The Serpent in the Stone - By Nicki Greenwood Page 0,57
you were going to say?”
He glanced back, then away, hunching his shoulders. “I didn’t mean...”
“No, you did!” She shot across the tent to stare him down toe-to-toe. “Say it. Get it out. I want to hear you say it!”
He gave her a desperate look. “You have no idea what this is like. I was ten years old, and I saw my father murdered, by a man who—who could—”
“Do what I do? Telekinesis? Shapeshifting? Mind-reading?” She flung the words at him, seething when he flinched. “Do I look like a murderer, Ian? Does having this power make me a monster?” She shuddered. “I didn’t ask for it.”
He sighed explosively. “Jesus, Sara. You don’t... I can’t...” He turned his back on her. “I’ve been making myself crazy ever since I got here, knowing what you are.”
“Then why did you come? You can’t stand what I am unless it helps you with your goddamned research, is that it? Is that all this was? You’re using me? And to think I came up here to warn you.” She wheeled toward the tent door.
He spun back and caught her by the wrist. Writhing with ferocity, she tried yanking it away, but he held fast.
His expression shifted; she saw him fighting with himself. The pulse pounded in his throat. “Don’t go.”
Chapter Eleven
Sara glanced at the door, hovering like a wild creature on the razor edge of fight or flight. Idiot, he cursed himself. You’ve screwed this all up from the first second you opened your mouth. The hurt in her eyes knifed him.
Once more she moved to leave, and his entire being railed against it. He lunged forward and kissed her.
She gave a muffled sob and pounded his chest with both fists. Her cry resounded in every nerve of his body and tore at him. She tried to wrench away. When he didn’t release her, she hid her face in his shirt and gave another thin cry, thumping his chest again. He held her hard against him.
Little by little, her trembling subsided. Her tears dampened his shirt. He pressed his face into her hair. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you, I swear. Please believe that.”
She turned her face up to him at last. The hurt pride cleared from her features. In its place came a cool wariness that cut him worse than her tears had done.
She’d closed herself off...gone where he couldn’t follow. And he never would have believed it, but that pained him still more.
She wiped moisture off her cheeks, then pushed out of his grasp. “You want what you can get out of me, like everyone else who would turn me and Faith into lab rats if they knew about us.”
He spread his hands. “Sara, I have told no one. I wouldn’t do that.”
“Oh?”
He saw it in her eyes; she expected a fight. Probably even welcomed it, because then he could leave her, and she’d be just as alone as she’d looked in that tavern on the mainland.
Oh, no. Not this time. Not when his insides were roaring at how she pulled away.
He stroked her hair. She remained immobile, unresponsive.
Distrustful.
“What’s it gonna take, Sara?” he whispered, stepping back toward her. Gently, he kissed her again. He slid his arms around her, telling her with his body what he couldn’t say, and what he knew she wouldn’t accept.
She lit like a dynamite fuse, seizing his shirt in both fists. But she would have none of the slow, soft caresses. She dragged at his shirt, demanding fire.
And, God help him, he gave it.
When she took his lip between her teeth, his body ignited. He swept her mouth with his tongue, drinking in the taste of her. He couldn’t pull her close enough. She pressed against him along the entire length of their bodies, and still she was too far away. She gasped against his mouth as his searching hands reached the soft skin under her shirt.
Christ, she burned.
He broke the kiss long enough to pull his shirt off and throw it on the floor. Her hands explored the muscles of his back. Blood boiling, he reached between them to undo the first button of her shirt, and placed a kiss there. She made a low sound, and the skin of her throat vibrated under his lips. The earthy scent of her flooded his senses.
Another button, another kiss. Her fingernails dug into his back. He fought to keep from tearing her shirt open to get to the rest of her. With painstaking slowness,