Taming the Heart (Creatures of the Night Book 2) (9 page)

He blinked as he watched her. Some of her melancholy was fleeing as she watched her mother on the screen. “How do you know? I don’t have an accent. I practiced-”

“No. The way you dress.”

He looked down at his fur coat and calfskin pants. His boots were heavy steal toes and his shirt was black and white flannel. “I dress like your American miner,” he replied slightly perturbed. He had made some effort to fit in here.

“Okay. You are not in Pittsburgh don’t ya know. Yer in Wisconsin.”

He had heard some of the locals using the accent, but he preferred to use the accent heard in most American movies. It was easier to speak American English with a bit of a Western twang, because of his heavy Norwegian accent, than it was to pick up some of these specific dialects in the North.

“But I see some of the men here. They wear the heavy boots and the flannels.”

“With jeans and t-shirts, and steal toes are all right, but that jacket won’t pass muster up in this neck a the woods I’ll tell you. You stand out like an orange flag in a fresh snow.”

He nodded in understanding. He had thought that the fact that he was a stranger had drawn a lot of attention. In this day and age, however, people were not as alert to strangers in their midst as they had once been, especially the way so many towns thrived on tourism anymore.

“What would be more suitable?” he asked.

She eyed him critically and he was shocked by how quickly she’d gone from near heart break back to perky again. Well if not perky, at least slightly annoying, slightly cute, curious woman.

“Okay. What you wanna buy are some good thermals to go under yer clothes cause when it gets ta snowin up here it will blow yer socks off. Then some nice fur lined boots. Then ya need some good jeans, you could keep the flannels but throw in some good undershirts that say neat things like ‘I love summer’ or ‘Kiss me I’m cute’. Then add a heavy wool coat, some mitts and warmers and you would fit in here like a firecracker on the forth of July.”

“I love… summer?” he asked incredulously.

“Yeah. It’s supposed to be sarcastic. Especially if you wear it in the middle of a blizzard.”

Her deep blue eyes were bright and shinning when she talked to him now. If she could use her legs he had no doubt she would be sitting up on the couch with her legs beneath her ready to pounce in excitement. As it was she was leaning in to him on one small arm and smiling at him. It was a practice in patience not to pull her forward and kiss that soft little mouth.

“Kiss me… I’m cute?”

“That would be more ironic if you have a rounded beer belly like a lot a the guys I know. My dad could have worn that shirt every day of the week and gotten ten laughs per day. He was skinny everywhere but his gut,” she said and patted his gut as if to demonstrate. The touch of her small hand to his abdomen made his muscles tighten.

She let her hand linger over his abs for a moment and he felt like his breaths were shorter. One part of him wanted to move away from her, a completely separate part of him wanted her to stroke to her hearts content. As if she became aware of his thoughts she pulled away as if burned by fire. She laughed and sat back again.

“You would have liked my dad. He likes the history channel too,” she went on, a bit more animated now than before.

“The history channel?”

“Yeah. I saw you had it on when I turned on the television, but he probably didn’t watch it for the same reasons you do, I mean you’re a part of history. He just liked hearing about the life stories of people that lived long ago. He said he hoped someone read about him one day and found him as interesting as those people on the history channel. I told him it wasn’t likely because we only ever owned a copy shop. He said that his copy shop could be the beginning of a chain of copy shops and he would be forever immortalized. The name of our copy shop was The Copy Shop. I mean how original is that? Not at all I tell you. Of course-”

She stopped talking when he put a hand on her bare arm. He was as shocked by the contact as she was. It was his turn to pull away quickly.

“You don’t have to be nervous.”

She shook her head and made a motion as if to say he was being silly, but she didn’t deny it.

“I’m just glad that…” Was he really about to say what he was about to say?

“What?” she asked in a more normal voice.

“That we can be in the same room without ripping each other’s heads off. That can be a real pain in the neck.”

*

It took her a moment. He had said it in his dead pan tone and she wasn’t sure but… when the corner of his mouth lifted she burst into full laughter. He was teasing her. As the laughter faded from her, fatigue hit her in a wave and her head nearly fell back against the back of the couch.

“Whoa. I guess I’m tired,” she said as her eyes began to close.

“It’s the healing. When we heal ourselves it makes us tired. I’m surprised you were able to heal this soon.”

She had nearly forgotten about the broken leg thing. Everything was beginning to run together in one pile of weird and freaky. “I smelled something… on the air… It was,” she yawned without meaning to.

He stood and scooped her up in his massive arms. She was too tired to feel or act awkward about it. He carried her into the bedroom and laid her down. He quickly stripped off her jeans and covered her with the large blanket.

“I will tell you more when you awaken,” he said softly before he turned and headed to the door.

“Wait.”

He turned back to her reluctantly. He must think she was going to call him to her again. He made it clear how little that appealed to him. Why she should care if that didn’t appeal to him she did not know. Only this morning he had been her captor and now she was supposed to suddenly feel… what? Gratitude, warmth, love? He had just broken her leg for God’s sake.

“What?” he asked, his crystal blue eyes cutting clear through her.

“Tell Saul I appreciate what he did for my mother and… thank you too for being as nice to me as you could.”

He grunted before he turned out the light and left the room. She fell into a deep sleep almost instantly.

Chapter Six

Braden’s eyes fell open as daylight streamed into the room. He had listened for her again last night. She hadn’t started the fever. It seemed that after that initial burning, she was finished. He had dreamed of her last night and he tried to clear the images of her writhing body beneath him from his mind. He needed to clear his head.

He needed a plan. He had to train her, but her training couldn’t be the normal hunter training. She had to be angered to go into hunter mode. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. What she needed was to be able to defend herself as both a human and a hunter. He wondered how she would be around the wolves. Would she be like him? Would the proximity of the wolves change her or would they have to figure out a way to get her anger up every time the wolves were near?

He stood up, put his gun in the back of his pants, and was about to pull on a shirt so he could start her some breakfast when his feet took control of him again. He used his arms to try to hold on to the walls but pieces of wood splintered in his hands. He flung the door open again to find her in the middle of his bed, covers thrown back, writhing.

Her kitten t-shirt was pulled up and she fondled her breast as the other hand was working beneath the band of her lace panties. He could see her fingers as they began to slide into her and he found himself rock hard. What the hell! He growled.

“Stop that,” he commanded both her and himself.

*

She saw him holding back as he clutched the door frame. She heard his command, but she couldn’t anymore stop it than she could hold a cup of water in the palm of her hand. She was on fire and she yearned for him like she hadn’t yearned for anyone in her life. Not even in high school, when she had her teenage angst, had she wanted anyone this bad. Plus, he had obviously slept with no shirt on and his long hair was flowing down his muscular back in a wave of golden lava. He was so damn muscled and so damn hot.

“Please,” she pleaded as she looked up at him.

“You don’t want me,” he growled yet again.

This time she was fully aware that her legs worked and she was up and out of bed. She strode to him clad only in her t-shirt and underwear. She fell to her knees before him. Her heart was pounding as she unzipped him and let him free. His eyes turned violet as he looked down at her.

“No.”

She paid him no heed as she took her first taste of him. He was hard as steal and smooth as velvet and so big. She could barely manage much past the tip, but still… he tasted so damn good. He was salty and smooth and… big. She licked his shaft over and over again as he threw his head back and continued to hold on to the door frame. She heard the wood cracking beneath his grip.

Finally she pulled off her shirt and climbed up his body. She was hot and so damn wet and she wanted him to fill her. He lost control then as he released the door and brought his large arms around her. She was completely consumed. They fell to the bed and she felt him pressing at her panties. If not for the thin fabric he would already be inside her moving in her. The thought made her all the wetter.

His bare chest rubbed across her breast and she moaned out loud. His mouth took hers in a kiss that nearly made her toes curl. It was everything she could want in a kiss. It was tender without being weak. It was powerful without being pushy. His tongue stroked her and tasted her in a way that set her head to spinning and left her wanting more. It was as if they were tasting each other more than kissing.

He finally broke the kiss as he lifted a hand to take one of her breasts into the palm. He pushed her into the mattress as he played with each breast in turn, sucking one into his mouth while torturing the other between his fingertips. His tender ministrations set both her nipples on fire and her core to pulsing with need. He tore the lace panties away easily before he dipped his head and went straight for the kill. She didn’t even have time to think as his tongue delved deep inside her and stroked her where she craved him.

She clutched his hair as she lifted her hips and cried out his name. His tongue was thick and went ever deeper, driving her even crazier until she just fell off the edge of the world. There was nothing to describe the feeling that came over her. When she finally began to float back down she felt her legs go limp in his grasp.

Horror blossomed swiftly and with a vengeance. She covered her breasts as she looked down at him. He was trying his best to take deep breaths. What had she done? She pushed up on her elbows.

“Braden,” she began but what could she say? Sorry about calling out to you, making you hard, teasing your cock with my mouth, letting you make me come, and by the way you won’t be getting any?

“You bathe first, I’ll get breakfast started. We have a long day ahead of us,” he said before he pushed himself from between her legs. He zipped up his pants and strode from the room as if nothing had happened. For some reason that thought caused a pang in her heart.

She didn’t call him back. What could she say? Two days in a row now she had called out to him, and twice he had come, seemingly against his own will. Well he wasn’t the only one who was doing this against their will she thought peevishly as she pulled her naked body into her chair. She hadn’t asked to be bitten, to have her world torn apart.

She grabbed her bag on the way to the bathroom and attempted to slam the door. With no handle, in fact a hole where the handle had been, it was less dramatic than she would have liked.

*                            *                            *

Braden paced the room as he waited for her. He had though to let what had happened yesterday pass but it was now clear to him that he couldn’t. He had been going over his options. They were very few. In fact they were nearly none. He could not leave her to go through this alone, at least not without taking the chance that she would endanger humans, and the American mentor continued to be MIA. So he really had no choice.

She wheeled out wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a huge pink glittered heart on the front. She also wore black gloves with the fingers cut out. The gloves would have looked menacing save for the pink embroidery on them that said smiles make me happy. Her blond hair was dripping wet and he noticed that it had gotten longer and healthier looking as a hunter’s hair should. There were streaks of gold, red, brown, and honey in her hair that told him the color it had been before was not natural to her. It looked better this way.

Pushing that thought away he took a deep breath and began to stalk again. That was a mistake. She obviously had some kind of vanilla and honey scented body wash that made her smell even tastier than before. What the hell was happening to him!

“Is this for me?” she asked pointing towards the muffins and canned pears he had plated for her.

He went to the table and sat down, waiting until she had slid into her seat and began eating. She ate as if she had not eaten in days. “Does the food satisfy you?” he asked.

She nodded but didn’t speak, obviously still upset or embarrassed about this morning.

“What I mean is… you don’t still feel hungry after you eat… food?”

She paused and looked up at him then back down at her plate. “Yesterday after I ate… I felt satisfied. I am getting full now. Well, at least not as hungry. Am I supposed to be eating… I mean do I need blood?” she asked a look of horror on her face. He had the strangest urge to laugh at her.

“Not if you don’t crave it. Hunter’s crave blood the way you crave food. We can eat food but to no avail. It holds no satisfaction for us.”

She nodded before she finished off the food before her. She had to be one of the few humans he’d ever observed eating that didn’t make him nauseous to watch. In fact she was kind of… cute when she ate. He had to suppress a cringe. Since when had the word cute been allowed to enter his personal thoughts? Since she had suggested he wear a t-shirt that said ‘kiss me, I’m cute’.

“What are you smiling about?” she asked and he noticed that she had stopped eating and was watching him with a stunned expression. He dropped the smile he didn’t even know had spread across his face. He settled on a smirk since he couldn’t seem to force the damn thing completely away.

“I was thinking of showing up to our annual hunter training wearing a shirt that says ‘kiss me, I’m cute’.”

The smile that broke across her face was like sunshine itself and did strange things to his heart. He nearly wanted to rub his chest again and return her grin in kind.

“I told you the idea would grow on you.”

“Yes well…” It was now or never. He might as well put out what was on his mind before she completely fried his brain with those beautiful smiles. “We are going to start sleeping together.”

This froze the smile on her lips as her mirth turned to confusion.

“Excuse me,” she said at last sounding a little shocked.

“I don’t want to keep ruining my walls because I’m fighting to stay away from you when you wake up calling out to me. I can’t seem to stop myself and I think you feel the same so… we are going to start sleeping together.”

*

If her legs were working she would have shot straight up out of her chair and paced the floor. She settled for an evil look as she crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him.

“It’s not like I really wanted you coming in there this morning,” she stated angrily.

“You have an odd way of showing it,” he shot back and she felt a little deflated by that. She had gotten up and gone to him this time.

“I wasn’t under my own control. Whatever is happening to me seems to be making me… happy in the morning.”

“Yes well, your happiness is causing me to tear apart my own house. Since you don’t seem to be exceptionally wealthy to pay for repairs, I would prefer to do the easier thing.”

She laughed ironically as she slapped her forehead. “You’re right. What was I thinking? To avoid having to pay for repairs for damage YOU caused to your own house I should just lay down and be a sacrificial lamb?”

She shoved her plate away as she scrambled into her chair. She was surprised that her legs hadn’t started working again as mad as she was about this. He spun her around and she crossed her arms to glare up at him.

“Will you stop being a child? I don’t understand what the big deal is. We are not in love or in danger of catching diseases from each other, and we won’t be producing children so we might as well deal with this up front instead of denying it. It is just sex, it happens every day.”

“Well what if I don’t want to have sex with you?” she shot back.

“I’m fairly certain that you don’t. We are not in this situation of our choosing. You didn’t choose me. I didn’t choose you, but here we are, and we can face this thing or hate ourselves for doing it when it was out of our control. I am certain that as I breathe, this is going to happen and neither you nor I will be able to stop it so...”

“So what? We just hop right to it even when you don’t like me?”

She waited for him to confirm or deny that statement but his face was completely impassive as he shrugged one large shoulder.

“We go to sleep in the same bed tonight. If it happens, okay, if not, all the better, and then we get on with our day.”

“Like that?”

“Just like that.”

She wanted to argue more but she allowed herself time to think. It would be better to have him there when she woke up in need than to do the whole pull and tug thing. She swallowed her pride. She had called out to him twice. She seemed to have a desperate need for him. It didn’t hurt that he was extremely hot. She shook her head.

They were a mismatched pair if ever there was one. People would look at her in her wheelchair next to this Norse God and say to themselves… what does he see in her? He didn’t see anything in her. He was only a victim of circumstance, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now he would be stuck with her.

It was a depressing thought. She might get to sleep with him, but it would mean nothing at all to him. She would end up with a broken heart. He would undoubtedly break away from her the first opportunity he got.

“Fine,” she finally conceded. He seemed to look a little shocked that she had relented.

He nodded before he turned from her. He went to pick up his truck keys and hit a little button on the key ring. Something dangled from the keychain but before she could give it her full attention the floor began to slide back and a small arsenal lifted up into the room. Her mouth fell open and she blinked a time or two.

No one would have ever been able to guess what lay beneath this old floor. She wheeled forward and looked over the array of guns and grenades and rocket launchers and swords and ammo. She had never seen anything like it outside of the movies.

“Today you are going to learn something about weapons,” he began.

*                            *                            *

By lunch time Miranda felt like her head was spinning. She’d seen more bullets, clips, slides, magazines and springs than she’d ever seen in her life. Braden made loading and unloading a gun look as easy as slicing butter. Her attempts at handling the guns were not quite as successful as his. He was patient with her though. As long as she was willing to try, he seemed willing to teach her.

When she seemed to become frustrated and whined a bit, he would move on to the next topic in anger. She quickly learned that her favorite weapon might be knives. He said that she wanted her knives as a last resort because using a knife meant you had to get in close to the creatures, closer than she wanted to be. Perhaps she could become skilled at tossing knives. She didn’t put it past herself. She had always been good with flags and batons. If she hadn’t been head cheerleader she might have been the bands majorette.