"If I could lock you up and keep you, I would," he growled, though she had a feeling they both knew better. "You scare the hell out of me, Harmony, but this is your world. You know a damned sight more about it than I do. This time, I'll follow you." She was going to go into shock. She stared back at him in disbelief, knowing that following was not a word this man usually played with.
"I didn't say I would like it," he growled. "I said I'd do it. There's a hell of a difference. And I'll spank you for it later."
Damn, there was that purr again. She blinked at the little rumble that came from her chest.
"Minx." His eyes were like dark blue flames as he stared back at her. "Keep that up and I'll just tie you up in the bed until this is over. That sound makes me harder than hell."
"The mating heat is going away," she pointed out.
"Tell that to my dick." He rose from his chair, and sure enough, the bulge in his jeans was there. Thick. Heavy. Her mouth watered. "And stop looking at me like that. Get your list together and we'll head out."
Bossy, that's what he was. Harmony watched as he moved from the table, all business despite the hard-on straining beneath his jeans. But he was also willing to work with her. She liked that. She hadn't expected it, but she liked it. Her eyes followed him, lingering on his hard back as he turned away from her, feeling the further softening in her chest. She loved him.
That fact hit her like a two-by-four against the head. For a moment, she even swore she saw stars.
She loved him.
It was quite possibly the most weakening and yet the most strengthening emotion she had ever known in her life. This was why she hadn't been able to leave him. Even knowing the danger she represented to his life, the heartache she had feared was coming, she hadn't been able to leave because she had fallen in love with him that first night.
When he had touched her as though she were something beautiful, something fragile and to be cherished; when he had whispered his naughty demands at her ear and made her feel like the woman she had never been, she had fallen in love with him.
"Harmony, that look on your face is going to get you f**ked and we're already eating daylight here. Get the list together and let's get moving. I want this taken care of."
"A quickie…"
"You've had your quickie," he growled, the dark demand in his voice making her insides melt. "I want all night. Hell. I want f**king forever. Now let's take care of it."
CHAPTER 22
The sniper rifle surprised her.
Harmony had known that Lance had been on the SWAT team in Chicago; she had even been aware that he was a sharpshooter. Yet when he pulled the specially designed sniper rifle from its case and began to put it together, she could only watch him. He handled the weapon like an extension of himself— confidently, certain of each move he made as the different parts of the weapon were cleaned, then put in place. With each added part, he checked the weapon for any flaws, any weakness. She studied his expression as he worked at the small table in the hotel room they had finally settled on. His face was set, composed, relaxed. There was no frown marring his strong brow, no sense of anger tightening his mouth.
As she cleaned and checked her own weapons on the extra bed in the room, she realized that perhaps there were parts of Lance that she didn't know as well as she should. Parts of him that perhaps she was frightened to know.
He was a man of many layers, of many depths, and infinite patience. She had never met a male as patient, and yet with such a sense of inner strength as Lance held. Unlike Breed males, Lance didn't push his dominance, his power. He used it when he had to, when it became apparent that cool logic or patience wouldn't achieve the results he was searching for. But he didn't feel the need to impress that dominance on anyone. Unlike Jonas, Lance didn't play games, he didn't manipulate or threaten. Like the wind, what he couldn't go through, he went around or chipped at, layer by layer. But this was the first time she had seen the warrior she had only caught glimpses of before. In his face, in the prepared readiness of his muscles and the cool, objective look in his blue eyes as he studied his weapon, she saw a man who had no qualms in taking that final step to do what he felt was necessary.
It sent a strange tingle of arousal through her body. The certainty that in ways, many ways perhaps, he was stronger than she was, stronger than the Breeds she had known. He was a man who understood and believed in the laws of the land. In justice. But he was also a man who understood that even those laws had a limit.
Tonight, his laws and his justice wouldn't exist. And she regretted that. Dragging him into her world wasn't what she had wanted to do.
Tearing her eyes from him, she lowered her head and concentrated on cleaning her own weapon, on preparing for the night they would awaken to later. It was barely daylight now; the ride from Broken Butte to Estes Park had been made ahead of schedule. Of course, the fact that the wind seemed to push at their vehicle had helped. Lance had broken speed limits and driven with a calm efficiency that she admitted had made her nervous.
He had spoken little. His gaze had been fierce, his expression set. They had eaten breakfast before checking in, and the minute the door locked behind them, he had picked up the metal case he had carried in with his duffel bag and begun assembling the rifle.
Harmony had followed his example, beginning her own pre-battle rituals. But it was different now. As she searched inside her for that core of ice, for the shadow called Death, she realized it wasn't there anymore. Rather than feeling the vengeance clawing inside her, she could only feel regret.
Emotions rose, twisting, churning inside her chest until she wondered at the fact that she could breathe for them. As though something inside her had changed with this mating, some intrinsic, important part of her that had once enabled her to kill so easily. It felt… missing.
She shook her head unconsciously, frowning as she tried to make sense of herself. Had the potential to love always been inside her? She had never felt it before, had never known the need to love, until Lance.
Laying the ammunition clips aside, she laid her hand on her abdomen, her fingers rubbing at the area imperceptibly. A baby. What was she supposed to do with a baby?
But her arms ached to hold it, and as she closed her eyes, she saw tiny features framed by Lance's thick black hair, seeing the world through his midnight blue eyes. A little boy perhaps, one who could know laughter.