Toxic Game (GhostWalkers #15) - Christine Feehan Page 0,34

did it for you. She was the first after I lost my foster mother.” He kept his head down.

Her fingers kept moving. “So, you’re saying my meal wasn’t your first and you’ve already compared my cooking to hers.”

He was grateful she was turning to humor when he was revealing a very personal part of his past. He didn’t allow his memories to be painful. They were just facts to him and he treated them that way, but she had that compassion in her and wouldn’t view them the same way.

“Yeah, sweetheart, that’s what I’m saying. But you’re the first to ever have your fingers in my hair.”

“Really?” The note of surprise in her voice was genuine.

He glared up at her. “Woman, are you secretly calling me a liar?”

“I was thinking, if you hadn’t so abruptly ripped our connection to shreds, you would have known that this is another thing you should be charging for. Along with that list we’re making …”

“What list?” Her fingers were truly driving him crazy. They felt better than anything he could ever remember, yet they also wreaked havoc with his body—and his brain. He couldn’t think straight, which was why he had broken their connection.

“The list I was making of things you could charge for, so you would always know you had plenty of money. Things like just sitting there and allowing women to stare at you. You could charge more for actual touching, like this, the privilege of giving you a scalp massage.”

Laughter welled up. Real laughter. She was good for him. He hadn’t known he could want to laugh, let alone do it. The sound of it startled him. Deep. Raw. He laughed with conviction because this woman was treasure—pure gold. She thought he should be the one charging.

“You think it’s a privilege to give me a scalp massage?”

“Yes. Because you didn’t ask for it. You were reluctant to let me close to you. In any case, what is wrong with the women you were with, that they didn’t have their hands in your hair?”

“I wouldn’t let them. Modeling and all that. It went with the image, but I didn’t want their hands all over me.” Putting their hands in his hair had felt like the women were taking something from him. He couldn’t explain it to her, only that his sexual partners had felt grasping, trying to take the only thing he had left to him to earn a living—his looks. Later, when he had joined the GhostWalkers, habit had fed that weird revulsion. The feel of Shylah’s hands on him was completely singular and produced an entirely different emotion.

She didn’t reply but gave him a faint smile as she left him to get the coffee. He wanted to catch her wrist and pull her back to him, but he didn’t. He just watched her because he couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

“Stop staring at me.”

“I’m trying to decide if I’m having hallucinations and you’re really an angel—or witch. Either one, I can’t tell yet.”

“Given my personality, come down on the side of witch. There’s very little angelic about me. You were in my mind, you know.”

He wanted to be in her mind again. He liked being there. He liked her in his mind. He hadn’t really known he was lonely until she’d filled him with her presence. Then, when she wasn’t there, he’d felt bereft.

“Shylah, I intend to find a way to save your life. I don’t want you getting too close to me, especially when the symptoms start manifesting themselves. Wear a mask when you’re close.”

“We already talked about this and I made myself clear,” she said, her voice quiet. “There’s no sugar, so you’re going to have to drink it black.”

“Black is perfect, and you’re not listening to me. I’m telling you I’m going to save your life. You just have to cooperate a little bit.”

She turned to face him, her eyes going a dark chocolate and drifting slowly over his face. Very slowly and deliberately, she put his cup down on the counter. One foot in front of the other, she crossed the room to him.

“Shylah.” He said her name cautiously. She was so close now he could see those freckles scattered like kisses across her face.

She put a knee to the bed and leaned in, one hand curling around the nape of his neck, the other curving over his shoulder. Her mouth found his. His stomach knotted with tension. Blood rushed in a hot path straight