Assassin's Heart (29 page)

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Authors: Monica Burns

BOOK: Assassin's Heart
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“Don’t, c
arissima
.”
“But you wouldn’t let me touch you,” she whispered. The sharp edge of pain in her voice said how deep his rejection had hurt her. “You wouldn’t let me heal you.”
“I didn’t want to see you suffer as I had.” He choked out the half-truth.
“And at the hospital?”

The accusation in her words slashed at him. He’d known she’d been hurt, but something in her voice said she’d been more devastated than he’d realized. He didn’t want to consider what that meant, because it would explain her recent determination to make him admit that he cared for her. Make him say he still wanted her. One of them she’d just proved, and he wasn’t sure how long the thread he was hanging from would keep him from admitting the second part.

He rolled away from her and sat up on the edge of the bed. Deep in the back of his mind, he’d known this topic would come up, but he sure as hell hadn’t expected it to be this morning. He couldn’t look at her because she’d know if he was lying to her. And no matter how many truths he offered up, he
would
have to lie.

“
Christus
, I didn’t want anything to do with anyone.” Especially her. Truth.

“I understand that, but you didn’t even let me try to heal you. I might have been able …”

“What? Give me back my eye?” He refused to look over his shoulder at her. “Even if that had been possible—and I doubt seriously it would have been—do you really think I’d want my eye back at the expense of seeing you experience that kind of pain?” he growled. Truth.

“But it would have been my choice.” Her lips placed a gentle kiss on his shoulder as he felt her come up on her knees and press into his back.

“No healer has ever tried anything like that before. It might have killed you for all we know. I wasn’t about to let that happen.” Truth.
“You don’t know that. Even I don’t know the extent of my ability.” She started to knead his shoulders. Had she sensed the tension in him? Hell, yes. She was an intuitive healer.
“I don’t know why we’re even discussing the goddamn thing. It’s over and done with.”
“No, it’s not. Whatever happened that night, there’s something dark and ugly eating you from the inside out.”
The words sliced through him with the sharpness of a Praetorian blade. There was a certainty in her voice that made his heart slam into the wall of his chest. She was saying she’d sensed the Praetorian side of him.
Il Christi omnipotentia
, why hadn’t that son of a bitch just killed him that night? At least she’d never have to know about the monster inside of him.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” Lie.
“I know better. I sensed it at the hospital and over the past year I’ve felt it. I was just too blind to understand what I was sensing in you. Worse, I can sense it in you now. It’s as if—you asshole!”

Her sharp gasp surprised him, and the hard fist slamming into his shoulder made him

twist his head in her direction. Those gorgeous brown eyes glared at him with a fierceness he’d seen her reserve just for Praetorians. His gut lurched the minute he saw the fury on her face.

“You made me forget why I came in here in the first place! You went after that bastard who assaulted me, didn’t you?”

The expectation of a completely different accusation left him unprepared for this charge. Caught off guard, he shook his head slightly as he tried to come up with an answer. Frustration glittering in her eyes, she planted her hands against his shoulder and gave him a hard push. He just stared at her, his brain scrambling to recover his wits.

“Don’t you dare lie to me, Lysander Condellaire,” she snapped. “You went after him.
Didn’t you?”

“It was necessary,” he growled as he tried to keep his expression neutral.

“Have you lost your mind?” Her question was almost a shout.

“No.” Another lie. He’d lost his sanity the minute he’d made love to her moments ago.

He calmly stood up and stepped away from the bed. The towel he’d dropped earlier flew across the room and into his hands. He wrapped it around his hips and tucked it into place as he deliberately kept his back to her. Behind him, Phaedra released a sharp noise of fury.
“No?” she bit out in a fierce tone. “What in the hell made you think you could find the guy? And on top of that, you went after him alone.
Christus
, you know better—”
The sound of her horrified gasp made his heart stop before it crashed into his chest. Fuck, this time she really had figured it out. She’d realized that his telepathic ability had allowed him to track the man. He slowly turned to face her, prepared for the disgust and hatred he knew would be sculpted on her beautiful features. As his gaze met hers, the air left his lungs at the look of horror and fear on her beautiful face.
Il Christi omnipotentia
, he’d known she’d hate him, but it had never occurred to him that she might be afraid of him. He took a step forward, his heart like a stone in his chest at the way she was staring at him. Her hate he could deal with, but he couldn’t bear to have her be afraid of him. He’d rather suffer again at the hands of that Praetorian bastard who was his father than have her afraid of him.

Before he could take another step forward, she scrambled off the bed and leaped toward him. He didn’t give her the opportunity to slug him. Instead, he caught her wrists in his hands then forced her arms behind her back. The action pressed her soft breasts into his chest, and he tried to stifle the heat barreling down into his groin and the beginnings of an erection.

“I can—”

“Explain? Explain why you have a death wish?”

Her furious response knocked the wind out of him. His secret was still safe. The relief made him sag slightly, and she wiggled against him. It only made his cock expand and grow. God help him. The woman was going to be the death of him in more ways than one.

“I don’t have a death wish,” he rasped as he stared down at her mouth.

He’d always thought she was beautiful, but when she was angry, she had a sultry fire about her that made him ache for her.

“I don’t believe you,” she said sharply. “I can think of at least a half dozen times in the past year when you and Cleo encountered Praetorians only to hear her say you didn’t hesitate to take on two or three of them all by yourself. Actually, ‘went berserk’ was the phrase she commonly used.”

“It wasn’t like that,” he snarled.

“Then what was it?”

The demand showed she expected an answer, but he hesitated. What was he supposed to tell her? Deep inside, he
had
wanted to die. Had he deliberately thrown himself into combats where he might die? No. That meant he wouldn’t have been able to keep her safe. He might not have any other reason to live, but watching over her was reason enough. He met her gaze and swallowed hard.
Christus
, he was slowly weaving a fragile web of half-truths that were so close to lies that pretty soon, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to tell the difference.
“I was angry. Killing those
bastardi
was like killing the man who tortured me.” He paused, his breathing suddenly shallow as he realized how much he wanted his Praetorian father dead. “But more importantly, I knew that every Praetorian I killed might be the one that had murdered your parents. I wanted retribution for
both
of us.”
“D
ulcis matris Deus.
Thank you,” she breathed the words as though they were a prayer of rejoicing. Arms still pinned behind her, she pressed her face into his chest, her mouth tenderly caressing his skin. “I k
new
you were lying to me when you sent me away that day in the hospital.”

He shook his head as she raised her head to look up at him. Just the look on her face said his confession had pushed him into territory he’d not been willing to visit. He’d revealed far too much in the last half hour, more than he had in a year. He needed to repair the damage. Fast.

“Phaedra—”

“Don’t deny it. You’re crazy about me.” The confident note in her voice told him she wasn’t going to give up until he gave in.

Where she was concerned, he’d lost the battle. But was it a battle he really needed to fight? The odds of being discovered grew less every day. He’d known he was Praetorian for an entire year now, and no one was the wiser. Why shouldn’t he grasp a small acre in the Elysium Fields? Didn’t they deserve a little bit of happiness for the high price they’d both paid over the last twelve months?
Perhaps his best strategy was to simply not admit anything. Just let the cards fall where they may and see what hand he was dealt. She’d be his and he could just live in the moment and not think about the future. It was a dangerous path to take, but she wasn’t going to let him walk away from her again without a fight. He’d make the most of what time he had with her, whether it was for hours or years. He released his grip on her wrists, and she immediately wrapped her arms around his neck.

“I’m not going to deny anything,” he said with a sigh of defeat. An expression of disappointment flashed across her face before she grimaced.

“Okay. Not exactly the confession I was hoping for, but it’s a start,” she said in an optimistic tone as a smile of exasperation brightened her face. “You’re the most hardheaded man I know.”
The comment struck him as incredibly funny, given he was sporting the mother of all hard-ons, and the female penchant for thinking a man’s brain was between his legs. He couldn’t help it, but a loud laugh escaped him. Startled, she stared up at him in surprise, her hands sliding down to rest against his chest.
“Hardheaded?” His hands caught her by the hips and tugged her into him as he smiled down at her. “I suppose you’re right.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” she gasped, a rosy color filling her cheeks. His smile widened.
“Disappointed?”
Despite the wicked glint of humor in his eye, she could still sense the bleakness deep inside him. It worried her, but she didn’t probe. She’d gotten him to confess that he cared for her. Well, not exactly, but close enough. Everything else would have to come in small increments. One step at a time. She pressed into him, her hands lightly stroking the strong angles of his shoulders and chest.

“No. But I will be if you don’t make love to me again,” she murmured.

He bent his head toward her, and the moment his mouth brushed over hers, she gave a sharp tug to the towel around his waist. It fell to the floor, giving her the ability to stroke him. He was thick and hard in her palm. Deus, he was beautiful.
She wanted to memorize every inch of him with her hand. Her fingernail scraped gently along the ridge that ran from the base of him to the spot where the ridge ended just beneath the cap of his glorious erection. The touch made him shudder, and she experienced a sense of triumph.
He was hers. She’d finally broken through the wall he’d built around himself. Her hand curled around him, and she slowly caressed up and down the rigid length of him. The touch made him deepen their kiss, and the moment his tongue touched hers, an explosion of sensation raced through every inch of her body.
His hand cradled her neck as he explored the heat of her mouth in a hard, demanding kiss. There was something wild and unrestrained about the way his tongue danced with hers. He didn’t give so much as he took. But she was more than willing to give him whatever he wanted. She’d missed him so much over the past year that the last hour seemed like a dream.
What scared her the most was that he might try to rebuild that wall between them. Her hand squeezed gently over his erection, and it dragged a deep groan out of him. The sound made her tighten her grip. His response was to rock against her palm in a clear sign of pleasure. He broke their kiss to slide his mouth across her cheek until his teeth tugged on her earlobe.
“You have a wicked hand, c
arissima
.” The raspy sound of his voice in her ear sent a shiver racing down her back. “But as much as I like what you’re doing to me, I want more.”
“More?” she asked with a sudden, quick move of her hand up and down his hard length.
The action tugged a sharp breath from him, and she smiled as she leaned forward to kiss his solid chest. The tension in him had made his entire body hard, and she loved that her touch had the power to affect him that way.
“Yes, more, i
namorato
,” he murmured in a husky, seductive voice that reverberated off her skin to create a tingling sensation. “I want to touch every part of you. Caress you until you’re begging me to stop.”
“I don’t ever want you to stop touching me.”
“Be careful what you wish for, c
arissima
.”

There was a whisper of amusement in his voice as he picked her up and carried her the

few feet back to the bed. He laid her down but didn’t follow her. Instead, he stood looking down at her, a sinful smile curving that beautiful mouth of his. The mischievous glint in his eye had barely registered before a gentle touch brushed across her skin. Feathery light, it danced its way over every inch of her. It was as if his mouth were everywhere on her body all at once. It created a frisson of pleasure that made her tremble as the pressure of the caresses increased.

“O
h God,
” she moaned as her body arched upward into the tiny, invisible touches.

“I take it you like this.”

Desire and amusement echoed in his husky voice as he slowly sank down onto the bed beside her. He leaned into her slightly, and his sexy smile lulled her into thinking he was about to kiss her. He didn’t.
Suddenly, the sensation of a wet tongue swirling around both nipples at the same time made her gasp as the same wet heat touched her between her legs. A thousand unseen fingers explored her body, touching, caressing, and teasing her into a state of exquisite arousal. She could have sworn his teeth were gently abrading her nipples when those invisible teeth were replaced by the sensation of his mouth suckling both breasts simultaneously. It drew a sharp gasp of pleasure from her.

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