nape of my neck to rise. With his hands on my shoulders, he drew me to him. My head fell back as my gaze sought his. My whole body seemed to lighten and lift off the ground, though my feet stayed glued to the earth. I battled to resist the allure of total surrender, but the part of me that yearned for it swelled larger and stronger every second.

"Can ye hear me, love?" he purred.

"Yes." A dreaminess infused my tone, matching the floaty sensation in my body. Dimly, I realized I should probably worry about my altered state, but the notion flitted away from my consciousness. "Am I enchanted?"

"Not yet." He ran a hand through my hair, trailing his fingers down to my neck, across my jawline, to curl under my chin. "I want to take you to a special place few mortals have ever seen. Will ye come with me?"

Someplace special. A thread of anxiety wound tight around my heart. "You told Sandy the same thing."

He bent his head nearer to mine, his voice barely a whisper. "That was my duty. This is my choice."

"In that case… Yes, I will go with you."

"Are you certain?"

Although my brain might've still been a bit muzzy, I understood what I'd agreed to and what he'd meant when he said this was his choice, not his duty. He'd asked for my trust again and reminded me, in his own way, he'd chosen me — against his duty, against the decree of his king.

I slanted forward until only a whisper of air separated our lips. "I'm sure."

His pupils flared wide, the metallic irises shrinking to a narrow ring.

"When's the enchantment start?" I felt warm and fuzzy, but nothing like what I'd witnessed in Sandy. She'd seemed… mesmerized. "I'm not really feeling — "

"Quiet." He exerted a light pressure, urging my chin up. "Look into my eyes."

"Already am."

He growled out a sigh. "Look harder."

I rolled my eyes. "What exactly am I supposed to be looking for?"

"Nothing. Just focus."

"On what?" I tried to shake my head free, but his thumb and forefinger locked my chin in place. "If you don't want to do this, tell me. I realize I'm not as hot as Sandy, or probably any of the other hordes of women you've — "

He thrust his thumb up, sealing my lips. "There are no hordes of women. I've told you that before and you claimed you believe me. Perhaps you're the one having doubts about this."

"No." It came out muffled and squashed, thanks to his thumb over my mouth.

"All right then. Look in my eyes, and relax."

I looked. And relaxed. Well, as much as I could under the circumstances.

Sparks ignited in his eyes, white hot against the warm, liquid shades of his irises. His heat enveloped me, soft and searing at the same time. A breeze tousled his hair and transported his scent to me, tantalizing my senses. His thumb traced circles on my lips, the brush of skin like satin, arousing me with a slow-building desire, until my skin felt tight, my breasts swollen, my lips engorged and aching for his kiss.

I flicked my tongue out to steal a taste of him. Salty. Earthy. With a spicy undertone. Hunger shivered through me. Seconds ticked by. Tick, tick, tick, went the clock in my head. I dared to lave the pad of his thumb.

He went stone still, the roiling currents in his eyes the only motion within him.

Tick, tick, tick.

A mosquito lighted on my nose. I tried to blow it off, but his damn thumb blocked my breath. I swatted the bug away.

He released my chin, withdrawing his hand.

I scratched my nose. "Did you start it yet?"

"Did I start?" His brow furrowed on a slight frown. "Of course I started, minutes ago. Yet you don't seem enchanted. How do you feel?"

"Peachy. What's supposed to happen?"

"You should experience a mild euphoria and… " He looked down at his feet. "An overpowering desire to be near me and to please me."

Laughter exploded out of me on a snort. I held up a hand, struggling to recover from the inappropriate outburst. "I'm sorry. Please don't take this the wrong way, but if that's how I'm supposed to feel then I don't think you're it right."

"Of course I'm doing it right," he all but snarled. "This has been my duty for a century. I know how to enchant a woman."

I shrugged. "Guess it just doesn't work on me."

His mouth flattened into a line as his eyes tightened into a squint. He nostrils flared on an explosive exhalation. "Enchantment never fails."

I raised my hands in supplication. "Hey, it's not my fault you've lost your mojo. Maybe I don't have any magical energy in me."

"Even if you don't, I should be able to enchant you. But clearly, I cannot." He locked his hands behind his back, rocking onto his heels. "My magic does not fail."

I patted his shoulder. "I'm sure it happens to every sylph at least once in his life."

"Bloody hell." He jammed a hand into his hair, scratching furiously. "You must be blocking it."

"Typical. Blame it on the girl."

"I sensed an energy within you when first we met. It must be the touch, but you've repressed it. It is unprecedented." He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. When he lowered his hands, he stared at me blankly for a few seconds before shaking his head as a look of sheer wonder overtook his features. "You, love, are a unique human."

"Thanks. You're pretty unique yourself."

He cleared his throat. "Remember what I told you about thanking me. Gratitude can be dangerous, and you would do well to beware of expressing it. Please heed me on this, Lindsey."

"Fine, whatever. Now shut up, will you?" I slanted my body nearer to his, tipping my head back. "Try the kiss thing. Maybe that'll do the trick."

I shut my eyes. No longer able to see him, I felt the wisp of air displacement as he bent his head toward mine. The breath caught in my throat. I burned to fan my fingers across his chest, to slide up and down that silken skin.

He cupped his hands around my elbows, gliding them up my arms. His lips skimmed across mine, warm and soft and oh so tempting. I melted into him as he enfolded me in his arms, the embrace tender at first, intensifying little by little, his arms pressing me firmly against him. Plastered to him, aware of every hard line of muscle and his rigid shaft crushed against my belly, I trembled with a desperate hunger that eclipsed anything I'd known before, an all-consuming lust for his touch, his kiss, his body, his —

My knees threatened to buckle. I clung to him, rocked by the realization of what I burned for most. Him. Inside me.

His mouth coasted over mine one last time, then retreated.

I moaned, clutching at his biceps, reveling in the sensation of his sinews tautening under my fingers. His chest rose and fell erratically and he seemed as incapable of catching his breath as I was. I let my head fall back, my lips parting on another moan, guttural and wanton.

Crushing me to him, his hands fisting in my shirt, he scraped his mouth over mine once, twice, and with a rough, drawn-out groan he possessed my lips with his. I opened to my mouth to him, pleading for more, surrendering my will and my body without reservation.

"Lindsey," he breathed into my mouth, his lips still on mine. The vibrations from his mouth — from the uttering of that single, reverent word — reverberated through my entire body.

"Nevan," I murmured, moving his lips with mine. "Please."

He sealed his mouth over mine, thrusting his tongue inside, our lips molded together as our tongues tangled, as we devoured and tormented and inflamed each other with ever slick glide of flesh over flesh. Famished for the taste of him, I plunged deeper inside his mouth, loving the way he opened more for me and growled low in his throat.

Slow down, a muffled voice in my head urged. Shut this down before it goes too far.

But God, I couldn't.

Nevan's hands dropped to my ass, kneading with ravenous strokes, and I was lost. I flung my arms around his neck, holding on like I'd disintegrate without his arms to bind me together. He raked a hand up my back to spread his palm over my spine, between my shoulder blades, while his other hand clutched my ass, tugging my hips forward, angling them up and into him perilously close to his raging erection.

"Mm." I tunneled my fingers into his hair, pulling his head lower, opening wider for the kiss. Currents crackled around us, inside me, alive and electric, fueling an irresistible fervor. My head swam. We barreled toward an inescapable destination, about to blast away my barriers — and my virginity — and Christ, I wanted to go there. Right now. With him. With a man who wasn't even a man.

He wrenched away from me, staggering backward. The loss of his heat, his scent, his flavor, cast me out into an emptiness so vast my thoughts echoed back to me.

Mouth agape, eyes wild and fiery, he bored his gaze into me.

A chill frosted over my skin. "What's wrong?"

He staggered backward another step. The flaming hues in his eyes quieted to a faint glimmer, though he stared at me without blinking.

Shoving my hands in my pockets, shoulders bunched. "Kissing me was that bad, huh?"

Whatever panic had gripped him sluiced out in the space of a breath. He folded me in his arms, cradling my head to his chest. I closed my eyes, relishing the thump-thump of his heart beneath my ear. He did care for me, in some way, even if our kiss hadn't left him thunderstruck, the way it had me.

He nuzzled my hair and caressed my back. "You misunderstand my reaction."

My heartbeat accelerated, revved by a dangerous hope — and a hint of fear.

"Kissing you," he said, pressing his lips to my forehead, "transcended anything I've experienced in my entire existence. It was perfection."

Elation swelled in my chest and I curled my fingers against his chest. "Nobody's ever kissed me like that."

"Then every man who's touched you has been a bloody idiot." He threaded his fingers through my hair, the tips dancing across my scalp. All the remaining shreds of my anxiety fled and I snuggled into him. He sighed, as if the greatest pleasure of all was holding me. "Your bravery and intelligence impressed me, but your passion… You astound me."

What he'd said a moment ago resurfaced in my mind and I had to ask. "If kissing me was the highlight of your existence — " A knot hardened in my gut, but I lifted my head and finished the question. "How old are you?"

"I'm immortal, remember?"

"You must've been born, or created, or something."

The tips of his fingers found my nape and rubbed with a slow, sensual rhythm. "How old are you?"

"Thirty-two. Now it's your turn."

He fidgeted and coughed.

I rested my chin on his chest. "Please tell me."

He nodded and drew in a long breath. "Well now, I lost count after five thousand."