Echoes at Dawn (KGI #5)(66)

“I do,” she whispered. “I need you, Rio. You saved me. I’ve never mattered to another soul besides my sister. No one has ever cared about me or about what happens to me. Not until you. I wasn’t just someone with special abilities to you. You saw the real me, and you cared about her. Not what I could do for the world or for someone you knew. You looked inside and saw me.”

He lowered his forehead to hers until they were touching. “Say it. Say the words, Grace. I don’t just want to hear them. I need to hear them. I need…you.”

She smiled, tenderness filling her heart. “I love you, Rio.”

His nostrils flared and his jaw went tight as if he were fighting to maintain his control and composure. There was such vulnerability in his dark eyes, and she realized in that moment that for all his strength and resolve, for how protective and possessive he was of her, he needed those same things from her.

“I love you too, Grace Peterson.”

He withdrew and then pushed forward again, more gently this time and without the urgency he’d displayed when he’d first taken her.

He kissed her lips then moved to her cheeks, giving each a kiss in turn. Then he kissed her nose, her eyelids and each temple. All the while he continued his gentle thrusting, gliding in and out a

s he restaked his claim all over again.

Slowly he ran his hands down her body, then underneath to cup her behind. He held her in place, positioning her for his thrusts as he worked deeper.

“Don’t ever risk yourself like that again,” he admonished. “You can’t save everyone, and I won’t lose you so that you can save one more person. Maybe that’s selfish of me, but I don’t really give a damn.”

She smiled at the gruffness of his tone because underneath was a layer of fear. Fear for her. Fear that he’d lose her. She kissed him again as the first waves of her orgasm rolled over her.

She held on to him, her anchor, the person who’d taken her from death’s grasp more than once. He’d protect her. She had absolute faith in him. How could she not? He’d faced death down for her and won.

CHAPTEnada etersonR 29

“YOU better have something good to report,” Farnsworth growled into the phone. “With what I’m paying you, you should have had Grace Peterson to me weeks ago.”

“I don’t respond well to threats, Mr. Farnsworth. You’d do well to remember that.”

Farnsworth froze at the icy implication in Hancock’s voice. He hated that this man intimidated him. And he didn’t simply intimidate him. He bloody well terrified him, and that pissed him off because he feared no one. People feared him.

Except this man who headed up Titan. Farnsworth was certain there wasn’t a man alive that Hancock feared.

“Well? Have you located her yet?”

“I have,” Hancock said simply. “Rumor is she healed a child in a village on the Belize River and that it nearly killed her. Nothing is known of her current condition, but I have a lock on her location. My contact there says they’re moving her out soon. If I’m patient, they’ll come to me.”

Farnsworth swore savagely. “I can’t afford to wait a minute longer. What if the little fool had killed herself trying to heal this other child? If she’s going to die healing someone, it’s damn well going to be my daughter.”

“I understand your impatience,” Hancock said in a mild tone. “But impatience won’t get you what you want any faster. You hired me to do a job. I’ve never failed a mission yet. Think about that when you’re issuing idle threats because my next mission will be to come after you if you continue your present line of discussion.”

“Just get her here. I’m running out of time. I’ll double your price. I don’t care what it takes. You can have all I have because if my daughter dies, I’ll have nothing anyway.”

“Your devotion to your daughter is admirable and I’ve already said that I would have Grace Peterson delivered to your daughter’s bedside in a timely manner. She won’t escape. I know the man who protects her far too well. I know how he thinks.

I know his next move. I should. He taught me everything I know.”

The line went dead and Farnsworth threw it across the room. He hated how this mercenary reduced him to feeling insignificant and powerless. As if Hancock held all the cards and he knew it.

Time was running out. The doctor had seen her again today and had faced Farnsworth with a grim expression and a shake of his head. She didn’t have long. She was growing weaker. Her body could no longer fight off the cancer. It was insidious, growing and multiplying at an alarming rate. There was simply nothing to be done.

She had days, maybe weeks, but nothing more. She could die tonight or she could die next week. He was afraid to enter her bedroom for fear that he’d find her already gone.

He slumped into his chair and buried his face in his hands, and for the first time since learning of his daughter’s illness, he wept.

CHAPTER 30

“RIO, I’m perfectly capable of walking,” Grace protested as he carried her out of the bedroom and into the living room.

He ignored her and she sighed, though she really didn’t mind him carrying her. She was still living in the new and shiny revelation of knowing this man cared so much for her. It was a little frightening and yet it made her giddy, like a teenage girl with her first crush.