Her golden-brown eyes were haunted with that past, deep, somber pools of suspicion and hunger. Not sexual hunger, but the soul-deep, mind-consuming hunger to live. He bet the sizeable fortune he possessed that Dawn had never known either a lover’s touch or a friend’s gentle embrace without remembering the fear and the nightmares of her past.
Now, she stood within the guesthouse of Sanctuary, watching him with those mysterious pools of emotion, her body stiff, defensive as she answered to his latest demands. He hid his smile, rubbing his finger over his lips as his elbow braced on the padded arm of the couch and his knee bent, his foot resting on the teak coffee table in front of him.
“You’re not in a position to demand anything, Mr. Lawrence,” she reminded him severally, the high cheekbones and kittenish angles of her face revealed by the severity of the French braid which pulled her hair back from her face. Soft, golden-brown strands, not nearly as dark as the color of her eyes, like rich, light caramel. “Sanctuary is not one of your offices,” she continued. “My men are not under your command.”
Her men? His brows snapped into a frown. He didn’t like the way she phrased that. Her guards perhaps?
Yeah, he could handle that phrase.
“Furthermore, may I also remind you that you are here only under objection. If it wasn’t for Cassie, you’d be recuperating in a hospital rather than reclining on that damned couch staring at me as though I were a bug under a microscope.”
His brow lifted. Actually, he was watching her like the tempting little package she was. Her short, compact little body was driving him crazy. Tempting br**sts pressed against the soft cotton of her dull green T-shirt and that gun strapped to her thigh, over the snug mission pants she wore, should not have been sexy. He was more a pervert than he believed, because his c**k was spike-hard as she faced him so defiantly.
“I believe the phrase ‘watching you like a tender morsel of meat’ would be more appropriate.” He held back his smile just as he tried to dim the interest in her response in his gaze. She jerked alert, her jaw tightening, her lightly tanned face paling the barest bit as her gaze darkened. Then she snarled.
His c**k jerked, flexing in a harsh reminder of its aroused state as she flashed those pearly canines.
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can play with me, Lawrence,” she growled, but he saw her ni**les harden, caught the quick intake of her breath. “I could tear you apart before you knew what hit you.”
He smiled then. A slow, confident curve of his lips as his gaze went over her once again.
“Play with you?” he murmured softly. “I’d actually be quite serious, darling, never doubt that for a moment.”
Had he had ever wanted a woman as swiftly, as heatedly as he did this one? It wasn’t possible. He would remember a hunger this strong, this consuming. As he continued to watch her, her face flushed, paled, then flushed again. Her breathing became harder, faster. But her hand dropped to her gun, her fingers caressing the handgrip as though seeking reassurance.
“Don’t make that mistake, Lawrence.” Her voice chilled, but catching the undercurrent of pain, of anger, wasn’t hard. “Better men than you have tried. They failed.”
“They weren’t men.” He didn’t move, despite the need to jerk to his feet, to pace in fury, to pull her to him and fill his senses with the taste of her. “Rabid animals, Dawn, don’t count.”
Her hand tightened on the gun as regret filled her eyes.
“Don’t fool yourself into thinking I’ll fall at your feet as the women who fill your life do,” she snapped,
her shoulders straightening, which only pressed her br**sts tighter against her shirt, her ni**les clearly revealed beneath it. Hard, pointed tips he would give his left nut to taste. Well, maybe not a nut, but damned near anything else.
“I’d be disappointed if you did, sweetheart.” He braced his arm over his upraised knee as he fought to maintain a relaxed, calm demeanor. Now wasn’t the time to spook her. He wanted her off balance, not running from him. “I’m merely stating the obvious. You said I was watching you like a bug under a microscope. I’m actually watching you like the very beautiful woman you are, nothing more.”
“I’m an animal. One it would pay you to be wary of,” she snarled, flashing those wickedly sharp teeth again.
Son of a bitch cock, it flexed painfully, more interested than it should have been. His eyes went over her again.
“You guys have a thing about being animals, don’t you?” he stated then. “I’ve heard that comment several times this week. If that’s what you truly believe, then why the hell are you trying to mix with the rest of us? Where’s the closest pen, Dawn, I’ll help you lock yourself in.”
He was pushing, he knew was, and he couldn’t help it. It infuriated him to hear her describe herself in such a way, to see the belief flashing in her eyes. It enraged him to remember how the belief had been beaten into her. As a child, nothing more, raped by Council soldiers, jeered at, forced to be the animal they called her.
“I can kill you and get away with it.” Her voice was hoarse now. “And I wouldn’t regret it. I’ll sleep just as well as I do every other night…”
“You don’t sleep, period,” he retorted, his anger finally showing as she faced him, her expression drawn with exhaustion, nightmares haunting her eyes. And he couldn’t even explain why he f**king cared. “A child could see how little sleep you get, woman. Pull the badass Breed persona on me, it doesn’t work. You could kill me in a heartbeat but you’d never forget it.” He leaned forward then, watching her, knowing she would run, just as he knew he’d never let her go. “You would never forget, Dawn, that you killed the one man capable of holding you during the nightmares, of accepting who you are, and all that entails.”
“So you think you can cure the nightmares?” She sneered then. “Letting you touch me would just wipe it all away, huh, Seth?”
“No,” he whispered, watching her pale again, but this time, the color didn’t return. “Nothing can wipe it away, Dawn. Nothing can change the past or the nightmares. But I would be there when you awoke. You wouldn’t be alone anymore, and in time, maybe, better dreams could take their place sometimes.”
She stepped back, retreating as a nerve jerked at the corner of her lip an instant before the animalistic snarl sounded from her throat.
“Touch me and you’ll die.”
Her hand gripped the gun, her fingers closing over the butt with a desperation he could feel inside himself.