"Did you ask your father why?" Kadan asked.
She shook her head, her gaze shifting away from his. She withdrew her hand and even stepped back from him. "I was in the middle of some pressing problems of my own, and whether my father decided we needed added security or not didn't really matter to me." She sounded defensive to her own ears and moved farther away from him, out of reach, not wanting questions--or sympathy.
She had known she was losing her mind. She hadn't slept in weeks, afraid to close her eyes, terrified she would drown in blood. The whispers never stopped. The voices spoke night and day, and ugly, haunting images crowded into her mind. She felt covered with oil, unable to draw a clean breath. There had been no reprieve, no Kadan to kiss and stroke her until her vision focused solely on him, until her body became his, until her mind was so full of warmth and caring and desperate need that there was no room for anything unclean.
"My mom is very fragile, Kadan. We've always sort of protected her. She's a brilliant woman, and too caring. Things can crush her very easily. Fredrickson's betrayal will have devastated her." She took a breath. "She might not be able to walk out of there." She made herself look at him over her shoulder. "And you'll frighten her."
She really hated admitting that to him, but his expressionless mask and cold eyes would terrify her mother. She didn't want to hurt him, or to present her mother in a bad light, but she shouldn't have worried. Kadan didn't even blink, shrugging his powerful shoulders as if whatever her mother thought of him mattered very little.
"I'll get her out."
"I'm saying she might get hysterical," Tansy confessed.
"I got that, baby. You don't have to worry." His voice soothed her, that same warm velvet that made her ache with need. Now she felt caressed and touched, although he was across the room.
The phone rang. Kadan snatched it up and listened, scribbling notes as whoever was on the other end talked. Curious, Tansy moved back to Kadan's side, very conscious of the other men huddled around the table. She wore the gloves, but even so, she avoided touching their coffee mugs or anything else she'd seen them handle. These were men of violence and each of them had killed. She would have picked up some impressions whether she wanted to intrude on them on not.
They were silent for the most part, no unnecessary talking. Once in a while, Gator broke out in a grin and nudged one of the others with a teasing comment, but they stayed intent on their plans, committing the diagram and layout of the house and security to memory.
"Tucker and Ian are back at the safe house. We have a go. The security near the cliff has more than doubled, and Ian says it looks like they may have brought in some mercs. They aren't rent-a-cops, for certain. All of them handle themselves as military or ex-military." Kadan pulled the estate diagram to him and began marking X's at various points.
Tansy looked over his shoulder, watching the growing number of red X's with dismay. There were too many of them. Four men against so many trained guards. Not just trained, men probably trained in Special Forces. Her breath hitched in her lungs.
Kadan. She breathed his name in fear, not meaning to, but terror gripped hard.
He was going to save her parents when he didn't even trust them, risk his life because of her. She didn't want that from him. She didn't want to use him that way, use the cold, driven part of him that always demanded justice or revenge.
She felt the flicker of warmth in her mind grow and blossom until he filled her with . . . him.
Kadan, you can't. We'll do this another way.
Kadan turned from the map of the estate, away from the other men who were talking over various plans, and looked down at her, into her enormous, frightened eyes. She was afraid for him. That struck him as amazing--that anyone could worry about him. And it was genuine. He searched her mind, because even with the stark look of fear for him on her face and in her eyes, he couldn't quite believe it.
Damn it, Tansy. You're turning me inside out.
He knew his voice was too gruff. He was growling at her to keep from pulling her into his arms and burying himself in the haven of her body. To keep from giving it away that she had consumed him and he was nothing without her. He didn't know any other way to show her, didn't know how to say it; there were only his hands and his mouth and his cock. There were no words inside of him, and if his body couldn't win her, couldn't let her see he was loving her with every touch, every stroke, he was damned. Truly damned.
He stepped in to her, crowding her even though he knew he shouldn't, needing her warmth when inside he was as cold as ice. His veins were ice, rivers of it, small chips floating like small shavings on the surface. He could feel the cold deep inside, the stone that was his heart, the space that was never filled, never warm, unless her heat surrounded him. He put his hands on her hips, that sweet curve that could only be Tansy. Deliberately he ran his palms up under the hem of her tank top to that small strip of bare skin. He rested his hands there, letting her heat soak into him, feeling it pour into his heart and soul and melt the ice in his veins.
Thankfully, she didn't pull away from him, sharing her body even in a room full of strangers. He loved her all the more for that sacrifice, her shoving aside her embarrassment for him. Her gaze clung to his.
"What am I going to do with you, Kadan?" she murmured softly.
He knew her question had nothing to do with sex, but he filled her mind with a graphic answer, complete with graphic images--her sprawled naked on his bed, his mouth and hands all over her, his cock buried deep inside her--and yet really, truthfully, for him his answer had nothing and everything to do with sex.
She blushed, glanced at the other men, who were staring at the drawings, not paying any attention, and shook her head.
"I don't want you to go."
He took her hand, tugging until she followed him out of the room. "I don't think they'd kill your parents after the twenty-four-hour deadline, Tansy, but they might wound one of them. And if they move them, it will make a rescue much more difficult. Once they've moved them, they could do anything to them. We have to go now."
"Then use the other two men. I'll be fine. I know they're part of your team. They've seen the layout of the estate. Let them go with you."
One hand cupped the nape of her neck, his thumb sliding over her jaw in a little caress. "If something happened to you, Tansy, there wouldn't be much point in any of this. I'm not so far away from that edge myself. And you've seen it. Don't pretend you haven't. There would be a bloodbath the likes of which no one has ever seen. I refuse to take chances with your life--or my honor. Are we clear?"
She swallowed hard, tears burning behind her eyelids. "I don't want anything to happen to you or your friends."
"This is what we do, baby. And I've got someone to come home to. I wouldn't blow it now." He leaned down and took a tear from her face with his tongue. "Don't be afraid for me. I want you to pack up everything you'll need just in case we have to move fast. We'll keep this house as a base, but we'll need to go at a moment's notice. I want to be on the next scene the moment we get word."
He wanted there to be no mistake: She wasn't going to be staying with her parents. She'd be with him.
Tansy nodded. "I travel light, Kadan. I'm used to the life, remember?"
He didn't want to remember the horror in her mind, and he sure didn't want her remembering it either.
"It won't be like that. I won't let them take your soul again."
She rested her forehead against his. At least he understood. Her parents had tried to understand her, but it was impossible when they couldn't know what was happening in her head. Just don't think about it, Tansy-girl, her father had said. Why can't you just push the bad things out of your head and think good thoughts? her mother had chimed in. As if somehow, if she just tried, she'd stop the killers and victims from sticking in her head and sucking out her soul.
She looked up at Kadan. He seemed so strong. Invincible. Standing between her and evil. She believed him. She believed that q
uiet confidence, the implacable resolve she found in his mind, but most of all, the ice running through his veins and in his mind and heart. Because he could match the killers move for move, like players on a chessboard, and they couldn't defeat him with their immoral, malicious inhumanity as they had her. They couldn't eat him alive and take him over. And he was standing in front of her.
"We really have a chance of stopping them, don't we?" she asked.