Last Kiss Goodnight - By Gena Showalter Page 0,111

him this uncomfortable. And she’d seen him stripped and fondled by strangers! “Just tell me.”

His fingers tangled in his hair. “You’re not going to like it.”

“Well, you’re just gonna have to use your man parts and do it!”

He stilled, his lips twitching. “My man parts? Do you mean my balls?”

Heat blasted from her cheeks. “Maybe.”

“Say it,” he said with a grin. “Say the word. I want to hear it on those candy-apple lips.”

“No! Now stop stalling and—your eyes,” she said with a frown. There was a slight ringing in her ears, annoying and yet wonderful. “Your eyes used to be a light blue, but now they’re a dark purple, like my father’s used to be. Like mine are.” And she could see far more clearly than she’d ever seen before, she realized as she looked around the room.

Before, she’d thought everything was clear. Now she realized how wrong she’d been. This was clear. Dust motes swirled in the air, floating . . . floating . . . and the overhead light provided an undeniable radiance that caused her to tear.

Confused, she eased all the way up. “What’s going on?”

“Your eyes are now a light blue,” he said. “I noticed it a few minutes ago, but I figured it was a trick of the light.”

“My eyes aren’t dark purple?”

“No. They’re blue, like mine used to be.”

So . . . they had changed, both of them. “I don’t understand this.”

“Could we have . . . switched?”

Maybe. “But I’ve never heard of anything like that happening. Not with humans, or even humans dating otherworlders.” The ringing stopped abruptly, and in its place, she heard her own voice. “I can hear,” she said with a gasp. “I can hear!” And oh, her voice was gorgeous! She knew it was wrong to brag, but she couldn’t help herself. Her voice was the most beautiful thing she’d ever heard!

“What?” he said, rubbing at his ears. “Say that again.”

Scratch that. His voice was the most beautiful thing she’d ever heard. Rough and raspy, dark and masculine, full of power and undeniable vigor, causing her to shiver. “It’s a miracle! My ears are working. Do you have any idea how long I’ve—”

“I can’t hear you,” he interrupted. “I can’t hear anything.”

“What?” she screeched. She could hear, but he couldn’t? No. No, no, no. That would mean they’d done more than switch eyes. They’d switched ears. His perfection for all of her flaws.

“The vow.” He gave her a dazed look. “I vowed to give you all that I was.”

So had she. The moisture dried in her mouth. “Oh, Solo, I’m so sorry.” She flattened her palms on his chest, felt the hard thump of his heartbeat. “I never would have agreed to such a switch—”

“Hush,” he said. “In my line of work I had to learn to read lips, too, so we won’t have any problem communicating.”

Yes, but he’d helped her and she’d hurt him. “I’ll never be able to forgive myself. After everything you’ve done for me, I go and do something like this to you, adding to your misery. It’s not fair to you. It’s criminal, actually. I should be punished!”

“You stop that right now. This hearing thing? It doesn’t matter.” He tugged her down so that she sprawled across his chest. “Now listen to what I have to say.” He traced his fingertips along the ridges of her spine. “I will tell you about my past, and you will vow to stay with me anyway.”

An order. One she would heed. There was nothing he could say to change her mind about him.

“I was a contract killer for the government.” He paused, as if expecting her to leap up and run.

She didn’t—she was too stunned.

He continued. “I killed humans, otherworlders, males, females, it didn’t matter. If I was told to kill someone, I killed that someone, no questions asked. I’ve killed a lot of people, Vika.”

She wouldn’t lie. The words were hard to hear, and she flinched. Her man, a killer. But he wasn’t anything like her father, she reminded herself, and she would never think of him that way. Jecis had enjoyed the pain he inflicted. Solo never had, something she would stake her life on.

“I cried after my first kill, and I’m not embarrassed to admit it. I stared at the body for a long, long time, shaking, sick to my stomach. But I still took the next job, and the next, and eventually what I was doing no longer bothered me. I was cold