Murder Game (GhostWalkers, #7)(35)

She nodded slowly. “Unfortunately, I have to agree with that assessment after handling the stallion. The man who owns that game piece definitely thinks he’s superior and above all laws. His sense of entitlement is absolute. I believe he would come after us in a heartbeat, and it would never occur to him that he would lose.”

“He’s going to lose,” Kadan said, no inflection in his voice.

There was no inflection in his mind either when she touched it. Only resolve and a belief that he was far more intelligent than his adversaries and that his code demanded the men committing the murders pay for casting a shadow over his fellow GhostWalkers. They would pay for betraying their country and the honor of every soldier the GhostWalkers represented. A shiver went down her spine. Just like the murderers, Kadan believed he was superior and far more intelligent. Faster. Stronger. That his training could see him through any situation. He believed in his teammates and he had a strong patriotic sense of duty. More than anything, these men had betrayed all soldiers, their country, and their code. Sentence had already been passed. To Kadan, they were walking dead men.

Kadan reached out and captured her hand, tugging until she was close to him. A breath away. The heat of her body meeting and amplifying the heat of his. “Tansy, don’t be afraid of me. You have access to my mind . . .”

She shook her head. “I don’t. I have access to what you let me see. You see all of me.”

“You have access to all the places that belong to you. I’m not hiding how I feel about you. I want you, not for one night, but always.”

“Because of Whitney. You think your attraction to me is because of Whitney, and you aren’t happy about it.”

“I did think that,” he admitted without flinching, “and I was angry at the manipulation. But Whitney can only manipulate physical attraction. He has no power over my emotions. And you.” He framed her face with his hands. “Have no doubt that the intensity and depth of emotion I feel for you, Whitney could never have dreamt of, let alone managed to produce in me. I don’t feel emotion as a rule. I didn’t even know I was capable of such depth of feeling. So never worry that my feelings for you are manufactured. I could never harm you, not under any circumstances.”

Her eyes searched his, looking for something, some reassurance that went beyond what he told her, what she saw in his mind. “My parents?” she asked softly, unable to stop worrying. Kadan was ruthless and a man without mercy. She knew he would execute anyone, friend or not, if they were guilty, and he would do it without hesitation.

He shrugged. “I’m not willing to lie to you, Tansy. I hope they aren’t guilty of anything other than stupidity, but if they try to harm you, if their intention is to betray you and turn you over to Whitney, they’ll have to walk through me to do it.”

His thumb smoothed over the contours of her bone structure, tracing her jaw and high cheekbones, dipping down to float over her lips. The pads of his fingers felt hard, yet velvet soft, and she couldn’t stop the shiver of need or the inevitable arousal that leapt from breasts to thighs. He was mesmerizing, and the lure of another human’s touch was inescapable, but more than all of that was the intense sensuality, the way his gaze went hot and moved over her with such possession, the way one flick of his eyes seemed to remove her clothing.

In his head he touched her, brushing her breast or stroking a caress down her thigh at the most unexpected times. In the helicopter, earlier, when they’d been picked up, she’d huddled, knees drawn up, head down, making herself small. He sat beside her, his large frame protecting her from prying eyes, although he’d seemed to be asleep. Every now and then, she’d found him in her head and he was caressing the inside of her thigh. Stroking fingertips over her breast, leaning in to kiss her throat. He could melt her heart without half trying.

“You’re a very dangerous man, Kadan.”

“But not to you.” He bent his head and kissed her. “Never to you.”

Her eyebrow went up. She didn’t smile. “You’re very wrong about that.” Because he was stealing her will, whether he realized it or not. She sighed. She couldn’t stop her physical reaction to him, but she needed to start thinking with her brain if she was going to help her parents. “How do we know your friends will help us?”

“They’ll help. We don’t have a lot of time. I’ll make the calls. You write down everything you can about the security and floor plans. Ryland and Nico are amazing at infiltrating hostile territory without being seen. This will be a good chance for you to see GhostWalkers in action and see what we’re really up against.”

“I’m taking a shower.” She was still a little achy from her mental battle with the voices, and while the water ran hot and cleansing over her, she hoped to practice the mental exercises he’d given her to strengthen her barriers.

“Take a look around,” he invited as he turned back to the phone.

Tansy did just that. He’d set up a war room. Pictures of murder victims lined all four walls. Each crime was documented carefully with the camera, the body positions, the scene itself, the blood spatter, it was all there. She closed the door, refusing to step inside the nightmare without him to help shield her. As it was, her stomach rebelled, and she hastily backed down the hall to the master bedroom, where Kadan had tossed her backpack onto the bed.