She crossed her legs, smiling when he laughed. She placed her hand against his chest when he began tugging on her pants. He stopped instantly when she winced. “Travis?”

“Hmm?” He pulled her other hand away from her chest, pouting when she covered herself again with her free hand.

“Before we get to the naked, don’t you think we should talk?”

He stared at her blankly, his pupils dilating. She could actually see the white mist creeping across the blue.

She smacked him in the side of the head with one of those weird oblong pillows people liked to put on their bed for decoration but never actually used other than to bop other people upside the head.

The white receded. Unfortunately— fortunately her traitorous body whispered—that left him free to unsnap the front clasp of her bra. “Travis.”

“Talk is overrated.” He gave her his best innocent look, snickering when she rolled her eyes. “Okay. I was only planning on getting you into your nightgown. Trust me, you’re not up for what I have in mind.”

“Suuure you were.”

He reached beneath her pillow and pulled out a blue silky nightgown. She didn’t recognize it. “For you.”

She took the nightgown, stunned that he would get her such a gift. Then she saw the tag.

“Vera Wang? ”

“You like it?”

She looked up into his hopeful face. “It’s sheer.”

“I know.”

She thumped him on the thigh. “Travis. ”

“Fine.” He got her plain cotton nightgown out of her dresser drawer. “Here.”

He sounded so put-upon she nearly giggled. She’d done entirely too much of that recently. It made her sound like a chipmunk on speed. “Turn around.”

“Do I have to?”

She stifled the urge to shake her head. The Norse God of Justice is pouting in my bedroom. “It’s either that or you can leave.”

He pressed a quick, hard kiss to her lips. “You drive a hard bargain.” He turned his back on her, his hand on his hip.

“No peeking.”

His shoulders shook.

She got out of her clothes as quickly as she could with a broken wrist and a bum leg. She threw on the nightgown, grumbling when she got tangled up in it. Her head popped out of the top to find Travis, his back still turned toward her, but his head turned toward…

“That’s cheating.”

“I did not once turn around to look at you.”

“You didn’t tell me you could see me in the mirror.”

“You told me not to peek. You said nothing about watching what I could already see.” He pulled his shirt over his head, the smooth muscles of his back rippling beneath her fascinated gaze. He turned around, giving her a view of mouth-watering chest, and undid his jeans, sliding them to the floor, exposing his blue silk boxers. He picked up his clothes and carried them to the chair in the corner, throwing them over the arm before turning back to the bed. “Comfortable?”

With wet panties? Not really. She crawled under the covers, his near-nudity almost distracting her from the pain of her movements.

He went to the other side of the bed, settling in next to her.

“What are you doing?”

He looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “Going to bed.”

She had the feeling that if she tried to kick him out she’d have an argument on her hands. And, really, did she want to kick him out? She eyed his powerful shoulders. Could she kick him out? The man was a god. Was he into the whole divine retribution thing? She said nothing as he pulled the covers up, but she could feel him watching her. He propped the pillows behind his head, sitting up partially. “Okay. Talk.”

Now that he was staring at her, ready to answer her questions, she had no idea where to start.

He smiled. “Yes, I’m really Tyr. Over a millennium ago, Odin declared war on the Vanir. I thought at the time that what he was after were the skills of the Dökk Alfar, but what he was really after was Idunn and her apples. If I’d known then what I know now, Odin and his Aesir would never have laid a single hand on them. I would have burned them to the ground myself.”

“What do the apples do? I mean, why are they so important to him?” She rolled over, resting her head on her arm, watching him.

“The apples make even the gods susceptible to suggestion. Combined with Odin’s own ability to confuse the mind, they made him nearly irresistible. He used them to control the remaining Vanir, the Lios and Dökk Alfar and the Aesir. He had us all convinced that Idunn’s apples were necessary to our immortality. I knew better, deep down, but I couldn’t break the hold Grimm had on me. None of us could.”

“Not until that huge fight the two of you had.”

He nodded. “No way was I selling Guardian Investigations to him.” He frowned, then shook his head.

“I’m not even sure why I was resistant to him, but I avoided him after that, even going so far as to ignore his calls. If I hadn’t, odds are good that when I saw Logan and Kir again, I would have tried to kill them both.”

She bit her lip, thinking about everything she’d learned. “Why did you kiss me?”

He leaned over her, brushing his lips against hers. She had the urge to cup his cheek and rub her palm over his whiskers. “If it hadn’t been for my fight with Grimm I would have come after you a lot sooner.”

He was so close she could see the specks of gold in his blue eyes. “Travis, what the hell are you talking about?” She frowned, confused. “Or should I call you Tyr?”

“Travis. At least for now.”

“Oh. Planning on a name change soon?”

“At some point Travis Yardley-Rudiger will die, and I’ll become someone else.”

“You’ll come up with a different name, right? Oh! How about Timothy, um, Inigo Walter, uh,” she counted off on her fingers, trying to remember all the letters “Anson Zebediah?” She grinned up at him.

A slow grin took over Travis’s face. “That’s worse than what I’ve got now.”

“Really, brain surgeon? Who came up with it?”

He crossed his eyes and raspberried her. She laughed. It was weird, but he was still Travis, even after everything he’d told her and shown her. Knowing that he was pretty much the same man she’d always known helped relax some of the tension that had been tightening her shoulders and back.

Even so, it wasn’t her fault if the laughter had a slightly hysterical edge to it, was it?

“Now what are you doing?” She watched in fascination as he reached under the sheet and pulled off his boxers. He managed to do it without flashing her too, something she wasn’t sure she was all that happy about.

“Getting ready to go to sleep.”

She stared at him. “I thought that was what you were doing when you took your clothes off and made yourself comfortable in my bed.”

“I sleep naked.”

Ho, Daddy. “Not in my bed.” She knew it was panic speaking, but still.

“You’d be more comfortable naked too, you know.”

Her inner slut was nodding, yes yes yes! But common sense was shouting, hell, no! “I’d be more comfortable with your clothes back on.”

He settled down, lying next to her with a smirk. “I promise to peek if you promise to peek.”

“Shouldn’t that be not peek?”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“Travis.” She glared at him, wanting him to be serious for just a moment.

He snickered. “Go to sleep, sweetheart. You need your rest.” He settled in, pulling the sheet up to mid-chest before reaching for her. She allowed him to pull her close into his body, too stunned to protest.

Her fingers twitched as she resisted the urge to send them walkabout on the incredible landscape hidden by one thin piece of cotton. He settled her head on his shoulder, his arm wrapping around her, his hand resting on the curve of her ass. Without thinking she curled her leg, covering his thigh. She shivered at the warmth of his bare skin.

“Comfy?”