memories, kiss away the bad so they could remember the good, the great. There’d been a lot of great.
He started to, but something stopped him—a slight quiver of her lips, a look in her eyes, the hurt there, the wariness as though he might betray her, hurt her again. He couldn’t kiss that away.
In the blink of an eye the grin was back, evil and tempting. Her laugh sent a breath across his throat, followed by a taunting lick, then she was out of his grip again. Running, too slippery to be pinned like that. This time, he had to pin her with words. Only he’d never been very good with those, not when it came to her. Lies were easy, it was the truth he always found hard.
“Kyr’s mercy, Josie, you make me crazy. First you try to get me killed, twice, then you dance in here, all—all—fuck it, you’re driving me insane.”
That made her laugh and she twirled away from him to sit on the bed. How very inviting. “Try to get you killed? How did I manage that? Because you know if I wanted you dead, I’d just shoot you in the face.”
True enough, she would, he should know her well enough for that, and her next words, soft and chilling, nonetheless took a weight from round his heart.
“All right, maybe the once. ‘That man’s following me.’” Her laugh made his shoulder blades twitch, among other things. “But that was just because you didn’t show, and because I knew you’d enjoy it, knew you’d never be caught. I didn’t ask you to meet me at the temple. Kyr’s Palace. You were supposed to meet me at Kyr’s Palace. I thought you could read. I had someone leave a message on your desk. Figured you’d see it by the brandy.”
Kyr’s Palace? If she hadn’t sent the note he’d read, who had? And what had happened to the note she had sent?
Her puzzled frown was real, he was sure of it, or maybe it had just been a game, a test. To see if he meant it, what he’d said at the drift-inn. Whichever, the sudden relief was enough to make him laugh, enough to forget temples, guards, wrong messages and whizzing bullets, and help him find the words. The real ones, the ones he could have tripped off his tongue without thought if he hadn’t meant them. Trouble was, he did mean them, and that made them harder to come by.
He took a deep breath, thought fuck it, let’s do it. “You know I love you, I’d do anything to pay you back for the hurt I’ve caused you. Please, Josie, enough of the games. Just name it, and I’ll do it. Hearts, flowers, poetry. Anything.”
A twist of her lips at the mention of the hurt—an understatement the size of Skrymir. She looked up at him from under her brows, a twitch of a grin there, but none of the softness. “Van, I’ll be sick if you carry on with that.”
Yet she still sat on the bed, her hand tracing a pattern over the sheet. She didn’t laugh or run. Only waited. For what? Then he knew it. All of it was what she wanted. Not halfhearted attempts, everything. The real words. Shit. This was worse than being shot.
He took a deep breath and just came out with it. “All right. I love you most when you’re smiling at me like that, when I don’t know if you’re going to kiss me, rob me or kill me. I love that I never quite know what you’re thinking, or if I’ve finally caught you. Mostly I love that you make me a little crazy. A lot crazy.”
She was weakening. He could see it in the curve of her mouth, the softening of the set of her shoulders. The teasing tone in her voice. “What would you do if you caught me? You wouldn’t know what to do with me.”
“I’d give a sodding good try.” He strode to the bed, sat down and took her by the elbows. “I love crazy a whole lot, too, but not as much I love you. Please, Josie love. I just want it to be how it was. I want it like before—only to know that you love me and you know I love you, and we can play the game, scam the fuck out of everyone in our way.”
She turned away from him, her eyes shut and her mouth twisted again. It would