The Angel Wore Fangs(17)

I wouldn’t touch that one with a ten-foot longboat oar. So much for her riding experience!

She was also scared spitless by spiders: “All those hairy legs!”

Hah! She should see the legs of some Vikings I knew. Thicker than kudzu. Luckily, mine are blond and not so noticeable. Much.

Horror movies: “C’mon, even you have to admit Freddy Krueger is creepy.”

Freddy who?

High diving boards: “Do I look like I have a death wish?”

Yes!

And Ouija boards: “I didn’t talk to Grandma Stewart when she was alive. Why would I want to talk to the old bat when she’s dead?”

“That, I can understand. My paternal grandsire had so much lice in his beard, it moved, and he smelled like gammelost all the time. Legend said that the stinksome cheese was served to ancient Viking warriors before battle to turn them berserk.”

She blinked at him as if he was rather odd. He could only imagine how she would react if she saw him in full vangel mode—elongated fangs, bloody sword, and mists of blue wings rising out of his shoulders. Or Lucipires! Holy clouds! Lucies scared him, too, when they morphed into demonoid form, all mung-oozing scales, claws, tails, red eyes, and fangs. She would probably have a heart attack or be scarred mentally for life.

He had to give her credit, though. The girl faced her fears and barreled on, teeth chattering but chin raised pugnaciously. That was real bravery. Or stupidity.

Andrea sat next to the window, and he on the aisle, of the first-class accommodations. They’d argued about that, too—“the unnecessary expense”—along with fifty other things about this trip, but there was no way his long legs would fit into economy class.

“Prepare for takeoff,” the pilot said over the intercom system.

Buckled in, the passengers braced themselves. Some more than others. Cnut glanced Andrea’s way, then did a double take. Her white-knuckled fists clutched the armrests, her eyes were wide and unblinking, shivers rippled over her body. A small keening whimper escaped her parted lips.

This he could understand. Flying high above the earth was unnatural to man, and the first time he’d done it (in an airplane; he’d yet to receive real angel wings), Cnut had felt as frightened as Andrea was now. In fact, he’d clutched an armrest so tightly, the wood had cracked.

Cnut did the only thing he could to distract Andrea.

He kissed her.

Well, it wasn’t the only thing he could think of. But the only thing that wouldn’t get him arrested.

So, he kissed her.

No big Viking deal, right?

Wrong!

Cnut felt as if he’d fallen off the highest cliff. First, there was the shock, lips touching lips, then the incredible sense of floating through the air like a feather on an erotic wind current, as she breathed into his mouth, and he breathed back.

With one of his arms behind her back, he used the other hand to cup her cheek and turn her more directly toward him. Her face rested on his shoulder, and she surrendered with a sigh. Another exchange of breath as he shaped her lips to his and deepened the kiss.

Then he surrendered, too.

He knew about surrender. Hah! All his life, his former life, had been about surrender. To hunger. To thirst. To fornication. To gluttony in all his excesses. But this was different. This was surrender “of” not “to.” Of himself. Not to some temptation.

And that made as much sense to him as practically devouring a woman in a public place. His peripheral senses, which had been on temporary shutdown, heard a giggle from the seat behind them, and a snicker from across the aisle. Slowly, he eased his mouth off hers, still cradling her face in one big hand.

She stared at him, dazed, but no longer with fear. Her brown eyes glistened like gold, her kiss-swollen lips parted as she breathed heavily, wisps of her blonde hair fluttered about her face. She wasn’t pretty, exactly, but she was more attractive, to him, than any woman he’d met in more than a thousand years.

“You smell like peppermint,” she said breathily.

He let out a hoot of laughter and moved his hand off her face, reluctantly. He also eased his other arm from around her shoulder. “That’s me. A big old Peppermint Pattie.”

“Or a peppermint stick.”

“And you smell like coconut. That’s some combination. Cocomint. Or peppernut.” He was trying for jest to lighten this amazing cloud of sensuality that seemed to cocoon them.

But she took him seriously and said, “Hey, don’t knock it. I bought a scented candle one time that was just that. Coconut mints.”

What a ridiculous conversation! Even more ridiculous, why am I grinning like a halfbrained youthling with his first cockstand? “Well, at least you’re no longer shivering like a cat in a dog kennel.”