him wonder why she always felt the need to project a sense of flawless self-control to everyone. The fear she had shown in the cave was only the second time he had seen her become emotional. The first time had been during Docia’s disappearance when she had set him back on his pompous ass, as was rightly deserved.
There was a creature of fire and feeling beneath all of her cool beauty and powerful professionalism. What she didn’t realize was that this veneer she clung to so desperately made her come off as arrogant and cold. Oh, she sympathized with her patients—he could attest to that—but always in a controlled manner. He wondered what had happened to her that made her feel so compelled to project perfection at all times.
It also made him crave the opportunity to tousle her up and ruffle her feathers. It made him want to strip away the layers of her psyche, her always-neat appearance, and tumble her across his bed until she absolutely shattered for him. The simple thought of it had him craving her all over again, had him leaning in closer to her so at the very least he could feel the radiance of her warmth and smell that sweet, feminine scent of her hair.
Marissa felt the change that came over him like any prey would feel when faced with a predator. He was so close again that she had to tilt her head back in order to look up into his eyes and she watched as his teal-framed pupils widened a little. He was one of those men who had been gifted with thick, beautiful lashes. Their blackness the perfect foil for the color of his eyes. There was no innocence to his features, no boyishness. He was every inch the mature and vital male.
A dangerous male.
“What do we do now?” she asked in a voice so close to a whisper.
He smiled then, a wolfish quality to it that made her heart skip a few beats. His hand came up and once again his thumb traced over the rise of her cheek and then the shape of her lips.
“I have such amazing answers to that question,” he said to her.
There was absolutely no mistaking the entendre of his remark. She should have laughed and set him down, putting him back at a safe distance. She was actually quite good at that. There had been a great deal of practice over the years as she had been the object of a lot of unwelcome attention. What she had intended to be a projection of a neat polished appearance was, for some reason, seen as some kind of invitation to the opposite sex. Or perhaps challenge was the better word for it.
But until that moment when he had bluntly told her that she was in his crosshairs, she hadn’t lumped Jackson in as a source of unwelcome advances. She had handled the whole thing badly, become stupidly flustered and at odds with herself over it.
Now she had the most powerful something else entirely. and the l argument against him she could possibly have conjured. He was a Bodywalker. He wasn’t entirely human anymore. She simply was not adventurous enough to get tangled up in something like that. Not to mention all the other reasons that were still in play. He was a patient. They worked together. It was just a bad idea all around.
She opened her mouth to speak, but the act of parting her lips brought the touch of his thumb a little farther inside her mouth, as though she were inviting him in. The smoldering hot look that entered his eyes made the touch erotic, for all it was a simple and unintentional thing. His thumb hooked on to the tips of her lower teeth and his remaining fingers curled to grasp her by the chin. The capture, as simple as it was, made her heart and breath seize in her chest.
But the instant his head dropped toward hers, his attention fixated on her mouth, she shoved away from him, nearly tripping herself and falling on her backside.
“Stop it! Stop this,” she panted, righteous anger warring with the jumble of feelings his small movement of intent had given birth to inside of her. Her face felt hot from the sudden heat erupting all along her skin. Goddamn him, why did he have to be so inaccessible! So ethically out of her reach. “You know. You know how many reasons there are why you