Soul Deep: Dark Souls, Book 2 (18 page)

It wasn’t enough. She wanted more, needed him closer still. As close as two people could get.
 

Forgetting everything but the fire in her blood, she raised her leg to grip his thigh. He groaned and crushed her greedily against him. She felt every exquisite muscle, every hard ridge of his body beneath the maddening clothing that divided them.
 

Suddenly she wanted it gone. She wanted to feel nothing but naked flesh against naked flesh. She wanted no barriers between them. No doubts or regrets.

She undid the clasp of his pants, and he reciprocated by ripping off her sleeve. An eager sound issued from deep within his throat. He placed his palm on the console to steady himself, applied a little too much pressure, and one of the legs moaned in protest. Then the damn thing broke, sending Regan sliding into him. With a muted gasp, she gripped him by the neck to keep from falling.

“Jesus.” He hunched his shoulders and held on to her.
 

Regan tugged at the buttons of his shirt, eager to return to the business of getting him naked, but he seized her hands. “I don’t think this is such a great idea. We’re liable to do some serious damage.”

Something told her he wasn’t referring to the furniture. “Marcus, if you stop now, I swear I’ll kill you.”

His hot, ragged breath singed her cheek. “You’ve already destroyed me.” His voice was gruff, taut with pain. “You’ve stripped away my honor, my loyalty. What else is left?”

She refused to let the moment pass. Yanking at his shirt, she made a couple of buttons pop. “Your clothes.”

His head fell forward, and for one unsteady heartbeat she was sure she’d won, that he was going to kiss her again. But he peeled her off him and took a defensive step back. Staring at her swollen mouth, he shook his head regretfully. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

For the third time that day, Marcus knocked on his son’s door. He’d made a mistake sending Ben over here—not because he didn’t trust Adrian with the boy, but because he didn’t trust himself with Regan. Being alone with her was more dangerous than a thousand blades dipped in angel’s blood, more perilous than copper shackles or the turbulent sea.

Even now he fought the overpowering urge to return to her and finish what they’d started. Nothing had ever felt as good as Regan wrapped in his arms, gazing up at him with that smoldering look in her eyes, her sumptuous mouth waiting expectantly for his kiss.

He groaned inwardly, wondered what was taking Adrian so damn long to answer the door. He needed a distraction, fast, or he’d turn around and head back to the townhouse, where he’d undoubtedly make the greatest mistake of his life.

If he made love to Regan, there would be no turning back. His life as a Watcher would be officially over, and he’d be left to flounder again. The minute Cal cut him off, the darkness would spread inside him until it completely took him over. His connection to his lost humanity was tenuous at best. Without the Watchers’ bond to anchor him, he could lose it entirely.

The door finally swung open, and Marcus breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m here for Ben,” he said, stalking past his son in search of the kid.

“He’s in the den playing video games.”

Marcus shot Adrian a curious glance. “What are you doing with video games?”

“Most of the Hybrids here were teenagers when I recruited them. I had no choice but to
get with the times
.” His son assessed him with his gaze. “What happened to you? You look like hell.”

“Gee thanks.” He refrained from telling him that he and Regan had nearly trashed unit 10C in a frantic attempt to get at each other.
 

“Come in, have a seat,” Adrian invited. “I’ll get the boy.”

Marcus sat at the round wooden table in the breakfast nook, while Adrian left to retrieve Ben. He returned a few seconds later, with nothing more than an apologetic look and a shrug. “He completely ignored me. I’m not even sure he heard me. I could try planting a suggestion if you want—”

“That won’t be necessary. He’ll come when he’s ready.” Marcus was in no hurry. The longer he stayed away from Regan, the better.

His son circled the table awkwardly, not bothering to sit down. “I’d offer you a beer, but I don’t think it would do much good.”

Their kind metabolized alcohol so quickly, it failed to have any impact on them. “I’ll take it anyway.”

Adrian went to the fridge and pulled out two icy bottles, dropping one on the table in front of Marcus, then claiming the seat across from him. “So are you going to tell me what’s going on? What happened to send you running from the Watchers?”

Marcus had no desire to rehash the whole sordid ordeal. “It’s a long story.”

“I’ve got time.” Adrian brought the bottle to his mouth, took a swig of the beer.

Silence stretched between them. Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t awkward or unsettling. His son had a patient quality about him, as though he could wait forever and never grow bored or restless. His gaze was sharp and penetrating, yet calm and appeasing.

“Stop trying to read me,” Marcus grunted. “I’m not one of your head cases.”

“We’re all head cases, especially those of us who refuse to admit it.”

Marcus grabbed the beer bottle by the neck and brought it to his mouth. The liquid was cool and soothing, but as expected, it did nothing to numb his senses. Realizing Adrian could sit there for hours staring him down, Marcus finally threw the guy a bone. “Cal thinks the boy needs to be destroyed to keep Kyros from acquiring his soul. Regan decided to protect him, and I—”

“You decided to protect Regan.” Adrian’s matter-of-fact tone was void of condemnation. He’d gone from being judge, jury and executioner to empathetic counselor. It shocked him just how much his son had changed.
 

“Now I think I may have made a colossal mistake.”

Adrian took another swallow of his beer, leaned back in his chair. “Does it feel like a mistake?”

“Honestly?” Marcus loosened his grip on the bottle, afraid he’d pulverize it, given his current mood. “No. But it should.”

“Why? Because Cal tells you so?”

Marcus drank to douse the flare of irritation that erupted within him. “You don’t know how it is between Cal and me. No one does. The man saved me. He’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a—” He trailed off. Adrian was the last person he wanted to speak to about father-son relationships.

“To a father?” Nothing got past Adrian. He was too perceptive for that. “That doesn’t make him right.”

Marcus recalled all the years he’d hunted his son, the blind conviction that Adrian was beyond redemption. He’d been wrong then, and so had Cal.

Could they be wrong again?

“Things happen for a reason,” Adrian tagged on. “Every experience, every encounter, however brief, has the power to change us.” His expression grew distant, deep and thoughtful. “I used to think the world was black and white. That people were either good or evil. That if you were born in darkness you could never walk in the light.”

He raised his eyes to Marcus’s face, and his stare shone with the strength of his belief. “I was wrong. Someone showed me that things aren’t always as they appear, that hope can make all the difference.”

Marcus put the empty beer bottle on the table and focused his full attention on Adrian. “You never told me what happened to her.”

Adrian’s cool, unperturbed veneer splintered. An old wound bled open, and he lapsed into silence. Marcus looked into his son’s troubled eyes and understood. There was one enemy even they couldn’t vanquish, and that was death. “I couldn’t save her,” he finally said. “Despite all my abilities, I was powerless against fate.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Regan busied herself making supper, trying to get her mind off Marcus, which was about as futile as depriving her lungs of air. Her thoughts kept shifting back to the kiss they’d shared, to the rough feel of his hands, to the sweet, musky taste of his mouth.

When she’d conceived her son, the experience had been brief and unmoving. She’d made love to David Cutler out of a sense of gratitude because he’d scraped her off the highway and given her a place to stay. She’d had no idea what she was then, that she could’ve killed him simply by kissing him. Her heart had been cold, her emotions numbed. It wasn’t until the Watchers found her—pregnant and alone—that she’d begun to feel.

Marcus had been the one to recruit her, and right away she’d known the Watchers’ complex was where she belonged. Now she wondered if maybe it wasn’t the Watchers that had triggered a response in her. What if it had been Marcus all along? Something about him had always made her feel safe, like she was exactly where she was meant to be. For some reason, they’d always
fit
. They worked so well together, in fact, that Cal had officially made them a team.

Now, so many years later, she came to a startling revelation. It wasn’t the Watchers’ cause that had attracted her. It was Marcus. She’d had nowhere to go, and by pulling her into his world he’d given her a home.

He
was her home.

Beyond the windows, twilight slowly rolled in. A soft purple haze blanketed the sky. The sun was hidden from view, but its rays continued to throb, giving the clouds a pinkish glow. She wondered how long he was going to stay away.

She knew where he was—at Adrian’s house. She’d gone over there earlier to retrieve Ben, only to feel Marcus’s aura vibrating from within, so she’d promptly turned around and left. Something told her he didn’t want to see her right now, and that knowledge hurt more than it should.

As the pot of pasta boiled, she compulsively chopped vegetables. She’d already warmed the sauce, and the delicious aroma of tomato and basil filled the small kitchen. She hadn’t eaten anything since the burritos earlier that morning, but her stomach rebelled at the thought of food. The darn thing was clamped so tight, she could barely swallow a Tic Tac.

It was bad enough she’d sworn off souls, now she couldn’t even eat a bowl of spaghetti. All because of Marcus and his damn sweet lips.

The door finally swung open, and the man who’d dominated her thoughts for the past two hours sailed in with a pouting Ben in tow.

“I wanted to keep playing,” the boy whined. “Why’d we have to go?”

“Because I said so.” Marcus’s eyes met hers, and her erratic heart forgot to beat. The passion they’d shared earlier hung between them, as palpable as a touch.

“Supper’s almost ready.” She tried to infuse some levity into her voice to break the tension, but the stubborn thing refused to relent.

Ben scuttled into the kitchen, grabbing a carrot from her chopping block.

“Did you have a good time?” she asked him. The whole scene felt so domestic she almost laughed. Anything to relieve the persistent pressure that hovered in the atmosphere, fueled by Marcus’s commanding presence.

“I learned how to play video games!” Ben’s childish excitement reminded her that despite his powerful, potentially destructive soul, he was still just a little boy. “Adrian’s got tons of them. It was so much fun. When can I go back?”

Great. It looked like Marcus’s rogue son had a new fan. Ben practically ran circles around her. Regan almost lost her balance when he jostled her. “Whoa, take it easy there, kiddo.”

She pulled the pot of pasta off the burner and proceeded to dump it in the strainer. She wasn’t much of a cook. Back at the Watchers’ complex, the task of keeping the masses fed was assigned to those less gifted at battle. Regan’s days were normally spent in the training arena, not the kitchen.

Ben climbed up on a wooden stool to sit at the counter. “Is it ready? I’m hungry.”

“Almost.”

She could hear Marcus shuffling around the house, probably attempting to fix the console they’d nearly reduced to a pulp. He hadn’t said a word to her since he’d walked through the door, hadn’t even bothered to nod a hello. Frustration coiled within her. Would it kill him to acknowledge her existence?

She tried to fork the spaghetti into a bowl, but the strands were so clumpy, they remained bundled together.

Ben added insult to injury by laughing at her. “You cooked it too much. Now it’s sticky.”

Regan furrowed her forehead. “I did exactly what it said on the package, followed the directions to the letter.”

“Just rinse it and throw it back in the pot with some oil or butter.” The sudden sound of Marcus’s voice startled her, made her pulse sprint and her throat seal shut. “That should help some.”

She angled a glance over her shoulder to find him standing right behind her. Heat spilled off his body to seep into hers. “How do you know so much about cooking?”

“A guy learns a thing or two when he’s been around as long as I have.”

She fought the urge to turn and face him. Instead, she did as she was told, rinsing out the spaghetti, then tossing it back in the pot and sprinkling some oil over it.

“I never could picture you in an apron.” His breath flirted across the nape of her neck, where a few tendrils of hair had fallen loose from her ponytail.

“I’m not wearing an apron.”

“You know what I mean.”

Losing the battle, she pivoted on her heels to find herself trapped between the counter and his imposing frame. Her heart performed a series of backflips in her chest. “I bet there are lots of ways you never pictured me.” The taunt was meant to unsettle him, and she achieved her goal.