by Anne Hope
This man.
Everything made sense now. All the memories she couldn’t piece together, all the feelings he elicited within her, the unshakable impression that she knew him. She wasn’t crazy or desperate. She was remembering a past life. Her life with Adrian.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” The dread in his voice brought a smile to her lips. Her hurt and anger lifted, and she was filled with the most jubilant joy.
She was tempted to let him sweat it out a little longer, to get even with him for the smarting lash he’d just dealt her, but she didn’t have the heart to do it. Not after the lovely confession he’d made.
Releasing the door handle, she veered around to face him. “I knew it.” Her spirit rippled with excitement. “I thought I was being pathetic, imagining I was someone else because I wanted you to feel about me the way you felt about her.” She was babbling, but she didn’t care. She had so much to tell him. “But the visions felt so real. Now I know why. We met once before, in Manhattan.”
“Yes.” His voice was guarded, laced with barely restrained hope. “You remember?”
“Just bits and pieces of it. I was in the subway station, and these three guys attacked me.” She gave him her most dazzling smile. “You came to my rescue.”
Emotions she couldn’t decipher played across his face as he bridged the small distance that divided them. “Do you remember what happened after that?”
She wagged her head. “The visions don’t come in chronological order. They’re just a bunch of jumbled images and sensations. Kinda like the dream I had the other night.”
This time she had no trouble reading his expression. It screamed guilt, and she couldn’t for the life of her fathom why. “It’s weird that I can remember some things but not others.”
“Yes, it is.” He clasped a strand of her hair, stroking it between his fingers, as though he couldn’t go more than a few minutes without touching her. “Technically, you shouldn’t remember anything. The fact that you do makes me wonder if your soul was cleansed between your last incarnation and this one.”
She fought not to let his proximity distract her. “Do you think all my old memories could still be in there?”
“It’s possible.” There it was again, that whisper of hope. She wished she could give him what he wanted, be the person he missed with an intensity that was palpable. It couldn’t be easy loving someone who didn’t remember him. It must have been a constant struggle hiding his feelings, his pain, from her all this time.
Compassion swelled in her heart. “I want to remember everything.” She touched his face. “I want to remember you.”
His head fell forward. “I want that, too.” The longing in his tone was unmistakable. “But a soul’s a tricky thing. If you force it to remember something it’s not ready to remember, you could damage it.”
She nodded meekly. If she couldn’t retrieve her old memories, then she was left with only one alternative. She had to forge new ones.
She leaned into him, reveling at the feel of his hard body against hers. “Tell me again.”
“Tell you what?” He nuzzled her ear.
“That you love me.”
He was silent for so long, she thought he wasn’t going to say it. But he did. “I love you.”
Joy rocketed through her again. How could three simple words make her feel so much? “Again.” She planted a kiss on his Adam’s apple, enjoying the shudder that coursed through him at the touch of her lips.
“I love you.”
She sighed, willing herself to tell him she loved him, too, but something held her back. Maybe, like memories, a soul had to be ready before it could admit to loving someone.
Instead, she distracted him with her body, with provocative kisses and heated caresses.
He unclasped her arms from around his neck and pried her body off him. “Oh, no you don’t. Not this time.”
Disappointment shot through her, but it only lasted a second.
With a wicked grin, Adrian swept her into his arms and carried her across the hall to his bedroom. “This time, we’re doing things my way.”
Adrian laid her on the bed, loving the way her hair fanned across the pillow, wild and sexy, her skin still flushed from their lovemaking and the heated argument they’d had afterward.
Her gaze was shuttered, her expression both guarded and expectant. Once, long ago, Angie had fought to bar him access to her heart, but she’d failed.
And so would Emma. Sooner or later she’d let him in. He’d make sure of it. He’d strip away her defenses, one layer at a time, the way he now peeled the robe from her body to reveal the soft, creamy skin that lay beneath. Whatever demons haunted her, he would beat them into submission.
He hadn’t been able to protect Angie from the illness that had ultimately claimed her life, but he could protect Emma from fear and doubt. He’d make her see herself the way he saw her, whole and beautiful and perfect.
Tender possessiveness reared within him. She looked so small and vulnerable, dwarfed by insecurity and the king-sized bed. He drank in the sight of her, heat flooding his system, pooling low in that part of him that ached to merge with her.
She was his. His to shelter and cherish.
His mind connected with hers, pushing at the barrier that kept her mired in self-doubt.
She turned away, but he clasped her chin. “Look at me.”
Her gaze reluctantly met his.
“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Surprise flickered in her eyes when she realized he’d spoken directly to her thoughts, but she quickly recovered from it.
His hands trailed down her neck, glided over her ribcage to settle on her flat abdomen. She sucked in her lower lip, her body stiffening. He could tell it was an effort to keep looking at him.
He put her out of her misery by kissing her, tenderly, leisurely. She stretched her neck to deepen the kiss, but he pulled back. This time, he was going to take things nice and slow.
He’d known everything there was to know about Angie, but he was discovering Emma for the first time, and he wanted to enjoy every second of it.
His lips sought out the sensitive spot behind her ear. “You used to like it when I kissed you here.”
She sighed, the tension draining from her limbs.
“And here.” His mouth swept down to the spot where her neck met her shoulder. Then he ventured lower, over her collarbone, his lips tracing a line between her breasts, his hands gripping her hips.
Her body grew soft and pliable beneath his touch, her inhibitions melting away.
He’d already had her physically, now he wanted her emotionally. He wanted her heart, her soul. He wanted everything she had to give, and he refused to settle for less.
“Remember me.” He drew a taut nipple into his mouth. “Remember loving me.”
She moaned, burying her fingers in his hair, arching into him.
The wall in her mind shook, resisted, and he eased back. Too much, too soon, and he could lose her entirely.
Instead, he focused on her body, on coaxing every nerve ending to life, on bringing her pleasure the likes of which she’d never before known.
Desperation drove him. Desperation and fear. The fear that history would repeat itself, that he was cursed to lose her, over and over and over again.
The memory of her trapped in that burning building was still fresh in his mind. It had brought back all those old feelings—the pain, the helplessness, the anger. Feelings he’d experienced when he’d lost Angie.
He couldn’t shake them, no matter how hard he tried. So he channeled them instead.
The soft sounds of bliss she made emboldened him, filled him with feral joy and stoked the fire raging in his blood.
His thumbs traced the curve of her breasts, his nails grazing her ribs as they ventured lower. He circled her waist, squeezed. Her hips reacted by bucking against his, wrenching a pained groan from him.
Lord, he wanted her. Wanted t
o bury himself in her, to possess her. It made no difference how many times he made love to her. The hunger never went away.
How did she do it? How did she tame the beast and drive him wild at the same time?
“Adrian?” He stopped sprinkling worshipping kisses over her body and looked up at her. She reached down and cupped his face, pulling him up toward her until they lay chest to chest, pelvis to pelvis. “If I never remember, will I still be enough?”
He damn near choked on his own heart. Was that what she thought? Had he somehow given her the impression that she wasn’t sufficient, that he wanted more than she could give?
“Of course. You’re all I’ve ever wanted. All I’ll ever need.”
A smiled fluttered over her mouth, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She didn’t believe him. Not deep down where it counted.
Maybe she was right. How could they have a future together when he was trapped in the past and she existed solely in the present? In order to move forward with Emma, he had to let go of Angie. He understood that now. Problem was, he wasn’t ready to do that yet.
So he kissed her, hoping she wouldn’t read the truth on his face.
How could he let go of the woman she’d once been when she tasted the same, looked and smelled the same? All that was different was her name and the color of her hair.
She even made love the same way.
Desire slammed into him, and he couldn’t think anymore. All he could do was feel. Feel the way her body rubbed against his, with eagerness and a hint of shyness. Feel the cool silk of her palms as they explored his back, eliciting a slow, melting heat deep in his gut. Feel her warm tongue mating with his in a sensual dance that was both wild and beautiful.
Seduction gave way to need, and he finally surrendered to it. He took her, a little rougher than he’d planned, desperate to stake his claim on her. He wanted to mark her as his so she could never leave his side again, to brand his name in her flesh the way Cal branded his Watchers.
Emma didn’t protest, matching the rhythm of his movements, letting the tide carry her as pleasure submerged them both.
Afterward, she held on to him, seeking shelter in his arms, trusting him.
Adrian gathered her close and buried his face in her sweet-smelling hair. The question she’d asked him kept circling his brain.
“If I never remember, will I still be enough?”
She had to be, because now that he’d gotten her back, he’d be damned if he did anything to hurt her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Killed? All of them?” Diane stared down the Kleptopsych who’d brought her news of the slaughter in Maryvale, feeling her temper rise. This was the second time one of the teams she’d dispatched turned up dead. “How?”
The man shrugged. “From what I hear, whoever attacked our troops had angel’s blood. It was an all-out massacre.”
“The Watchers.” Only Cal’s posse had access to angel’s blood.
Her informant shook his head. “Not according to the Rogue who tipped us off. He said the guys who had the girl were Rogues.”
She had a hard time believing that. Rogues didn’t have the patience or the inclination to pull off something like this. “How would a common Rogue come in possession of angel’s blood? That would be an incredible feat.”
“Incredible but not impossible,” the man countered. “Especially if his father happens to be a Watcher—Cal’s right-hand man, according to our contact.”
Interest trickled through her veins, energizing her. Cal’s right-hand man was Marcus, and as far as she knew, he’d only fathered one Rogue—Kora’s son, Adrian.
But Adrian had drowned in Manhattan over a quarter of a century ago, and dead men didn’t go around staging coups.
Unless rumors of his death had been greatly exaggerated.
“Thank you. That will be all,” she dismissed her follower, picking up the phone and dialing Kora’s number. Maybe her partner could shed some light on the situation.
The next morning, Adrian woke up with Emma’s delectable body curled against his, her breasts rising and falling steadily as she slept.
For one halted heartbeat, time ceased to be, and it was as though she’d never left him and the last twenty-odd years had been nothing but a bad dream.
He’d always loved to watch her sleep. It was the only time she’d ever looked at peace. He stroked the hair from her face, and she sighed, her lids fluttering.
An unfamiliar feeling settled over him. Was it happiness? He couldn’t be sure. He’d only known it once before, briefly, but it had been overshadowed by the possibility of loss. His time with Angie had been bittersweet, a roller-coaster ride filled with crazy highs and plunging lows. Then he’d fallen, become trapped in that black abyss between emptiness and pain.
Until Emma had come into his life and awakened everything that had been dead inside him.
He tightened his hold on her, his lips brushing her eyebrow. Would it last this time? Could he hold on to this feeling, to her?
She stirred, turned her face toward him and smiled. “I had the most amazing dream.” Nestling closer, she buried her chin in his neck. “Then I realized it wasn’t a dream.”
He inclined her head and kissed her affectionately. “Good morning.”
“Is it morning already? I’ve lost track of time. Must be ’cause we’ve been in bed since yesterday afternoon.”
A lick of heat swept through him as he recalled everything they’d done in this bed. True he’d been a little overzealous in his rediscovery of her, but he had twenty-six years to make up for.
“Do I sense a complaint?”
“Not on your life.” She grinned sweetly, wickedly. “I don’t think I want to leave this room. Ever.”
He chuckled, the sense of amusement surprising him. He didn’t get the urge to laugh too often. “I would like nothing better than to grant your wish, but I think I’ll have to feed you eventually.”
“There’s a simple solution to that.” She hugged the covers, stretching like a contented cat basking in a ray of sunshine. “Breakfast in bed.”
He secured a stray curl behind her ear, looking for any excuse to touch her. “I think I could manage that.”
Pushing the covers aside, he prepared to leave, but she stopped him by throwing her arms around his neck. “Not yet.” She kissed him so enthusiastically, his body reacted instantly. “I want dessert first.”
He returned her kiss, slipping his arms beneath the covers and pulling her close. He loved the feel of her skin, the way she fit against him, the eager way she opened up to receive him.
“When you told me your kind recovers quickly, you weren’t lying,” she teased.
“You’re not too bad yourself. For a human.”
She placed her hand on his chest, halting his assault on her mouth. “Or a Hybrid.”
He searched her face, looking for a sign that she was teasing him again, but her expression was earnest and sober. “Does that mean you’re ready to consider the possibility?”
“I’m willing to consider anything that keeps me here with you.” She spoke the words lightly, but the tremble of emotion in her voice betrayed how deeply she meant them.
Adrian couldn’t have been more pleased. He’d waited his whole life for this. For her.
Snagging her gaze, he touched his thumb to her bottom lip, his heart bucking in…fear. It wasn’t the emotion he’d expected, but there it was, as clear as day.
He wanted her to be a Hybrid so bad, his insides hurt. If she was a Hybrid, he didn’t have to be afraid anymore. Afraid she’d die on him someday, that she’d cease to exist while he persisted, as good as dead.
“What’s wrong?”
As much as he wanted to confide in her, he couldn’t communicate his fears without bringing Angie into the discussion again, and something told him that would be a bad idea.
So he did the only thing he could. He distracted her with a kiss. She kissed him back with the eagerness he’d come to anticipate, b
lasting all thoughts of the future from his mind.
“Did I tell you it’s my birthday today?” Her revelation took him by surprise.
“Is it?”
“Yup. I’m twenty-six, but who’s counting?”
He ran his palm down her waist and over her hip. “In that case, I’ll have to do my best to make it extra special for you.”
Warmth pooled in her eyes, her lips curling into a heartfelt smile. “You already have.”
Two hours later, Emma reluctantly left the sanctuary of Adrian’s room. He’d kept his promise and brought her breakfast in bed, right before he’d raced off to run some “important” errands.
With him gone, his bedroom lost its appeal, so she showered and dressed, then ambled downstairs to be greeted by an empty, silent house. Plopping onto the couch, she curled her legs beneath her and frowned.
She felt restless, giddy and…lonely. Adrian had only been gone an hour and already, she missed him. She shook her head in self-reproach. Something told her it wasn’t wise to become this attached to a man in so short a time. But she couldn’t help it. It was as though she’d known him forever. Maybe in a way, she had.
Mentally, she’d accepted what Adrian had told her, that she was the reincarnation of his past lover. But emotionally, she couldn’t bring herself to feel like anyone other than herself.
Sure, she had flashbacks. Brief reels of another life unfurled occasionally in her mind, but those memories weren’t real. They were the equivalent of watching a movie. She identified with the woman in her visions, experienced things vicariously through her, but that was it. None of those memories felt like they belonged to her, to Emma, and what was a person but a collection of memories?
Grabbing the remote, she turned on the television set and began flipping through the channels, hoping to distract herself. Nothing was on but a couple of soap operas and a talk show. She settled on the talk show, because a soap opera was the last thing she needed right now.
Her life was a soap opera.
