“Santo?”
He shot up in shock at that soft voice, and he stared with amazement at the woman moving through the cell toward him.
“Pet?” he said with bewilderment. She was wearing a short red nightgown made of a sheer material that merely veiled the flesh it covered. His eyes locked on her breasts as she approached, and Santo’s mouth immediately filled with saliva as he imagined closing his lips around her tender nipples and tonguing her through the wispy cloth.
When she paused before him, Santo’s hungry gaze lifted to her face, and he frowned when he saw that her eyes were full of sorrow as she looked him over. He almost flinched when she raised her hand, but she merely cupped his cheek and whispered, “Oh, my love. What are you doing to yourself?”
Santo blinked in surprise. “I did not do this. It was Vanittus Vilani.”
“Vanittus is dead,” she said gently. “Your mother killed him. You know that. You saw it. He is not doing this.”
Santo frowned with confusion. “But he—”
“Would you really stay here in your past rather than join me in your future?”
When he simply stared at her with confusion, Pet leaned down the little bit necessary to press a gentle kiss to his lips.
Santo sighed at the feel of her mouth on his. When her tongue traced the seam where his lips met, he let them part and groaned as she deepened the kiss. She tasted so damned good it brought tears to his eyes, and he slid his arms around her waist without thinking . . . the chains forgotten. When her arms immediately wrapped around him as well, it was like coming home and he pulled her closer as his mouth ravaged hers, his tongue thrusting and dueling with her smaller one.
“Make love to me, Santo,” she moaned by his ear. “I need you to love me. It’s been so long.”
Growling, he clasped her close, lunged to his feet, and then carried her to the table where they had performed the rat torture. Sitting her there, he stepped between her knees and allowed his hands to roam her body as he claimed her mouth with all the passion he had denied himself these last six weeks, and then a surprised chuckle escaped his lips as she licked one of his feet.
Frowning, Santo pulled back to look at Pet with confusion. She could not be licking his foot, she was sitting before him.
“What is it?” Pet asked, skimming her hands over his chest. It should have hurt, but didn’t, and he peered down to see that the wounds and scorching were gone. His skin was unblemished.
“Nothing,” he murmured, and then bent his head to kiss her again, only to chuckle against her mouth as she licked his foot again.
“What the—?” Santo muttered, and glanced down the length of his body just in time to see a golden Lab lick his foot for a third time. The dungeon and Pet had been a dream. He was awake now and in bed in his home, he realized, staring blankly at the unknown dog as it sat down and let out a soft woof.
“Good boy, Bear.”
Santo sat up abruptly at those soft words and watched the dog pad over to the couch by the fireplace at the opposite end of his large bedroom. His eyes grew round with amazement when a sleepy Pet sat up on the couch to pet the animal.
“Good boy,” she repeated, grabbing the golden Lab by the cheeks and rubbing the fur affectionately. “Good Bear.”
After giving the dog one last pet, Pet stood and moved toward the bed. The dog immediately followed. When she stopped at the foot of the bed, the dog sat beside her and then peered up at Pet. Seeing that she was looking at Santo, though, he then turned to look at him too.
“This is Bear,” Pet announced calmly as Santo took in the red tank top, black leather pants and black knee-high boots she wore. The heels had to be four inches high.
“What are you doing here, Pet?” Santo growled, dragging his eyes back to her face and tugging his sheets and blankets up to his chin.
“Bear is a service dog,” Pet said, ignoring his question. Glancing down, she smiled at the Lab and stroked his head. “I had a student once who was an army vet. Well, I’ve had many of them. But this one had a dog with him at all times. Her name was Jazz. She was beautiful and so well behaved. It turned out she was a service animal.”
“Pet,” he growled in warning. “You need to get out now.”
“No. You need to listen now,” she said unperturbed, and kept petting Bear as she continued, “My student suffered from PTSD. Anxiety, depression, and night terrors. Jazz comforted him when he was depressed, soothed him when he was anxious, and woke him up when he had nightmares. He didn’t go anywhere without her.”
Leaving her hand resting on Bear’s head, she turned back to Santo. “Jazz was trained to wake him by jumping on his chest and lying down, becoming a warm, furry blanket of sorts. But that wouldn’t do for you. You might kill the poor thing.”
Santo winced at the words, and then realizing he was clutching the bedclothes to his chin like a Victorian miss, he scowled and let them lower a bit as she said, “So we trained Bear to lick your feet, and if that didn’t work, bark.”
“Who is we?” Santo asked, his voice a rough growl.
“Your mother and Parker and I.”
His eyebrows flew up on his forehead. “Mother is training both of you?”
“Yes. She decided to train Parker because she didn’t think he should be around Quinn until we were sure she was handling everything okay,” she explained, and then added, “And she had to train me, because you asked her to and wouldn’t do it yourself.”
There was no accusation in her tone, it was stated as a simple fact, but Santo flinched anyway. Mouth tightening against the guilt assailing him, he asked, “How is Parker?”
“Good. He’s adjusted really well, and learned fast. He likes your mother,” she added, and then said, “So do I. If you care.”
“Of course I care,” he growled miserably. “You are my life mate, Pet. I love you. But I cannot sleep with you and risk hurting you.”
“And yet I hurt,” she said quietly, and then turned on her heel and headed for the door. “Enjoy Bear. He’s a good dog.”
“Pet, wait!” Throwing the blankets aside, he slid off the bed and hurried after her. “Pet!”
Catching up to her in the hall, he grabbed her arm to swing her around. Pet spun back all right, but Santo suddenly found his feet swept out from under him. He crashed to the floor with a grunt and then stared up at her with amazement.
“That’s Wing Chun,” Pet said calmly, her gaze sliding over his bare chest and the loose black pajama bottoms he was wearing. “It’s what I used with Patrick when he attacked me in my apartment. I couldn’t have defeated him with it alone, but it kept me alive long enough to grab a knife that did save me.”
She took a step back when Santo started to stand up, and then added, “I like to tell people it was something I took up when I was going through my Everything-Chinese phase as a teenager, but it’s not true.”
Santo smiled crookedly at that. “Your Everything-Chinese phase?”
“When I insisted on studying everything that was Chinese,” she said dryly. “I studied Chinese writing, feng shui, Chinese architecture, wouldn’t eat anything but Chinese food, and studied the Chinese zodiac.”
His eyebrows rose in surprise. “The Chinese zodiac?”
“Yes, you know, its origins, the twelve animals, and their traits. It was really interesting and very informative. For instance, from my studies I know that I’m the dog, and you’re an ass.”
Santo blinked. “There is no ass in the Chinese zodiac.”
Pet shrugged. “You’re still an ass.”
For some reason that made him smile, but then Santo sighed and asked, “What is the truth behind your taking Wing Chun?”
“I started training in it at six when I landed in America as a scared child who had watched her parents and sister murdered. I wanted to feel safe.”
Santo nodded. It was what he’d expected. Running a hand wearily over his scalp, he said, “I am sorry, Pet. Truly, I am. But I want to keep you safe too. I cannot risk making love to you, fainting and then possibly harming you in my sleep. I am doing this for you.”
“Well, that’s a lie,” she said dryly.
“What?” he asked with amazement.
“That’s a lie,” she repeated. “You’re a liar, and a selfish one at that.”
“How can you say that?” Santo demanded, and suddenly furious, he roared, “I have done nothing but try to keep you safe from the beginning.”
“I don’t need you to keep me safe,” Pet roared right back. “And you are a liar because you are not doing this for me, you are doing it for you. So you don’t have to feel guilty if you should accidentally hurt me.”
While Santo stood blinking at her, Pet added, “And if you really cared about hurting me, you would care that you are putting me in pain by refusing to have me as your life mate, and you would do something to fix that. Because you did this to me. You wooed me and made me fall in love with you, and then you turned me and gave me hope, and then you walked away. And let me tell you, while a broken bone might hurt for a few minutes to an hour until the nanos fix it, my heart has hurt every single minute of every day of the last six weeks since you walked away from me.”
Pet turned her back on him then and started to walk away.
Santo stood staring after Pet, her words echoing in his ears, and then blurted, “How? How can I fix this?”
Pet paused and turned slowly back. For one moment, she just stared at him, and then she walked back until she was a foot in front of him. “You stop pushing me away. You trust that I might be able to help you out of the dungeon by sharing our dreams, and that Bear will wake you up if you have a nightmare.” Smiling wryly, she added, “And apparently if we’re making love in our dreams.”
Santo smiled crookedly too, but asked, “But what if those two things do not work and I hurt you?”
“Then we sleep in separate rooms and I chain you to the bed when we make love, so you can’t hurt me, but we do not give up. We never give up.”