Murder Game (GhostWalkers, #7)(23)

She shook her head, but her feet kept walking and she was close now. She caught hold of the branch of a small bush and held herself straight when she wanted to fall to the ground weeping.

I walked through the front door and no one saw me. Even then I could mask my presence if I concentrated hard enough. I slipped into the room where they were celebrating and I shot them all. One shot into each head. They never saw me and never knew I’d done it. I didn’t feel anything. I wanted to feel, but I didn’t. I walked back outside, stripped down the gun the way my father had taught me, and I threw the pieces into various Dumpsters. I wish I could blame my brother’s stare, but I have to take that responsibility. I killed them and I’d probably do it again.

Eight-year-old boys didn’t walk into a house and kill people. Not without something being seriously wrong with them. She was in his mind, trying to find that vicious, cruel streak, or the sense of entitlement that meant rules didn’t apply to him. She found a small boy throwing up, sickened by his loss, terrified of his future, still filled with rage.

I’ve never told another living soul about that night.

Tansy turned her tear-streaked face up to the sky. A shadow fell across her and she threw out a hand to block any attack. Kadan loomed in front of her, catching her wrist and pulling her into his arms, tight against his body, burying his face against her neck. She thought his face was as wet as hers. Slowly she brought up her arms to circle his waist, holding him, trying to offer comfort to that eight-year-old boy.

“I’m not that boy anymore,” he reminded without lifting his head.

She slid her hand up his back to tunnel her fingers in his hair. “I know you’re not. And I’m not that thirteen-year-old girl who thought she could save the world either.”

Kadan’s hands framed her face, forcing her head up so their eyes met. His heart contracted. She was so beautiful, her eyes shimmering violet over blue, that strange shimmer over the color almost a silver. He’d been drowning without her and he hadn’t even known it.

Need went from his mind to his body, a rush of heat that tightened every muscle. Desire burst through him, raw and stark and all too strong—so strong it felt like a punch in his gut. Lust for her had been there all along, driving his body hard, but now it was so much more. He felt starved, a man possessed, craving her with every fiber of his being. Because she could take it all away, that rage, buried so deep but so much a part of him. The screams and the blood. Only Tansy could relieve the terrible cold that gripped his heart. She could drown out the truth—that he was a straight-up killer, good at hunting other killers because he could think just like them.

She touched his face, the warmth of her body seeping into the cold of his. The moment she touched him, his body reacted with brutal, painful force, filling his groin, pounding and aching with demand. Kadan bent his head to the temptation of her soft, trembling mouth. He stroked his tongue over her full lower lip, tasting that hint of cinnamon that was fast producing a craving in him. She shivered in reaction.

Even with her mind connected to his, she couldn’t know how much he wanted her—how much he needed her, how desperate he was just to touch her. Kadan had never felt desperation, or need—or if he had, he hadn’t recognized it. Now he couldn’t think straight with wanting her. He struggled to keep his hands gentle, the touch of his mouth tender, when he felt ravenous.

“We’re in a hell of a mess, Tansy. You know that, don’t you?” His mouth skimmed down her eyelids, slid over the tracks of her tears, teased at the corners of her mouth.

She swallowed hard, blinking up at him, a mixture of nervous apprehension and shaken desire. Her hands on his shoulders trembled, her soft breasts pushed against his chest as his breath quickened in response to the way his teeth tugged at her lower lip. She made a small helpless sound of assent, breathy and feminine, leaning into him so that he closed his eyes, savoring the feel of her body against his.

He wasn’t going to survive this night if he couldn’t have her. Not now, not when the memories were so close and he couldn’t bury the rage deep enough. He needed her soft body and the compassion and light in her mind. There was no other way to alleviate the darkness surrounding his soul or the piercing coldness in his heart. Salvation lay in this woman. He ached for her, for both of them. Life wouldn’t be easy with him, and the things he would ask—no, demand—of her were soul-destroying, but he knew he didn’t have a choice. He couldn’t walk away from her. He just wasn’t that strong.

He couldn’t wait another minute, drawing her closer, settling his mouth over hers, sinking into her heat, the paradise of her soft, moist mouth, his tongue tangling with hers. He stroked, felt the answering shudder of pleasure in her body, the hitch in her breath. She was shy, untutored, and it occurred to him Tansy couldn’t have kissed many men—if any. Something dark and possessive flared with hot satisfaction at the idea that no other man had ever touched her.

Still kissing her, he dragged his shirt open, wanting to be skin to skin. His breath strangled in his lungs, his shaft so hard he was afraid he might explode. He needed to crawl inside of her, share her skin, bury himself deep so she could pour the sun over him and steer him away from the shadows always clawing pieces out of him.

Despite his driving need, he kissed her with tenderness, savoring the taste and texture of her mouth, the soft, moist warmth that encased him as he stroked and cajoled, blatantly seducing her. Cinnamon had never tasted like sin. Skin had never felt so soft to him. Control was his code, his mantra, and few things in his life had ever shaken it, and no people, certainly not a woman, until this moment. He felt himself tremble, felt the shudder of need, the desperation in his mind.