Liza’s eyes widened.
“Don’t leave the hotel.” He lowered his head and the rasp of the day-old beard against the sensitive shell of her ear had her eyes closing in desperate need.
“I can’t stay here. Why would I want to?”
“To stay with me?” he suggested, his lips touching just beneath her ear, sending tingles of incredible sensation rushing along her nerve endings.
To stay with him?
God, she wanted to stay with him.
She didn’t know him, she only knew of him. She’d watched him for weeks as he moved about the periphery of her life, always surprised when she saw him though always expecting his presence.
“This won’t work.”
“Won’t it?” As he nuzzled against her ear, heat and searing need flashed through her senses. “Then why are you holding on to me as though you’ll never let go?”
Her nails were biting into the fabric of his shirt as though desperate to reach his flesh.
The sensual side of her was desperate to get to bare skin, to feel him against her, the warmth of him, the pleasure of him stroking her.
“Why did you manhandle me against the wall?” she accused back, but once again there was no anger to her tone, nothing to really impress him with the fact that she meant it.
If she did mean it.
“I want you, Liza,” he rasped at her ear then. “From the moment I saw you the night your friend approached Malachi, I’ve wanted you. I’ve wanted you bad.”
The words affected her more for the sheer simplicity of the statement than the roughness of his tone.
“You want to draw me in.” That was her fear, her certainty. “Whatever Wyatt thinks he can use me for, you want to convince me to allow.”
The knowledge of that hurt.
It ached deep inside her but did nothing to change the power of the arousal building between her thighs.
“Is that what you really think?” Anger colored his tone as his head lifted, the blue in his eyes brighter, nearly overtaking the black as he glared down at her.
The anger couldn’t overshadow the hunger in his gaze. It was there: clear, bright and unapologetic.
“Don’t do this to me, Stygian,” she whispered rather than answering the question. “Don’t destroy my life.”
“I could complete it.”
But something warned her that completing it could also destroy it, and that destruction terrified a dark, hidden core of her that she rarely allowed herself to dwell upon.
She was certain she would have had an argument, that she could have come up with one if the elevator hadn’t given a small jerk and resumed its journey downward.
Her feet were settling on the floor and Stygian stepping back from her as the doors slid open to the hotel lobby. A half dozen Breeds were waiting to step inside.
They moved back, their expressions inscrutable, gazes shuttered as they flicked between her and Stygian.
“Excuse me.” Ducking her head, Liza rushed from the elevator and headed for the exit.
“Slow down,” Stygian murmured as he came to her side, keeping pace with her as he placed his palm at the middle of her bare back.
“Why?” Pushing through the doors and striding to the side of the entrance patio, she turned in frustration as she planted her hands on her hips and confronted him. “Why should I? They all knew,” she bit out between clenched teeth. “They all knew we were—” Her lips clamped shut.
Stygian’s lips quirked into a half smile of pure male appreciation as he stared down at her.
“That we wanted each other? Honey, it wouldn’t take Breed senses to figure that out when those doors opened. Anyone with a knowledge of lust would have known it in a microsecond.”
Just what she needed. A reaction to a man that anyone could see in a microsecond.
“Take me home, now.” She had to get away from him.
Oh God, had the link been active?
She hadn’t heard it disconnect after it had reactivated in the suite, seconds after the mass of Breeds had moved away from her.
She didn’t need this.
Raking the fringes of hair that had fallen forward across her face, she turned and stared around the entrance to the hotel.
“Do you have a ride here, or am I walking?” Turning back to him, she swore she could feel the caress of his gaze as it touched her br**sts before sliding slowly back to her face.
“We have a ride.” He shrugged before lifting his hand, never taking his eyes off her, and giving a quick backward wave of his fingers.
She couldn’t tear her gaze from his.
She didn’t want to.
As his hand lowered, Liza realized there was something unsettling, yet something so secure in the depths of those black-and-blue eyes.
She was all too aware of the vehicle moving up beside them though and coming to a slow stop.
“Our ride.” Opening the back passenger door, he watched her expectantly.
The SUV was all luxury: black, pure leather seats and a gentle rush of cool air.
Taking the hand he extended her, Liza stepped into the vehicle, settled into the seat and gave a small flinch as the door closed gently.
A second later Stygian was sliding into the front passenger seat and giving the dark Breed behind the wheel the order to drive.
There was something almost surreal about the ride.
Sitting in the leather comfort of the luxurious vehicle, Liza closed her eyes and tried to tell herself this was going to work out. Everything was going to be okay.
Her assurances were quickly wiped away by another flash of an image.
A limo, the seats luxurious and soft, the couple sitting across from her grief-stricken.
The older woman held her hand: her incredibly small, pale, childlike hand.
Liza jerked her eyes open, her head turning to stare through the dark window as the vehicle made its way toward her home.
What was she seeing, and where were those images, those memories, coming from? Why were they suddenly flashing through her head?
What was happening to her?
Gideon watched.
He was an excellent watcher.
It was one of the things he had been trained to do as a child, but it was also an inherent part of his genetics.
Concealed in the upper thickly needled branches of a towering fir tree, he watched the suite Jonas and his family resided in.
They’d found most of the bugs he’d had put in place. Getting them into the room to begin with had been a pure bitch.