Angie Fox: Gentlemen Prefer Voodoo

“We have to go,” Amie said, leading Dante through the door to the shop.

“Have fun, kids!” Isoke called. “And just so you know, I will not be leaving gifts in your shoes if you are busy making love!”

She seemed embarrassed. “I’m sorry. He’s just…”

“A Kongamato.” Dante had seen voodoo mambos in the cemetery.

“Right,” Amie said, avoiding his gaze. They were back to being polite. It would not do.

“This way,” she said, leading him upstairs to her apartment.

Her living space was as colorful as her shop and stacked with books and various homemade oddities. Yet instinct told him there was more to this woman than she’d revealed.

He would get to the bottom of it.

She led him into a small bathroom off of the library and flipped on the bright overhead light.

Amie gasped when she saw his injury clearly for the first time. “I’m so sorry.”

The wound was ugly, his olive skin ripped and torn.

He shrugged and immediately regretted the move as hot fire shot down his arm.

There didn’t seem to be any major damage, but there was a lot of blood. Her fault, but he wouldn’t get into that right now. Her knee bumped against his leg. This was the closest she stood to him—voluntarily—since she’d kissed him.

“I’ll fix it,” she said, earnestly.

Dante held his temper as he watched Amie wrestle with an impossible number of tubes and jars in a miniscule cabinet over the pedestal sink. That’s not to say anything was out of place. If he wasn’t mistaken, the items were actually lined up by size. He just didn’t understand why a woman would need that many.

Some things never changed.

He turned her to face him. “Forget the bandages. We need to talk.”

She seemed wary, afraid. It was ridiculous.

He’d proved to her tonight that she was his one true love. He’d shown her the mark on his tomb. He’d been unable to wear the wedding ring his former wife had given him. Despite that, Amie had rejected him outright.

She might have reacted with shock at first, then joy and absolute glee, as any woman would. But outright denial? He never would have imagined it.

What more proof did this modern woman need?

Her gaze fell on his arm. “I agree. We need to talk. But not with you looking like that.”

“Amie,” he warned.

She turned back to the medicine cabinet.

His fists clenched and his shoulder burned. He wanted to be a gentleman, but, “I am done with excuses.”

Amie was supposed to be his one true love—a once-in-a-lifetime connection—a woman who could call him back from the grave and give him a second chance at love and at life.

She was passionate. Her kiss at the door had proven that. His body tightened just thinking about it.

So why was she fighting?

It was insulting as hell. “Why did you call me?” Why put him through this for nothing?

She didn’t answer. Her lips pursed as she selected bandages and clanked through the bottles in the medicine cabinet—as if that was the most important thing they had to deal with.

Damn it to hell, he wouldn’t be cast aside.

He reached for her, ignoring her squeak of surprise as he took her by the waist and slapped her down on the edge of the sink.

“Ow!” she protested.

“It does not hurt.” He brushed his fingertips along the trembling at her collarbone. “Mi corazon.”

Her breath quickened. She tried to buck off, her thick hair falling over one eye. “Don’t you manhandle me.”

Hands on her hips, he pulled her up against him so that she was forced to see him. “Then don’t play games with me.”

She drew a careful breath, her fingers absently tracing the velvety soft skin he’d just touched.

He’d have a conversation with her if it killed him. What he hadn’t counted on was the lick of desire that slid down his spine.

He pushed closer, just to test her and watched the rosy flush creep up her cheeks. “I’ll ask again,” he ground out. “Why did you call me?”

She touched her lips together nervously.

Madre de dios . His whole future hung in the balance and this woman, this savior of his couldn’t even answer a simple question.

She chewed at her delectable lower lip, her eyes wide, her hair damp around her face. “Look,” she said, “I made a mistake.”

No. “That kind of power doesn’t come from accident. You did this on purpose.”

At first he had been amused that she could be so powerful that she could call him and not understand what it meant. But if she didn’t want him anymore, that was downright terrifying.

“Why do you care?” she demanded.

Damn it to hell. “Because it’s not supposed to be this way. Not for me.”

Dante had never been an overly patient man, but he’d haunted the cemetery for two hundred years. The one thing that had kept him going was the one in a million shot that someone would call him back and give him another chance.

Tears filled her eyes. “Just let me fix you.”

He stepped back. “I am afraid that is impossible.”

Dante sat on the edge of her tub, his head in his hands. He had to make her understand.

She leaned over him, her yellow sleeve brushing his cheek, her nose red. “This won’t hurt a bit,” she said, right before she poured molten lava down his arm. He cringed.

She sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “It’s iodine,” she explained, dabbing at him again with the cotton ball. “It’ll help, I promise.” She swallowed. “I was actually hoping you’d be healed by now.”

“And why was that?” He asked, teeth gritted.

“Well, you’re…” She paused, obviously trying to think of a polite way to say what he probably didn’t want to hear. “Undead. Or should I say reanimated?”

He planted his hands on his knees and felt a drop of sweat slide down his back as she resumed her assault. “I regret to inform you that while I may be reconstituted, as it may. I have always been, and I remain, a mortal man.” All the pity. “I can age and I can certainly die.”

Her lips parted slightly.

The hollow feeling in his gut grew.

Dante didn’t know how much time he had, but if Amie didn’t offer him more of her magic, freely and completely, their bond would wear away. Then he’d be truly and forever dead.

He couldn’t let that happen.

“Put those things down,” he said, taking the cotton and the iodine from her and placing them behind him in the tub. “Now,” he said, standing, “I will show you just how alive I am.” He held out his hand to her.

Amie hesitated. He could see the wild pulse at her neck, hear her shallow breathing. The air in the small room had grown quite warm. Slowly, he reached for her hand. She swallowed hard as he drew her closer and placed her hand over his beating heart.

She exhaled as they both felt his heart pound against his chest.

He took her other hand and touched it to his lips. “I am human. Just like you.”

She blinked once, twice. Confusion trickled across her features. “But back in the cemetery, you went after those possessed men unarmed.”

“Yes,” he said. He’d do it again.

She lingered on his arm. “You mean, if this had hit you in the chest, you would have died?” Realization dawned in her. “You almost died for me? Why?”

He felt the corners of his mouth tug as he returned his tired and battered body to the edge of the tub. “I didn’t want to watch you die.”

She sat down next to him. “Nobody ever stood up for me like that.”

He closed his hand over hers. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. And he meant it.

Why today’s women did everything on their own was beyond him. In his day, most came from large, extended families. They spent lifetimes building large networks of friends. People helped one another.