His gaze flicked from the notebook to her, and she flinched. The blue was a glacier. Burning, yes, but so cold it was burning blue. Scary blue. She was looking at something in him that could be . . . deadly. Deliberately, she blinked, but that expression didn’t go away.
“Player.” She whispered his name in a kind of despair.
“I’m right here, baby.”
She shook her head. “No, you’re not. You’re letting them drag you back there. You’re letting them swallow you with their darkness. You were out of that.”
He threaded his fingers through hers and pulled her fist to his chest, pressing their locked hands over his heart. “I’ve never been out of it, Zyah.”
His voice was very quiet. Tender. That black velvet that whispered over her skin and broke her heart in so many ways. He brought their hands to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. The sensation caused her stomach to do a slow somersault. He rubbed his jaw along the back of her hand so she could feel the slight growth of his beard over her sensitive skin. At once, a thousand butterflies took wing. She was so susceptible to him.
“There’s no getting out of what was done to me. They had me for years. You see glimpses and you’re sick inside. I try to protect you, but when I’m asleep, I can’t. I tried to walk away from you, give you up, but I’m not that strong. I’m so in love with you I can’t think straight. But you have to know, if you accept me, if you want me with you—in your life, in your bed—you have to have all of me. You have to know who you’re going to bed with, Zyah. I don’t want you waking up one morning and saying you had no idea.”
She couldn’t stop looking into his eyes. She could see what they’d shaped him into. That cold man capable of things she’d caught glimpses of later on. Not just the building of the bombs. The man who could lie on a floor and shoot a gun blindly and hit his target accurately. A boy, a teenager, sent out to kill grown men for his country, who did so without hesitation. He sat next to her, showing her he was still there, inside that gentle man who had massaged her feet and legs so thoughtfully when she was tired.
“What am I going to do with you, Player?” She honestly didn’t know.
“That’s the question, isn’t it, baby?” He indicated her notebook. “Have you written down your impressions while they’re still fresh? I’m about done. While you’re writing, I’m going to make us a couple of those refreshing drinks. Hopefully, that will make us both feel a little better.”
She didn’t like him moving away from her, even just to slide out of the bed and pull the beautiful basket filled with items from the Floating Hat to him. Instead of writing down everything she’d observed, or thought she saw, she kept her eyes fixed on Player. That feeling in the pit of her stomach was still there, a dark dread that just wouldn’t go away.
She didn’t want to lose Player, and there was a deep fear that she could. She knew, from the little she’d seen of the glimpses into the members of Torpedo Ink’s past, that they didn’t like to take their eyes off one another. That was why they often traveled in pairs. Now she really understood. She felt as long as she could see Player, nothing could happen to him.
She watched him mix the liquid with water into the glasses and then come to her dressed only in loose-fitting drawstring pants that rode low on his hips. He looked disheveled after his nightmare. A little wild. He came around the bed to stand on her side in order to give her one of the tall, hand-blown goblets. It was beautiful, just like the man. Sometimes she felt overwhelmed with love for him—and fear for him.
“I’m not going anywhere, Zyah,” he assured quietly.
She took a sip of the liquid. She’d never tasted anything so good. It wasn’t too sweet. Or too tart. The drink actually cleared the clouds from her mind, and she was able to take a full breath for the first time since she’d felt the malevolence enter her space.
Player walked to the end of the bed to stand in front of her grandfather’s drawing, staring at it. He was motionless as he sipped the drink. She didn’t really understand what he expected to see. He was standing right where the White Rabbit, Sorbacov and, ultimately, the malevolent eyes of the intruder had been. Zyah sighed and began to write down her impressions of the night’s events and then the time before when she’d first felt the presence of the intruder.