Unable to get enough, she continued to stare. Somewhere along the way, his boyish good looks had given way to rugged handsomeness, and she wished she’d been around to see it. To watch him grow, change, and become the person he was today.
Fucking Maya.
Her vision blurred. Because of her sister, she’d missed so much. Missed him so much.
Seven years—an eternity of suffering in every second.
Her heart still attempting to break out so it could burrow in next to his, she pulled back the hand hovering too close to his lips. God! His mouth hadn’t changed at all. Afraid touching him would destroy the walls she’d built around herself, she let her arm fall to her side, and a lump rose in her throat, sharp and unyielding.
She’d loved his lips. Still loved his lips. Loved the way they were shaped. The way they’d kissed her. The way they’d curved into a secret smile just for her. A smile she’d carried like a talisman in the years they’d been apart.
The memory of his lips, his touch, his warm embrace had sustained her. Kept her alive when she didn’t want to be. Kept her going when she wanted to quit. She should hate him—wanted to hate him. For letting her go. For coming back. For making her feel everything she’d spent years trying to bury.
Overcome with too many emotions, she felt each one like a physical hurt.
Regret. Anger. Fear. Relief.
The man who once made her believe in forever—hadn’t forgotten her either.
Unfortunately, his reasons weren’t the same as hers. He knew what no one else did—or at least what no one else had—she was the key to Dominion.
“Jay,” she whispered, her eyes roving to his injured shoulder, immobilized with hot pink tape. His only visible injury despite throwing himself off a cliff and nearly killing himself in the process.
Idiot.
If he weren’t unconscious, she’d be tearing him a new asshole.
He didn’t get to die. Not for her. And certainly not before her.
She let her eyes wander over his muscled chest and down his chiseled abdomen to the hands resting at his sides. Powerful. Strong. Fast. A boxer’s hands. Stone wrapped in flesh. How many times had those hands steadied her? Held her? Protected her? Caressed her?
The thought made her chest tighten, and she lifted her eyes to his face. “Seven years,” she murmured, her voice barely audible over the hum of the light fixtures. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again…I mean…I wanted to. Every damn day of my life, I wanted to see you, talk to you, kiss you. But I couldn’t. And now here you are…and I don’t even know where to begin. How to begin. I?—”
A flicker of movement caught her attention, and she held her breath while staring at his face, his eyes, his lashes. Nothing. Not even the slightest tremor, and she felt silly for hoping he might wake in response to her voice, her proximity, her anything.
She longed for the moment he’d open his eyes and dreaded the storm that would follow. “You shouldn’t have come.” She leaned forward, her breath whispering over his lips. “But you did…and now I need you to wake up. I need you to help me stop Dominion. I need you to take down the Imperium Council. I need you…”
Her voice cracked, and a sob worked its way from the pit of her stomach to the edge of her lips. Shit! His features disappearing in a haze of tears she refused to let fall, she clenched her fists tighter to stop the rising tide of emotions.
All of this—the rescue, her guilt over Jay shooting Roman, her worry for Nik, the new threat of Sam Black, trying to figure out what to do next—it was too much. Add in losing Miss Kitty, combined with the weight of saving the world, and she was ready to fold. Give up. Crawl into a corner and?—
A throat cleared behind her, and the bones of her spine fused together, forcing her to grow three feet taller in one second flat. “Hello, Rebecca.”
Jesus! The sound ripping from her throat in response to hearing her name shredded her vocal cords. In any other circumstance, she would’ve been embarrassed by the volume of her screech.
Except now, she recognized the voice of the man speaking, and as she spun on her heels, the gun-barrel gray eyes of a stone-cold killer landed on her with an intensity that dried the spit in her mouth.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” His arms hanging loose at his sides, he took a step forward. “My name is?—”
“I know who you are!” The volume of her reply notwithstanding, her voice shook. Hell, her entire body shook. And to prove she wasn’t too frightened by his mere presence to defend herself or to protect Jay, she lifted the scissors she had clenched in her fist and shouted, “Don’t come any closer.”
“I doubt very much you know who I am.” He raised his palms in a placating gesture. “But I can assure you, I’m not here to hurt you.”
Sure, and she was Bambi on ice, easy prey for the assassin who now had both hands near his guns.
“Why don’t you put the scissors down, Rebecca, and we can talk.”
Yeah right. A euphemism for please make my job of torturing you easier, she wasn’t about to comply with his demands. No matter how nice he asked. Nope. She was definitely going to die in the next five minutes, but screw him, she didn’t plan on going down without drawing his blood first.
