“Is it possible that Whitney somehow paired me to you?” she asked.

He could hear the underlying horror and fear in her voice. He shook his head. “I don’t see how he could have. In any case, maybe his gift is in the knowing which couples belong. I belong to you and it has little to do with sex. I’m attracted to you, yes, that drive is there and I think that’s very obvious to you. But it’s so much more than that. I think about you, Azami, and you make me smile. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted in a woman, and I’ve spent a hell of a long time looking. Give me this chance.”

She regarded him for what seemed an eternity, her serene demeanor hiding her thoughts, but he could feel the tension in her. She moistened her lips and his heart stuttered. She’d come to a decision and for one moment he wanted to stop her. If she crushed every chance, he’d have to abide by her decision—but he wasn’t certain he could. He knew with absolute certainty that they should go through life together, and if he couldn’t have her, no other woman would measure up in his mind.

“I was useless to him, remember?” This time she let the hurt show in her voice. The child was still there. “I wasn’t worth stitching up properly. There was no way to correct the damage he did to my body.” Or my mind.

She poured into his mind, filling him with her warmth and her emotions. She was every bit as afraid to end what they had as he was.

Sam knew he was using a delaying tactic, but it was still important. “When you have so many amazing gifts, why didn’t Whitney value you more?”

Regret and guilt flashed in her eyes. “I hid everything from him. I suppose I didn’t really understand that if I showed him a psychic gift he wouldn’t use me for experiments. I could hear the other girls screaming sometimes and he knew what they could do. He felt sick to me, and it grew each time I was around him. I think I instinctively hid any talent and he couldn’t detect one. That must have made him crazy because he prided himself on knowing who was psychically gifted and who wasn’t.”

“You were just a toddler.” He reached to pull her across his lap and fire took his breath as he stretched his abdomen, reminding him he wasn’t 100 percent. He breathed away the pain and held her to him, wanting to comfort the child as much as the woman.

“I knew when he touched me that something was wrong. I knew he didn’t love any of us and never would. I hid my talents instinctively and then later, when he was using my body for experiments, I thought that was what he wanted from me. I probably was half crazy with fear all the time. A child doesn’t think the way adults do.”

“Surely you don’t blame yourself for what Whitney did to you,” he said, nuzzling the top of her hair. He couldn’t detect any white hairs, but she’d probably dyed her hair right before visiting the compound so there would be no roots for anyone to see.

Azami turned her head to look at him. “I was a child. Of course I blamed myself. He was so cold toward me. I never once got a smile from him like some of the other girls. I never felt worthy. It was almost a relief that I was used for experiments because at least then he told me I was useful. That was part of his brilliance—to withhold love and approval so we would do anything to try to please him. A part of me knew he was completely mad, but the child just wanted his love and approval.”

Again Sam experienced that tremendous flare of rage. It roared through him bright and hot, shaking him with the savage intensity. He was a thinking man, not a primal warrior, but he felt like one in that instant. He needed to kill Whitney, to wipe him from the face of the earth and out of Azami’s memories. How could any human being traumatize an infant to the point that her hair would actually go white when it was naturally black?

He brushed a kiss on top of her head, helpless to do anything but try to silently comfort her. He couldn’t imagine what her father had found in that alley, a child so torn and weak with a mop of white hair and skin over bones.

“I watch Lily and Ryland with their son, and the way they treat him is so different—the complete opposite,” Azami said. “He’s a happy boy. I can feel the love they have for him and the way he responds.”

Of course that would be important to her. He should have known she would check on the condition of an infant in the care of Whitney’s daughter.

“We protect the compound so that there’s no chance of Whitney getting his hands on one of the babies. He’s tried, and we know he’ll try again.”

“He won’t stop,” Azami said. She shifted away from him. “Sam, you know we won’t work. I think about it all the time and there are far too many complications. I have a company, my brothers, you have your team and your family.”

“That’s logistics, Azami, and you know it,” he said. “If we want this, we’ll find a way. There’s always a way. You’re afraid, and it’s not of my team, or what I do, or even me.”

She slipped off his lap, back onto the floor, the movement graceful, flowing water over stone. There wasn’t even a whisper of sound, reminding him what she was in that beautiful package—a lethal weapon. She didn’t need guns or arrows; her father had trained her to be a woman to be reckoned with and given her the honor and code of the samurai. In his way, her father had ensured that Whitney could never again torture her.

Yet Whitney still lived in her head. Sam could feel the man as sure as if he was standing in the room with them. He colored everything in Azami’s life whether she knew it or not. She stood, her head up, the woman her father had taught her to be, facing him, eyes steady, mouth firm, shoulders straight, unapologetic for who she was, yet she was reluctant to let him all the way into her life. And that was all Whitney.

Sam waited, his pulse pounding in his ears. He could taste her in his mouth, feel her rushing through his veins, and yet she was so far from him.

“Azami Yoshiie is an illusion,” she finally whispered, her voice filled with sorrow and despair. “From my dyed hair to my seemingly perfect body. Azami doesn’t really exist.”

She was telling him something so difficult she trembled in the telling, but still, she held that firm, upright stance, with that serene expression on her face even though her eyes were alive with pain. She swallowed once, a hard lump he could clearly tell, but she didn’t waver. He almost stopped her. Azami was a woman of courage, and yet telling him this dark secret took a terrible toll on her. It was all he could do to sit on the bed silently and wait for her to reveal the one thing she knew would keep them apart.

Very slowly her hand went to the hem of her shirt. His breath caught in his throat as she lifted it, revealing her flat, defined abdomen and the soft skin there. He knew the moment he saw the spiderweb tattoo attempting to cover the scars running up her waist in all directions, circling around her narrow rib cage and traveling up higher to under and between her br**sts, spreading completely over the left breast and partially over the right. The scars continued, peeking out from under the tattoo with its intricate web, dissecting her flesh from front to back.

She turned slowly. The tattoo on her back was even more detailed, not the lines of a spiderweb, but a triumphant bird—a phoenix rising from the ashes flowing from the top of her shoulders, spreading across her delicate back, the wings intricate and lacy, slowly narrowing to a curving tail of wispy feathers hugging the small of her back and curving over her right buttock. The scars were more rigid, jagged and raised so that the flowing tattoo held hundreds of images and scrolls. Both the bird and spider were done in shades of color, mostly dark, but the phoenix had gold and red outlines that only served to heighten the dramatic effect. He found the tattoos fascinating rather than repugnant. She’d turned all those scars, those badges of courage, into pure artwork and he admired her all the more for it.

Sam slipped out of his bed and again had that strange fading in and out moment, but it passed much more quickly than the first time. He padded over to her, towering over her much smaller figure. She didn’t flinch or give ground when his fingers slid over the ridges on her back, tracing the myriad of images, feeling the thick scar tissue beneath the impressive tattoo. Very gently he turned her around to face him, allowing him to view the spiderweb crawling across her body, rippling with every movement of her defined muscles.

He could see why a woman would look at the scars on her body and think she was destroyed. Clearly she’d had multiple surgeries and at least one heart surgery. Her soft, flawless skin made the scarring almost obscene. One breast was larger than the other, and a little lopsided, as if part had been carelessly cut away. Tattooed over the shiny scar, right beside her nipple, was a female red-backed spider. Sam leaned forward before he could stop himself and brushed a kiss over that spider. His lips skimmed her nipple, tongue curling for just one breathtaking moment along the dark peak before he lifted his head and looked into her eyes.

Azami stood very still, holding her shirt above her br**sts, her eyes wide with shock. “You can’t possibly want me.”

Her voice was so low, so shocked, so incredulous, Sam couldn’t help but smile. He bent his head to hers. Lips inches from hers, he curved his hand around the back of her neck. “Honey, I’m totally naked, in case you hadn’t noticed. I think my wanting you can’t possibly be in question.”

Her gaze left his eyes, dropped low, and she inhaled audibly. His erection was long and thick and made no apologies for his desire for her. Her image as a woman was wrapped up in how she viewed her body. She didn’t realize that every inch of her scarred body, now covered in artwork, was testimony to her strength and spirit.

Sam tipped her face up with his thumb. It took a few seconds for her gaze to follow the lift of her face. Her eyes were wide, her long lashes fluttering a little, reminding him of feathery fans. “I’m going to kiss you, Azami, so if you have that dagger of yours handy, now might be a good time to use it if you’re so inclined,” he whispered, his lips brushing hers as he reminded her of their first kiss.

He captured her answering smile, and warm breath, as his mouth settled over hers. The world tilted and righted itself. Sam urged her closer to him. His body was na**d and shamelessly demanding toward hers. She had forgotten to let go of the hem of her shirt, holding it across the top of her br**sts while she melted into him, suddenly boneless.

His chest crushed the soft cushion of her br**sts as he pulled her into him, his erection lodging just above her belly button. She felt fragile, and yet all muscle beneath her skin. The scars rasped against his cock, creating a friction he hadn’t expected. His breath exploded out of his lungs and he tightened his hold on her, afraid she’d try to escape when all around him the earth was shifting under his feet.

She tasted like a combination of flame and sex, a deadly mixture, a volatile cocktail rushing through his bloodstream and melting his mind. He knew he had dropped too far too fast and there was so much unresolved between them. They barely knew one another, but he was certain of the woman who had gone so courageously into battle with him. Kissing her over and over, his body as hard as a rock, need so urgent he could barely think, Sam allowed himself to just fall over the edge with her.

Azami gasped and pulled away from him, her hands finally letting loose of her hem to clutch at his neck for support. “I can’t breathe. You’ve made me so weak I can’t stand up,” she confided in a shy voice.

Sam took a deep breath, knowing his belly would protest, but he needed to reassure her. He lifted her, cradling her against his chest, a little surprised at how light she was when she was all firm muscle. “I’ve got you, honey. You’re safe with me.” He wanted her to feel safe with him. It was necessary to go slow, to get himself under control. “You’ve never been with a man, have you?” Kissing her had already told him she was untutored, an innocent in the ways between a man and a woman, and that meant he had to go slow, be very careful of her. She had a poor body image and doubts about her ability to be a woman.