Shadow Game (GhostWalkers, #1)(100)

He couldn't look at her, couldn't see the horror in her eyes again. Resolutely he kept his back to her as he paced the length of her bedroom and back again. Lily was still running her bath, her velvet cloak thrown carelessly over the back of the stuffed armchair. Her sexy red gown was in a heap on the floor. He snatched it up and crushed the material in his hands. "You could have been killed, Lily. He could have killed you. I let him go the first time because I was worried what you might think. Damn it." The words exploded out of him. "I'm good at what I do. You can't just look at me with accusation and shake me up so I can't function. Do you have any idea what would have happened if he had gotten away? I put all the men in danger to keep from killing him in front of you." He hoped that was true. He wished it were true. If it wasn't, it meant he had hesitated because Cowlings had been a friend. And that was a bad, bad thing. Either way he deserved the whip in Nicolas's voice.

Lily pinned her hair up and stepped into the hot bathwater, praying it would help unlock the muscles knotting in her leg. Her shoulder throbbed where Cowlings had made contact in his leap on the stairway and she knew she had a terrible bruise there. She hadn't bothered to check; tears were running down her face and she doubted she would even see her image in the mirror. She ached for Ryland. Felt his pain. Felt how sick he was and how angry at himself. He was yelling at her, but she knew his fierce rage was really directed at himself.

Steam rose around her as Lily forced her body into the hot water. She couldn't comfort him. She couldn't think of any way to take away his pain. He had reached out to her when her father had been murdered. He had been there when she found out she had been an experiment. She could only sit in a gigantic marble Jacuzzi filled with hot steamy water, crying and wondering why someone with her brain didn't have a clue what to do.

"Lily?" Ryland rested his hip against the bathroom door-jamb, her gown still crumpled in his hand. She hadn't looked at him once since they'd raced out of the hotel. Not one single time, as if she couldn't bear the sight of him. She couldn't have hurt him more if she'd plunged a knife in his gut. "You might as well just understand something right here and now. This is what I do, what I've been trained to do, damn it!"

She didn't look at him, staring straight ahead. Ryland stepped closer. He was going to have an ulcer before he ever got a commitment out of her. He could see the ugly black and purple bruise forming high up on the back of her shoulder. "Are you listening to me?" The harsh rage was gone from his voice. "I'm not letting you go because you saw me doing something that was necessary. You may as well know I won't. It's a stupid reason for you to give up on us." He brought the red material up to his face, rubbed it against his jaw. He wasn't going to lose her.

Ryland had no idea how it had happened or when it had happened, but she was so firmly entrenched in his heart, in his soul, he couldn't breathe without her. When she still didn't answer, just sat there with steam curling her hair and tears falling into the water, he sighed heavily, the anger draining out of him. "Don't cry, honey. I'm sorry I had to kill him." His voice was very low and controlled. "Please stop crying, you're tearing my heart out."

"Get a clue! I'm not crying because you had to kill him, Ryland. I'm sorry he's dead, but he was trying to kill us both. I'm crying for you. I have no idea how to help you." Embarrassed, she threw water on her face to cover the tears.

He was silent, studying her averted face. "This is all for me? You're crying for me?" That was what she did. Turned him inside out with a few sentences. What was he going to do with her? "Lily, don't do that. You don't need to cry for me." Where his stomach had been in hard knots, now there was a warm glow. He felt like she'd handed him a Christmas present. No one had shed tears for him in a long time.

Lily heard the note in his voice. Happiness. She felt it in the room in spite of the weight of the guilt he was feeling. That little note allowed her to breathe again.

She turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. Her long lashes were spiked. Beads of water ran down her soft skin, to the tips of her breasts. In spite of the bruises, she was an alluring sight sitting there. Her hair tumbled and curled in the steam. Water bubbled and brushed lovingly at her body. She took his breath away. Stole his heart. She cried for him.

"I can't think when you look like that, Lily. Why did you have to be so beautiful?" He didn't mean physical beauty, but he couldn't separate one from the other. He was sick at heart with what he'd done. He didn't think the blood of a friend could ever be washed from his hands but somehow her tears had managed to do it. Ryland stared at her, in the middle of what looked like a crystal palace, a princess he didn't deserve but was going to keep.

"I wish I was beautiful, Ryland. You make me feel beautiful." Her vivid blue gaze drifted moodily over his rugged features. "How could you think I would blame you for saving our lives? I feel what it cost you. I felt it when you did it."

"I saw your face. You wanted to save him." He blinked away the tears burning unexpectedly in his eyes. His throat felt raw with pain.

"I saw yours. I wanted to save him for you." She reached out her hand to him. Waited until he took her fingers and settled on the edge of the Jacuzzi tub. "We're connected somehow. And you're right. It doesn't matter if my father found a way to manipulate the attraction between us, I'm grateful you're in my life."