Rhyannon Byrd - Primal Instinct 04 (34 page)

“I’m on a hair trigger tonight, Liv.” He had to force
the words out, fighting to make them sound human. “Don’t push me.”

Her lips trembled with emotion, but she didn’t back
down. Didn’t run. “Why shouldn’t I?” she said unsteadily, her hands knotting
into small fists at her sides before she crossed them over her chest. “You’re
always pushing me. Maybe I’ve decided it’s time I push back.”

“If you’re smart,” he muttered, “you won’t.”

“Damn it, Aiden!” Her temper flared, blasting against
him like a hot wind. “Just be a man and admit that you’re sorry we slept
together!”

“I’m not sorry,” he growled, wishing that he was
better with this kind of crap. Emotional confessions had never been a strong
point of his, but then no one had ever twisted him up like Liv.

“If that’s true, then prove it.”

His head jerked back as if he’d been clipped on the
chin. “What?”

“You heard me,” Olivia whispered, taking a step toward
him. “Prove it.”

“It’s not that simple, damn it.” He started pacing
from one side of the room to the other, feeling like an agitated animal
prowling its cage. “You make me lose control. More than…anyone else. And that’s
dangerous,” he muttered, scrubbing his hands down his face, then ripping them
back through his hair. “When I was younger, I gave more of myself up to the
animal than most shifters do at that age. I had to, if I wanted to stay alive.”

He came to a stop in the middle of the room and just
stood there, with his head angled forward, his hands braced on his lean hips. A
husky rumble of laughter fell from his lips, sounding hollow and tired. “Hell,
if it weren’t for the animal,” he rasped, “I wouldn’t be here today. But
there’s a price to pay for it. I’m more aggressive than most. More feral.”

“If you’re trying to scare me off, it isn’t working.”

He let out a sharp, explosive sigh and turned his
head, the thick waves of his hair falling against the side of his face. The
corners of his eyes creased as he stared her down, the seconds stretching out
like a body being tortured on a rack, until his mouth began to twitch with a
boyish, lopsided smile. “I’m starting to think that nothing scares you, Liv.
Not really. You’ll fight till the bitter end, won’t you?”

“If it’s something worth fighting for,” she whispered.

He looked down, staring at the dark blue carpet, while
those soft words played havoc with his sanity. A full minute passed before he
cleared his throat, his voice a rough rasp of sound as he said, “Yeah, well,
that’s the problem, Liv. That’s what I’m trying to get through to you. I saw
you and I wanted you, and was selfish enough to go after you. But the truth is
that I’m not even fit to touch you.”

“Is that what you think?”

His chest shook with bitter, breathless laughter.
“It’s what I know.”

“That’s such bullshit, Aiden.”

“You think, Liv?” Frustration surged through him,
seething and sharp, pouring out in a rough, visceral growl. “Let me tell you
about the guy you let cover you last night. About the animal you let inside
you. You wanna know why I feel the way I do about humans? Because my mother was
one. And you wanna know where I got these?” he snarled, holding out his scarred
wrists as he stalked toward her. “When I was seven, my mother—my human
mother—sold me to a man named Mueller.”

Her mouth trembled and she shook her head. “I don’t
want to hear this.”

“Well, you’re going to,” he grunted, dropping his arms
to his sides, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his faded jeans. The
muscles across his shoulders were coiled with tension, his biceps rigid as he
fought to keep himself under control. “You need to have it all spelled out for
you, Liv, so that you’ve got a clear picture of the situation. See, Mueller
made tons of money from running what he liked to call his little fun house. A
place where loaded, sick-as-shit humans could come and get their kicks, working
over kids in any way they chose. As long as you paid your money, you could have
whatever you wanted.”

“Oh, God.” She pressed her fingertips to her trembling
mouth, a violent shiver moving through her entire body. Her face was so white
she looked like a sheet. Bleached and drained of color.

Aiden jerked his chin toward her, his expression
twisted with a cocky smirk that he knew didn’t hide the pain hidden beneath his
surface. “Yeah, you’re starting to get the picture now, aren’t you? And
Mueller’s genius was in using kids who could take a licking and keep on
ticking. With our ability to heal, shifters were like manna from heaven to a
guy like him. The favorites in his little collection, he liked to say.”

He went on, mercilessly telling her about the things
they’d done to him. Confessing all the vile, twisted things they’d made him do.
The drugs they’d given him to make his body hard. The way he’d given up more
and more of himself to his beast as he’d grown older, just so he could retain
some shred of his sanity.

Though he was shaking and covered in sweat, his
insides twisting with shame, he forced himself to reveal just how thoroughly
he’d been used, and in some perverse way Aiden knew it was because he expected her
to turn away from him. One of them needed to end this thing before he screwed
up both their lives by biting her…marking her—and he didn’t trust himself to be
the one to do it. So he’d force the issue into her hands.

“What about your father?” she whispered when he
finally paused. Her voice was thick…broken, a wash of glistening tears
overflowing those beautiful eyes. “Did he know where you were? Didn’t he ever
come looking for you?”

“Naw,” he muttered, pulling his hand down his damp
face. “I doubt he ever even knew he had a kid. He was just some guy my mom had
a fling with while touring Europe. By the end of her trip she’d hooked up with
another man. Turned out she’d moved on from a shape-shifter to a heroin dealer,
and the rest was history. Once she finally clued in to the fact that I wasn’t
human, I became just a means to an end. A commodity that could be traded in to
fund her habit.”

Her voice quivered as she said, “Do you know what
happened to her?”

He shook his head, another gritty laugh spilling from
his lips. “She probably overdosed in some dark alley, stoned out of her skull,
so far gone she couldn’t even remember her own name. To be honest, I don’t
really give a damn what happened to her.”

“I don’t blame you,” she whispered. “I’d feel the same
way.”

Rolling his shoulder, Aiden popped his jaw and got on
with it. “Anyway, when I was fourteen, I hit my growth spurt. It should have
been too soon for me to make a full change, but I did. At first I just wanted
to get the other kids out of there…and I tried. But I was a young, stupid
jackass who didn’t know what he was doing. Not to mention scared out of my
wits. Mueller’s house was an hour outside Reno, buried in the foothills of the
Sierra Nevada. There were too many of us to move quickly, and it didn’t take
long for his men to catch us. I’d managed to steal some weapons, and I told the
others to fight back. It turned into a slaughter and they died. Every single
one of them. The youngest was only five.”

She covered her wet eyes, whispering something broken
and hoarse under her breath, though he couldn’t tell what it was. He coughed,
forcing the last bit out, needing to get it over and done with before the knot
in his throat choked him off completely. “I should have bled out, but somehow I
managed to drag myself away. At least what was left of me. I spent three days
hiding out in the woods before I recovered from my wounds. And while I was out
there, freezing my ass off, I realized that I’d gone about it all wrong. If I
left Mueller and his men alive, they were just going to keep on doing what
they’d done to us to a whole new group of kids. So I went back and let the
predator that lives inside me take its revenge. I hunted them down, one by one,
and ripped them to pieces. But I saved Mueller for last.”

For a long time the only sound in the room was that of
their soft, ragged breathing, and then she finally said, “I hope you made it
count when you killed him.”

With a jerky nod, Aiden locked his jaw, trying to
brace himself for the blow. The brush-off. He knew it had to be coming, any
moment now. She was probably too polite to tell him what she thought to his
face. But she’d bow out with some murmured excuse. Then find a way to keep a
careful distance between them from that point on. Eventually act as if he
didn’t even exist.

He waited…and waited, his body sweat-slick and hot
beneath his clothes, as if he were burning with fever. But she didn’t turn
away. Didn’t leave.

Instead, she came toward him, her energy hitting him
like a blast of electricity, tingling and warm. He stiffened, his muscles
coiled for flight. And yet his feet stayed rooted to the ground, even as she
came closer…and closer. He shook. Trembled. But he couldn’t move. Couldn’t run.

“I don’t know how you could think you’re not fit to
touch me,” she said in a soft, tender spill of words. Heat crawled up his
spine, curling around his shoulders…the backs of his ears, chasing away the
painful chills. “You’re the one who’s strong. Who fought to survive something
that would have crushed most people. You’re the one with something to be proud
of, Aiden. If anything, I’m the one who’s not fit to touch you.”

He felt himself swaying toward her, his brain fuzzy…thick.
“Huh,” he breathed out, shaking his head.

She stared deep into his eyes with that wild, hypnotic
power that made him feel as if she was seeing right inside him. “What?” she
whispered.

“It’s just that…you never react the way that I think
you will. The way you should. It’s like you’re…I dunno.” He shook his head
again, not knowing what to make of her. He’d been so sure of how she’d
react…and now she’d gone and knocked him on his ass again. “I don’t get it,
Liv. It’s not right.”

She took a step closer, so beautiful and sweet it hurt
just to look at her. “Am I supposed to blame you for being strong and
surviving, Aiden?”

He took a deep, shuddering breath, his face prickling
with the blood rush that came just before you passed out. He didn’t know what
to make of the chaos swarming through his system—but there was something so
much more powerful than lust fueling these strange new emotions awakening
inside him. Something more potent…and infinitely more dangerous.

“You should be disgusted by my weakness. By my
mistakes. Those kids died because of me.” There was no heat in the words. It
was just a quiet, desolate statement of fact.

“God, Aiden, that’s not true! You were a child
yourself. The only disgust I feel is for those monsters who hurt you. I feel
nothing but absolute pride in you for being so strong. For growing up into the
kind of man who could survive something like that without letting it blacken
his soul.”

One second she was wrapping her slender arms around
his trembling body, and in the next, Aiden was attacking her. There really
wasn’t any other word to describe the fierce intensity of his actions. His
hands were all over her, his mouth claiming hers in a wild, explicit kiss that
was hot and wet and savagely hungry. The only thing that made it okay was the
fact that she was kissing him back.

With his long fingers curled around her biceps, he
turned, shoving her against the nearest wall. “Damn it,” he gasped, nipping at
her bottom lip, the salty taste of her tears only fueling his desperation. He
grabbed her ass and lifted her off the ground, forcing her thighs to part as he
lodged himself against her, grinding his denim-covered cock against her soft,
tender core. “I’m being too rough again.”

“Don’t stop,” she panted, wrapping her legs around his
hips. “I love you like this.”

His heart stuttered on the L word, even though he knew
she meant it in a sexual sense. But the damage had been done. All that
devastating angst that had been twisting him up inside turned into a raw,
explosive sexual aggression that nearly floored him, ripping through him like a
tidal wave. She knew his darkest, most shameful secret, and yet she still
wanted him. He couldn’t get his head around it. Couldn’t get it to compute.

And the way she looked at him when he stopped kissing
her long enough to check her expression, keeping his face close to hers, simply
blew his mind. It was almost as if she…cared. Even after everything that he’d
told her. She was so open, her emotions just blazing there on her beautiful
face like a neon sign. All that heat and shimmering warmth just spilling out,
melting him down.

In a distant part of his brain Aiden could hear
someone shouting for him to wake up and take a reality check, but he was too
far gone to care. Too desperate to heed its warnings.

Burrowing his face in the crook of her shoulder, he
pressed his open mouth against the side of her throat, flicking his tongue
against the warm, salty sweetness of her flesh. He loved how she smelled. How
she tasted. Loved how different her body was from his own. Soft where he was hard.
Tender and pale where he was rugged and dark.

His heartbeat roared in his ears as he kissed his way
back up to her mouth, and with his lips against hers, he said, “Get rid of your
sweater.”

She complied instantly, breathing in a sharp, excited
rush as she reached for the hem of her sweater, yanking it over her head. He
moved back a little so that she could have room to reach behind her back and
unhook her bra, the satiny scrap of satin falling to the floor.