The Five Deaths of Roxanne Love (28 page)

Because along with the rest of the scourge she evicted, one reaper who had no right to her world would be exiled, too. One she considered her angel.

And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it but help her.

R
oxanne watched with confusion as Santo turned away. One minute he’d been warm and comforting, holding her like she was more important than breath. In the next, he’d lifted the duffel she’d remembered to grab from the car and started down the hall.

“Where are you going?” she asked, standing.

“I need to clean up. I can’t think straight when I feel like I’m covered in feathers and blood.”

She nodded, puzzled and a little hurt by his sudden departure. She’d been thinking along the lines of washing all of that away together. She stared after him, steeling herself not to beg him to come back. Before he stepped into the bathroom, he stopped, fingertips to the wall, head down.

Say something.

He glanced over his shoulder, his uncertainty a whisper she couldn’t quite hear and definitely didn’t understand. Then he closed the door behind him.

Not the reaction she’d expected. Not the one she wanted. But she’d seen the change in his eyes when she’d called him her angel. She just couldn’t figure out what it meant.

Frustrated, she leaned against the wall and let her head thump back.

“Fabulous.”

With a sigh, she moved to the spare room where she and Ruby both kept a few extra outfits, just as Reece had clothes at their place. Arms full, she headed to the bathroom in the master suite.

She washed and changed into some soft leggings and a battered ASU sweatshirt that had belonged to an old boyfriend who’d come and gone so quickly he’d left articles of clothing behind. The sweatshirt was worn soft, and it hung to her knees. Not exactly seduction material, but she didn’t have a lot to work with here. She told herself that her decision to go braless had to do with comfort, but her breasts were heavy and tight, her nipples hard as she pulled on a T-shirt beneath the sweatshirt.

Her breasts were laughing at her.

She brushed her teeth. Her hair. Put it in a ponytail. Took it down again.

She was stalling. Since Santo had walked into the bar two nights ago, they’d been shot at, gnawed on, and
attacked by devils with feathers. They’d been on the run and all alone. And somewhere in there he’d become important. To her. Not just because he kept saving her life but also because he made her see. Everything. He made her question. And sometimes he even made her answer.

She’d been given
four lives.
Sooner or later, her luck would run out. What if it happened tomorrow? What if it happened tonight? She wasn’t afraid anymore. She knew that she wouldn’t be alone, even in death. But right now she was very much alive, and she wanted to be with Santo. Be with him, no holding back. No regrets.

He’d been trying to get her there from the first, and she’d resisted. Why, then, had he walked away from her now that they finally had a moment of peace? A chance to be together.

Well, if he wanted her to ask better questions, he’d better brace himself for that one. If it meant marching right into the bathroom and demanding an explanation, she’d do it. Determined, she turned around.

Santo was leaning against the door frame, watching her. His gaze glittered darkly as it moved over her face and down, lingering on her breasts, her belly, her legs. How long had he been standing there? Had she been whispering to herself as she’d recited that little pep talk? Did he know what she was thinking this time? Her blush felt like a hot wave.

He’d replaced his tattered sweats with faded blue jeans that rode low on his hips. Scratches and bites
covered his bare chest, and a thin strip of elastic from his briefs showed above the waistband, white against his burnished skin. His feet were bare.

She cleared her throat. “I was just coming out.”

He stepped aside to let her pass, but not so much that her arm didn’t brush his chest. Or had that been her fault? He made her want to touch. She could feel him at her back, following close enough to send a shiver through her.

In the living room, she sat on the far end of the couch, knees drawn up under her sweatshirt, chin resting on top. For all her determination, she was suddenly shy.

He dropped down beside her, and she tried not to stare. But it was hard. The shadow of a beard darkened his jaw, as black as his hair and brows. It contrasted with his skin and made his features stand out. The arrogant nose, the lover’s lips. And the eyes with those long, lush lashes . . . She carefully avoided them.

Roxanne couldn’t think of anything to say, and Santo seemed to be having the same problem. He leaned back, staring at the ceiling with a pensive look. His right hand rested low on his flat belly, fingertips just inside the waistband of his jeans. She didn’t know just how long she’d been watching them with a fixed fascination, but when she glanced up, she saw that she had his attention. His eyes had become heavy-lidded and the air between them became thick with awareness.

“I’ve spent the last two days wishing I could read your mind,” he murmured.

“It’s a scary place in there,” she said with a weak smile. “Be glad you can’t. Besides, I gave you my life story in the car. That’s all there is.”

“No dark hidden secrets?”

“All my lives are an open book.”

“Not to me.”

She smiled, but she felt too self-conscious for small talk. Too vested for flirting. She wanted him. She wanted him to want
her
.

“What happened earlier?” she asked before she could convince herself not to. “You turned all broody again.”

His brows went up at
broody.
She wondered how he perceived himself. Did he know how darkly dangerous he seemed to her?

“Nothing happened. I just needed some downtime.”

“You mean away from me? Because it seemed like it was something I said that came out wrong.”

He shook his head. “No. Not that.”

“Then what? Are you worried that I’m going to expect something when all of this is over? I know I called you my angel, but I didn’t mean it to sound so possessive. . . . I mean, you don’t have to . . .”

“Roxanne.”

“I just don’t want you to think I have expectations.”

“Roxanne? Could you look at me?”

That was the last thing she wanted to do. Because when she looked at him, she wanted to touch him. And if she touched him, she’d never want to stop. The whole speech she’d just bumbled through had been a lie. She had expectations. She had big ones.

He moved, leaning across the couch to touch her cheek and raise her chin. Halfheartedly, she let him.

“It wasn’t anything you said. You just made me think.”

“About?”

He let out a deep breath. “About what happens later. When I have to go back.”

She frowned, feeling like his words had emerged mixed up and she’d have to order them before they’d make sense.

“Go back?”

He nodded soberly. “I won’t be able to stay here when it’s all over.”

She couldn’t have heard that right. “Define
here
.”

“On earth.”

“But you live here. You have a life here. You were
married
here.”

He caught his bottom lip and nodded, but some out-of-control signal was flashing in her head, taking her back to the spare bedroom in Louisa’s house and the conversation they’d had about his wife.

He’d never told Marisella what he was. Something
about the omission—something
more
than just his secrecy—bothered her about that. But she hadn’t been able to pinpoint why.

Now a horrible suspicion began to grow inside her. A fear that she couldn’t control. There was something hidden in this picture that she couldn’t see.

“Roxanne,” Santo said. “There was always a bigger plan for me. I came here for
you.
”

“To protect me.”

“And I stay until I’m sure you’re safe. But then I go back. I’m not of your world, Roxanne. You know that.”

“Bullshit.” She reached over and pinched him. Hard. When he winced and looked at her in surprise, she said, “You feel like you’re of this world to me.”

He didn’t rise to her anger. Instead he watched her with grave eyes that saw the hurt echoing through her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked in a voice that wasn’t steady. “Why did you let me believe I could keep you?”

Later she might regret how pathetic that sounded. How much of her heart it revealed. But right now all she could think was that somehow as they’d been running for their lives, she’d been falling in love. He’d stolen her heart and now he meant to leave with it.

“I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t. I was afraid you’d shut me out and all I wanted was for you to let me in.”

There was too much honesty in his voice. It wrapped around her and squeezed until she thought she was going to cry. She bit down hard on her lip and fought it.

He took her hand, and she allowed herself to look at him, bracing for what she’d see in his eyes. “Roxanne, I don’t want to go. If it was my choice, I’d stay here.”

“Define here,” she demanded in a tone that turned it into a plea.

“With you. Always with you.”

The declaration drew her forward. Santo met her halfway. She kissed him with all of the hurt and pent-up longing inside her. Kissed him like it was the last chance for a taste of heaven. Santo made a deep sound that chased away her doubts and filled her with a twisted sense of hope.

He wanted to stay. If the two of them could survive demons, hellhounds, ravens from Abaddon . . . why couldn’t they change their future? Why couldn’t she hold her angel here?

He tunneled his fingers through her hair and held her face in his hands as he kissed her back slowly, deeply, his touch a reflection of all she felt. No man had ever kissed her like that. Touched her like that.

And if he left her, no man ever would again.

But he was here now, and he made her feel . . . exquisite. Rare. Precious. Something so special it had to be savored. While his tongue stroked hers, he pulled her
onto his lap, her knees straddling his thighs. His hands were on her body, their heat cleansing, healing. Filled with promise.

He tugged her hips closer until all that separated her hot center from the hard length of him was a soft pair of blue jeans and stretchy leggings. When his hands slipped under her shirt and found only skin, he made that sound again, and her whole body bowed in response.

He carried her to the bedroom without breaking the kiss, and Roxanne thought he could have had her on the hallway floor as long as he kept his mouth on hers. He found the bed in the spare room without stumbling and followed her down until she felt the softness of a mattress beneath her, the seducing weight of his body above. The quiet groan of surrender he made in his throat turned her boneless. His fingers gripped the hem of her sweatshirt and stripped it off, leaving the T-shirt underneath. She needed that gone, too. She wanted to scream,
Hurry!
and beg for him to slow down. He did neither. Instead he continued his leisurely assault, taking his time kissing her, exploring her mouth, tasting the curve of her throat, the soft swell of her breast.

He tongued her through the thin cotton of her T-shirt, making her nipples hard and her breasts ache. It had seemed they would never have these moments together when they’d run from the horrors that chased them. And now it seemed that none of that could have been real. Only this. Now. With him.

She arched against him, reveling in the weight of his body, muscled and hard from sternum to calf. Her legs wrapped around his and a wave of desire went through her like electricity.

When her bare chest was finally against his, they both stilled. He had his weight on his forearms, his hands in her hair, and he stared down at her with a look so complex it stole her breath away. Their lovemaking had been explosive at Louisa’s, a rush of passion and feeling that had left her dazed. Now she took the time to note the tremble in his arms, the hitch in his breath, the hooded look in his smoldering eyes. He seemed overwhelmed by the responsiveness of her body beneath his, overawed by how it felt to make love to her. And for just a moment, he looked lost.

“What is it, Santo?”

He kissed her instead of answering, and in the seduction of his lips, she forgot why she’d asked. She moved restlessly against him, and at last he stripped off the rest of her clothes steadily, determinedly, mouth still plundering wherever it roamed.

“How could you think I would choose to leave you?” he said against her shoulder.

She couldn’t think at all, except about how to get closer to him, have more of him. Make it impossible for him to ever leave her.

She reached for the button fly of his jeans and he leaned back to help her. She yanked at the top
button and the others opened in rapid fire. He hissed in a breath and laughed, the sound deep in his chest, vibrating against her bare skin, so masculine, so intimate that it left her scalded.