It wasn’t second nature to her, holding that wall to keep a separation. As a rule she merged herself totally with the killer and victims. Maybe the details were a little blurry, but as far as Kadan was concerned, she was picking up enough through the gloves to destroy her mind.

“What’s significant, Tansy?” she murmured to herself. “Thirty pieces of silver is all I can think of. What would that have to do with . . .” She trailed off, her eyes going wide. Blood trickled from her nose.

Pull away, break off completely.

She swallowed. Blinked. Her opaque eyes looked into his. Blood leaked from her mouth and one ear.

Kadan’s fingers tightened on her wrists and he dragged her into the shelter of his body, thrusting his mind into hers, dominant. Controlling. You f**king listen to me, Tansy. Break off. He was prepared to use anything to get her back. Sex. A beating. Hell, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but separating her from those whispers calling to her, beckoning, raping her mind, filling her full of oily sludge and too much blood, so that she was drowning in it.

His hand went to the nape of her neck, thumbs under her jaw, forcing her head up. He took her mouth brutally. Desperately. His mind vibrated with sexual thoughts, with erotic visions, with need and hunger and such a craving for the taste and texture of her he shook with it.

Her mouth moved against his, and he felt that first burst of real awareness, her mind recognizing him as the sludge receded, leaving her raw and shaking but intact. He held her close, burying his face in the hollow of her shoulder, shaken beyond anything he could remember since he was that eight-year-old boy standing alone, frightened and covered in blood.

Damn it, baby. Just damn it. He took a deep, shuddering breath, his arms locking her head to his chest as if he never wanted to let go of her.

“I’m all right. I’m with you.” Her voice was small and muffled. Thin. As if she was stretched beyond endurance.

“I’m not going to survive this,” he said. “I’m not. We have to do better than this or you’re done.” He tipped her face up to his, his gaze drifting over it, brooding, edged with icy resolve. “You’re done, Tansy.”

“Thirty pieces of silver. Betrayal. This is huge. It was worth it.”

“Fuck that. It wasn’t worth it. It will never be worth it. Look at you. These are disgusting savages and they’re raping your mind. They eat you alive. You think I can’t feel what they’re doing inside your head?” He wiped at the blood on her face. “Like pieces of glass digging at the inside of your mind, scraping you raw. Leaving scars. And in each of those scars, images, voices—sick, perverted killers who won’t ever leave you alone. You’re done.”

She traced the rough angles and planes of his face with her fingertips. “Shh. You’re so upset, Kadan. I’m all right.” The pad of her finger stroked the deep scar.

“I don’t get upset.” He caught her wrists, dragged her hands down to his mouth and pressed kisses into each palm. “I’m not upset. I just know this isn’t right and I’m not letting you do this again.”

He was trembling. He didn’t seem to know it, but she’d shaken him. She couldn’t remember anyone ever looking at her with that stark, raw need, the fear and possession on his face. The show of emotion wrapped him around her heart as nothing else could have, because he was, as a rule, rather distant and cold. She felt the separation, the disconnect in his mind from everything around him—except her. It was both terrifying and exhilarating to know she could shake him so badly.

“The same man carved the stallion and the frog pieces. I think he carved all of them. I can’t be certain, but I’ll know once I handle the other pieces. If he did, and he’s not one of the players, we’ll know he’s running the game. I get an undercurrent—”

His hand fisted in her hair, dragging her to him, his mouth taking hers hard. He swallowed her words and her breath, fighting for her, wanting—needing—her wholly with him. They couldn’t have her. Not the killers. Not the victims. Not Whitney. Not her bastard parents, who were connected to Whitney. None of them. She was his, and he would protect her with everything he was, every last bit of training he had, every warrior’s instinct, and with an ice-cold resolve that would carry him through fire, through blood and death for her.

Tansy let him have her mouth, not struggling against either his enormous physical or mental strength. He didn’t realize the grip he had on her mind or her body, or the savage possession of his mouth. Even the fist in her hair twisted the strands until there was a burning sting. The combination of pain and pleasure slammed the door hard on the voices, leaving only Kadan in her mind. Kadan with his sensual, demanding mouth and his will of iron.

He kissed her until her complete submission, her absolute surrender, registered. His mouth gentled, became tender, until his kisses were slow and easy, until his breath was hers and her body molded to his. His hands slid beneath the thin material of her shirt, sliding down her back, down the tucked in waist and flair of her h*ps to curve over her bu**ocks.

“I’m so afraid I’m going to fall in love with you,” she whispered when he lifted his head.

He kissed both eyelids, trailed more kisses down her face to the corner of her mouth. “Would it be so bad, loving me?”

Had there been a catch in his voice? It occurred to her that he had no family. He’d held himself apart from everyone. She smiled at him, a slow, dreamy smile that spoke volumes. She couldn’t say the words aloud, but they were in her mind. Teasing him. Caressing him. You have a tendency to be a tyrant. Can you imagine if you knew I loved you like crazy?

She couldn’t voice the words, because she was well on her way to feeling that way about him. In measurement of time, she barely knew him, but with their minds slipping in and out of each other, it was difficult to resist him. To resist his compelling need and his magnetic personality. Sometimes, like now, she felt mesmerized, hypnotized by him, just by the way he looked at her. Or maybe it was as simple as she was no longer alone and never would feel alone with him close to her.

“I prefer that you fall crazy in love with me,” he said candidly.

Tansy burst out laughing.

Chapter 8

Tansy managed a small catnap and woke up with Kadan lying beside her, one arm slung around her waist. She turned her head to find him wide awake, staring at her face. She blinked and smiled up at him. “What are you doing?”

“Watching you breathe.”

Her smile widened. His hand was beneath the shirt, fingers splayed wide, rubbing small caresses over the smooth skin of her belly. She wasn’t certain he was even aware he did so. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“I can’t make love to you again; we’re going to have company soon. So, no. This is just perfect doing this.”

“Watching me breathe?” He was robbing her of her breath, just the way he was looking at her with those eyes and that intensity. She was drowning.

He leaned forward and kissed the tip of her nose. “That’s it. Just watching you breathe. It’s a great pastime.”

“I would imagine it to be very boring.”

He shook his head solemnly. “No. I like guarding you. When you start to have nightmares, you frown and I kiss you and you go all peaceful for me. Your br**sts rise and fall, and if I put my hand right here,” he flexed his fingers on her stomach, “I can feel your muscles bunching every time I stroke your skin. You’re so damned soft.”

She rolled over to look up at him. “You’re so different when you’re like this. Which is the real you?”

He framed her face with both hands and kissed her tenderly, so gentle he stole her heart. “I don’t know, Tansy. Both. Neither. You’ve shaken me, shaken everything I knew about myself. I’m not a gentle man. I don’t know how to talk to women. I don’t even know what I’m doing right now, but I don’t want to stop.” The admission was given in a low voice, torn from him against his will.

Her heart clenched. She didn’t read minds—that wasn’t her gift, or curse. She read objects, and that was different. She could stop the input by wearing gloves and distancing herself. What was Kadan’s life like? He saw blood and death. He killed. He fought alongside other men who killed or died. And he knew their thoughts. Their hopes and dreams. Their dirty secrets. His mind had to find a way to protect him. The coldness that he believed made him a killing machine was his mind’s way of protecting him, a shield so the man didn’t have to feel too much, although she was fairly certain he wasn’t aware of it. There was no other choice or he would have been right alongside her in that mental hospital.

“Why did you choose the military? Why did you choose law enforcement? It must be hell, Kadan, all those killers and victims, all those battles you have to fight.”

“What else for someone like me? Killing is what I do best. I’ve always known that.”

She shook her head, locking her gaze with his. “Loving is what you do best.”

A slow smile tugged at his mouth. “You’re a f**king miracle.”

“And you’re going to have to clean up your mouth before you meet my parents.” She rolled out from under him and sat up, pushing at her long hair to get it off her face.

There was a long silence. When she glanced over her shoulder, Kadan was already up, padding across the floor to the bathroom. She had sensed more than heard him. He moved like a mountain lion, all rippling muscle and silence.

He turned back, his face set in grim lines. “Your parents can clean up a few things before I do. They’ve got a few questions to answer.”

“Look, Kadan, before everyone gets here and you decide to share with them your conspiracy theories on my parents, I want to tell you a story.”

His mouth hardened into a cruel line, but he didn’t say anything.

Tansy sighed. “When I was a little girl, I couldn’t go to a regular school, or to a grocery store. I really couldn’t do much of anything. My parents built me a play yard, basically from scratch, getting brand-new supplies. Even then, sometimes, I could get impressions from people handling the swings or bars. But I wanted a bike. A bicycle represented freedom to me. I wanted one so bad and I was willing to wear gloves all the time as long as I could just have a bike. You can imagine how my parents must have felt not being able to touch or feed me or even tuck me in at night without both of us wearing gloves. I hated the gloves, and so did they.”

He tried not to ache for that little girl, but she was already in his head. He had no sympathy for her parents. Maybe his friends were right and ice water really did flow in his veins, because he wanted to gather her up and comfort her, and put a bullet in her parents’ heads. Bastards. They hadn’t stopped Whitney, and they had to have known what he was doing—or at least suspected something. Money was a motivating factor for a lot of people. Don and Sharon Meadows made big bucks with defense contracts, but maybe that wasn’t enough for them.

“There you are with that face, all grim and forbidding. My father made all the parts for a bicycle wearing gloves the entire time. Then he put the bike together and they gave it to me. No one had ever touched it.” Tears burned behind her eyes and clogged her throat so that she had to clear it, remembering that moment when he’d wheeled the bike out of a closet and her parents had stood there, big smiles on their faces, telling her she didn’t have to wear gloves to ride it.

“What parents do that, Kadan? He spent so much time on it. Anyone else would have been okay with my wearing gloves, but he made certain I didn’t have to whenever I rode that bike, because he knew I hated them so much. They love me.” She didn’t know if she was pleading for it to be true, or pleading with him to believe her. “I know they do, Kadan, because I’ve always felt it. The only time I ever felt abandoned was when Whitney came around.”