Hold Me If You Can (2 page)

“That it is, my sweet girl, that it is.” But his voice was quiet, as if there was a heavy weight behind his words.

My
sweet
girl?
Her? Something shifted inside her, a softness that felt good. She didn’t feel sweet. She was desperate, she was still carrying way too much fear, terror, and generally debilitating phobia from her trek down “murder victim lane.” For him to even use that word… God. Maybe there was a chance that there really was a normal girl underneath somewhere. If she could resurrect her business, reconnect with her chocolate mojo, and find a way to ward off the deedubs, maybe a normal life was possible.

But it wouldn’t be possible if she ran away. She had to own what made her feel alive, and that was this store. It was tapping into her magic. It was helping those who needed her. She folded her arms across her chest. “I won’t leave.”

Nigel set the heavy barrel down so carefully there wasn’t even a sound. He propped his shoulder up against the stripped freezer door and folded his arms. “If you stay here, you’ll get killed. He’ll be back, and others will too. Deedubs can’t stay away from chocolate.” His eyes darkened, flashing with a protective violence that rippled through her. “And they can’t stay away from Sweets. You’re a Sweet. They will find you and attack you, just like before.”

Natalie swallowed and realized her hands were shaking. Of course they were. She’d spent a lifetime fighting the deedub poison, waiting to die. And now it was only a matter of time until they came after her again. “I’ll find a way.” She lifted her chin. “I’ve been afraid my whole life, and I won’t live like that anymore. I have a chance to live again, and this time I’m taking it. If I walk away now, I won’t ever be able to come back. They won’t forget me. Not ever.”

Nigel swore, and she knew that he recognized her truth. They would wait at her store, and they would search for her. “Then you don’t come back.”

“What? No!”

Nigel strode across the room with sudden purpose. He grabbed her upper arms and pulled her close. Heat was vibrating off his shoulders, and his face was fierce. But she felt no fear. Just a tremble of excitement at this other side of him, a side she’d never seen. His hands were burning through her sweatshirt, his grip so powerful and strong, but also gentle. She could feel his strength, but also his protectiveness. “Your soul is too beautiful to die,” he declared. “I won’t let you die.”

She stared at him, shocked by the intensity of his words. By the power rolling off him. He was a man of intensity, a warrior who had risen to protector status. Because of her? A thrill echoed through her, a heat that buried itself right in the depths of her soul. “Thank you,” she said. “That was beautiful.” And it was. No one had ever looked at her like that, as if they saw a beauty that no one else could see.

Nigel blinked and then released her suddenly, as if he’d realized what he’d said. “I’ll be back to pick you up tonight. Be packed and ready to go.”

“What? Nigel! No!” Dammit! She could tell that he wasn’t going to be dissuaded. Her sister had probably convinced him it was for her own good. Actually, her sister had probably bribed him to do her dirty work while she was out of town. “I don’t need to leave. I can influence them to leave me alone!” Theoretically, completely true. In reality, not a chance. But dammit, if he took her away, he would steal her chance to live.

Nigel raised a skeptical brow. “Then why didn’t you do it just now?”

Excellent question. “I wasn’t ready. I’ll be ready next time.” She folded her arms. “I won’t run, Nigel. I need to stay here.”

Nigel studied her, and he finally shook his head. “You speak from the soul.”

“Of course I do!”

Nigel slid his hands softly across her skin, rubbing softly. “You carry your own curse,” he finally said. “Just like me.”

She blinked. “My chocolate? It’s not a curse. It’s a gift. It’s the only thing that has kept me alive all these years. I cherish it.” She frowned. “You think your art is a curse?” She didn’t understand. “But you love it.”

His eyes darkened with denial, but he didn’t voice it.

“Listen,” she said. “It’ll take that deedub at least a day to recover from what you did to him, so I’m safe from him for now. I expect the others will defer to him, since he found me first.”

He rubbed his jaw, and she could see him evaluating her point. Finally, he nodded. “I agree.”

Yay! “So, we don’t need to do anything yet. Give me time to figure out a solution.” No need for anyone to be carted off to the airport!

Amusement flickered in his eyes, as if he knew exactly what she was trying to do. “I’ll be back to check on you.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Yes, she didn’t want him teaming up with her sister in overprotective mode, but it was nice to know that he’d be by to toss metal tulips into the forehead of any assailants.

He laughed softly as he traced his finger across her brow, not quite touching her. She caught her breath, willing him to make contact, to feel his skin against hers.

His gaze met hers and his eyes darkened. He moved his hand, his thumb hovering over her lips. She waited, afraid to breathe, afraid he wouldn’t touch her. But also terrified of the intensity of her desire for contact with him.

Then he shook his head once, an almost imperceptible movement, and dropped his hand. Disappointment surged through her. She should feel intense relief, really, but she didn’t. All she wanted to do was to take his hand and lay it against her cheek. Feel his touch. Why did she crave him so badly? It was so dangerous. She’d learned her lesson. She couldn’t be that kind of woman. She couldn’t tap into that side of her. She’d tried it once, and it had killed her, so yeah, not the best results so far. And what she’d felt that time was nothing compared to the intensity of her reaction to Nigel.

“You have to stay alive, Natalie,” Nigel said, drawing her attention back to him. “There’s no other option.” There was a fierceness to his words that made her think that maybe he wasn’t actually acting on her sister’s behalf, but that his stubbornness about deporting her was his own idea.

But why? They’d barely spoken before today. Why would he have made her safety such a priority? “Nigel—” But before she could ask, he spun around and stalked out of the store, leaving her staring after him.

He would be back. She knew he would. He wanted to keep her safe, which, of course, was a deliciously admirable trait in a man. But he would also steal her dreams, her soul, and her life, and that was just not acceptable. And if he ever decided to touch her, to tap into the intensity of her attraction to him… God help her.

The answer was clear. He couldn’t come back. He had to leave her alone on all fronts.

But she knew he would never concur. How could she possibly stop a warrior like Nigel?

After almost two hundred years under the kind and nurturing (ahem) tutelage of Death��s deviously psychotic grandma, Nigel was thoroughly aware of the overbearing nature of his decision to relocate Natalie to a safe location.

There was no doubt that his arrogance in making such a high-handed and singularly inflexible decision would have gotten him severely punished if he were still locked down in the Den of Womanly Pursuits, the bastion of estrogen, torture, doilies, and black magic hell run by Angelica and her team of equally untenable female apprentices. Nigel and his team had been their unwilling guests for a century and a half before orchestrating a successful break for freedom.

His stint in the Den enabled him to recognize and freely admit he was being a stereotypical male in the very worst of ways with his need to protect a female. But Angelica was no longer in control, and Nigel had damn well suffered quite enough loss in the last one hundred and fifty years. Natalie was not going to be added to that list, and that was the end of the story. She was simply too damn important. If he had to be Not a Quality Male to make sure she stayed safe, then that was the way it was.

Nigel would give Natalie the day of respite she’d requested, and then he was going to make sure that she went someplace where the deedubs would never find her. He simply would not allow them to destroy that beautiful light inside her, that amazing glow that had been his salvation since the first moment he’d met her.

And as Nigel hoisted the pizza boxes over his head and walked down the hallway of his penthouse, he couldn’t quite suppress the pleased smile at the thought that there was one thing in this world, one beautiful treasure, that would always be safe, not only from the deedubs, but also, and possibly more importantly, from him.

“What’s the smile for? You look like you just inherited an entire warehouse of art supplies.” Pascal Magnussun, a young warrior Nigel and his team had recently rescued from the Den, looked up from his football game as Nigel walked into his favorite room in the place. Arched ceilings, huge windows, crown moldings. Pure artistic perfection.

“Just loving the beauty of the things in our world, P-Man,” he replied. “Just feeling the love.”

“Amen to that, brother. The world outside the Den is a thing of beauty.”

“That it is.” Nigel glanced at the stack of pens and sketchpads on the poker table, wishing he had a couple minutes to sketch. Being around Natalie always made him want to bring her spirit to life on the page.

But he was a man, and food had to come first. Nigel strode into his guest-suite-turned-infirmary, a sizable room that had been hosting the younger warrior since Nigel and his team had pried him free of the Den. “Pizza delivery.”

The other five rescued warriors were spread out across his penthouse suite, and Nigel had already dropped off pizza to those who were conscious. As the team’s resident healer, Nigel had opted to host them at his place, instead of allowing the other three members of his team to offer their homes.

Nigel might be an artist. He might like his peace. But first and foremost, he was his team’s safety net when the shit became more than they could handle. He was the healing magic that none of them could live without, and he’d saved the life of everyone they’d rescued so far.

Most were still somewhat out of it, but Pascal had finally started to get some of his spark back.

Nigel glanced at the tag on one of the remaining pizzas. “Triple XL white pizza with spinach, basil, and whole wheat crust?”

“Yeah, that’s mine.” Pascal waved a battle-ax decorated with golden lamé braids he’d woven with great care and impressive skill. “Does it have parsley? I ordered fresh parsley sprigs.”

“Of course it does.” Nigel frisbeed the top box at the blond-haired warrior propped up on a black leather futon watching the super-sized flat-screen TV Pascal had surreptitiously ordered off the Home Shopping Network. Using Nigel’s credit card, the slippery bastard.

Not that Nigel had bothered to cut him off. They all deserved some serious man-things in their lives after almost two centuries of flower arranging, poetry writing, and other attempts to turn them into Angelica’s perception of worthy mates with a truly sensitive side.

Screw that. They were men, real men, and it was insane, illogical, and unremitting torture to try to turn them into anything else.

Pascal flipped the lid, then closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, an expression of utter peace and delight on his face. “Francesca’s Organic Pizza Garden always gets it right.”

“That’s why I go there.” Nigel had tried ordering from Butch’s Pizza & Ribs and from The Real Man Pub, but the shit was too greasy and fatty. When he’d seen Natalie eating a pizza from Francesca’s, he’d immediately been inspired to try it.

As with everything relating to Natalie, the pizza had been sheer exquisiteness.

The others had tried to man up and suck down Butch’s pizza, but in the end, Francesca’s had won. Yeah, sure, it might have homegrown organic garlic and tofu specialties, but pizza was a man’s food, so they figured it was still good. Their testosterone was running just fine now that they weren’t having to eat arugula and beet salads or escargot delicacy in the Den of Womanly Pursuits.

“I’ve been waiting all afternoon for Francesca’s brilliance.”

Pascal leaned his ax against the wall beside the assortment of weapons that he could call out of thin air in the middle of a battle. Currently reposing were three spears, six swords, at least fifteen daggers, and some other implements. All of them were decorated with intricate coils of gold floss that Pascal had woven. The warrior could create butterflies out of thread in less than a minute, and he always kept his pink heart pillow nearby when he was napping. But he could also decapitate a scorpion with a thumbtack from ten miles away, so it was all good. “Check it out.” Pascal jerked his chin toward the window.

Nigel tossed Pascal a beer as he glanced over at the French doors that led to his patio with the panoramic view of Boston. Gazing out at the muddy Charles River, his foot up on a hacked-up wooden bust of their former captor, was his teammate, Christian Slayer.

Christian had his back toward Nigel, but his skin was glittering as it always did before battle. His hands were flexed, and his neck was rigid.

“He’s been like that all morning,” Pascal said as he popped open the organic apple-plum beer brewed by opera-singing monks in Belgium.

“Hey, Christian.” Nigel set his own sushi pizza on the poker table beside his sketchpads, then sauntered across the room and tapped the corner of the last box into Christian’s back. “Got your—”

Christian whirled around and slammed his fist at Nigel’s face.

“Hey!” Nigel dodged the unexpected assault with a tuck and roll he’d perfected in Gymnastics for Warriors 101 in the Den and landed on his feet after two flips and a handspring, pizza still upright and steaming. “You forget your coffee this morning or something?”

“Shit, man! Sorry. Didn’t realize it was you.” Christian’s skin had taken on a purplish metallic shimmer that suggested there was more than a little adrenaline stirring beneath the flesh. “Don’t sneak up on me next time. I don’t want to kill you.”

“Sneak up on you? I’ve been here for five minutes.” Nigel scanned Christian’s gaunt frame, the shadows beneath his eyes, his sunken cheeks, the unhinged fire in his blue eyes. “You okay?”

“Yeah, sure. Yeah.” Christian ran his hand through his short, perfectly coiffed hair, trying to mess it up. Angelica had mutated Christian so that he was in a perpetual state of gelled perfection whenever he tapped into his metallic side, and the warrior did his best to rebel whenever possible. “Just hungry.”

Nigel handed the pizza to his friend. “Talk to me, Slayer. I can help.”

“Not this time.” Christian strode across the room and took up residence at the poker table.

Exchanging raised brows with Pascal, Nigel sat across from Christian and shoved his Sharpies across the table at him. “Give it a shot.”

Christian snorted as he uplifted half the pizza and took an enormous bite. “If I need peace, I’ve got a greenhouse of flowers in my place to arrange.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not helping.” Nigel flipped open his pad to find a blank sheet for Christian, then paused when he saw the drawing on the first page.

It was a sketch of Natalie sitting in the window seat of her living room, knees pulled up to her chest, looking out the window. Her pale pink tank top slipping off the curve of her shoulder, her delicate fingers entwined around her knees. Sensual and vulnerable at the same time. It was the pose she’d been in when he’d walked into the house the morning after she’d almost died, and he’d never forget the vulnerability in her eyes… until she’d looked at him, and she’d gotten that fiery expression in her eyes that she always got when she noticed him watching her. That spark of life that had enchanted him from the first time he’d seen her.

He brushed his thumb over her cheek, wondering what it would be like to feel that soft skin beneath his hand for real. But that was a line he didn’t dare cross. It was one thing to bask in the magic of Natalie’s aura from afar. He’d been careful not to speak much to her, to keep a distance between them, never to indulge his desire to cross the chasm and succumb to the allure of her soul.

If he did that, he’d never get himself back out. And she would pay for it. He knew she would. Never would he trust himself to get close to her. Because she deserved to live, and if he got close to her…

He swore. No. He wouldn’t endanger her like that. He’d give her space and derive his peace from drawing her. Art would be enough. It had to be.

“Damn.” Christian leaned forward to peer at the page. “You got a crush on Natalie or what? You made her look like an angel.”

“Shut up.” Nigel flipped the page, hiding Natalie and giving Christian a blank sheet of paper. “Maybe flower arranging isn’t your shtick,” he said as he held out the pad to his friend. “Try drawing.”

“No chance.” Christian shoved it away from him. “Art may be your salvation, but it’s not mine—”

A loud purring interrupted them.
The
Persians.
A perennial favorite of their former captor, and not in a good way.

At least not for them.

***

Well, that certainly wasn’t going to win her the Michelin-O Gold Star of Love, was it?

Natalie folded her arms, leaned against the marble counter, and studied the broken freezer door she’d jerry-rigged shut.

On the plus side, she was suitably impressed with her ability to use the fourteen-carat gold ribbon ties from her gift boxes to hog tie the steel door back to the hinges, but when the inspectors for Michelin-O waltzed into her store, that wasn’t going to cut it, was it?

Yes, granted, as a Sweet, she was gifted with that special touch with chocolate, but all that did was qualify her for consideration by Michelin-O. She still had to prove herself and her store.

Cursed deedubs. The sexual hopes of men everywhere depended on the success of her store, and if it got destroyed because a bunch of chocoholic demons—

She sensed movement behind her, and her heart jumped with both excitement and dread. Nigel was back already to have his way with her?

“So, this is the place where it all happens, huh?”

Natalie yelped at the female voice in her ear. She grabbed a serving spoon, spun around, and found herself paddle-to-jaw with a woman who made her think that maybe she was on the wrong side of the freezer door.

Yeah, sure, being stared down by a skinny, five-foot-four, twenty-something female with wire-rimmed glasses, a fitted white blouse, and a high-waisted black skirt would not normally be cause for distress.

It was the fact that she was clutching a bloody twelve-inch serrated knife in her left hand, her white blouse was covered in blood, and her high cheekbones were smeared with it as well was what was giving Natalie pause.

“Back off!” Natalie backed up slightly, wielding the instrument-o-love like she knew how to use it. Which she did, if it involved careful preparation of magically enhanced chocolate desserts. Not so much of an expert at using it for self-defense, as evidenced by her need to get a TRO instead of defending her own turf. So not feeling the love for having sent Nigel away right now. Big manly warriors were supposed to be present for protective purposes at all times!

The woman blinked. “Didn’t we have a meeting set up for today?”

Natalie lowered the ladle a bit, realizing that if this woman wasn’t a deedub, then, well, it would be slightly embarrassing to be caught trying to impale her on a kitchen utensil. Okay, so yeah, maybe she was a little bit jittery. Despite her bravado, Nigel’s concerns had been niggling at the back of her mind all afternoon, and she was decidedly edgy now. “I’m sorry, I don’t recall a meeting—”

“We set it up three months ago.” The woman extended her nonbloody hand. “I’m Ella Smitweiser, PhD candidate, here to interview you about your business.” She waved the bloody knife. “Sorry about the blade. I just came from interviewing a Jack-the-Ripper fan club. They really weren’t what I’m looking for, so I’m hoping our interview goes better.”

Of course. A Jack-the-Ripper fan club. Why hadn’t Natalie thought of that? “An interview with me?” Natalie moved away from the freezer, putting a crate of empty crème bottles between her and the hidey-hole where she’d found the deedub such a short time ago. “That doesn’t sound familiar, and I’m kind of busy right now—”

“Don’t you dare try to put me off.” Ella set her hands on her hips and gave Natalie a peremptory stare. “You’re my last study for my thesis, and I need to have my research done by next week if I’m going to graduate this summer and start teaching in the fall. There’s only one open spot for Professor of Hedonism, and it’s mine, but I need you.”

“Professor of Hedonism?” Natalie noticed her hands were shaking. Hello? Living in terror was no longer acceptable. There would be no more trembling in fear for Natalie Fleming, remember? She’d survived a deedub bite, grabbed onto her second chance with both hands, and she simply was not going to live in fear like she’d done for the last twenty-five years. “What does that mean?”