He knew that look, he knew it, because sometimes he felt it within himself. The hope that she could be his, one day, someday in the future, the prayer that the woman inside her could fill those parts of his life that were so empty.
He snapped his teeth together, furious at being manipulated as he had been. Dash would have known she was on her way up, known she would be there to hear every word. And there he stood, his soul bared to her, and every measure he had taken to protect her lying at his feet in the dust.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered.
He was too damned tired for this. Breed mating heat and the symptoms of age delay served him well during board meetings and all-night negotiations against younger, up-and-coming tycoons, but it wasn’t doing a damned thing to aid his control and his strength where one tiny Breed female was concerned. As he watched, the look slowly eased from her face and it became smooth, her expression curiously bland. Shaking his head at the look, he strode to the door, gripped her arm and pulled her with him.
“At least I’ll know you’re not out there hip deep in f**king bullets and looking for blood to spill,” he snarled.
As she had been for ten years. Oh yeah, he’d kept up with her, and the resulting nightmares had left his guts cramped with terror.
“But I dodge bullets and spill blood so well,” she pointed out with wide-eyed, obviously false innocence and a flash of bitterness.
“No doubt.” His mouth thinned with displeasure. “And I guess you think that’s going to work for me if I take you to my bed?” He pushed her into the sitting room, dragged her past the newly cleaned carpet and into the bedroom, where he secured the doors and turned to face her. “Do you think for one damned minute I’ll tolerate you running around the world being shot at? Risking your life and mine?”
“You act like I enjoy it.” Where had the bitterness in her eyes come from? He had never seen that. He had seen mocking amusement, anger, but never regret and bitterness like this.
“Don’t you? Dammit, Dawn, every Breed in Sanctuary is terrified of you.”
“Of course they are.” She rolled her eyes mockingly then. “I practice on them. They never know when a roof will fall in on them or when they’ll get caught in a trap I laid for them.” She shrugged. “I’m sneaky like that. It comes from being so short.”
Short his ass.
“You’re like f**king dy***ite. A little bit goes a long way.”
Amusement replaced the bitterness. For a second, just a second, her eyes sparkled with it, before they dimmed and she became solemn once again.
“Look, I get that you’re not all about this mating thing with me.” Desperate levity filled her expression. The smart-ass was making a comeback because the woman couldn’t bear to be hurt again. “And I can handle it, really. But I’d at least like to see you keep breathing. Even if you do have a habit of f**king other women when I’m not around.”
“Dammit, it wasn’t like that.” He reached out for her, then jerked his hands back, clenching them. “I didn’t think there was a chance for us, Dawn. If I had, for even a second, things would have been different.”
“And of course you didn’t think to ask me.” She lifted her shoulders as though it didn’t matter, when he knew it did. “Just as you never ask me now. You just keep playing the martyred male, Seth. It hangs so well on you.”
He was hurting her and he knew it. She could feel and smell his regret, his hesitancy in taking her. They were going to have to talk, he knew it, and he hated it. Because he knew it was the last barrier to accepting all of it. Hell, he’d already accepted it; he just needed her to know, to understand. It hadn’t been a lack of love—it had been an excess of love.
“Tell you what.” She cocked that shapely hip again, propped her hand on it and arched a brow. “You just contemplate this to hell and back, and I’ll go shower. I smell like blood and sweat, and frankly, I don’t sleep so well when I stink.”
Oh yes, the smart-ass was back. Dawn was pissed off and she didn’t hide it really well. His lips almost twitched. He would never have to worry about whether or not she was angry with him—he would know it by her flippant speech and total disregard for his male pride. Or what pride he would have left, because once he had her, he knew he would be on her ass 24/7, eager for more. He watched, slowly shaking his head as she turned and stalked to the bathroom, the door slamming behind her.
No one will be there when Dawn wakes up.Cassie had said those words, and now Seth knew why the need to refute them had risen in his head. Because he intended to be right there, beside her, holding her, no matter what she awoke to.
She had come to him so many times, and he had turned her away. He had stayed away when he should have fought for her. He had left her alone when she needed to be held. And now he had no choice but to go to her, and he prayed she didn’t reject him. He prayed because, suddenly, life looked very bleak without her.
Dawn adjusted the shower to a temperature as hot as she could stand and, naked, stepped beneath the
stinging spray of three separate shower heads.
For pity’s sake, who needed three shower heads in one shower? It defied explanation. Just as the emotions rising inside her defied explanation. She felt like crying. She wanted to lay her head against the shower wall and sob, but Dawn hardly ever cried. Not when she was hurt, not when she was angry, not when friends died or when they walked away.
She hadn’t fallen to the floor with the screams welling inside her when she learned her mate wasn’t her mate, and she didn’t let the need hovering inside her now escape. Because she wanted to pray. And if Dawn didn’t cry, she certainly didn’t pray. Why pray to a God that had deserted her? That hadn’t heard her screams as a child, and hadn’t heeded her tears? She believed in His existence, but unlike other Breeds, she didn’t believe He agreed with theirs. She shook her head and washed her hair quickly before tipping her head back to rinse the soap from her hair. As her head lifted, her eyes jerked open, and her lips parted on a gasp. The shower door was open and Seth was stepping into the spray of water. Powerful muscles rippled beneath his flesh, and standing out from his body, thickly veined, the crest dark and furiously engorged, his c**k demanded her attention.
A light mat of hair covered his chest and arrowed down his abs. It sprinkled over his arms, thighs and legs, and as she watched he slowly soaked the cloth he held in his hand and soaped it with a bar of sweet-smelling soap that he held in his hand.
“Ten years ago,” he said, “I started collecting soaps for you. There were about half a dozen before I was led to believe that you didn’t want me, that you wouldn’t want me. But somehow, the habit held. There are over two dozen now. Several are quite unique, one-of-a-kind scents just awaiting your approval before the soap makers I found create more of what you enjoy.”
Her lips parted in surprise as he carefully set the creamy bar on an inset shelf.
“This one I found in Morocco.” He stepped forward and laid the cloth at her neck before beginning to wash her. “There’s just the lightest touch of sandalwood, though it’s often used just for men. Once I described you, the soap maker thought perhaps a scent that denotes male and female would be appropriate. A combination of us both.”