Fatal Strike (McClouds & Friends #10)(74)

“You never talked in the dreams,” she said. “You were always very, um . . . well, focused and purposeful, you might say. But go on. You can say anything to me. You were saying, about this Cindy?”

His grin flashed. “So, yeah. Cindy is the sister of Connor’s wife, Erin. I carried a torch for her for years. Ever since college. Then we finally got together, and I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Until she started cheating on me. Repeatedly. For years.”

“Oh.” She winced. “That’s so awful. I’m sorry.”

“She’d cry, and be so sorry, and say she really loved me, and she’d never do it again, yada yada, and then, boom. Again.” He shook his head, lost in thought. “I spent all this time agonizing about why I just wasn’t enough for her. Hard as I tried. Drove me flipping nuts.”

She petted his chest, quietly waiting.

“I finally realized, it was like a joke, or a puzzle with no solution. She would only want me for real if I stopped wanting her. And it did no good to pretend. It didn’t count if I faked it. She could tell, somehow.”

She nodded. “I’m familiar with the dynamic.”

“Anyhow, I don’t think it had much to do with me,” he said. “It was all about her. How she felt about herself. She hated herself. She had no respect for herself. No amount of love could make up for that.”

Lara shivered. “Bad,” she whispered. Anabel flashed through her mind, the woman’s self-loathing. Along with Lara’s own, after all her endless hours locked in the dark with herself, her fears and monsters. “I’m sorry for her. And for you.”

“I wasn’t asking for pity,” he said. “I’m just thinking out loud. I can finally see it for what it is, with you to compare it to. It’s so different with you. Even after what you went through, you’re so, I don’t know. Dignified. Regal. A goddess.”

She stirred, uncomfortable. “Please. Now you’re overdoing it.”

“Really,” he said. “It’s not just the sex, even though that totally blows my mind. It’s so different to be with someone who knows her worth. That’s the only kind of woman who can make a man sure of his welcome. It’s in you, Lara. And it’s so sexy it f*cking kills me.”

She dropped kisses upon the taut muscles of his pecs. “Don’t build me up into something I’m not,” she pleaded. “I’m feeling small right now. Not very worthy. Don’t ask me to be a goddess.”

“Too late,” he said, his hands spanning her waist. He stared at her body, his eyes bright with fascination. “You’re regal, and selfless, and brave. And that’s apart from being smart, and artistically talented. And did I say anything about gorgeous? Did I mention that?”

“Please.” It was her turn, to be uncomfortable. It scared her. A nervous, superstitious fear that if he created this lofty story about her in his mind, he would be disappointed in the stark truth of Lara Kirk. She’d pondered that stark truth for many dark, lonely hours, and it wasn’t pretty. She didn’t want to even accept it. Let alone share it.

“Like your sculpture. Persephone’s Pride,” he said. “You peer inside the hole in the vase to see her, but even trapped in the dark, she’s dignified. She stands so straight. Like a knife blade, with the one ray of light falling on her face. I love that one. She’s a princess, and nothing can change that. No wonder Hades totally lost his shit for her.”

She pulled the comforter tighter around herself. “Don’t invoke her,” she said. “Remember. She had to go back to him.”

He sat up suddenly, catching her in his arms. “You’re not going back to him. I’ll see to it.”

She let herself be hugged tight against his warmth, trying to be comforted. “Thanks for the sentiment,” she said.

“No, really,” he said, more forcefully. “I’ll die first.”

The words made her heart freeze. “Don’t,” she said, thinly. “I really, really don’t want you to die. So please, don’t even say it. Don’t put that thought out there. Please. Don’t.”

“I’ll do my best,” he assured her. “I promise.”

As promises went, it was a damn good one. It rang with heartfelt sincerity. And she had seen his best, with her own eyes. His best kicked ass. It was superb. Superhuman, even. But that did not calm her fears.

Not after having seen Thaddeus Greaves’ worst.

She wasn’t ready to be this brave, to care this much, but she didn’t have a choice. She hid her face against his chest, squeezed her legs aound his waist. Sought out the bright safety of the Citadel, in a deft flicker of mental maneuvering. In a moment, she was in.

The safest place in the universe, for everything but her heart.

Oh, God. This was bad. She didn’t fear death anymore, after the rat hole. She didn’t fear solitude, or hunger, or pain, or even madness. She’d come so close to being free of caring about anything. She’d had nothing on earth left to lose, except for her own body. Everyone she cared about, gone. Nothing left to fear.

And hey, presto, out of nowhere, she had just acquired a whole new set of things to be terrified of losing.

And wasn’t that just f*cking perfect.





Greaves paused by the window, struggling for patience. Crushing the man’s mind in a temper would yield him nothing, but he was so angry. He reminded himself of the results of his anger at Geoff. He’d lost control, and look how that had turned out. Disaster.