The bathroom door opened and Ashe stood in the doorway, leaning one slim hip against the frame. “You’re not a psychopath, Timur, and if I made you think that, I didn’t mean to.” She heaved a small sigh and jerked her chin toward his phone. “Is that your brother?”
He nodded.
She walked over to him and took the phone from his hand. “He’s not a psychopath. I’ve seen the results of one, and that isn’t either one of you.” She hit end and handed him back his phone. “That’s why I can’t stay, Timur. Not because you’re not the man who will always be someone I want to see. It’s because you’re not a man insane enough to take on the bastards who killed my parents.”
He wrapped his arm around her waist and buried his face against her stomach, pressing into her, laughter coming up from somewhere deep. Regret. Self-loathing. He held her tightly, knowing he was damned either way.
Her fingers were in his hair immediately, stroking those small caresses he found he was beginning to live for. It made no sense that she could take over his life so fast, and yet she had. He forced air through his lungs and looked up at her.
“Baby, you have to know the truth before you make your decision. I’m exactly that man. The one they send to fuck up others. Or to kill them. I made my first kill at eight years old and, believe me, that was two years too late. My father despised me because I didn’t want to kill people. He beat me until I couldn’t stand up, until he could force my leopard out of my control so he could have his leopard deliver a beating to him that was so severe, at times I thought they’d broken his back. I learned to be that killer, Ashe, the one you’re looking for.”
She stepped back and then knelt between his legs, her hands framing his face. “You’re not that man, Timur.”
Her voice, so gentle, turned his heart over. He met her eyes, wanting her to see the real him, not the fantasy she had in her head.
“Only you could look into my eyes and tell me something like that,” he said. “I am. I know what I am and I know how I got to be this person. Had I had a chance, I might have been different. God knows, I wanted to be different. You get fed violence and blood your entire life, and it shapes you into something dark and ugly.”
“Timur, you’re breaking my heart. Do you really believe that of yourself? They tortured my parents. They murdered them for no real reason.”
“I torture and kill when I have to.”
“Why would anyone have to?”
“To protect the people he loves.”
“The men torturing and killing my parents did so not because my parents were a threat to anyone they loved, but simply because someone ordered it. If Fyodor asked you to kill innocent people, would you do it?”
“Fyodor would never ask such a thing of me. He’s a good man, Ashe.”
“He has to be or he wouldn’t have Evangeline.”
She leaned into him and brushed kisses over his eyelids and then his nose. Her lips felt cool on his skin. Her touch had his heart stuttering in his chest. She could twist his insides into little knots just by smiling at him. Add in her touch, and then her kisses, and he was lost.
“I don’t know what’s true or not, Ashe, only that I want to be with you. I’ll try to be a better man for you, the one that I might have been before my father decided to twist me into something ugly.”
Her mouth touched the corner of his and then pressed against his lips. He opened for her and her tongue swept inside. At once the temperature in the room went up several degrees. His mouth moved, following wherever she led. It didn’t take long before he took over. He cursed himself for that trait, always having to be the one in control, but that was his nature. He kissed her thoroughly, hoping she understood what he was trying to convey.
When he lifted his head to look down at her, those amber eyes stared back at him solemnly. She wasn’t giving him promises and he appreciated that she didn’t try to lie to him.
“I don’t want you to have to be the man your father forced on you. Find your own way, Timur and the heck with him.”
“He’s dead. I don’t worry about what he thinks or feels. I have uncles who want us dead, but that isn’t my biggest worry. I have a woman, stubborn as hell, and I would prefer her to tell me straight up she was staying, but she can’t do that right now. So until she can, I’m going to be a little out of whack.”