Night Game (GhostWalkers, #3)(62)

“Do you think you’re the only dangerous person here, Flame? I’m like you. I’m worse than you. He developed me into a damn weapon and sent me into a field to test the results without having a clue what would happen. I went like a good little soldier and I did what they told me to do. I killed five people. One was a friend of mine. I injured nineteen others. Try living with that on your conscience. Whatever you’ve done is nothing, nothing compared to that.” He pulled the pillow from her face, bracing his hands on either side of her head to stare down into her eyes. “I murdered them. Men I’d sworn to protect. Don’t talk to me about discipline or danger. I smile and I swallow anger and I back away from anything that might make me lose control. Not now. Not this time. I’m here to stay. You got that? Are you hearing me? I’m not leaving this time. I’m not giving up something I want as badly as I want you because that fils de putin did this to us.”

She shook her head, her fingers brushing his face. Lightly. With tenderness. There was regret on her face. “I don’t even care if he did something to make us want to be together. You’re an incredible man, but you’re a family man, Raoul. You know you want it all. You want a wife and a house filled with children. You deserve that. Wyatt will get married and your children and his children will all be best friends. You can’t want me the way you’re looking at me. You don’t even know me.”

“Flame.” There was a stark ache in his voice. Heat. Desire. He had never wanted a woman in the way he wanted her. “Don’t say I don’t know you. I’ve known you forever. You see me. The real me. You see me where no one else does, where no one else ever will or could. You can’t ask me to give that up. And I know you. You don’t have to be afraid or hide from me.”

“I had cancer. Not once, but several times. I can’t have children, Raoul. I don’t have a future with a family.”

“We’ll find a way.”

“There is no way and you know it. And Whitney isn’t going to let me have a happy ever after. He invested far too much time and money in all of the girls he brought over from the orphanages. And if you think Lily isn’t involved, tell me why she hasn’t figured it out yet. She’s smart. She’s very smart.”

“Not when it comes to her emotions.” He leaned forward, lowered his head. Just enough to brush his lips against hers. He didn’t know if he was comforting her—or comforting him. It was just imperative to kiss her. To feel the softness of her mouth against his. To feel her response to him, as natural as breathing. He wanted to gather her into his arms, hold her against him and just shelter her there.

Flame kissed him tentatively, reaching a little to complete the contact between them. She felt the heat of his mouth spreading through her body, just that one touch, but it was enough to warm her, to push back the cold of death and grief and the fear of being a monster. Her arms slid around his neck to pull him closer to her.

Gator sank his mouth into the heat of hers. His body blanketed hers, a slow stretch over the top of her, so that he felt every soft curve of her body. Her tears were damp on her face and her mouth was fiery hot. “Stop crying. Nothing’s going to happen right now.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m crying.” She kissed him again, rested her forehead against his. “I don’t want to be anything like her, have anything in common with her—or with him.”

“Flame.” It was a protest, swift and sharp and shocked. “You’re nothing like him. Nothing like Lily. Why would you even say that?” He eased his weight off of her, settling next to her, his arms surrounding her, holding her to him when he felt she was on the verge of flight.

“Why do you think he chose us, Raoul? Even then we were different. He could see it in us.”

“You had psychic gifts.”

“It was more than that. I’m a freakin’ genius, Raoul. There isn’t a whole hell of a lot I don’t understand. I have a need of knowledge, a love of it, and I’m driven to feed that need. I have to have answers. I’m smart in every area until it comes to my emotions. That’s where I make all my mistakes. How did he know? How did he figure out by looking at infants he could take control of their lives and hang on to them forever?”

“He couldn’t know that, Flame. And you aren’t anything like him. He may have been smart, but I didn’t see that much emotion in him.”

“You didn’t?” She shook her head. “There was such rage in him. It consumed him. He was in terrible pain and he wanted everything and everyone around him to feel the things he was feeling. He had emotions and he wasn’t in the least bit of control of them. That’s what he hated the most.”

“I didn’t think about it like that.”

“Peter Whitney is my enemy. I studied him. I studied everything there was to know about him. I found every newspaper article about his grandparents, his parents, and about him. He was unwanted just the way all of us girls were unwanted. His family was all about politics and money. They had him because it was expected, not be cause he was wanted. Nothing he did was ever good enough for them. He was ignored and shoved aside in spite of his brilliance. And he hated that. He wanted to do something to make them stand up and take notice. Maybe he even wanted to embarrass them. Buying orphans overseas and experimenting on them would definitely do that. Especially since his parents frowned on his outrageous beliefs when it came to psychic ability. He had rage all right. And he sowed that same rage in me. In most of the girls. Probably all of them.”