His nerves stretched taut; Janvier didn’t know if he had the strength to refuse her if she made him a different offer, even knowing it would be a devastating mistake. She was his Achilles’ heel, his personal, luminous madness.
“Yes,” she said at last. “Let’s go.”
Grabbing the helmet he’d bought especially for her and that he never lent to anyone else, he put it on her with his own hands, flipping down the fog-resistant visor to protect her face. Then, zipping up his jacket after a glance at Ash to make sure hers was secure, he put on his helmet and straddled the bike. She hesitated for a second before swinging up behind him, long and sleek and the most complex, fascinating creature he’d ever met.
Not interrupting the silence that had fallen between them, he drove down the narrow cliff access road with care; he might have a daredevil streak, but despite her grit and determination, Ash was mortal. If he totaled the bike, she could die. His gut tightened, his spine locking.
Only a few more decades. Then it’ll be time for a new hunter to chase you.
She’d said that to him the first time she ever asked him for help. They’d gone into Nazarach’s territory, survived the sadistic angel, shared a decadent promise of a kiss on a train platform before she left him, his wild windstorm of a lover. Because she was very much his lover, even if they’d never been skin to skin. The idea of being with any other woman after he met her had simply been out of the question.
He would not—could not—let her die. Not the tempestuous storm that was her.
The light would go out of the world if she was gone.
The only impediment to her becoming near-immortal was Ash’s own resistance to the idea. Raphael had been aware of Ash since long before Janvier’s fateful meeting with her in that swamp; the archangel would be more than happy to have a woman with her abilities in his Tower. Somehow, Janvier had to make Ash see that living hundreds, perhaps thousands of years wouldn’t be the nightmare she imagined.
Once out of the Enclave, he turned the bike in the direction of the Adirondacks. The night wind whistled past them and other vehicles overtook on the left because he kept the speed undemanding, the snow on the sides of the road glittering in the beam of his headlight when they passed out of the more populated areas, the trees clean silhouettes against the night.
Flicking on the microphone and speaker system embedded in his helmet with a tilt of his head, he said, “There’s something about going for a ride with a beautiful woman wrapped around me.”
It took her a couple of seconds to figure out the system on her end. “Since when is a hand on your shoulder ‘wrapped around you’?”
The old sadness and older hurt he’d sensed in her since the instant she came face-to-face with her brother was still there, but he could hear his Ash rising through it. “Ah, perhaps I am simply indulging in a fantasy. Foolish male that I am.”
A snort sounded from behind him . . . but then she slid her arms around his body, pressing her chest flush to his back, the strength of her grip making him feel possessed, owned. The contact eased the aged, potent need inside him enough that his chest no longer hurt, air filling his lungs again.
“So, I ask and I receive. You’re in a generous mood.”
“Don’t get too cocky, cuddlebunny.”
His grin was bright. “What’s a cuddlebunny?” he asked, genuinely curious.
“You, at the moment. Sexy, non?”
He loved it when she teased him. “Oui, if it makes you cuddle so close.”
Her laughter was husky, and it was all he needed to hear.
• • •
They rode for hours, taking a break now and then to stretch their legs or admire a view—or for Ashwini to get some hot coffee into her.
“I’m going to hit caffeine overload at this rate,” she pointed out the second time Janvier made a quick pit stop at a diner, the snow that had begun to fall soft and pretty and no challenge to Janvier’s skill at handling the bike.
“Humor me, cher. I don’t want you frozen.” A wicked smile. “I like your blood running hot.”
“Stop thinking about my blood.”
“Now you ask for the impossible from your cuddlebunny.”
With each mile that passed, each playful word from him, Ashwini felt more and more of the strain caused by the unexpected encounter with Arvi leaching away . . . and more and more of her heart falling into the hands of the man who’d seen the fractures in her and given her laughter to heal it.
What was she going to do about this, about them? It no longer seemed as simple as keeping a secret, keeping her distance. Because, as proven by her current position, the latter had proved a spectacular failure, and the former seemed a betrayal of everything they’d become to each other. “Naasir is right,” she said when Janvier brought the bike to a halt at a gas station on their way back to Manhattan, the air clear of snow once more.
Taking off his helmet, Janvier looked over his shoulder at her. “About what?”
“About people making things too complicated for—” A loud buzzing interrupted her words. “Hold on,” she said, her heart slamming into her ribs because the decision about what to tell Janvier might just have been made for her.
However, the late night call wasn’t from Banli House.
“It’s Sara.” Ashwini felt her blood go cold; the Guild Director wouldn’t be calling her at a quarter after eleven unless there was a serious problem. “Sara, what’s happened?”