Earth Bound (24 page)

She had to answer him. There had to be honesty between them, and he had been more than honest, taking a risk when others would have lied. Her voice trembled and it seemed impossible to get the words out when she couldn't find air. “It's you, Gavriil. I realized I'm the one who needs you.”

“I don't understand, Lexi.”

“You tempted me. That low whisper of yours. That soft voice and tortured feeling to you.” She closed her eyes, feeling lost. “Almost as if you dared me to come to you. I kept getting closer and closer to the flame, I just couldn't stop myself.” Her legs were going to give out and she would find herself on the floor in another minute.

“Lexi, take out the needles.” Gavriil made it a command. He wasn't certain what had happened or why she was suddenly questioning their strange relationship, but he wasn't going to lose her.

“You weren't living much of a life. All this time I thought I could help you. I could make a difference in your life. Give you peace, take away your pain and maybe give you a better life. Something better than moving every two days and never trusting anyone. I pursued you. I asked you to stay with me.” She looked around helplessly, the room spinning so fast she feared she would faint and be forever embarrassed by her inadequacies.

“Are you rescinding your offer?” His thumb slid over her inner wrist.

“I don't know how to feel now.” She sounded lost. “What am I giving you after all? What is it you need from me?”

“Take these needles out, Lexi. I can't talk to you about something this important with such a handicap.”

“I don't know what to do, now. I don't know what to feel or how to act.”

She was completely panicked. He could see it in her eyes, and hear it in her breathing. He swore in Russian and began to pull out the needles himself. She made a single sound and tried to help him, but her hands trembled so badly she could barely grasp the small needles.

The moment he was free, he sat up and caught at her when she would have fled the room. He was fast, his reflexes honed and he had her wrist, tugging her back to his side and then down onto the bed beside him.

“No,” he decreed. “You're going to stay right here and talk to me. What has you in a panic? You faced the dogs without batting an eye and now you're ready to crawl into a hole and hide.”

Lexi shook her head, trying desperately to drag air into her lungs. He pushed her head down, his palm curled around the nape of her neck. “Take a breath,
solnyshko moya
, a nice slow breath, and then you can talk to me.”

She tried for him. Her body trembled, but she worked at controlling her breathing. “It's you, Gavriil. You're this strong, courageous man. Look at you. Really take a look at yourself. I convinced myself that I could help you—that you were every bit as broken in your way as I am. I thought you needed me, but you don't. You don't need anyone, least of all someone like me.”

“Where the hell is this coming from?” he demanded, allowing her to raise her head. He needed an enemy to blame. Nothing she said made a damn bit of sense.

She remained silent, refusing to look at him. Gavriil shook his head. “You really don't know, do you? You don't have a clue what you are to me. Not the least little clue.”

She stole a quick glance from under long, spiky lashes. She gave a quick shake of her head.

“You're everything. That's what you are.
Everything
.” He enunciated the word. “You're the only person that has ever mattered to me enough to make me want to stay. To settle. You saved my life. I was going to die after saying
good-bye to my family. I knew Sorbacov would send his assassins after me and sooner or later they'd get me. It didn't matter. Dying truly didn't because I didn't have anything to live for. You gave me a reason.”

She shook her head again.

Gavriil caught her chin and forced her to look at him. “Do you know why you're having a panic attack? Have you even figured it out yet?”

“It isn't a panic attack,” she said in a small voice.

“Of course it is. I mentioned marriage. Marriage is unholy to you. Chains. A dictatorship. And whom exactly would you be tying yourself to? A nice guy? A man who is sweet and easily led around? No, you went out and got yourself a wolf. He doesn't even look like a sheep. Of course you're having a panic attack. Marriage represents everything ugly that happened to you.”

She looked horrified. “That's not true.”

She didn't sound convinced. She sounded shocked and scared, but her tone told him he was on the right path.

“Of course it is, and your reaction is perfectly natural. Caine took you from your home and forced you to enter into what he called marriage. You endured years of abuse from a perverted, sadistic pedophile in the name of marriage. How could you not associate the word with something horrific?”

She leaned into the warmth of his body, not away from him, as if he gave her comfort and she wasn't quite aware of it. He wanted to pull her onto his lap, but she was stiff, her pulse pounding and her breath still ragged. She was at least thinking, listening to him.

“I thought it was beautiful when Rikki and Judith were married,” she said in a small voice. “I'm looking forward to Airiana's wedding.”

“They aren't you. We're already connected. We both know I did that without your permission. In a sense, just as Caine took away your choice, so did I.”

“No.” She whirled around to face him, right there on the bed, her green eyes dark with anger, the panic receding.
“You are
nothing
like Caine.
Nothing
. Don't ever compare yourself to him again. You're careful of my feelings and kind and I can't imagine you hurting me.”

“Really, Lexi? I had my hand around your throat.”

“I knew you wouldn't hurt me, Gavriil. When I'm with you, I feel safe. Even then, when we were together, I wanted to keep you here on the farm where I thought I could make your life better. I felt as if we belonged.”

“Unless I mention marriage.” Deliberately he pushed humor into his voice.

There was a small silence. A slow, reluctant smile touched her mouth briefly and faded. “I think you could be right. I didn't think about it. I know it wasn't a real marriage, that a union between a man and a woman should be a partnership. I know Caine was sadistic. I wasn't the only person he hurt.”

“That's all intellectual, Lexi, not emotional. You can recite the truth all day long, but your emotions can't necessarily be dictated to.”

“Yours are,” she pointed out.

He shook his head. “Not when it comes to you. When you panicked and I wasn't certain what was wrong, I thought I might lose you and I began to panic as well.”

“No you didn't. I was watching you. Your expression never changed.”

“Just because I don't portray emotion, Lexi, doesn't mean I don't feel it. When it comes to you, you can bet I'm feeling something. I don't want you to ever think you aren't valued by me. Offering marriage was my way of showing you how much I value you, but I know we're connected. We don't have to go into a church and say vows to tie us together. If you need the freedom you have right now, then that's how we'll do this thing. More than anything else, Lexi, you have to know I've got your back. Just talk to me when something doesn't feel right.”

“I didn't realize that was what upset me. I just felt all along that we were on equal footing. That I had something to offer you no one else could.”

“Which is entirely the truth. Absolutely the truth. I wouldn't be sitting here with another woman.”

“You don't know that. This is the right time for you, Gavriil. Maybe you were just open because your brothers . . .”

He put his finger over her mouth to cut her off. “Look at me. I'm no young man. I've traveled the world. I never had another woman, or wanted one. You're it. The only. We fit. And I'm okay with being broken. You are as well. There's no right or wrong here,
solnyshko moya
, it's only the two of us. We can make our own rules.”

Lexi nodded. “I'm sorry, Gavriil. I had no idea that was going to happen. That's one of my biggest leftovers from my days at that compound. I can't seem to stop the panic attacks, and I have no idea what's going to trigger them. I hate leaving the farm because I'm afraid it will happen out in public.”

“Do you think your having panic attacks is going to make me think less of you?”

“
I
think less of me. I should be able to control them, but I can't, no matter how hard I try. I learned all the tools they give someone like me and still, I can't overcome them. Of course I didn't want you to see that in me. I want you to feel like you're getting someone special.”

He laughed. He couldn't help it. “Lexi, you're talking to a man who killed people for a living. I'm a machine my employer points at someone and orders them gone. I follow those orders. I don't think about it. I don't question it. I don't care. I just do it. What kind of a man do you think you're getting? Compared to my flaws, your one tiny failing seems a little trivial.”

Lexi shook her head. “You aren't like that. You just think you are. I know it isn't true because you told me everyone you'd gone after was someone who was bad, which means you did your research, you didn't let them just point at a target. In any case, I can see past that man to the other one, the one you hide even from yourself.”

“That man doesn't come out often, Lexi. In fact, he
doesn't come out for anyone but you.” Gavriil stroked his hand down her hair. Her ponytail had to go. They were in the house and he wanted all that luxurious hair to cascade like a rippling waterfall down her back.

“He comes out with a little fourteen-year-old girl who needs help. And with a pair of Black Russian Terriers. I'll bet he comes out around his brothers as well.”

“Don't paint me as a saint. It won't work. I think it's important you have an accurate picture of me at all times, otherwise you'll be bitterly disappointed someday and that's the last thing I want.”

“Have no fear, Gavriil Prakenskii. I will never see you as a saint. Just being a Prakenskii prevents that from ever happening,” she assured him, with a small laugh. “I have to go fix us something to eat.”

“I'll give you a hand. Let me get my shirt.”

“Don't forget your pants,” she advised. “You never know who might drop by.” She crossed to the door. “Like the sheriff,” she added, and sauntered out.

Gavriil stared after her and then found himself laughing. She scared the hell out of him, and then somehow made everything all right again, so right he could laugh. That didn't make sense to him. He wasn't certain how he was going to live on a roller coaster after his well-ordered life, but he was determined to ride it all the way. The woman was worth every emotional upheaval.

He dragged on his clothes and went to check on Kiss. Her panting indicated she was in the beginning stages of labor. He caught her head between his hands and looked into her eyes, murmuring his reassurance, knowing he would be sitting there in the closet with her when she gave birth.

“You're beautiful, Kiss,” he said softly. “You're going to make a wonderful mother, just like that woman who at the moment is driving me a little crazy. We're going to take care of her, the two of us, you and me. We'll make certain her life is happy. Right? She's going to love your babies.”

Kiss licked his hand. She didn't show her affection very
often, and he was pleased that she did so when she was confused about what was happening to her.

Gavriil stood up and moved around the room, checking his weapons out of habit, and then followed after Lexi at a more leisurely pace. He found her in the kitchen, pulling all kinds of produce out of the refrigerator. He leaned one hip lazily against the doorjamb and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Who might be dropping by?”

“I'm certain you heard me,” Lexi said, rinsing several bunches of different kinds of lettuce. “Jonas Harrington is going to come by to listen to the messages various members of the cult left me. I listened while you were sleeping.”

“Without me.” He kept his gaze fixed on her face.

“You knew they were threatening me. It was just more of the same. Seriously, there was no need for you to stand there with me listening to their vile threats.”

“Of course there was need. It's called support. Don't shut me out because you think I might go hunting.”

She paused in the act of tearing the lettuce leaves and throwing them into a bowl. Her gaze met his squarely. “Not might, Gavriil. You will and you know it. I don't want that life for you anymore. And I don't want to be the cause of you feeling as if you have to continue in it.”

“Lexi, you're not going to shut me out of this. These people mean business. You already know what they're capable of. Do you really believe for one moment I'm going to hand them over to the sheriff and think it's done?”

“I believe you should have a chance at living in peace, Gavriil. Hunting criminals and killing them is not peaceful.”

“To me it is, especially if I know those people will never have the chance of touching you or anyone you love.”

She moved around the center island and came straight to him, standing in front of him, her eyes soft and more loving than he felt he deserved.

“Gavriil. No. You have to stop.”

She placed her palm directly over one of the scars on his
abdomen. At once he felt the heat. Her energy was strong. He pressed his own hand over hers, holding her to him, wishing the material of his shirt was out of the way so they could be skin to skin.

“If they come on our property and we have to defend ourselves, then yes, we'll fight them any way that we can, but you can't go hunting them.” Her hand seemed to melt right through the thin cotton of his shirt so that he felt hot where she was touching him. “Let Harrington handle it.”