“Because you noticed me,” she said, moving in close again. “You told me you noticed me at the auction.”
“You were naked,” he said, and though he plastered his face with disgust and kept his tone cold, she shook her head.
“That didn’t arouse you. There’s no way you could be surrounded with pond scum like that, watching me be led around like an animal, and be sexually excited by it.”
“Maybe I was.”
“If that were true,” she said, taking her hand to his cheek, and once again, he grew rigid. “Why did you tell me we’d never kiss again? If you wanted me, why wouldn’t you be doing everything in your power to have me?” He tried to move his face from her hand, but she put the other on the chair he’d been leaning on, meaning if he wanted her to move, he’d have to touch her. “I know I’m not in your league, that’s not why I’m trying to reach out.”
Touching him wasn’t meant to be a sexual advance. She didn’t bat her eyelids or rub herself all over him. She was trying to remind him what a simple human connection was, what it felt like to have someone, to have skin touch his skin.
She kept going. “I want to be your friend, Zave. Not because of the Kindred, not because of the gifts, but because it hurts me to see you in pain.”
Swatting her hand away from his face, he gave the other a shove, and marched away from her. “I did notice you,” he said, turning his chin down and his head to the side while keeping his back to her. “I knew I was there to purchase you. I’d seen your picture. Knew all your stats. But when they led you through that door, something snapped. I was so angry to see the way they treated you that it took everything in my power not to leap onto that stage and rip every one of them apart with my bare hands.
“It can’t be easy to see what they do.”
“No,” he spat the word loud and strong, making her jump. “No, that’s not it. I’ve seen them treat women like shit. I’ve seen innocents thrown to the floor and kicked like dogs. I’ve seen those bastards spit in women’s faces. I’ve seen the most horrific things, things that would make you weep. But you… when I saw him yank on that chain connected to your neck, I began to think of ways I could take him apart. I wanted to grab the chain off him, wrap it around his throat and squeeze the life out of him.” He ran a hand through his hair in a gesture that was anxious and completely out of character. “And I’m not the killer in the family. That’s not my purview.”
So, she was different, but he didn’t seem happy about that and didn’t understand it.
“And that’s why you’re trying to push me away now?” she said. “Because you’re worried that reaction means something?”
“It does,” he said. “I don’t know if it means something about you or about me. But it means something.”
“That you might be attracted to me? Or maybe that you’re getting past your need to be alone and could be ready to seek out something more with a woman, any woman? Could be I was just the one to cross your radar first.”
His hands curled into fists at his sides. “I haven’t been with a woman in a long time. I haven’t looked at one and felt anything for longer than I can remember. Maybe it was sexual, or maybe my subconscious was trying to tell me something.”
So all she’d done was cause more confusion in his life, and this was a man who’d admitted to craving order and logic. And here was Devon, a variable that he couldn’t label.
“Bess said you carried me up to the room,” Devon said. “You didn’t always put this wall between us.”
“It’s easier to relax in the company of a woman who’s unconscious,” he said. Some might think that statement sinister, but she was sure she heard an attempt to joke.
“I want you to kiss me,” she said, after about a minute of silence.
“I can’t,” he breathed.
“I don’t understand why, but I won’t force you,” she said, still aware of the enormous gulf between their social levels. She came from the ocean trenches while he’d always existed in orbit. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”
“You don’t get it.” Pivoting, that scowl was back on his face. “You have to go to Rave’s.”
“Why?” she demanded. Infuriated and hurt, she strode towards him. “Why are you so determined to toss me away like trash?”
“Because I want to kiss you!” he shouted, and the sheer volume stopped her in her tracks. “Because I’ve held you in my arms, shy. I’ve carried your lifeless body through the halls of my sanctuary. I’ve lain you down in my sheets and let your hair run through my fingers. I’ve tasted your lips, the softest, sweetest, most tempting lips I’ve ever been close to. Since that first moment my fingertips touched your body, I’ve been hounded by thoughts of sliding myself inside you to sate the desire that won’t stop throbbing through my veins! The sound of your name echoes in my ears. My mind pulses when I think of your scent! And every morning, I wake up solid as fucking concrete thinking of your body, lying so close to mine!”
To say she was shocked was an understatement. “You… you want me?”
“For years I’ve fought to keep control, I promised myself I would never, ever indulge in unhealthy obsessions again. I spent too many years drowning in decadence and selfish depravity, thinking only of myself, of the next thrill. I was the most important thing in my world. I thought I was the most important thing in the universe.
“I treated everyone like crap. Stepped on people who wanted to help me. Laughed in their faces when they offered support! My parents died hating me, and I’m sure I hated them. I had never faced up to my responsibilities in my life. All the money, the firm, the products, it all meant nothing. They were so disappointed in me. I disgusted myself, shy, I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. I still can’t.”
Gritting his teeth, he leaned down, getting into her face and blocking the faint light in the room. “I am the monster! And you should be afraid of me. You’re not safe here. You’ll never be safe here, not because they out there will get you,” he said, thrusting an arm towards the window. “But because I”—he smacked his palm on his chest—“am hanging on to my control by a motherfucking thread.” Bringing his thumb and index finger up to her face, he held them an inch apart. “I’m this close, shy. This fucking close to…” He sealed his lips and a growl heated his throat. “I don’t dare leave my fucking room while you’re here, shy.”
“Zave—”
“You want to know why I was standing outside your room that night? Because I couldn’t stay the fuck away. Because I knew you were here, in my house, sleeping in one of my beds. And I couldn’t stop myself from getting as close to you as I could. Next time, who knows? You could wake up under me.”
A pulse of pressure went through her body, and while his words left her stunned, the first thing she became aware of was the tingling building in her core. Devon wasn’t afraid of this outburst, of this man. She was in awe. She was enchanted. She was in heat.
Grabbing his face, she didn’t ask his permission. Leaping from the floor, she forced him to catch her. When their mouths clashed, she coiled her legs around his hips and compelled his mouth to take her tongue. She’d never been a bold lover; she’d blushed when he used the word “sex.” But he was so attracted to her that the man of infinite control couldn’t hold it together around her.
He didn’t seem to be objecting to her brazenness, the embrace of his arms got smaller and he didn’t allow her tongue to be in control for long. He pushed her own back into her mouth, urging it down, flicking it up, moving it to the side for him to lick the roof of her mouth and her teeth. Zave kept her guessing about his next move. All she could do was react to his movements that were meant to excite and entice her.
That stimulation grew when he bent, and she clamped tight around him because she didn’t know what he was going to do with her body until her back landed on the dining table and with his feet still on the floor, he remained bowed over her. Taking her hands from around his neck, he pinned them onto the table
at the side of her head. Locking their fingers together, their mouths remained entranced by their mating.
The rest of her body felt neglected. It ached for his touch. She tried to arch her breasts into him, but his body, his strength kept her flat on her back. Taking her heels to the edge of the table, she opened her legs wide, doing her best to work from side to side, trying to feel if his frenzied state equaled hers.
But he was so much taller than her that all she could do was rub herself against the ridges of his abdomen, which in itself was enthralling. The suction of their mouths broke in time for him to kiss her jaw. She couldn’t breathe right. The sound of her panting was violent to her ears; she’d never been so blinded by overwhelming desire before.
When he kissed a spot under the curve of her jaw, just where it met her neck, she yelped. Instinct forced her chin higher to let him lick her throat. Biting her lip as he got lower, she couldn’t wait for him to reach her chest. She wanted to beg him to hurry and go faster, to take her here and now like this, in this place he’d been so sedate only an hour before.
Now he seemed enflamed and feverish, and this was how she wanted him, out of control, emotional, embracing the truth of what was inside instead of trying to deny it or being ashamed of it. She heard nothing but the rush of blood in her ears. Zave must have heard something because in one abrupt move, his lips disappeared, and although his grip on her hands didn’t disappear, he pulled them down to her sides, allowing him to rise.
Noticing that he was focusing on something to the side, she twisted her head up and around, and that was when she saw the agog Bess just inside the door. “I’ll be going to bed now,” Bess said and backed out of the room, one careful step at a time.
THIRTEEN
Once the door was closed again, Devon looked at him and could feel him retreat from their intimacy. Twining her legs around his hips again, she tried to maintain her grip on his hands when they receded from hers. But she didn’t succeed.
He took hold of her calves and freed himself from the circle of her legs to walk away from their passion.
“Zave,” she said, without sitting up or moving. “If this is what you want, you can’t hide from it forever. You can lock me up. You can send me away. You can banish me from your island. But I’m a part of this now. Whether I’m here in your house, staying with Brodie and Zara, or naked in your bed, I’m not going to disappear. It doesn’t matter how many times you turn your back on me.”
This time when he twisted to look at her, it was as if he’d realized how the physical act of striding off and turning his back to her was emotionally draining for her, more than that, it hurt her. But she wasn’t going to let it discourage her, as she’d promised Bess and because she knew Zave was acting in learned behavior. He’d said it himself that he’d promised to never lose control again and it was that training that caused him to act this way with her, not because of his personal feelings as had just been demonstrated.
“Nothing good can come from this,” he said. “Even if I let it happen. Six weeks from now…” He trailed off.
She lifted to lean on her elbows. “Six weeks from now, what?”
“I take you to my bed and then… what?” he asked, turning his head toward the window. “We enjoy each other’s bodies, sate our desires, satisfy our fantasies and curiosities, and then what?”
She didn’t understand the question. Because this was just chemicals, electricity between two people, the kind of instinct that made one lover seek another out in a crowded bar or in a busy workplace. This was attraction. So as for what came next when they hadn’t even explored this, she didn’t know what he meant.
“Given that we haven’t slept together,” she said, sitting up on the edge of the table. “And that we haven’t had a full and open conversation.” She’d learned more about him from Bess, and that was hardly the basis of a deep, emotional connection. “We would need trust and communication before we could start to think about if this was ever going to be—”
“Communication,” he said, “has never been my strong suit.”
She shrugged. “We’ll adapt, if we need to, we’ll figure it out. You are flawed, but I’m far from perfect… I can’t bear to see you lock yourself up, Zave. I can’t bear it. How many hours do you spend alone? You have so much to give and you choose to withhold yourself from the people who care about you.
“I have to tell you what I know. I have to tell you what I heard those men saying to each other. I have to tell you about some of the things I went through for you to understand the context of when and where I heard these things. But I just can’t understand why you reject me, and that makes it difficult for me to open up.”
“You shouldn’t try to understand me,” he said.
“But I want to. I want to know what you do with all those hours you spend alone in the parts of the house you won’t let any other person see. I want to know how you can be so thoughtful and generous and still think of yourself as a monster. Your milkshake made me cry,” she said, and his attention snapped to her as she slunk off the table. “That’s right.” She smiled. “I felt like an idiot. But I just couldn’t figure out what I did to deserve it. Every time I tell you that I want something, you find a way to get it for me.”
She stopped and rested her fingers on his abs, which again, made him flinch, but she didn’t remove them. “Shy…”
Trying to peer into him, she couldn’t see through the shutters behind his eyes. “Why is it different when I tell you that I want you?”
“It’s the one thing I can’t give you,” he said. “Anything else in the world you want is yours. That one I’m just not capable of.”
“I think you’re capable of anything,” she said, because she would believe in him, even when he struggled to believe in himself. “I’m not naïve. I’m not the most beautiful woman in the world or the most sophisticated. I don’t have money or material possessions. I’m not cultured or worldly, and I’m sure not as smart as you. I don’t have anything to give you except my promise that I’m not going anywhere.”
While he scrutinized her features, she speculated on what could be going through his mind. Was he trying to think of a way to let her down gently? Was he trying not to laugh in her face? Whatever it was, he had enough practice at remaining deadpan and holding himself aloof, that she couldn’t begin to reach any conclusions.
“I know you’re not in my league,” she said. “I’m so far beneath you that I’m not surprised you won’t share your secrets with me. But I am loyal, and I’m sure you don’t deserve what you do to yourself. So, please, at least, accept me as a friend.”
Just when she expected him to walk away and leave her, she felt the tickle of his fingertips on her palm. When her focus shifted down, she saw him link his fingers between hers. It wasn’t an advance, but initiating physical contact of any kind was a major breakthrough for him, which was perhaps why their first kiss perplexed him so much. Maybe he hadn’t expected himself to be capable of that.
The real shock came when he began to move towards the door, the one she’d never been through. The one he, Brodie, and Zara emerged from whenever they came into this room. Through that door was a rectangular corridor.
Zave took her to the end and into a stairwell with a spiral staircase. Up they went and into another corridor. The next door they stopped at used fingerprint access. But that wasn’t all. It had a green keypad that required a number to be punched in, and it had a retinal scanner. The door also wasn’t wooden like the others; it was metal, painted to blend in with the décor.
He took her inside to a narrow foyer, and a second door stood before them, with equal levels of protection to the first. Either he was paranoid or dealing with some sensitive things. Her heart was pounding; she didn’t know where they were or what to expect. But when he flicked on a light, the first thing she was awed by was the size of the space they were in.
The large lab stretched out, it had a bank of computers to the right, and spread across the left and ce
nter were various work desks and drafting tables, each with their own angled light. Beyond this workspace was a glass wall. A section filled with components stood on one side, and on the other were power tools far too complex for her to understand.
Another glass wall stood on the other side of those sections, but the furthest space was so far away, she couldn’t decipher much of what was beyond it except what looked like more equipment.
“This is where I spend my time,” he said. “This is what I do.”
She couldn’t imagine what all of these things were for. On the work desks around them, there were various schematics, diagrams, sketches and drawings, some of which she couldn’t begin to decipher.
“There’s another level,” he said, looking to a door at the far right of their position. It stood at the end of a dark, narrow hall beyond the computer banks, and she wouldn’t have noticed it was there unless he’d fixated on it. “In fact there’s two, but this room is where most of the work is done. Below the lab floors, in the basement, I have a gym with a pool. That’s sealed off from the rest of the house. This whole section of the house is.”
“And that’s the only access?” she asked, speaking of the door they’d come through.
“The only one I’ll tell you about,” he said, and when he let her go to move forward, she tried to figure out if that was a joke or if it was one of those, ‘if I told you I’d have to kill you’ scenarios.
“This is your lab. How many people have—”
“No one.”
Going to a high draftsman stool at a drafting table, he sat down and pulled an angled light closer to the surface. His position faced the door, so she couldn’t see what was going on over the highest edge of the tabletop.
Everything here appeared functional and she saw nothing designed for comfort. “This is where you sleep?” she asked.
“I sleep in the tower, which is above us.”
A tower. His bedroom was in a tower. She wished she could see this building from the outside, to try and put together a picture of where it was she’d been living for weeks.
Falcon (Kindred #5) Page 14
