Page 12 of This Haunted Heart

Gently, I tightened my grip around her throat, the way herbody seemed to crave, digging the pads of my fingers into her soft skin. My growing erection pressed against her hip. “Did you like it when he put your arm in a sling?”

“No,” she panted. “He has a habit of taking things too far. Our working relationship has expired as a result. I ended it. Twice. But he feels differently about the matter.”

“He scares you.”

She scoffed. “My feelings about fear are as complex as my feelings about pain, Mr. Dante. It’s best you don’t try to understand me. I hardly understand myself. But yes, he worries me. I’d be a fool if he didn’t. I was hoping he’d tire of me, as men like him are prone to do. Unfortunately, my unwillingness to see him again reinspired his interest. I plan to be gone before he returns, and I’ve taken precautions to make sure no one gives him a clue about where I’m headed.”

“What precautions?” I dragged her in closer until her nervous breaths puffed against my lips.

She clung to my arm but didn’t try to free herself. “I gave the ladies here expensive gifts and made them vow not to tell Utrecht, should he come asking, that I’m retiring to Texas with family.”

“Areyou retiring to Texas?”

Her lips quirked. “No.”

“Attagirl.” I brushed my thumb along her jaw, a gentle reward for her cleverness.

I felt her swallow, soft muscles shifting under my palm. She peered into my gaze, her eyes so dark they seemed bottomless. I wondered what she saw in mine. Were the wounds she caused to my soul as plain as the scars on my face?

For a moment, I thought I caught a flicker of recognition there. Then it was my turn to worry, but my anxiety cooledalmost immediately. If she had realized who I was, she would have already sprinted from the room. Then her eyes, big and round and hopeful, begged me to kiss her.

But I didn’t dare. I slid my thumb across that begging bottom lip of hers.

“Sometimes I want to ask you your name, Mr. Dante,” she said tentatively. “Your true one. You make me so curious, I’d take either of them. But then I remember it’s a good thing what we’re doing here, keeping things between us simple. I’ll be going somewhere you’re not soon enough. It’s better this way, isn’t it?”

I bit back a grimace. Rynn wouldn’t be going anywhere I wasn’t. Sensing my unease, she snuggled in closer. Then she lowered her nose to my neck and breathed me in.

Her nuzzling tickled, and silent laughter rumbled in my chest. “What’s this about?”

“Just testing a theory,” she said, inhaling me once more. “You smell exquisite.”

“Thank you.” My hand came to rest on her lower back. Her spine went taut as a bowstring briefly, before relaxing again.

“Do you smoke?” she asked.

“Sometimes.”

“Cigarettes?”

“Usually.”

She stiffened in my arms. Sitting up straight, her tired eyes searched mine. “What sort of cigarettes?”

I feigned a casual shrug. “Whatever’s around. I don’t smoke very often.”

The little taunting presents I’d left on her windowsill had gotten to her.Serves you right, Rynn.Twenty more years of torment, and I’ll consider letting up a little.

She sagged in my lap. “You don’t smell like tobacco at all. I thought I smelled some on you yesterday . . .”

“You might have,” I said breezily. “I do have some with me now, if you’d like to share?”

“Please.” She moved off my lap, allowing me to pull my wallet from my pocket so I could unroll it, her expression hawk-like. When I removed a homemade pipe from my sack coat and the tobacco from its pouch, she frowned.

It wasn’t what she had been expecting. Her angular brows pinched together as she examined the spiral shank and horn stem like I’d pulled a goblin from my pocket, not a pipe.

“The tobacco is called Ambrozijn,” I told her, holding the pouch open for her to investigate. “It’s excellent for the nerves. The locals where I’m from mix it with weaver-wood to soothe away bad dreams and ugly memories.”

Her gaze snapped to mine. “Does it really work?”

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