Fatal Strike (McClouds & Friends #10)(135)

She considered that for a long moment. “It depends on what you say to me in the next few minutes.”

“Oh, God.” He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, and when he lifted them she was still there. Still real. “Fine. Okay. Hit me.”

She crossed her arms across her chest, lifted her chin. “Why did you abandon me?”

It was a blow right to the chest. He caught his breath, blurted out the first brainless thing that popped into his head. “I was incarcerated?”

She batted that away, impatient. “Don’t be annoying. I mean after, and you know it. You ran away from me. You kept the Citadel closed. Why?” Her voice rang, clear and challenging. Snowflakes settled on the gleaming swirls of her hair and did not melt. One was poised on the tip of her long eyelashes. She flicked it away, waiting.

Oh, man. With all the times that he’d been forced to defend his unpopular decisions to the McCloud Crowd, he still hadn’t found adequate words to explain or justify them.

But this was it. His last chance.

“I had to be sure . . .” He petered out, groping. “That it was real for you. That you weren’t just, you know. Trapped in my head.”

“Trapped?” Her eyes went huge with outrage. The pearly pink blush of her cheek deepened. “I was never trapped. I loved it in there! It was like paradise for me! You know that, Miles!”

“Maybe, but you were still trapped,” he said, grimly. “What’s it called, when you can’t step outside of a place without getting ripped to pieces, Lara? It’s called being trapped. You were under seige. You no longer had a choice, even if you started out by going there of your own free will. Greaves told me—”

“You made decisions about our private life based on something that Greaves said?”

“Hear me out! Greaves said that I kept you in a cage, and it was true. Fucking you senseless, right after what you’d just gone through? Swallowing you up inside my shield? Keeping you right where I could see you, inside my mind, snuggled up in a little box, safe and sound, and all mine? And I loved it, Lara. I f*cking loved it.”

“So did I!” she yelled.

“Of course you did!” he roared back. “You needed to feel safe! You were f*cked up, traumatized!”

“Yeah, well, for the record, I’m not f*cked up or traumatized any longer. I am fine! Is that clear?” Her eyes were bright, burning.

“That’s great,” he said. “But you have to see it, Lara. That thing we did? With the shield? That takes the scary, controlling boyfriend vibe to a whole new level. A Greaves-style level. He controlled his wife right into the grave. And his son . . . well, you saw what happened there. He killed his son, swallowing him up like that. Ate him alive.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, he did, but you wouldn’t. You aren’t like Greaves. You’re brave and generous. And good.”

He dragged in a deep breath. “Greaves said that you were . . . oh, shit, don’t get mad, okay?”

“Can’t promise that,” she said crisply. “Go on.”

Miles braced himself. “He said he’d been preparing you with drugs, breaking down psychological barriers. So that when he had sex with you, you’d bond with him instantly.”

“Him?” Her mouth tightened in disgust. “Oh, Miles. That’s gross.”

“He said you would have bonded with anyone right after,” he forged stubbornly on. “That I was the lucky dog. He said he’d show me how to coerce you into being my eager nympho sex slave forever after.”

“Ah.” She gave him a sidewise look. “Were you tempted?”

He just looked at her. “Don’t torture me,” he said, hoarsely.

“No?” Her eyes were bright with tears. “Why shouldn’t I, Miles? What do you think you’ve been doing to me for the last several weeks?”

He shook his head. “I’m just telling you what he said.”

“And you believed him?” Her voice quivered dangerously.

He shook his head. Out loud it sounded stupid, wrong. But he had still been compelled to wait. To be sure.

“I couldn’t know, unless I stepped back from you,” he said. “And about the Citadel, well, Jesus, Lara. After what happened to Geoff, it was clear that mind-melding is dangerous. Plus, I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. Prison, death row, who knew? I didn’t want you connected mind-to-mind if I was going to get f*cked up. Plus, I felt like shit, because my efforts to keep you safe were a total fail.”

“How can you say that?” she said angrily. “That is such bullshit!”

“You think?” He shrugged. “I put you on a bus, alone, no protection. I let you get shot, point blank.”

“It wasn’t your fault!” she raged. “And all this angst, all this doubt? Why couldn’t you just tell me about it? Why not ask me? I’m not even saying mind-to-mind. The telephone would have done just as well. A f*cking postcard would have been fine. Anything!”

His jaw clenched painfully. “I didn’t trust myself not to put pressure on you. I would have been all over you, like a Labrador puppy. Blocking every exit, taking up all the air, hogging up all your RAM. I know myself, Lara. I just know it.”

She pressed her hand to her mouth, eyes brimming. “Oh, Miles,” she said, her voice strangled. “You are such a goddamn jerk.”