“He took me out two minutes after my oxygen expired,” she said. “You left me air. You can’t die if you can breathe.”
You can die of sorrow, Tanner thought grimly as he felt grief well inside his soul. And he was ready to expire from it.
“The lights are on motion sensors with a remote backup.” He stared around the room, seeing the tangled blankets trailing over the side of the bed, their disarray indicating that she had fallen, or stumbled, from the bed. “Once you move from the bed and actually stand up, they come on. You have to stand up.”
She stumbled again; obviously shuddering so hard she could barely stand.
Fuck this. She was shaking like a leaf, adrenaline and terror still racing through her. He could smell her refusal for comfort, her distrust of him, and that was just too f**king bad.
He had to hold her. If he didn’t hold her he was going to break apart himself.
“Don’t you touch me.” She fought him. He had known she would.
Lifting her into his arms, Tanner ignored her struggles as he wrestled her to the couch, sat down, then pulled her into his lap.
“It’s okay, Scheme,” he whispered against her hair. “It won’t happen again.”
“I don’t need you to comfort me, cat,” she spat furiously. “I don’t need you to touch me at all.”
Tanner tightened his arms around her, burying his face in her hair as he forced back the snarl that tugged at his lips.
God help him, he wanted to kill. He wanted to gut her father and watch him bleed for what he had done to her. The hunger to kill was almost overwhelming, but stronger was the need to hold on to her, to calm the scent of terror still emanating from her.
If he didn’t, then the beast was going to break free, and if it ever broke his control, then it might never be reined in again.
“Maybe I’m the one that needs comforting,” he growled into her hair. “I’m sorry, Scheme…”
“I don’t need your platitudes.” Her fists clenched tighter, the muscles of her wrists tensing further as he held on to them.
The fact that she wasn’t fighting him hurt. Deep inside, in places he hadn’t known existed within himself. She was just sitting in his embrace, unresponsive, fighting to distance herself.
“I don’t have platitudes.” He buried his face deeper in her hair, inhaling the scent of peaches and of fear. He had to get rid of that scent of fear. “I don’t have excuses.” His lips brushed her ear. “It will never happen again.”
“I survived. I always survive.” She jerked her head to the side, and he had no choice but to follow. His lips grazed her neck, and for less than a second, he smelled her response.
“You always survive,” he whispered against her ear. “It was your father’s favorite mode of punishment, burying Breeds alive. He released you. He never released a Breed.”
A low, keening moan left her lips as her head lowered and a tear dropped to his arm.
“You survived, Scheme,” he whispered. “For this.”
Long, rough fingers touched her cheek, turning her face to him as Scheme felt the regret, remorse, the destructive emotions that always came with the knowledge that she had survived. She had survived when so many had died.
“I have always survived. Even death.” She stared into his eyes, gold and green, shifting with lust, rage and undefined emotions.
She fought back the sobs that wanted to escape, that wanted to break from the self-imposed exile she had placed them in so many years before. “Sometimes, it’s the only way to succeed. Sometimes, failure is an option, Tanner.”
“You don’t fail.” His lips touched hers, and she swore she wouldn’t respond, that she didn’t care. She didn’t need the pleasure; she didn’t want it. Not now, not ever. It weakened and destroyed from the inside out. “You survive. I won’t let you die, Scheme.”
What was he doing to her? He was a liar. A deceiver. He was created and trained to deceive and to kill. He was created to destroy her. Because only destruction could come of the pleasure whipping through her from just the touch of his lips. Slightly rough, like dark velvet, brushing over hers as his tongue peeked out to dampen the seam.
“I want to taste you.” His eyes stared into hers, darkening, filling with heat. “Just like this.”
His tongue lined the seam of her lips again as they parted, flickering, caressing with damp heat.
“All over your body,” he sighed as she felt herself melting.
She couldn’t melt.