That, she knew, was the last thing he wanted to give her. Judging from his tone, dripping in bitter sarcasm and suppressed aggression, he probably wanted to give her five to ten, minimum.
In fact, logically speaking, he should be here to...eliminate her danger. She was the only one who possessed detailed knowledge of the secrets he’d gone to unimaginable lengths to bury. Her existence posed a threat not only to the persona he’d built and the plans he’d worked for since he’d escaped The Organization, but to his very life.
But though he’d assassinated countless people, and she probably deserved to be, in his opinion, she didn’t fear for a second that was why he was here. This lethal man with the staggering body count in his past didn’t scare her at all.
Not that anything did. With the kind of existence she’d had, she’d never valued her life enough to be afraid for it. The only true fear she’d ever felt had been on his behalf.
“Feet aching, my love?”
Nostalgia skewered through her, made her squeeze her eyes, bite down on the moan that almost escaped her lips.
Welcoming her home, calling her “my darling” and “my love”... They were the same phrases he’d greeted her with that last time in his penthouse in New York five years ago. It had been the first time he’d said things like that...out of bed.
It had been then she’d realized he’d decided to take their relationship to the next level. And that she’d soon be forced to put an end to it.
Unable to face putting a time frame on “soon,” that night she’d thrown herself into being with him with all the passion he’d ignited inside her, gulping down every second as if each had been her last ever. But even in her worst nightmares she hadn’t expected they would be that for real, that the very next day it would come to such a jarring and dreadful end.
After it had, she’d had no doubt it would remain over.
Then came tonight. Then now. And the bridge into the past she’d thought had burned to ashes had somehow been rebuilt. Because she seemed to have branded him as he’d done her.
He’d already told her that it had been how he’d recognized her in someone else’s body. Which flabbergasted her. Even if he’d formed an emotional attachment to her in the past, it had been to the persona she’d played. She’d thought that if he remembered her at all since, it would be with rage and repugnance. She’d never thought he’d obsess over her in any other way.
But by reciting the exact words he’d said that last time they’d met as lovers, he was letting her know he had. From the way he’d drawled the memorized words, he was also letting her know such a hold over him made it more imperative to him to exact revenge for every wrong she’d dealt him, with five years’ worth of compound interest.
She would have let him, if it were only she who’d pay the price. But he was in a far more sensitive position than she was. Any impulsive actions would harm him far more than her. And she couldn’t let him do this to himself. Not after what she’d done to protect him. She would protect him again, at any cost, even from himself.
It was time to do so, to end this, and this time, make sure it was over for good.
Feeling the heat of his body radiating at her back, tasting the intoxication of his breath as it filled her lungs, she turned slowly, carefully. Her balance was already compromised, and she didn’t want to end facedown at his feet instead of on the bed as she’d previously planned.
She almost did so anyway when she laid eyes on him.
Earlier tonight, she’d realized he’d done the impossible, had become even more magnificent than he’d been, his assets having appreciated with maturity, and would no doubt continue to do so. He’d become a god for real, not just in name.
But now... It shouldn’t be possible, but he looked even more awe striking than he had an hour ago.
He’d taken off his tuxedo jacket, undid his bow tie and a few shirt buttons, exposing a tantalizing expanse of the burnished flesh beneath. His muscled shoulders and chest seemed wider with just a sheer layer of silk covering them, and in contrast with the now-apparent sparse hardness of his abdomen. And if he looked like this with clothes still on, she didn’t want to dwell on the details of his upgrades with them off.
But it was his face that as usual arrested her. His hair was no longer meticulously groomed, the raven-wing, rain-straight locks slightly mussed. It gave him a wild, raw look that made his heart-stopping cheekbones even more prominent, his slanting caramel eyes even more fiery, his sculpted lips more erotic and his chiseled jaw more rugged.
His whole package was enough to compromise her sanity. Not that she’d ever had much to speak of where he was concerned. And that was on the mental and emotional level. On the physical one, just being around him, just thinking of him, made her melt, throb...ache. Her body had been hammering at her, demanding his since she’d laid eyes on him across the ballroom tonight.
His answering appraisal made her core simmer. Then the velvet depths of his baritone drawl almost made it combust.
“Your surgeon didn’t only make you a totally different woman, but the most beautiful model possible, too.”
She met the eyes that flayed her with contempt with a look of long-perfected equanimity. Even as her insides raged, she injected her voice with the same inexpression.
“Surgeons, in the plural. This result is a collaborative effort, performed over many stages. But it was I who provided them with this ‘model.’ I needed to be beautiful.”
“You were always beautiful.”
Her heart forgot a few beats before it resumed sputtering. Outwardly, she knew he’d see no evidence of the effect his words had on her. “Nowhere like this.”
“So you thought you needed to intensify your beauty, to boost your effectiveness as a siren? I thought you’d know from intensive experience that outward beauty only lures men, but what traps them are the brains and wiles behind the looks.”
“Since I have those, too, I more than ever have the perfect package.” His gorgeous eyes narrowed, his edible lips filled, as if her brazenness aroused him even as it angered him. She pretended to sigh, but really expelled the air that clogged her lungs. “But beauty alone does open doors.”