Stroke of Midnight (Nightcreature #1.5)(54)

What could he say? He truly didn't know what she meant. But he oddly liked the sound of her voice, no matter how strange what she said was.

"I knew you were a good egg, when I looked in your face," he admitted and resumed walking. "The fellas can get a little rowdy and out of hand, and I could tell you weren't the type that…" He paused and began the balance of what he had to say a different way. "I knew you didn't deserve how they were gonna behave." He fell quiet when she held his gaze. It nearly made him stop walking again. "I also knew when I heard you screaming that I couldn't leave you, don't ask me why."

He shook his head and looked forward at the dark path. Crazy Pete's face flashed into his mind. "I had a dead body at my feet. Never seen anything like it. Me and Pete never got along, but that's a whole nuther thing. I knew he was stupid enough to pull a knife, or make someone have to off him one day in self-defense… but to be sliced with his own bowie, or Razor's… damn."

He started walking faster. "Like I said, don't ask me why I couldn't leave you, but things weren't adding up… Then you called me, something familiar clicked—I can't even explain it. But I didn't kidnap you—be sure to tell them that, if we get caught."

"I know you didn't," she said softly. "You didn't leave me because you're a guardian." Her voice was so gentle that it felt like a caress.

He chuckled, suddenly feeling self-conscious. "No, darlin', you've got that wrong. I need a guardian, but I'm not one."

She laughed as they approached his motorcycle. "Don't you know you're part of a Legend?"

He laughed harder and found his stash of Jack Daniel's in his bike's side compartment, then gave her a sheepish look. "So my reputation got all the way out here?"

She shook her head. "Pick where you want to bed down for the night so I can ring you."

His jaw went slack. "Go figure. It's always the innocent-looking ones…"

"Find a spot where we can sit and make a fire," she said like a schoolteacher. But her smile was wide and warm.

"I knew that," he said, hoisting up his jeans to walk ahead of her. "I was just joking."

He watched her long process of walking in a wide ring around where they'd hole up while he built a fire. He didn't mind her prayers, or that she said two sets—one in her own native language and then the only psalm he'd learned from funerals, the twenty-third. He watched her carefully sit and wrap the remainder of the dirt in one of his bandanas. It was like watching a grown woman make mud pies, which messed with both sides of his already embattled brain. Then she crooked a finger at him with a gentle smile, crossed her legs in front of her like a yogi, and patted the ground for him to sit before her.

He gladly submitted. He was beginning to enjoy her strange company. "Now what, O learned one?" He was relieved that she laughed, because the sarcastic comment wasn't designed to offend.

She held a bit of earth in her delicate palm and gazed at him. "I need to put a little of this against your throat, all right? And then you can do me."

He didn't care that it seemed like superstitious mumbo-jumbo. Her hands could have been holding cow chips and he wouldn't have argued. He sat down cross-legged, remembering how soft her hands were. "Yeah, okay," he said without resistance, then waited for her touch, trying not to seem too anxious for it, yet wondering why that, of all things, would be on his mind—given everything that had just happened.

Cool earth and a soft caress warmed the sides of his neck. Dirt crumbled and fell to his shoulders and rained on his thighs and knees. Her seeking gaze captured his, and for the first time in his life he thought he could actually drown in a woman's eyes. The feeling was disorienting, if not totally disturbing, while also exhilarating. He could feel such caring enter him, yet he didn't even know who she really was. And as her empty palms slid away from his neck, it left an ache so profound that he'd almost taken her wrists to bring her hands back to where they'd been.

She had to steady her breathing and contain herself. The moment her hands slid against his throat it felt like a current had run through them. She could feel his pulse in her palms, could actually hear it thudding in her ears. And his eyes simply drank her in. This was such a good soul. Had he any idea what seeing him transform into an unlikely warrior had done to her? She tried not to let her hands tremble against his warm skin. He'd allowed her near his jugular, had offered her his throat with no resistance and with pure trust. Didn't he know how dangerous she was? But the fact that she could touch hallowed earth meant she still had a chance. Tonight she was still human, and alive, and had hope… and all because of him, she hadn't died the way the curse had predicted.

Rider studied the woman before him. Never had a simple touch ignited him like this. Nor had a pair of eyes ever held him for ransom.

"Now, you do me," she murmured, then signed the words with her graceful hands while speaking them softly: "man with a good heart."

His hands trembled as he reverently gathered a clump of dirt in them. This was the kind of woman a man would marry, for sure. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, exposing her throat. For a moment, he couldn't move. Her thick, black lashes dusted her cheeks. The rich, deep color of her skin was warmed to a glow by the firelight. And for a second, his mind took a turn to envision that same expression on her face under different circumstances. What would she be like with her face flushed by passion, eyes closed, neck arched, breathing his name… An offering that he knew he'd never be able to refuse now, if she made it. But that was foolish, wishful thinking. Yet she was so trusting, seemed so good down deep in her gentle heart… Didn't she know he was a dangerous man out in the wilderness with a gun? But she sat there with only trust in her expression. Didn't she know what that was doing to him?