Deadly Fear (Deadly #1)(77)

“Everyone but Hyde wanted to throw me in a psych ward and toss away the key.”

Luke squeezed his eyes shut.

“He wouldn’t let them.”

So he owed Hyde. Big time.

“Because he looked at me, and he knew what I was. And he knew he could use me.” Her voice held a brittle edge.

Luke hesitated. “You sure about that?” Maybe there’d been more to the story. Hyde seemed to really care about her, as much as he could care about anyone.

“He only asked me one question in the ambulance. Everyone else was shouting constantly at me, but he just wanted to know one thing.”

Luke waited. She’d tell him, just like she’d told him everything else.

“ ‘How did you get him to keep you alive?’ ” she murmured.

It would have been the million-dollar question. “And what did you say?”

“ ‘I got in his head. I became what he wanted, and I lived’.”

The profiler who knew the killers. The whispers that had always followed her were so dead on.

“The state put me into a group home, but Hyde—he wouldn’t let me go. He made sure I saw a shrink he’d picked out for me. Hyde had me in therapy for a couple of years. He visited me almost every day, and then he gave me a reason to keep living.”

Because she’d needed one.

“Hyde gave me a new name. He told me if I could pass the classes, pass all the tests, I could hunt monsters. I needed that. I needed to take control. To stop the killers and not let them screw with my head. This time, I’d be screwing with their minds.”

Get into a monster’s mind like no other.

“I thought the psych tests would be harder,” she said. “But by then, I knew all the answers. Knew exactly what to say. I wasn’t different anymore. I’d trained myself to fit in and to be whatever I needed to be.”

And she’d become cold. Untrusting. She’d locked herself away from the world because she was afraid someone would look past her perfect surface and see the monster inside.

But she didn’t understand—there wasn’t a monster inside.

He kissed her again. Deep this time. Harder, letting her feel his hunger and need because, yeah, he still craved her.

He wanted her just as badly as before, needed her just as much. Because Monica had a core of steel that had been forged from hellfire.

Monster? Not damn likely.

“Who knows?” he asked against her mouth.

“Hyde. You. A handful of higher-ups at the Bureau.”

But no one close to her. No friends. No lovers. A heavy burden for her to carry. “This why you cut tail and left me before?”

“It’s why I was going to leave you again.”

Damn.

“I’m not an easy person to be with, Luke. I—”

“Keep your gun under your pillow because you’re afraid of an attack. Keep the bathroom light on because you don’t want the darkness. Keep control with men because you don’t want to be weak with anyone ever again.” All the signs of a victim had been there. He’d seen them, but had never guessed just how terrible the crimes against her had been.

A little hum from her, then, “Yeah, that about covers it.”

A question nagged at his mind. “What was the first thing you did when you got clear of Hyde and those shrinks?”

“I got laid.”

He couldn’t have been more surprised if she’d slammed her fist into his jaw.

“Romeo wanted his good girl to kill, but he didn’t want her to f*ck. So I f*cked. I found a man who wanted me, and I had sex because I wasn’t his.” Her fingers were still on Luke’s chest, curling over his heart. And he didn’t want to hear about her lovers, didn’t want to hear her say—

“I did that for a while, until I realized I was still cold inside. The sex didn’t matter. The men didn’t.”

Had he been one of those men? A shadow in the night?

“Then I met you.”

She had to feel the sudden hard racing of his heart.

“And you tempted me to want more. I went with you when I’d always kept my work and sex separate. I went with you because I wanted you, and I wasn’t going to let anything stop me from having you.”

The same way he felt.

“Even though you scared the hell out of me.”

Been there.

“Still do.” Her voice was husky.

Done that.

Luke cleared his throat. “Some things you should know.”

He felt her stiffen. His back teeth clenched. Did the woman really think he was about to turn away? Did he look like a fool?

“You don’t have to—” Oh, yeah, that was her already withdrawing.

“I hate what he did to you—and I’d love to tear the bastard apart.” Let’s see you scream, *. “But knowing about your past doesn’t change the way I feel about you, baby.”

“And… how do you feel?” Did he imagine it or did her breath seem to catch?

Confession time. If she could bare her soul and reveal her past, then, it was way past time for him to show some trust, too. “You’re it for me, Monica. I’ve known it from the first time I kissed you.” His f*cking world.

“Luke…”