Page 14 of Mortal Heart

RONAN

The last timeRonan had ridden a Harley with a female passenger, it was in the Broken World and Alice was sitting behind him, her arms around his waist. By then they were more like pack mates. They’d fought side by side, and she’d saved his life at great risk to her own. Riding the Harley with her was comfortable and easy, and their closeness was a friendship or kinship tempered by battle and mutual respect.

Riding with Arkady Woodall, however, felt like something else entirely. His skin tingled wherever her body touched his, even through their clothes.

While only a few weeks had passed in this realm, his captivity in Michael’s cell had lasted a hundred years. His suffering was only eclipsed by his loneliness. Even after his return, though, he hadn’t seen human women as potential bedmates, not even to break his fast. He didn’t need to be a psychiatrist to figure out his aversion to human women was far more about his rejection of his own mortal body than anything else.

All that had changed tonight.

The moment Arkady put on his spare helmet and settled in behind him with her thighs tight against his hips, he couldn’t think of anything except how damnhungryhe was and how good she smelled, especially when she put a leather jacket on over what remained of his favorite shirt. He felt drunker on her scent than on the half a bottle of tequila he’d consumed at the bar. Not even thoughts of Michael could dampen that heady, effervescent sensation.

Arkady poked him hard in the back with her index finger when he didn’t start the bike immediately. “Are we gonna blow this popsicle stand or what? Ace ain’t coming to us, O Great and Mighty One. Get the lead out.”

He flipped down his helmet visor and obeyed.

From the first day he’d adopted it as his preferred method of transportation, the rumble of a Harley’s engine had become a balm for his soul. In many ways it reminded him of hunting on horseback. If he let his mind drift, he could still hear the thunder of his horse’s hooves galloping across the hard, sunbaked land and feel the steady rhythm of the animal’s gait. Then and now, when he let the horse run—or took his Harley out on the open road—all the bullshit faded away to nothing and left him peaceful and free.

Arkady had done her best to hide her excitement, but her eyes lit up at the prospect of riding with him. It didn’t occur to him to mind that her eagerness had far more to do with the Harley than him.

As they flew down the two-lane highway toward the city, with the speedometer heading for eighty, she finally gave up playing it cool and whooped. He smiled. He’d smiled more tonight than in the last hundred years. The expression still felt strange, but undeniably good.

“Faster,” she urged via the microphone in their helmets. He was only too happy to indulge her.

They made the thirty-minute drive to Bella’s in nineteen minutes.

As soon as he parked the Harley in the club’s lot, Arkady hopped off the back, stretched, and took off her helmet. She startled him by taking off her leather jacket, removing the T-shirt she’d stolen from his saddlebag, and putting her jacket back on, leaving it unzipped enough to show off her cleavage and bra. Then she released her hair from its ponytail, flipped it over her head, and mussed it with her fingers until it looked like she’d just rolled out of bed.Hisbed.

Good luck gettingthatimage out of your head, he thought wryly.

She applied bright red lipstick with the aid of a small compact, stuck the tube and mirror back in her inside jacket pocket, and gave him a brilliant smile. In moments, she’d transformed from Valkyrie to vixen. The lipstick disguised her busted lip.

She put her hand on her hip and struck a pose. “So, would you do me?”

He blinked. Was this some kind of test? And if so, what was the right answer? Bothyesandnoseemed like equally dangerous responses.

Apparently she misinterpreted his uncertainty as skepticism. She heaved a sigh. “We have to get to this Ace guy without him figuring out what we’re up to. Can you think of a better way to do that than an indecent proposal by a voyeur and his exhibitionist girlfriend? It works every time. I’ve got the tits, so I’ll do all the heavy lifting. You just gotta doyourpart and not be creepy when you pretend you like to watch.”

“Who says I’d be pretending?” he asked, just to rile her up.

She didn’t rile easily, though. “I figured as much, O Great and Mighty One. You look like the type. Now let’s get in there before someone else catches his attention.”

“Scared of a little competition?”

“Are you kidding?” She gestured at her body. “Ihaveno competition.”

He could not have agreed more. Valkyries, even human ones, had no equal.

Chuckling to himself, he rolled his neck and slipped into character with the ease of someone who’d spent centuries playing various roles as part of his bounty-hunting career. He gave Arkady his bedroom smile—in keeping with his role as a voyeur looking for a partner for his frisky lady—and ushered her to the club’s front door. “Show me what you’ve got, Miss Woodall.”

She wasted no time doing exactly that. At the door, she unleashed a smile on the bouncer that would have launched a satellite into orbit and slipped her hand into Ronan’s back pocket. She didn’t grab him or even squeeze, but he rather wished she had, even if it was just part of their ruse. He liked the sensation of her hand on his denim-clad ass very much.

“Howdy,” she purred, and looked up at the bouncer through her lashes, as she’d done to Ronan in the parking lot at the Pelican. And despite the fact he worked the door at a strip club and saw more than his fair share of beautiful and sultry women, the bouncer fell right under Arkady’s spell.

“No cover charge for the lady,” he said, his eyes on Arkady’s breasts in her red-and-black lace bra. He finally managed to tear his gaze away to look at Ronan just long enough to add, “Twenty for you and a two-drink minimum. No weapons allowed inside.”

“That’s fine.” Ronan handed over a twenty and allowed the bouncer to pat him down. With most of his attention on Arkady, the bouncer missed all three of Ronan’s knives. He didn’t bother to search Arkady at all, meaning her weapons made it inside too.Excellent, he thought.

Judging by the number of luxury vehicles in the parking lot and its posh booths and tables, Bella’s catered to a more upscale clientele than most strip clubs Ronan had visited. Even so, almost everything about its interior, from the loud thumping music to the neon and flashing lights, DJ booth, main stage, dancers, and busy lingerie-clad servers looked virtually the same.

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