Surrender (Careless Whispers #3)(16)

“What about your people, Kayden? Marabella? Adriel? Giada? And you, Kayden. Being close to me means being at risk as long as I’m hunted.”

“We’re going to end this.”

“Exactly. We have to end this. And I’m not missing the fact that you haven’t denied the danger.” I don’t give him time to argue. “I remember a chocolate shop I went to when I was waiting for Neuville to pick me up that night David died. I could have hidden the necklace near there, or even in the shop itself. I need to go there and—”

“I’ll send Adriel—”

“How would Adriel know anything about what I need to see and remember?”

“You send him to the places you want him to go; he’ll take video. He’ll—”

“This is ridiculous.” I shove on his chest. “Let me off the desk.” I slide to the left but he shackles my arm.

“Ella,” he says, turning me to face him, our opposite hips pressed to the desk. “He’s a good man.”

“I don’t trust him, Kayden, and you won’t listen. You aren’t hearing me.”

“Sweetheart. I always listen to you.”

“No. Not about this. And I get it. He’s been with you forever.”

“I’m listening. Tell me now.”

“The day of the party,” I say quickly, “I was with Giada, Adriel, and Marabella in the television room in the store. I had my journal with me to make sure I could jot down notes as I remembered things, but I walked off and left it for a few minutes. Adriel had it. He returned it to me. There were two pages missing, Kayden. A drawing of the necklace.”

“Adriel’s a Hunter, Ella. He would have made sure you didn’t miss what he found. He would have taken a picture instead.”

I feel the blood run from my face, disappointment and hurt stabbing at me. “Giada,” I whisper, my hands settling on his chest. “I thought I’d gotten through to her—but the only way she knew that necklace was important was through betrayal.”

Kayden shifts us, resting my backside against the desk again, his legs framing mine in a position of control. He always needs control, and that should bother me after all I’ve been through, but somehow it doesn’t.

“Are you sure that page wasn’t gone for longer than you realized?” he asks.

My brow furrows. “Well, I . . . I guess not, but I never took it out of the castle. So really, it doesn’t matter when it happened. It has to be Giada. You have no idea how much that disappoints me.”

“We’ve been watching her, sweetheart. She’s had no more contact with Gallo since we called her on it. She’s had no contact with anyone else of concern.”

“It can’t be Marabella.”

“There are cameras in the store. We can look.”

“You think it could be her?”

“I think it’s Giada,” he says. “But the good news is, whatever her reason for taking it, she hasn’t acted on that reason yet. And she knows she’s being watched. So she’s not going to act on it anytime soon.”

“There is that,” I say. “But we’re off track here. Paris, Kayden. Let’s end this. Let’s go and I’ll—”

“No, Ella. There is nothing you can say that will convince me that we should do this.”

“You don’t get to decide this on your own. I’m not one of your Hunters.”

He tangles his fingers into my hair and drags my gaze to his. “You’re the woman I love more than life itself, and I will not, I am not, going to lose you.”

“You won’t,” I vow. “I know how to—” His mouth closes on mine before I can say “protect myself,” a hot slide of tongue that I feel in every part of me, wicked hot, passionate. Demanding.

I try to resist, to insist we talk first, but on the next caress of his tongue I taste his fear of losing me, his need to protect me, and yes, possession. He wants to possess me right now, I feel it in every part of me, and I know it’s driven by a need to protect me. Because I’m a part of him, as he is of me, and those things undo me. Those things take me to a place that I can only go with him, an escape I would never dare allow myself without him. I sink into the kiss, arching into his body.

He tears his mouth from mine, our gazes colliding, and he repeats, “I love you, woman.”

“I love you, too,” I say, emotion welling in my throat, while his hands slip under my sweater, warm, right, and he eases it upward, pulling it over my head and tossing it away.

“Isn’t Adriel waiting for us?” I ask, sounding as breathless as I feel. “We need to deal—”

He kisses me again, another deep slide of tongue against tongue that is over too soon before he declares, “Adriel can wait. I cannot.” He says those words with a low rasp to his voice that leaves no question that he means them, his fingers trailing down my cheek and settling at the center clasp of my nude bra, which he unhooks.

“I can’t do us halfway, sweetheart,” he says. “I’m yours and I’m not going to let you get hurt. You’re just going to have to deal with what that means, if I’m what you want.”

My hands go to his as they cover my breasts. “I don’t want halfway either,” I say. “I just—”