and shaking around each other. As if his grief and loss were her own.
And it was, she realized, as she cried against his chest. It was her own, and he was her own. He had been for quite a while now, but she hadn’t wanted to face it yet. She should have known when he’d made her cry by telling her to pretend she loved him two nights before. She should have known after that dream, after he picked up her stuffed valentine heart out of the dust and rubble of her broken doll self and brought it to life. Miraculously.
When the emotional storm subsided, she wiped her face, propped her chin on her forearms. Both of them embarrassed and shy.
She sniffed back her tears, and went on the offensive as usual. “So? Let’s have it, loverboy. The bruises, the shoulder, the dip in the sea?”
“András,” he said.
She nodded. She knew the man, and wished that she didn’t. It was not safe to be on that guy’s radar screen. He was in the same class as Kurt and Georg. “How did András find us?”
“He had a tracer on me. He must have gotten it from Hegel.”
That was a nasty shock. “He had a what?” Her voice squeaked.
He jerked his chin in the direction of his shoulder. “There,” he said. “It must have been in there since I was treated for that bullet wound last year. Looks like PSS stopped trusting me even then. They wanted to keep me under control. Hegel must be dead, I assume.”
“So that’s how they found us at the hotel. And the airport, too.”
“Yes.” His voice was subdued. “By following me. I should have figured it out earlier. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” she heard herself say. Though of course, it was. She couldn’t help the meaningless words from coming out. Look at her, trying to make the guy feel better about almost getting her and Rachel killed, hah. What a gooey, soft-headed chump she was becoming. Frightening to contemplate.
The story came out of him, terse, halting phrases issued from his chattering teeth. The death-defying dive into the stormy sea, swimming through icy salt water in underground caves, digging transmitters out of his own body in the watery dark with the tip of a pocketknife. Could she have done it?
“Why didn’t—”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t call you,” he said simply. “I couldn’t lead him to you. And there was no time for a doctor. András would have had me and that would have been it. Game over.”
“Got it,” was all she said.
He started to give her his habitual shrug, but froze halfway through, grimacing in pain.
She refused to let herself melt with pity. His machismo was pointless. His pain hurt her. If he suffered needlessly, then so did she. Life had too much suffering in it as it was. Suffering needlessly pissed her off, big-time.
But not all of him hurt. Amazingly, Val’s body was stirring beneath her, his cock growing long and hot and hard against her belly. She wriggled against it, hardly believing the evidence of her own senses. Yes, sure enough. Rock hard and ready. Even now.
“Val,” she said sternly. “You have got to be kidding.”
“Sorry,” he said innocently.
“You know that this naked hugging thing is strictly therapeutic in nature, right? I was worried about hypothermia and shock. I was not looking to wank your willie. We don’t have time.”
“No?” he said. “But you are so beautiful. So hot and strong and full of life.” His arms tightened, pulling her closer. “And I love you.”
She stiffened. “Don’t get flowery on me, Val,” she warned. “I can’t take that kind of thing. You know that. So just don’t do it.”
“I love you,” he repeated stubbornly. “I almost died today, and I would have missed my chance to tell you, although I am sure that you know it. So I will say it if I damn well please, and you will listen. I love you. I mean every word. I love you, Tamar.”
Her eyes leaked, her face was hot. This was so not fair. Not now, on top of everything. She wanted to tell him she loved him too, but the words were backed up, bottlenecked behind a burning knot.
She hid her face against his good shoulder. Waited until her throat opened up and she could trust herself to harrumph.
“Well,” she muttered, “you can’t be too badly hurt, if you’re rubbing your erection against me and carrying on about deathless love. I suppose that’s good news. Now what?”
That flashing, deep-grooved grin was so beautiful, it practically broke her into pieces. “My tough babe,” he murmured. “I hate to say it, my love, because there is no place on earth I would rather be than beneath your naked body, but we must run quickly. And far.”
“But you cut the tracer out, right?”
“I was in this bed with that thing transmitting for sixteen hours,” he said. “He will check here. Perhaps he is already on his way. I hope I bought time with my ferry trick, but I cannot count on it.”
She stared into his eyes, her mind working furiously. “You have the car,” she said. “We’ll go and find another place where you can rest up while I deal with Ana and Stengl. I have to get that over with. Then, I’m all yours. We will run. Anywhere you want.”
His face went somber, and he gazed up at her for a long moment. “Perhaps you have not understood,” he said carefully. “Our plans have changed. We must leave it, Tamar. All of it. Stengl, too.”
Everything went cold and distant around her, as it had in Ana’s salone. She felt a door slam shut inside her. A door with her bereaved fifteen-year-old self behind it. No. She took a deep breath.
“No, Val,” she said. “I came all this way for this. I’m not leaving until it is done. Don’t try to stop me.”
But she could already see that he didn’t get it. He couldn’t. How could he? He’d already rearranged his reality, and Stengl was not relevant to his reality. Only to hers. She was alone with the nightmare of her past and she always would be.
She actually tried, for a few seconds, to imagine letting it go. Just walking away. But she’d gone too far down that road by now. She’d spent too many years imagining Drago Stengl’s face when he saw her standing before him and knew death was near.
When he finally understood what he had done to her. To all of them. Knowing that at last the bill had come due.
She couldn’t let it go. Or rather, it would not let her go. It had clutched her like a skeletal claw for her whole adult life. Its grip was not easing now. It clamped down, a death grip, crushing her. She couldn’t endure any more of that. Not if deliverance was possible.
He cupped her face and stared earnestly into her eyes. “Imre did this to set me free,” he said, his voice urgent. “I cannot waste his gift. I cannot risk the last thing on earth that I care about. I want to make a life with you. I never dreamed of such a thing, but you have made me dream of it, and now I must have it.”
“And Rachel?” she
