She was astonished at the cool voice he used relating such a terrible childhood trauma. Maybe he believed he had buried the whole thing deep enough that he could tell it without feeling, but she knew it wasn't so. The rage in him was frightening. The sorrow devastating. Tansy found herself moving back up the slope toward her campsite. She caught the trunk of a sapling and held on to keep from hurrying back to comfort him. Now his commands had taken on an entirely different meaning. He did need her, whether he knew it or not--and she suspected he didn't know that any more than he knew he was still that enraged, shattered, devastated child.
Come back to me. The stars are out. Do you see them? I never thought I'd see them again. Confined in that space, with blood dripping on me and pooling all around me, I never thought I'd ever be able to be inside again. I don't like walls.
He used the present tense. She took a breath and let it out. Her hands released the sapling and she began walking back toward camp, her feet moving her in spite of the fact that her brain was telling her no. Where was her self-preservation? Why did his voice affect her so strongly? She only knew she wept inside for that innocent child and wept even more for the man he had become.
I stayed hidden for hours, days, I don't know. I was terrified, not so much of being killed--I think I was long past that fear--but of what I knew I was going to find. I thought the screams were the worst, the pleading, and I prayed for it to be over. But then there was silence. Nothing broke the silence. I couldn't hear footsteps, or cries, or even breaths. After a while I wasn't even certain I was alive.
She hadn't lived through a serial killer destroying her family, but she'd been present, hearing the victims' last thoughts, their fears and cries and pain-filled whimpers, their last gasps of breath and that horrible rattle she couldn't get out of her head. She didn't need an object to touch to bring the images into vivid detail. She was in Kadan's head and the images were burned there for all eternity. Now they were in her head as well. She wasn't good at getting rid of blood and death. Tansy reached up and brushed at the tears on her face.
The first thing I saw when I pushed open the door was my brother's face. His eyes were open and he was staring at me. Sometimes I can't sleep and I see his eyes and I know I was supposed to find them and make them pay for what they did. But then I remind myself I'm not eight and he was dead and there was nothing left of him but a vacant stare, so I can't really blame anything on him. His eyes looked like glass. Come back to me, Tansy. I need you tonight.
She'd seen eyes that looked like glass. Too many eyes. She didn't sleep much either at night, which is why she chose to work and exhaust herself, sleeping in catnaps during the day. If she closed her eyes in the dark the dead surrounded her, staring with glassy eyes. She hadn't saved them. She had waited too long to volunteer. She had hesitated. She had been too slow to pick up the trail. Whatever the reason, she hadn't saved them. Maybe she needed to see it his way. They were already dead and there was nothing left but her own guilt.
My father had tried to cover my mother. I could see that. He'd tried to protect her, but they killed her and I couldn't touch her. I couldn't make myself touch either of them. You know how in the movies the kid always kisses the dead parent or loved one? Well, I couldn't go near them. I was sick. And angry. And so terrified of being alone. I dug through the blood. It was so sticky. I don't think I've ever managed to wash it off of me. Sometimes it feels like a second skin. I dug through the blood until I found my father's gun and I walked out of the house.
Her heart began to pound so hard her breath came in a ragged gasp. She was with him fully now, locked into his mind, his emotions her emotions. She was that eight-year-old boy who felt too much sorrow--and too much rage. Instinctively she tried to pull away, to separate herself, but his soft, relentless voice refused to let her go.
Come back to me now, Tansy. I walked for a couple of hours. I knew where to go. I'd recognized the men. They were business associates of my father and they'd come to dinner in our home. My mother had cooked for them. One had played baseball with my brother and me. I knew them. I stayed in the shadows where no one saw me, covered in my family's blood. I've been there ever since.
She was crying openly now. It was impossible to choke back sobs. That little boy, covered in blood with a gun in his hand. She saw him so clearly. Felt the rage with him. Knew the sorrow that still gripped him like a vise.
"Don't," she whispered aloud. "Don't do it." There would be no going back once it was done. No way to ever recover that sweetness, that innocence, that had been inside that little boy. "Don't."
I need you tonight. I'm so tired and I need to hold you close to me. I don't ever do that. Hold anyone close. I don't get close, but now there's no choice and I'm too damn tired to fight it. Come back to me.
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 s
traight 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.
His mouth moved on hers, deepening the kiss, while a fever ignited a slow burn in his belly. She wasn't wearing a bra. He'd been more than conscious of that all day, and now he tugged the hem of her shirt up and over her head, clamping his arm around her until her breasts were tight against the muscles of his chest. She felt like heaven.
Tansy knew she was getting in too deep. She was letting him take her over, sacrificing her body to the darkness in him, igniting a fire neither of them was going to be able to put out easily. He had used her own weakness against her to bring her back to him, and now he was seducing her. She wanted the hot pleasure of his mouth, the feel of his hard body against hers and the strength in his arms. She craved the taste and texture of him, but most of all, she needed to take the pain out of his eyes and erase it from his mind.
His hand swept over her belly and every muscle bunched beneath his palm. His fingertips felt hard and calloused, a strange bristle-like stroke that sent shivers of excitement down her spine and arousal tingling in her thighs. He kissed her throat, down her shoulder, and then covered the tip of her breast with his mouth, suckling strongly. She nearly fell, her legs going weak and her core going liquid.
"Kadan?" Her fist clenched in his hair, and her voice trembled. A breathy little moan escaped her throat. Nothing had ever made her feel like he did. Wanted. Wanton. Sexy. Frightened. She was confused. She was drowning in the sensations his tongue and teeth on her nipple created.
"It's all right, baby. I've got you," he assured her softly. "You're so soft, so perfect I can barely breathe."
She watched him through half-closed eyes, his tongue taking long licks at her nipple, his lips closing around her breast, the tongue flicking and dancing until she cried out, the sound strangled as his hands tugged at the zipper of her jeans. Every nerve ending in her body seemed sensitized as his mouth traveled farther down her stomach, his tongue swirling over her belly button. He caught her jeans and pushed them down her hips, urging her to kick them aside. She stood naked, the night caressing her skin, the moon spilling light and shadow over her.
He brought his head up, his eyes nearly glowing in the dark, shining at her with dark hunger, with an intensity that was both terrifying and arousing. As his gaze darkened with lust, sweeping over her, a groan escaped, much like the sound the cougar made before it tore into its meal. He swore under his breath and dropped to his knees, pushing her thighs apart. He caught her hips in his hands and forced her body forward toward his waiting mouth.
Tansy might have screamed. She didn't know. Maybe no sound actually emerged, but the scream of pleasure was locked tightly in her mind. He didn't look up; instead he licked at her, taking long catlike strokes with his tongue, licking at her as if he was starving and desperate for cream. Her womb reacted with a slow rolling, rippling with pleasure, spilling more rich wetness.
He growled something, the sound vibrating through her body. She caught at his shoulders, trying to steady herself when she was on the verge of collapsing, as wave after wave of sheer pleasure consumed her. Her stomach tightened, the muscles bunching, tension spreading with the rising heat.
"I can't stand it." She threw her head back, legs splayed wide, his mouth at her, tongue circling the knot of nerves, until a sob of ecstasy escaped. She pushed against him mindlessly, thrusting with her hips, seeking more as the tension never lessened. His mouth and tongue and fingers stroked and caressed and ate her alive, until she was burning up in a fever of desperate need.
The orgasm took her by surprise, racing over her, body bucking helplessly with mind-numbing pleasure as her womb and feminine channel grew hotter and hotter and tighter and tighter, until she simply fragmented, losing control, losing herself in the fiery heat, giving herself up to his mouth and hands.
Kadan was on his feet, shedding his jeans, lifting her, growling instructions. "Wrap your legs around my waist. Hurry, Tansy. I need you." Because if he didn't bury himself inside of her, he was going to lose his mind.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, mashing her soft breasts against his chest while her long legs wrapped around his waist. She locked her ankles, nearly sobbing with need. He pressed the broad head of his shaft against her slick, wet entrance. He could barely breathe now, shocked at his own lack of control.
He felt fire blazing over his skin, lightning sizzling through his bloodstream as he began to invade her soft body, pushing through tight folds, so hot, like raw silk gripping him, burning him clean again. Inch by slow inch, he sank into her depths until he felt her wince as he lodged against a thin barrier.
"Hold on to me, Tansy," he whispered through clenched teeth. She had to be a virgin--when he was sliding away from reality and careening out of control. "Let your weight come down on me." His eyes met hers. He wanted her trust. He didn't deserve it. He'd betrayed her already by using her own compassion against her, but he still wanted her--Tansy--the real woman, giving everything she was to him.
Her eyes went dark, the shine more luminous. Never taking her gaze from his, she pushed down, while he thrust up. The ripple of pain went through her mind to his and he stopped, leaning forward to find her mouth in an attempt to kiss the hurt away. He waited until she was kissing him back, until he felt her body stop resisting his, allowing his invasion so that he sank deeper into her, until he was buried to the hilt.
He let her set the pace, urging her with his hands on her hips to ride him, to find a rhythm that she could manage while getting used to the feel of his thickness stretching her. He hadn't expected to need her so much, or that he would burn so hot. She was so damned tight, tighter than he'd imagined. The
walls of her sheath felt alive, velvet soft, scalding hot, pulsing and throbbing around him, gripping him and sliding over him until he wanted to shout hoarsely with joy. Each moment inside of her sent light shimmering through him, piercing every dark shadow until for the first time that he could remember, he felt alive.
When he thought he couldn't live through another moment of her long, slow slide, she tightened her muscles even more, nearly causing him to lose control completely. He gripped her hips then, taking over, setting his own pace, thrusting hard and deep, feeling like a madman who couldn't get enough.
Her small, broken cry only added fuel to the flames. Her nails bit into his shoulders as she clung to him, lifting herself to meet his deep surges. The sound of their bodies coming together was loud in the night, but he could only hear his breath, shuddering in and out of his lungs as the world burned hotter and his body tightened and tightened until everything he ever was centered in his groin.
Her low keen shattered what little control he had left, and he began to piston into her, stretching the tension on a thin, taut wire, pushing her beyond anything she'd ever considered, until she was pleading with him for release. He kept going, plunging into her, sinking as deep as he could, never wanting to end his time with her. There was nothing in his world but Tansy, with her perfect body surrounding his. The heat and fire of her. The explosive chemistry. The soft skin and the even softer channel that stroked and gripped and held him tighter than her arms. And that scent of cinnamon that filled him with craving.
He shifted her just an inch to apply more pressure to that sweet spot, the bundle of sensitive nerves that had her sobbing out his name. And then her body rippled. Once, twice, clamped down hard, milking and squeezing. Wave after wave tore through her, taking him with her. He felt her body dragging the hot seed out of him, filling her while she pulsed around him.
She dropped her head onto his shoulder, utterly spent. He should have been. He lowered her feet to the ground, but held her, swaying, tight against him. They stayed that way for a several long moments before he felt the shift in her mind, in her body, the sudden withdrawal. He closed his eyes and held her tighter, not willing for this moment to be over. She had to give him this night. One night.