He barked a laugh. “You can organize your books by color and spine size. I’ll make an effort to comply.”
“Oh that. Well, that’s why it’s a good thing I can have my own closet. I like things in their place. It makes me feel better to know exactly where stuff will be. But I’m sort of temperamental.”
Again he laughed. “I haven’t noticed.” And then he kept laughing.
“Har. Look, Mister, I’m just trying to be up front, as you seem to want to try this living together thing. I’m not all purple scarves and glitter like my sister.” Or flirting behind fans and elbow-length gloves and stuff.
“You bring that up as if I don’t know. You’re not anyone else but you, thank gods. I crave you, not anyone else. I admit it, I’m sort of strangely turned on in anticipation of seeing what your closet will look like once you’ve finished.”
She shook her head at him, unable to hold back a smile.
“I’m particular. I get up very early and I’m often bitchy about it. I am intolerant of generic ice cream. I only like Kraft macaroni and cheese or homemade. I am religious about my coffee. My mother will make you eat tofu and mung beans. You need to accept that. She’s a total hippie. Her name is Rain after all. She will talk to you at length about how awesome veganism is and how cake with no eggs or butter is just as good as cake with, and you have to nod and pretend such a thing could ever be true. I’ll need a workspace here where you will not lay your crap or borrow my pens.”
“Are you trying to scare me? Because you’re not. There are four bedrooms here. You can have any of the other three to use as an office. I won’t borrow your pens.” He snorted and she sent him a raised brow. “I promise. Or lay my crap on your work things. Though, alamah, I don’t lay my crap anywhere. I don’t even have crap. I have belongings.”
“I told you I was difficult.”
“But you’re worth it, so stop trying to scare me off.”
“I’m not nice. Or easy to be around.”
He paused, leaning over to take her hand. “What’s this about? Hm?”
She squirmed, uncomfortable that he knew her so well. “I don’t know what you mean. I just think it should be clear what you’re getting into.” She wasn’t a high-born fancypants Regency lady–type person. His wife probably had been gentle and had soft hands and never said boo. Helena didn’t have gentle manners, though, if she did say so herself, she’d wager her fashion sense was as good as, if not better than, Lydia’s had been.
He merely looked at her carefully. “Your scent changes. Just a small, nearly imperceptible bit when you’re being evasive. Did you know that?”
“No. I’ve never dated a Lycian before.”
“Of course you haven’t. Also, we’re not dating. You’re my woman. What aren’t you saying? You’re standing here in our home talking about how I should know what I’m getting into. And believe me, beautiful, beautiful witch, I do. You’re troublesome. You have a special talent for attracting the sort of people who seem to want to blow you up or shoot you.”
He kissed each eyelid with such gentleness she found her eyes stinging with unshed tears.
“You make me vulnerable.” She didn’t know how to be. Not emotionally vulnerable anyway. She could deal with physical vulnerability. It came with her job. She could work on being less of that. But emotional stuff?
He tipped her chin so he could look in her eyes. Alarm raced over his features when he saw the tears. “Of course I do. If there weren’t this enormity of feeling and connection between us, you’d easily evade feeling deeply for me. I would never hurt you. Not on purpose. Your heart is safe with me. Don’t you know that?”
She swallowed back the panic and the sob that wanted to escape. Oh gods, she was jealous of a woman who’d died more than two centuries before. What was wrong with her?
“What is it? How can I make it better?”
“The box. The one you just put in your pocket. It was hers, wasn’t it?”
She didn’t need to use a name and he was too grown up to evade or deny.
“Yes. I’m sorry. It’s been part of my home for so long I didn’t think. Are you bothered by it? She’s long gone, Helena.”
“I’ve never really been jealous before. Especially not of a centuries-dead woman. I’m sorry. I’m embarrassed to be so petty. I know you loved her. I don’t expect you to have been a monk before I was even born. I’m just . . .”
He drew the pad of his thumb down her cheek. “Shh. It’s not petty. It’s all right to feel that way. I loved her. She meant something to me and she always will. I can’t deny that or it would shame not only what I had with her, but myself as well. And what I have with you.”
“I don’t expect you to. Honestly, it’s not that you loved her. I understand that. I accept that. I’m just . . .”
“Just what?”
“Not that. Not gentle born. I have weapons calluses. I say bad words and I often come home covered in bruises, cuts and sometimes in a sling. I don’t know how to keep a genteel home for my husband and, well, that’s not me. I can’t be her. I can’t be like her. I’ve never ridden a horse!”
He smiled and kissed her quickly. “You’re you. My amazing female. Brave and strong. Smart. Angry and righteous. Full of love and passion. Protective. I love that. All of it. Lydia was part of my life then. But you’re my life now and forever. The difference is vast. I’d never want you to be anyone or anything but what you are. Because that’s what I love about you. And you don’t need to ride horses. We don’t have the time anyway.”
He brushed the hair back from her face and slid his palm around to cup the back of her neck. It was dominant and tender all at once.
“From the moment I first met you I knew you’d be important to me. We have so much time to build a future. A long, beautiful future. You are brilliant. Magnificent. My match in every way. Do you know what it means to a male like me that you have weapons calluses?” His grin told her all sorts of things and made her tingly.
“I feel like a baby next to you.”
“In some ways I suppose you are. I’m four centuries old. But you’re no naïve baby. You’ve learned powerful and painful lessons. You’re struggling to protect people in a time that most people, even those my age, haven’t had to deal with. You have, to be clichéd for a moment, an old soul.
“It’s not about high-born manners or horses or keeping a house, and I’m sorry if anything I’ve ever done has led you to that conclusion. You stand up for what is just and you do it at great threat and danger. But you do it because it’s who you are. That’s . . . it’s irresistible.”
“You’re so sure of yourself.”
“Not always. But I came up hard. Yes, I am a prince, but all my brothers and I had to serve in battles. Had to come up on our own through the ranks and find our way. Simon came here to escape that destiny. I suppose when I volunteered to come here to help Owen, it was to forge a new path for myself, and there you were. It was meant to be. You and I were meant to be. I can be absolutely sure about that, even as I am just as confused and sent reeling by many other things that happen daily in this new reality Others face.”
“I hate it when things are out of my control.”
“I know. We can get through it together.”
“I’m still difficult and you still can’t borrow my pens, even though you’re exemplary in bed.”
“All right. I can live with that.” He kissed her long and slow until the stress melted away and she felt a lot better. He was way better than her mother’s tea.
“And, by the way, I picked up DVDs of the movies you mentioned. Thunderdome and Mad Max.”