Forever As One (6 page)

Vangie leaned forward, examining the board
for any possible variant he’d make if she took his bishop. It
didn’t make sense. His queen didn’t have access to anything without
a couple of moves she’d have to be blind not to notice. Maybe he
was planning to use his other bishop to set up an ambush? Or…maybe
his knight?

She stood to appraise it from another angle.
The heavy chair didn’t shift. It would take effort to shove it
against the carpet, and she didn’t expend any. She needed to figure
out what Dane was setting up. That meant not wasting the time he’d
just given her. Or…maybe he’d planned this interruption, to exactly
this result - leaving her to stew over possible moves, before he
blind-sided her or something.

What was his plan? Her clear move was to take
his bishop. Anyone would. It would be an easy slaughter. But that
kind of move didn’t resemble her opponent at all. Dane didn’t
appear to be one who did suicide moves. Not if it didn’t pay back
somewhere. He looked more like the marauding type. Conquering.
Taking. Holding. Caressing. Kissing. Molding his nakedness about
her on satin sheets…

Get hold of yourself Vangie!

She wasn’t going to figure out what that man
planned if she couldn’t keep her mind on the business at hand, and
that meant staying away from contemplation of the physical effect
of being near him, breathing the same air, sharing the same space,
tingling with awareness of everything he did and said.

“You see?”

She said it aloud and stepped away from the
table.

“This is why I detest chess. One move can
take hours to figure out. Hours. And it’s really going to take an
eternity if he doesn’t come back soon.
Men
.”

She turned away. Pondering potential moves
was a sure recipe for a headache. Surveying the room sounded more
promising and interesting. And it was. Dane had an eye for interior
decorating. There were a couple of settees gracing one far wall.
They looked as overstuffed as the chair. She was tired of sitting.
Vangie arched her back in a stretch. The plane ride had been
cramped and her seatmate hadn’t shut up, and then she’d had to deal
with the reality of Dane Morgan. No wonder she was
out-of-sorts.

He did something to her. She wasn’t a
romantic, but that man excited everything in her body, starting the
instant she’d locked eyes with him. He sent off solid sexual appeal
with every prolonged moment in his company. Just being on the other
side of the table heightened everything to the point she was ready
to go completely against type, rip her suit off, and jump him.
She’d never contemplated a one night stand - never even considered
it. And yet…with Dane Morgan…

Heck, it wasn’t just being considered, it was
a downright fight to suppress the urge. She’d never been wanton.
Loose. Passionate. Lustful. Never experienced anything approaching
them, but every prolonged moment with Dane…she wasn’t just
imagining, she was fully fantasizing. And now that he’d gone,
leaving her to stew and ponder and evaluate - what was she supposed
to do with these elevated hormones?

Ugh.

She was tired, and yet energized
simultaneously. It was probably the result of lack of sufficient
sustenance. Rest. It had nothing to do with Dane Morgan. It
couldn’t. Yet, everything felt weak and wrung out. As if she’d been
through an emotional experience of some kind. But that was
ridiculous. She’d moved a couple of chess pieces, bandied some
words, played with double entendre. Yet, still the release from the
tension of his presence was physically palpable. Chilling.
Deflating.

There was nothing else for it. She could
stand here weaving in place while she attempted to ignore her
reactions to him…or she could occupy herself. He might have a
magazine or at the very least a comic book hidden away, and he
really shouldn’t leave her alone this long if he didn’t want her
snooping.

Vangie slid a hand along one of the cabinets
against a wall. It looked like it contained wine bottles. Ancient
wine bottles. Odd. Dane Morgan didn’t look like a wine connoisseur.
He looked exactly like a spoiled, rich, extremely pretty, party
boy. A chick magnet. The type that turned heads.

As for his banter?

Oh…please
.

How did he expect her to give him a decent
game of chess? The view was hampering her thought processes, and
then his words added to the sensory experience. She couldn’t
concentrate. She could barely answer him logically. As if he’d
really be interested in her. Everything he said and did gave her
heart an uptick. But, let’s be honest here. She turned men off.
Wasn’t that what Rod accused her of more than once? That’s why she
still wore her ring. No reason to turn men off if they didn’t
approach in the first place.

And the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen
wanted to talk about mates?
Not just mates, Vangie…but soul
mates?
Maybe when she was a girl she’d believed in true love
and soul mates, but now? Not anymore. Real life gave her a reality
check. Evangeline Harper and Dane Morgan? Those names didn’t belong
in the same sentence. And…soul mates? No way. But…wow. Wouldn’t
that be a dream come true?

Double wow.

Vangie sighed heavily and went back to
checking out his cabinets. It was better than her imagination at
the moment. She was a business woman conducting a negotiation. She
wasn’t a siren attempting to seduce a man. Or maybe it was better
phrased as an innocent maid being seduced by a god from Mount
Olympus?

Dream on, Vangie. Just keep on
dreaming…

Next to the wine cabinet was a bookcase.
Shoulder-high, with a thick glass front that latched with a little
wrought-iron loop. Vangie pulled one door open and lifted out a
binder. It was old, looked to be bound with embossed leather, and a
bit dusty. She propped it on her hip, lifted the front open, and
scanned the pages inside. She might be mistaken, but this looked
like a full set of stories that compiled the POSTHUMOUS PAPER OF
THE PICKWICK CLUB. Her breath caught at the next page and her eyes
went wide. It was a signature. Charles Dickens. 1836. No way. If
what she was looking at was true, this collection later became the
novel THE PICKWICK PAPERS. And Dane Morgan owned a complete signed
first edition?

No way again.

Her hand trembled as she replaced the binder
and selected another. This one was even more spectacular. She was
looking at a beautifully bound book titled THE MODERN PROMETHEOUS.
It didn’t have an author listing, but she knew what it was -
FRANKENSTEIN. She’d heard of the first printing, but never thought
to actually see one. As for actually holding it? It wasn’t
possible! But here it was. In her arms. It really did have a
forward written by Percy Blysshe Shelley. This book had been
printed in 1818 with a print run of 505 copies. And on the second
page, there was an inscription in extremely poor handwriting.

To one handsome Dane. Mary Shelly,
1839.

Vangie’s jaw dropped. Her entire body shook,
causing a loose page to fall from somewhere within the pages. She
had to set the book reverently atop the bookcase before retrieving
the page, and if she’d in any way damaged this, she’d never forgive
herself.

It wasn’t a page from the book. It was a
drawing. Four figures in Regency dress were seated around a table,
playing cards. They were easily identified by someone who’d studied
literature and spent time getting tested on it. There was Mary
Shelley. Her husband, Percy. The poet, Lord Byron. And Dane.

No frickin’ way
.

Her mind stalled. Her pulse hammered. She
couldn’t be seeing this correctly. If Dane had a drawing depicting
him with the Shelleys and Lord Byron, it couldn’t have been him.
What was she thinking? He probably didn’t even read. Sex and
sunburn sounded like his creed, not just the name of his bar.

It was obvious he’d inherited a fortune. It
must include lots of priceless items. Dane was probably a normal
first name for his family. He had forebears who’d known the value
of the printed word and then they kept their books in museum
condition. And handsomeness was another obvious legacy. It was in
his DNA.

“We have to talk.”

Vangie jerked, dropped the picture, and then
tried to spin. The carpet height combined with her new heels
tripped her. She’d have fallen if Dane hadn’t reached out and
pulled her right to him, breast to abdomen, hard arms about her
back, his mouth just above her forehead.

“I see you found my Byron sketch.”

The words rumbled through where she was
pressed to him.
Byron sketch?

“I thought I’d lost it.”

“What?”

Her mind wasn’t working. It had something to
do with how he’d lifted her without a bit of argument on her part,
fitting her breasts right against some very hard pecs, while his
mouth hovered somewhere at her temple, touching and then sending a
riot of goose bumps with every pulse beat against his lips.

“My sketch. Forget it. It doesn’t matter,
anyway.”

“It was in the…book.”

“Oh.”

“How can you own…something so rare?”

His lips slid, trailing what felt like a kiss
to the side of an eye…to her ear. Vangie might as well be melting.
Nothing on her was giving him the slightest fight.

“Don’t ask me. I can’t answer that yet.”

“You need…to put me down.”

“What? Why?”

He moved his head, matched his forehead to
hers and locked gazes. She’d heard of this kind of contact, seen it
in movies, but never experienced it. Her heart almost hurt as it
lurched, feeling like it closed off her throat.

“Dane…I—”

He grinned, putting little lines about his
eyes. She gulped.

“You just called me Dane.”

“You…really need to put me down.”

“Why?”

“Because…uh. Oh! We’re playing chess. And
this is against the rules.”

He pulled back, granting her a little space
to haul in a breath, while this time his grin exposed teeth; long,
sharp, fang-like teeth. Evangeline’s eyes widened.

“You forgot my heritage, Baby.”

“Uh…”

“Viking.”

He lifted his brows, creating little creases
in his forehead. As if that was supposed to make his argument
feasible or do something other than draw her eye there before she
moved inexorably back to locking gazes with him.

“You heard me. And believe me. It’s all true.
We take what we want.”

“Take?”
Want?
He couldn’t possibly
mean that like it sounded.

“I just found out you’re not married.”

He was sending out too much sensory
stimulation for that statement to do other than confuse her.
“What?”

“You’re widowed. And that means you’re mine.
All mine.”

“That’s…just. It’s ridiculous. That’s what.
This is the twenty-first century, Dane.”

“I know. All this technology just makes it
easier.”

“To do what?”

“Viking things. Locate. Pillage. Plunder.
Create havoc. Ravish. Satisfy.”

“Oh…”
Wow
. She didn’t know why she
tried to answer. Her voice was missing.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of love at
first sight, either?”

“Love?”

He nodded.

“At first sight?”

He nodded again and then tipped his chin
down, favoring her with a soul-stealing look that carried
fire-starting emissions. The heat seared all the way to her toes
and back, before settling along everywhere they were pressed
together.

“With…me?”

“Oh yeah.”

“You’re serious?”

“Dead serious. Pardon the pun.”

“Why can’t I believe any of this?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Maybe because…uh. You! You’re a babe magnet
that looks about…twelve. It would be cradle robbing.”

“Twenty-four. Maybe twenty-five. Physically.
And what has age to do with love anyway?”

“You—. I mean. You—.” Cohesive thought and
common sense both evaded her. As did the ability to form words of
argument.

“Yes?” His right eyebrow went up. It wasn’t
helpful.

“You probably have women crawling all over
you. Men, too. Twenty-four, seven. And everything in between.”

“There’s only one woman in my world,
Frja
. One.”

Her heart stuttered. She could feel it.
“But…we just met.”

“Untrue. It’s been hours…and I’ve already
waited centuries for you. Centuries.”

“Dane, I—”

“What does all this matter? Don’t you feel
anything for me?”

Every cell that made up her body reacted to
him, worse than before. Every word he said just added a skim of
cream to the milk.

“This is too fast.”

“Darling, it’s been an eternity of want, a
millennia of loneliness, and a full evening of frustration and
rampant need. It’s not going fast enough in my opinion.”

“Come on, Dane. See sense.”

“Speak some.”

“I came to talk about your property. That’s
all I need to—”

“You can have it. Anything you want. It’s
yours.”

“What?”

“Anything I have. It’s yours. I promise.”

“This is so wrong. On so many levels.”

“You’re my mate, Evangeline. I recognized you
the moment I saw you. I swear it. You don’t understand how long I
have waited for you. Longed for you. Loved you. It’s been an
eternity of time. And now you are here. With me. And you’re not
married as I’d thought. There’s nothing wrong in there that I can
spot.”

“Oh…wow.”

The words were moaned. Even to her ears it
sounded like a plea. Was it possible? Evangeline Harper, the woman
who’d been fully slated as an old widow was going to have her
fantasy? Her very own one-night stand?

“Does that mean yes? Please say it means yes.
It does! Say it does. Come on, Love. Say it. Please?”

“I don’t…carry protection.” The words were
whispered.