She swallowed hard. “You can’t talk to me like that. I’m not one of your soldiers.”

“I don’t talk to my soldiers like that. Only you. I stand in front of you.”

“I want to be beside you.”

He kept her gaze captive while his tongue swirled over the center of her palm, teasing, reminding, driving her temperature up when she needed to be cool. “I can’t give you that right now, Tansy. I can only give you what and who I am, right now this minute. I have to shield you, because that’s who I am. You have to decide whether or not you can live with that. Whether you can love me, and not just a sliver of me, because the biggest part of who I am is the man standing in front of you.” He kissed her palm and closed her fingers around it. “Even if I could wrap myself up in pretty lies, I’d never be able to pull it off. I don’t know how to be anything else.”

His voice was the same. Absolute confidence. Velvet-soft. Skimming over her body and teasing her inner thighs with excitement. But in his mind, where he didn’t know, where he never looked, there was an edge of despair, a belief that it was impossible for her to love him. She caught a glimpse of his commitment to her, of his intention to hold her to him with any means he had for as long as he could.

He would make every moment together memorable, the sex incomparable, and he would do everything within his power to make her happy while keeping her safe. It was all there for her to see. But that part of his mind was the only part she could feel warm in. And that warm, compassionate side of her, the need to soothe and help others, instantly gave herself to him, even though she recognized he could be every bit as dangerous as those she hunted, or even more so.

She took a breath, let it out, and then leaned in to brush a kiss over his stubborn jaw. “Just try a little harder not to order me around so much.”

He didn’t respond. The others were returning, one by one, looking disinterested when she knew they had to be very engrossed. Instinctively she knew Kadan had never shown a fascination with another woman to them. They had to be somewhat concerned, but they were polite, getting back to business as though nothing had transpired.

“When you put out the call and told us what you needed, Lily found a house near Tansy’s parents’ estate,” Ryland said. “If we get through the wooded area and use the canyon to make a run through the heavier terrain, we’d be less likely to be spotted.”

“There’s a Humvee in the garage. The keys are in all the cars,” Tansy offered. “Of course there’s also a tracking device in it. It’s the real deal. Dad’s taken it in the canyon lots of times.”

Gator shrugged his shoulders when they looked at him. “Piece of cake. It’s ours.”

“So we’ll bring them out with that and take them to the safe house,” Ryland said. “Gator, check the best route through. Nico will cover our back trail.”

Kadan tangled his fingers with hers. “Ian and Tucker are reconning the estate right now. They’ll give us the most up-to-date intel as soon as possible. When they get back to the safe house, they’ll wait for us to bring them Tansy.” He brought her knuckles up to his mouth, distracting her from panic with a scrape of his teeth. “You’ll have to stay out of sight. My gut feeling is Whitney was watching your parents, and when his cover was blown, Fredrickson had standing orders to pick you up and bring you in. The men who came at me in the mountains were trying to kill me. If Whitney sent them, they wanted me out of the way so they could acquire you.”

“If that’s true, Kadan,” Ryland said, “it doesn’t fit with Whitney’s breeding program. He would want both of you, not just Tansy.”

Kadan shrugged. “Maybe my genes are just not as up-scale as Tansy’s.”

“He’s had all these years to come after me,” Tansy pointed out. “Why now?”

“That’s an excellent question. Let’s find out if anyone has the answer to that,” Kadan said, his voice changing from light to grim, as if the very idea of anyone trying to take her from him put a murderous edge to his mood.

“I don’t need two men to babysit me, Kadan. Over the years my father kept adding security to the estate, and I don’t think four men are going to be enough. We used to have rent-a-cops, but in the last couple of years, Watson, our head of security has made a few changes.”

“Watson?” Kadan turned his head sharply. “You’ve never mentioned him before. Who is Watson?”

“Benny Watson. He took over security for Dad about two years ago, when Dad decided to beef things up.”

“Why did your father replace his security detail?”

“Dad and my mother do a lot of work out of their home. Most of their research is classified. He got very nervous after a story came out about them in Newsweek. He wanted to just make certain that no one could get to them or any of the plans they were working on.”

“Did Fredrickson recommend Watson to your father?” Ryland asked. “Ordinarily two GhostWalkers will work an assignment together, and one of them is an anchor. I’d be surprised if Whitney assigned Fredrickson to infiltrate your household alone.”

Tansy frowned. “I don’t honestly know that much about him. Fredrickson is part of the family. He lived at the house, ate with us, even sat around with us some evenings and watched movies. Watson was always in the background. He didn’t ever talk to me. I always thought he regarded me as a pain in the neck.”

“Did you ever get vibes off of either him or Fredrickson that they could have psychic abilities?” Kadan asked.

Tansy shook her head. Kadan’s gaze met Ryland’s over her head, just for a brief moment.

“Watson increased the security at the house?”

She nodded. “For several years we just had a local security company, but Watson fired them all and brought in a different group. They didn’t ever interact with us, but they were courteous at all times. I’d say hello and ask how they were doing. They’d answer briefly and go about their job. That’s about the same time they brought in the dogs.”

“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 na**d on his bed, his mouth and hands all over her, his c**k buried deep inside her—and yet really, truthfully, for him his answer had nothing and everything to do with sex.