Once Upon a Valentine by Stephanie Bond Page B

fortune—for a decade, having followed his uncle to South America when he was just eighteen. His uncle had been the best, and he’d taught Raine well. His number one rule? Once you take the job, you see it through to the very end. And he did. Always.
    Besides, he’d only been paid half of his fee. The rest wouldn’t cross his palm until she was safely home in Riverdale.
    So he’d found her, studied her, learned all he could.
    He knew she was beautiful, that was without doubt. And he knew she appealed to him on a deep, visceral level that he didn’t like to acknowledge, considering she was, after all, his responsibility…whether she knew that, or not.
    He also knew a brain lurked inside that sexy exterior. She was determined, persistent as a bloodhound. He knew she liked music but she couldn’t sing for shit, knew she didn’t care for pizza—bizarre—but had no problem scarfing canned ravioli—more bizarre. And he knew she had a thing for Disney movies—hence his knowledge of her singing abilities. (She sometimes went all Beauty-singing-to-the-Beast behind closed doors, through which he’d heard her.) Though, actually, that Disney thing made sense, given where she was from. Most Elatyrians were drawn to that stuff, if only so they could get all indignant about their history being fodder for an entire civilization’s amusement.
    One last thing he knew about Ashlynn Scott: someone was after her. Someone with enough money to hire serious muscle.
    Thankfully, he’d moved faster than Miss Nippy-Teeth and had gotten to the village ahead of her. Which was why he’d been here to stop her from making the biggest mistake of her life—the mistake being the shortening of that life by a lot of years.
    She continued to struggle. Twisting in his arms, she elbowed him in the gut, then kicked his shins. Though he had at least five inches in height on the woman, she had pointy elbows and wicked little feet. He was going to be bruised tomorrow.
    “Two of them are waiting for you in the tavern, another’s circling the village,” he snarled. “He’ll be coming around that corner in about thirty seconds. Now will you please stay still?”
    She froze, twisting her head to stare up at him. The full moonlight brought out the deep, midnight-blue of her eyes and the utter mistrust on her face. She looked at him as though he was a cobra who’d offered to pluck out a splinter with his front teeth.
    “I’m trying to help you,” he mumbled, quickly shifting his gaze. He didn’t particularly want to notice how blue those eyes were. Or think about how delicious those perfectly curved lips might taste. Or how silky her long, honey-brown hair felt, draping over his forearm.
    Nor did he want to see just how much lovelier her heart-shaped face was up close…even if she did look ready to impale him on the nearest handy tree limb. He’d seen her on Earth, but never this close. Most of the time, he’d had to make do with listening to her through the walls of a cheap hotel room, his imagination filling in that which his senses hadn’t yet beheld.
    He knew now that his imagination hadn’t come close to the real woman now pressed against his body. And Raine was a very imaginative guy. Especially when it came to the mysterious Ms. Ashlynn Scott of Riverdale.
    Hearing the scrape of boots on cobblestone, Raine drew her down into a crouch and breathed a word into her ear. “Watch.”
    Right on schedule, a burly thug with a wicked knife strapped to his hip trudged around the nearest corner. Ashlynn stiffened. Even with his hand clapped over her mouth, she still managed to make a sound. “Mmph....”
    Reckless woman. Raine couldn’t tighten his hand any further and tried to think of another way to keep her from calling out. One immediately came to mind—he’d fantasized about that, too, during those long, quiet nights when he’d listened to her through the wall and tried to imagine what she wore to bed. And what she didn’t. But he