Chapter Eleven
C HAPTER E LEVEN
A dog in season is subject to variances of mood; be sensitive to your pet.
—Man’s Best Friend: An Essential Guide to Dogs
Claire stepped into the kitchen and let the door slam behind her. “You make it sound like I’m in heat,” she accused.
Propping her hands on her hips, she waited for him to assure her otherwise, waited for him to say she wasn’t actually a dog, that she couldn’t be ruled by base, primitive urges.
He cocked an eyebrow at her as he shrugged out of his jacket and removed his holster. She translated his look to mean, if the shoe fits .
All the ways in which she had recently changed flashed across her mind: heightened senses, quick temper, wardrobe, hair, makeup, revitalized interest in men.
“Oh, my God.” She sank into a chair, propping her elbows on the kitchen table and burying her face in her hands. “I am in heat.”
“You’re not in heat,” he said as he opened the refrigerator to peer inside.
She looked through her fingers, staring at him hopefully.
“Well,” he amended, “not exactly.”
She dropped her face back into her hands with a moan. Not only was she a werewolf, but a werewolf whose biological clock tolled for a litter of her own. “I’m not stepping outside this house ever again.”
“Yes. You will,” he countered with annoying certainty, head still inside the fridge, rear end displayed to full advantage in his well-worn denim.
Jamming her eyes shut against the sight, she fought back a wave of lust. Oh God. Did he drive her wild with need? Or was it simply an instinctive need to fornicate? She snuck another glimpse at his ass, refusing to believe that she had lost all dignity, all self-control—that sex, regardless of the partner, would suffice.
She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “Maybe it’s not a good idea to flaunt myself all over town.”
“We’re not any closer to finding the alpha of your pack. You’re going out again. You have to.”
“My pack,” she snorted in contempt. “I don’t have a pack, remember? That’s why everything on four legs wants a piece of me.”
Gideon’s lips twitched.
She glared at him and uncrossed her arms to wag a finger in warning. “Don’t you dare laugh.”
“Believe me, I find no humor in the situation.” His mouth fell into an uncompromising line. His eyes dropped and he cleared his throat. “You can change clothes. Unless you enjoy exposing yourself to me.” His voice sounded tight and strangled.
She followed his gaze. Her top gaped open, revealing her black push-up bra. She felt her nipples tighten beneath the black silk and grabbed at the tattered fabric.
“Maybe I’m trying to seduce you,” she flung out with far more bravado than she felt. Face flaming, she scooted back in her chair and added, “I am in heat, after all.”
Deciding it best to flee—before she made a fool of herself and succumbed to the base impulses tormenting her—she stormed out of the kitchen.
She was not an animal. Not a dog in heat. She alone controlled her body. Even if she did want to pick up where they left off at the lake house. Gideon was the only one to affect her that way. Only he made her forget that the two of them were a very bad idea.
Thankfully he had control enough for both of them.
Claire stared at the shadows flickering across the ceiling, thoughts of tonight and Gideon keeping her awake. The purr of a diesel engine growled in the night. Kicking back the covers, she hopped off the uncomfortable pullout and moved to the window.
Parting the curtains, she watched a man climb out of his truck and stride up the front walkway. Something about the purposeful way he carried himself, the quick way he canvassed the area, reminded her of Gideon.
Footsteps pounded down the hall—the smack of Gideon’s bare feet on the house’s old wood floors. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one awake and aware of their late-night visitor.
The door to her room flung open. Gideon stood there bare-chested. She devoured the sight of him, the stranger outside forgotten. His eyes settled on her with an intensity that sent heat rushing to her face. His jeans hung loose and unbuttoned on his waist. The enticing line of hair disappearing below his navel made her throat constrict. Tousled hair, dark in the room’s shadows, brushed his naked shoulders. She felt herself take a step forward, fingers twitching at her side, itching to touch that hair, recalling its softness in her hands.
She froze, rooting her feet to the floor, telling herself to get a grip.
He pointed an imperious finger at her. “Stay here.”
The back door opened and slammed shut below.
“Gideon,” a voice boomed out.
Gideon gave the smallest flinch.
Goose bumps sprang to life over her skin. “Who is it?” she whispered.
“My boss. Don’t make a sound,” he cautioned, his eyes glowing bottle green in the shadows. “Not unless you want it all to end right here, tonight.”
His meaning left no doubt. Shivering, she nodded.
He turned and walked back out of her room, closing the door behind him.
For a long moment, she held her breath, almost afraid the sound would carry downstairs and give her presence away.
His boss? The low rumble of their voices barely carried from the bottom floor. The drumming pulse at her neck gradually slowed. They couldn’t hear her from up here.
Easing the door open, she stuck her head out into the hall. The voices were no clearer, still a faint murmur on the air. She crept down the hallway on silent feet and lowered herself to the top step, well out of sight but in perfect hearing range.
“Two dead lycans and no one’s claiming them. Know anything about it?”
“Why would I?” Gideon’s voice rang out.
“The whole thing smacks of a rogue hunter. You know I won’t tolerate that. Not in my town.”
“Yes. I’m well aware of our policy regarding non-sanctioned hunters.”
She bit her lip. What would happen if his boss realized he lied? Worse yet, what would happen if it were discovered that Gideon sheltered her? She could guess at her fate, but what about him? Until that moment, Claire hadn’t realized just how much he was putting on the line for her.
A long pause followed Gideon’s flip response. She strained forward on the step, waiting.
“Seen your sister lately?”
Biting her bottom lip between her teeth, Claire hugged her knees to her chest.
“Not much. She’s busy with school and work.”
“Right.”
Even from her position high on the stairs, she detected the man’s skepticism.
“You know what I think?” he continued.
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” Gideon retorted.
“Your sister’s been trying to get into NODEAL for as long as I can remember.”
“So?”
“So, maybe she’s decided to do a little freelancing.”
Gideon’s rich laughter rippled through the air. “I don’t think so. Between classes and tending bar, she’s pretty busy.”
“I want to talk to your sister—”
“Then talk to her. You don’t need my permission.”
Even from where she sat, Claire could picture his lips curving in that mocking smile.
“Oh, I’ll do that. But if I find out she’s involved in this—”
“You’ll what, Cooper? Slap her on the wrist. So what if she did the world a favor and took out two lycans? Big deal.”
Cooper? Her gaze darted back to her room, remembering the inscription in the book tucked away in the drawer.
“You know the rules, Gid. We don’t let women in.”
Interesting. Werewolf hunters were sexist. Guess they didn’t have to worry about the ACLU filing suit. Not when the world was ignorant of their existence.
“And she’s not,” Gideon returned. His voice sounded closer. The soft fall of footsteps signaled their advance into the living room. Her heart jumped and she cautiously rose to her feet, hands pressing flat against the wall on either side of her. If Cooper departed through the front door he would pass the stairs. One glance up and he would see her.
“I know you understand, Gideon. Just make sure your sister does, too.”
The step groaned beneath her shifting foot. Panicked, she dropped back down—and the step creaked in protest a second time. Her heart froze.
“What was that?” Cooper asked.
She bit the knuckles of one fist, welcoming the pain, deserving it.
“What?” Gideon asked, voice calm, even a touch bored.
“Do you have someone upstairs?” Cooper asked, his tone disapproving.
Claire jammed her eyes shut.
Gideon laughed dryly. “Would I be down here talking shop with you if I had someone upstairs?”
“Ah, hell. Suppose not.”
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Dropping her face into her hands, she shook all over.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Cooper announced.
Their footsteps faded back into the kitchen.
She waited and listened to their muffled good-byes, too afraid to move, to breathe, until she knew Cooper was out of the house.
Suddenly, Gideon stood at the foot of the stairs, glaring up at her with blood in his eyes. One hand gripped the railing. Her eyes penetrated the dark, noting the whitening of his knuckles the moment before he swung himself up the steps toward her.
With a hiss of alarm, she spun around on the balls of her feet. His hand closed around her ankle just as she reached the landing. He dragged her back down into the stairwell and flipped her on her back. A deep throbbing started in her abdomen, spreading outward, turning her limbs to mush.
Hands digging into her shoulders, he demanded, “What didn’t you understand about staying put and keeping quiet?”
“I only wanted to know what was going on.”
“So you eavesdropped?” he growled, his mouth so close their breaths mingled, fusing into one shared gust of air.
“You know a better way for me to find out what’s going on? You only tell me half-truths.”
His legs slid between her bare ones, the rough denim scratching the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. Her breathing hitched and she forgot about the stairs digging into her back. Forgot about everything except the wonderful weight of him bearing down on her. Damn primitive urges.
“Do you know what would happen if he found you?” He grabbed her face in both hands and his voice sounded strange to her ears—hoarse and uneven. “Nothing in the world could help you, then.” His eyes searched hers, glittering with an emotion she could not name. “He’d kill you.”
Her belly tightened at the feel of his broad, callused palms against her face. “Would you have stopped him, Gideon?”
He inhaled a ragged breath that shot through her like a bolt of high-powered voltage. His voice fell to a hush. “Don’t make me choose.”
She let the tips of her breasts brush against his chest, keenly aware that only the thin cotton of her T-shirt separated them. “Haven’t you already?”
He groaned, his look tormented, making her heart clench inside her chest.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he rasped before his mouth swooped down on hers. He swallowed her moan, took it deep inside his mouth as his hands dove beneath her, pulling her off the uncomfortable steps and pressing her close to his chest, to the wild beating of his heart.
This time it was all about them. It wasn’t a ploy to get a pair of handcuffs on her. He kissed her because he wanted to. Had to. And she reveled in that knowledge. Like a bird released from its cage, her heart soared with the awareness of her feminine power.
Mouths meshing, limbs tangling, her body somehow ended up on top of his. Her hands roamed his naked chest, palms grazing the hard pecs, the narrow indentation of his sternum, the flat plane of his stomach. She exulted in the freedom to touch, to feel all that hard, bronzed flesh.
She slid down the length of him, her lips trailing kisses across warm, quivering skin. The sound of his panting breath reached her ears, filling her with triumph. She pulled the opening of his jeans wide. The tantalizing line of hair trailing below his navel pointed like an arrow to the hard heat of him she remembered. She pressed a moist, open-mouthed kiss at the lowest point visible.
Moisture rushed between her legs, dampening her panties. Needing satisfaction, she growled and yanked at his waistband urgently.
He made a rough sound and slid from beneath her. Rising to his feet, he loomed above her on the landing, that glorious bare chest lifting in deep, ragged breaths. Sitting on a step, she clutched the bottom of her T-shirt in each fist, twisting the fabric against her knees, fighting the impulse to spring at him.
She knew as she stared at him that the moment had come. He would either take her, accept the fire that existed between them, or turn and walk away.
He dropped his hand, extending it to her. The gesture signified his decision had been made. There would be no going back now.
Helpless to her desire, to the need he roused within her, she placed her hand in his and rose to her feet. As long as the lycan curse grasped her firmly in its clutches, she was helpless to resist. At least that’s what she told herself as she drank passion greedily from his lips.
Her arms snaked around his neck, his skin smooth and warm beneath her arms. He ravaged her mouth, never breaking the kiss as he lifted her in his arms. She was hardly aware of the slight jarring motion as he carried her up the stairs.
He followed her down onto his bed, trapping her between the soft mattress and his hard body, their lips fused together.
Desperation simmered just beneath the surface, making their movements rushed, feverish, their handling of each other rough.
Their clothes melted away. He slid between her legs with expert precision and everything slowed as she stared at this too beautiful man in the moon’s glow. Her breath caught at the sight of him looming above her, the heat of his gaze, the impossible breadth of his shoulders, the narrow waist and sculpted belly.
He traced her collarbone, the slope of her shoulders, the swells of her breasts. His touch gentled, reverent as a prayer as he forged a burning trail with the callused pads of his fingers, exploring each rib, feeling their length and width, driving her mad, frantic. His thumbs drifted upward, grazing the undersides of her breasts in teasing strokes.
“Gideon,” she moaned.
He kissed her again and she felt his smile against her mouth as he took her swollen mounds into both hands. She gasped as he squeezed, testing their fullness. He bent, sucking her nipples until they stood pebble hard. A low keening moan rippled from deep in her throat. The sound more animal than woman. Desire, white hot, shot through her and she arched under him.
He broke away to crush his mouth over hers. Their kisses grew wild, starved for the taste of each other. She thrust her hips against him. He answered by nudging her thighs farther apart with one knee.
Sliding her hand between them, she gripped him, flexing her fingers around the thick length of him. His harsh gasp excited her and she stroked him, fingers gliding over him in fast strokes.
He moaned into her mouth, the rigid length of him pulsing in her hand. She teased his head against her opening and he nudged the tip against her. Panting, her other hand dug into his shoulders.
He sat up and placed her on her knees before him, his hands smoothing over each rounded cheek before biting the tender flesh. A growl ripped free from deep in her throat at the feel of his teeth on her. The ache inside her grew, throbbing, burning, and she spread her thighs, thrusting herself back and rubbing her bottom against his erection.
Her hands dug into the bedcovers. He pulled her back by the hair, kissing the arch of her throat. She reached behind her and grabbed his cock, stroking the engorged shaft, running her thumb over its plump head, guiding him toward her.
He groaned, a deep animal sound of need.
He probed at her opening from behind, parting her slick folds with the swelled head of him. Unable to stop herself, she pushed back, impaling herself on him.
He locked one muscled arm around her waist and held himself there for a moment, buried in the tight heat of her. His warm chest rested against her back, his heart beating fast and strong into her, a distant drum that echoed the pounding of her own pulse.
He swiped free the hair from her neck and pressed an open-mouthed kiss to her nape as he began to move. His hands sought her breasts, cupping them as he plunged into her. Again and again.
“Harder,” she begged, rocking back to meet his every thrust.
His hands carried their own special heat, branding her, singeing her breasts as he fondled and squeezed her nipples as he moved in and out of her.
Her flesh rippled with heightened sensation. Waves of searing heat flowed through her body like rolling lava. Her fingers went numb where they clutched the covers, tearing the fabric. She whimpered, beyond pleasure, beyond pain as the movements increased, grew more frenzied.
“Oh God,” she groaned, her skin burning, the ache in her growing, expanding.
This wasn’t normal. It had never felt this good before. She would have remembered. She moved wildly, slamming back against him, aching for… something.
His hands tightened on her breasts.
His thrusts grew harder. Faster. Fierce. This was no gentle joining. Her body demanded a desperate, furious union of flesh. Nothing less. She tilted her hips, clenching her inner muscles around his sliding heat, trying to get more, trying to reach that elusive hurdle.
His fingers slid from her breasts to dig into her hips. “Go on,” he rasped. “Come. Come for me.”
Whimpering, she dropped her head, letting herself relax into the steady build of tension tightening through her. The pressure increased, building. He swiped the hair from her shoulders again and dragged his mouth over the sensitive skin.
Every muscle in her body suddenly squeezed and contracted. She cried out as shudders racked her, took her soaring over that final precipice. Arched under him, she stilled, his chest a hard wall at her back, the only thing grounding her to earth.
His hands circled her waist and he bucked behind her, thrusting several more times, pouring his liquid heat inside her. His groan rumbled through him into her as if they were one. And in that moment, they were.
Panting, she collapsed into the bed bonelessly, the hot length of him still inside her.
His body came down over her, a crushing, delicious weight, the fan of his breath warm against her spine.
Never more sated or content, her eyes drifted shut.
The gentle tapping of rain on the window woke her. She stretched, spine arching, her hand seeking out the warm body beside her. Her palm flattened over the supple skin of his back. She could feel his lifeblood rushing just below skin and sinew.
He had held her a long while before rolling onto his side. She hadn’t known the rapture could last, that a man’s strong arms could feel so good around her. Better in some ways than the actual sex. With Brian there had been no cuddling after sex. To be honest, there’d hardly been sex.
Sighing, she slid her hand off his back and slipped out of bed, for some reason moved to do so. Guided by a force she could not identify, she stopped before the window, standing where the rug didn’t reach. Her feet shifted on the wood floor, absorbing the cold. Through the part of the curtains, she looked up at the night sky, at the object calling to her. Gray clouds scuttled across the black night, but the moon glowed a hole right through them. It loomed large and godlike overhead, its beam seeming to locate her specifically. Almost full. Only a sliver more and it would be a complete orb. She shivered and hugged herself.
“Come back to bed.” His voice sounded behind her, thick and scratchy with sleep.
Wordlessly, Claire turned and slid back into bed. He tucked her against his side and she marveled at the strangeness of it all. She’d shared a bed with a man before but not like this. She didn’t remember this intimacy, this—
Her mind shied away from the word love , but there it was, intruding and insinuating itself into her heart and head where it had no business being. Not without the possibility of a future.
She shifted beside him, smiling at the twinge of soreness between her legs, a tantalizing reminder of all that had occurred. Her smile slipped as a thought occurred to her.
“Gideon,” she began. “We didn’t use protection.”
“No worries. You can’t get pregnant. And I’m disease-free. NODEAL requires yearly physicals. They test for everything—from cancer to STDs. An agent has to be in peak physical condition.”
Claire nodded, tracing small circles over his chest. “And why aren’t you worried about getting me pregnant?”
“Lycans and humans cannot procreate. It’s like trying to breed two different species. A lycan and human can never produce offspring. If it were possible, it would already have happened. Sadly, plenty of lycans have raped humans. Such a savage act goes hand in hand with their vicious nature.”
“I see.” Hearing herself lumped into the nonhuman category sent a chill to her heart. Her gaze drifted to the window, at the nearly full moon looking down on them.
“You can’t help but look at it, can you?” His deep voice, faintly sad, resigned, jarred her and it took a moment for his meaning to sink in.
“I feel like it’s calling me,” she confessed. “I want to wipe it from the sky.”
“I know,” he sighed. After a long moment, he added, “Crazy how we know next to nothing about the very thing that controls our lives.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the moon controls the tides, affects the weather, crops, our moods—”
“And now my soul,” she added bitterly.
“Yes.” He sighed. “Ironic that she only reveals herself to us in part, isn’t it? We only ever get to see one side of her. We never see the dark side of the moon. No one has.”
“The dark side of the moon,” Claire whispered. She didn’t even want to see the side visible—the side growing more visible with every passing moment. As far as she was concerned, the dark side could stay just that. Dark. Unknown.
Pushing thoughts of the moon away, she splayed a hand over his washboard belly, enjoying the way his muscles contracted beneath her fingers. Pressing her ear to his heart, she listened to the strong, steady beat and asked one of the questions that had plagued her. “Do you know how your mother got infected?”
His heart thumped harder beneath her ear and she felt his stomach muscles dance and ripple under her palm. A long moment passed. Claire bit her lip and waited.
“I’m not sure. She never showed any signs of being attacked or bitten.” The rich rumble of his voice vibrated against her ear. She felt him shrug. “Sometimes I wonder if Cooper knows more than he’s telling. He said an anonymous tip brought him to our house that night. It’s all very suspicious, but I don’t know.” He paused before adding, a note of bitter finality to his voice, “I’ll never know.”
That pregnant pause told her so much. It told her how badly he wanted to know. It told her how he had devoted his life to searching for the truth, for answers to a mystery that had robbed him of his family.
“You’ve killed a lot of lycans,” she guessed.
“Hundreds,” he confirmed, voice flat, without remorse.
“You could have already killed the one responsible,” she pointed out.
“Believe me, I’ve thought the same thing. I’ve never killed a lycan without asking myself that very thing. Is this the one? ”
“After your parents died, where did you go?”
“My grandmother took us in. Although I can’t say she wanted to. It was all very hard on Kit. A little girl needs love. More than what I could give. A woman’s touch, you know. My grandmother was finished raising children.” He laughed dryly. “I’m not sure she even wanted my mother. They were never very close. My parents, my sister, and me. We were it. We were everything. Until that night, I couldn’t have asked for a happier life.”
She closed her eyes, saddened at what he and his sister suffered, what they lost. His mother had killed the man she loved, the father of her children. Gideon knew firsthand about savagery and death.
“That’s why you joined NODEAL?”
Vengeance. She could understand such a motive. Which is why she couldn’t understand his willingness to let her live. She was only grateful for it.
He nodded. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
“Destroy lycans?”
Again, he nodded.
“But not me?” she questioned, her confusion clear. How could he even stand to be with her, much less hold and touch her?
He said nothing. His hand moved over her hair, caressing the strands. “I want to give you the chance my mother never had.”
“How old were you when your parents died?”
“Sixteen.”
“My God,” she breathed against his chest.
“My sister was only eight,” he continued in a hollow voice. “I always felt guilty that she didn’t have more time with our parents. That she only had eight years to remember.”
Claire propped her chin on his chest and looked up at him. He traced her eyebrows lightly.
Her heart clenched as she thought of the boy who lost both parents in one night, about the allegiance he must feel to the man that saved him and his little sister. “Must be hard to go against Cooper like this.”
“It is and it isn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s hard to accept that I’m breaking policy and betraying Cooper. He saved my life. And he gave me a goal, something to live for when I wanted to die right alongside my parents. I needed a purpose in life.” He cupped the side of her face with one hand, his voice velvet smooth as he murmured, “But it would be harder to destroy you.”
Her throat muscles tightened suddenly, so much that it hurt to breathe. And in that moment, she knew she might be in love with him—this man who had already given her so much. Given his past, he should have wanted nothing to do with her. Unable to speak past the emotion clogging her throat, she climbed her way up his chest and did the only thing she could. She kissed him. Like her soul depended on it. Like it was the final kiss she would ever have from him.
He rolled her onto her back. Claire closed her eyes and concentrated on what his mouth was doing to her and not the ever-increasing moon outside the window.
“Hello—who are you?”
The question sent Claire lurching up in bed, tearing her from disturbing dreams filled with threatening shadows and silver-eyed creatures that both terrified and tempted her.
Through the tangle of hair shielding her face, she eyed the young woman standing at the foot of the bed—a Krispy Kreme box balanced on one palm, one chocolate glazed doughnut in the other hand. She was small, slim, almost girlish in appearance except for the keen, world-wise green eyes beneath high-arching eyebrows.
“Kit,” Gideon groaned next to her, his muscled arm warm and solid beside hers.
Kit took a dainty bite of her doughnut, casually surveying her brother in bed with Claire. “I thought you liked brunettes, Gid.”
“Christ,” he cursed, adjusting the covers around his waist. “Just walk right in.”
His sister paused to take another bite. Her tone faintly accusing, she cocked her head and gave him a coy look as she reminded him, “You gave me a key.”
The smell of chocolate made Claire’s stomach rumble.
“Hungry?” The blonde clamped her doughnut between pearly white teeth and poked through the contents of the box with her free hand. Stepping forward, she sat on the edge of the bed and extended a doughnut to Claire as if she visited her brother in bed with strange women all the time.
Pushing back the hair from her face, Claire reached for the offering, but Kit’s sudden scream made her jerk back. Falling on the bed, she looked around, half expecting to see a giant rat or snake slither across the floor.
Gideon cursed beside her.
A chocolate doughnut smacked Claire in the face, snapping her head back in surprise.
“Kit!” Gideon scolded as Claire wiped the sticky chocolate from her face.
“Are you crazy?” His sister charged, flinging the box of doughnuts on the floor, sending them tumbling in all directions. “You’re in bed with a lycan!”
“She’s only infected. She hasn’t fed yet.”
“Yet,” she snarled, the baby-smooth lines of her face tightening.
“Kit,” Gideon said, sitting up. “You’re going to have to trust me. I know what I’m doing.”
“How could you forget?” she demanded, her voice thick with emotion, green eyes so like Gideon’s sparkling with fury.
“I’ll never forget,” he returned. “How could I? Maybe I want to give Claire the chance Mom never had.”
“Right.” She snorted, her gaze cynical. Her gaze turned on Claire then, and the full blast of venom there could be felt as keenly as a slap to the face. “ Claire. Since when do you care about anything or anyone except killing a lycan?”
Shaking her head fiercely, she stormed out of the room. Her feet pounded down the stairs. A door slammed, the sound reverberating through the old house’s thick walls.
They sat side by side for several moments, tension humming thickly on the air.
Claire turned to look at him and her mouth watered at the sight of his lean, sinewy chest. The morning light streaming through the window only highlighted the perfection of his body. She thought only movie stars had bodies like that. No man she knew did. Brian had been pasty and pale, with legs and arms skinnier than hers. Gideon’s arms were tanned bands of muscle.
Averting her eyes, she murmured, “That didn’t go over well, did it?”
He dragged a hand through his shaggy, sun-kissed locks. “Not too bad actually. She didn’t go for my gun and try to shoot you herself. Guess we’re lucky it wasn’t Cooper again this morning,” he grumbled.
Claire could only nod, finding little positive about the encounter. Kit had seen only a monster when she looked at her. A monster that needed destroying. “Will she tell Cooper?”
Rubbing the back of his neck, he considered her question. “Kit’s loyal. And Cooper pisses her off. Has ever since she was a kid. We lost our father and Kit didn’t want him for a substitute. Resented what she thought was him trying.”
“That’s enough to keep her from running to him? She was pretty upset.”
“Yeah. And Kit has always wanted to be an agent, but Coop won’t consider it. Another reason she resents him.”
“Maybe she’ll decide to take me out herself, then.”
“I can handle Kit.” He patted her knee through the thin sheets.
The touch did anything but reassure her. Her skin sizzled from the contact. He must have realized what he had done because his hand stilled, molding to the curve of her knee. Her breath caught, trapped in her chest as their eyes locked. Last night flooded back. And with it came the hunger.
His pale green eyes deepened to a darker shade, reminding her of a forest after rain. Her skin grew warm where his hand rested.
His fingers flexed over her knee. “We really should get up.”
She slid down on the bed. He came over her, the smooth expanse of muscled chest irresistible to her hands. Her fingers rounded over his firm shoulders, curling around the bulge of his biceps. He moved his hand from her knee and up over her thigh.
“We should,” she agreed, gasping when he came to the juncture of her thighs. His fingers rubbed her moist folds through the thin cotton sheets, dampening the fabric with her desire.
“Later,” he growled against her mouth, wrenching the sheets free and sinking into her with one thrust, filling her completely.
Gideon was still smiling when he stepped from the shower. Not until he wiped the mirror with his towel and stared at himself did the fool grin slip from his face. He swept his wet hair back from his forehead and stared starkly at himself, wondering just what the hell he was doing grinning like a love-struck fool over a woman under a death sentence.
If Claire was going to have a chance, he had to end this thing between them now. He couldn’t languish away the time in bed with her, no matter how good she made him feel. For the first time in his life he could forget. She made him forget. The ugliness of his parents’ deaths, the long years of killing, the blood. He had killed so much that when he closed his eyes he saw nothing but blood. With Claire, all that vanished. He saw only her. He felt only peace.
But any peace he found would be lost forever if he had to destroy her. Determined to keep her at arm’s length, he sighed and secured the towel about his waist. Opening the bathroom door, he braced himself as though walking into battle. Facing Claire and keeping his hands to himself would require more strength than even he was accustomed to.
He froze at the sight of her. Humming softly, she stretched over the bed, pulling the covers the last of the way up and plumping the pillows. It was a purely domestic scene. The kind of task one’s wife performed. The kind of thing his mother had done.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
She looked up and bestowed a bright smile on him. At his glower, her smile grew hesitant. “Making the bed.”
Turning, he marched into his closet and proceeded to dress.
“Is something wrong? Gideon?” He heard the confusion in her voice and fought back his impulse to reassure her, to take her in his arms and kiss her until he forgot what she was, what he had to save her from becoming.
“Nothing,” he replied, strapping on his holster and gun. “We have a lot of ground to cover today. Let’s get going.”