Spider Game (GhostWalkers, #12)(110)
“I had to sit here knowing you were out there, Trap, with soldiers I brought here. Soldiers bent on killing everyone. Soldiers you were facing in the swamp while I was lounging around in a bed. So, yes, I’m going with you, and I’m going to make certain I have you in my sights for as long as it takes to get rid of this terror inside of me.”
She stood up. Trembled. He was there instantly, settling his hands around her upper arms. His fingers closed around her silken skin. He felt the movement of muscle beneath his vise-like grip, but she didn’t pull away from him. She was cold, as she often was and actually leaned into his body for warmth and shelter.
His heart contracted. Hard. Tight. He tightened his grip on her, not knowing what he was going to do. Not trusting himself. For the first time, he was afraid for her. Really afraid. She’d made him open himself to her. She became part of his life. Not just part. She became his life. She acted instinctively and she’d almost been killed. That was a part of her character.
She’d lived in a little cell thinking of herself as not human. As an experiment to be studied. She’d been pitted against teams of trained soldiers determined to kill her, and she’d come out the victor. She was fearless in battle.
“Damn it, Cayenne, you aren’t disposable. Your life is worth something. Everything. You can’t keep thinking the way you do.”
She tilted her chin at him, her green eyes searching his face. Brooding. Moody. Those lashes fanned the high cheekbones concealing the brilliant green of her eyes and raised again to reveal multifacets. Gems of emerald. His breath caught in his throat. This woman was his. She was his everything, and she went into battle prepared to die. Fearless because she didn’t believe she had anything to lose.
“You have me to lose, Cayenne,” he corrected. “You die, and what the f*ck do you think is going to happen to me? You can’t give a man who had nothing everything, and then take it away from him. You don’t get to do that. I lived in a void. It was a kind of hell, and maybe I thought I belonged there because I didn’t die with my family. I believed for so long I didn’t deserve a damn thing because if I hadn’t lived, they wouldn’t have touched my aunt. I had nothing. Nothing. Do you f*cking understand that? I had nothing until you gave me you.”
She took a breath. He could see her pulse pounding in her throat. He wanted to bend down and lick it. Taste her skin. Taste her passion. But he couldn’t because she’d been shot. Twice.
“The thing is, Trap,” she said softly, “I do understand. You’re not in this alone. I had nothing. I lived in a void, a kind of hell. Maybe I thought I belonged there because I was convinced by everyone around me that I wasn’t human. I believed I didn’t deserve anything at all. Until you saw me. The human. Until you chose me. I had nothing to live for. I had nothing at all, until you gave me you. So please don’t tell me I don’t understand. You were out there, in danger. You pushed aside all feeling and you did your job. When you did it, you weren’t thinking about whether or not you could be killed and what would happen to me if you did. You simply did what you were trained to do. You aren’t less than me. I don’t love you less.”
His heart clenched so hard he thought it might shatter. Love. There it was. She said it. Brought it right out into the open. He had skirted carefully around that particular word and the terrible emotion it conjured up. A single word couldn’t describe the way he felt about her. There was no getting around it. The powerful, overwhelming emotion he felt for her had to be love and more. More than love. Worship maybe. Whatever, she couldn’t leave him.
He didn’t know if he was steadying her or himself when he pulled her closer to him, when he fit her small body against his side. It wasn’t the revelation of how she felt that got to him. It was her voice. That soft, shaky admission. Close to tears. The revelation of love. Of fear. No, not just fear. A soul-shattering terror. It was there in her voice. In her mind.
Cayenne always gave him everything without reservation. She wasn’t ashamed of her feelings or what that exposed to him. She didn’t care that by knowing how she felt, he might have power over her. She just gave him everything. Straight up.
His hand moved over her face, brushing aside her hair. “Baby.” He said it softly. “I can’t breathe right now.”
“Then kiss me and I’ll breathe for you,” she whispered back. In that voice. The one that could turn a roomful of decent men into a pack of salivating hounds. The one that sent fingers of desire dancing up his thighs and down his spine to spread through his bloodstream straight to his cock.
He didn’t deny either of them. He needed to kiss her. More than he needed to draw air into his lungs, he had to kiss her. He bent his head and took her mouth. She opened to him instantly. He didn’t take her along for the ride on the kiss, she participated fully. Her lips were soft, his were hard. She was cool. He was hot. His mouth melted her as he took possession, his tongue stroking along hers. She had paid close attention every time he kissed her or touched her and she learned fast.
They exchanged breath. Air. Passion. He felt it, the rage retreating under the force of her love. Of her giving. She gutted him with her kiss. With her love.
You give me everything. All of you. I can taste you in my mouth. In my lungs. You’re wrapped around my heart. Stamped into my bones. He gave her that because she deserved to know. She had to know. Baby, you can’t risk yourself. I wouldn’t survive the loss. Not intact. You have to give me this.