Spider Game (44 page)

He yanked open the door and at the last minute called out his name so Pepper or Nonny or both wouldn’t shoot him. He didn’t break stride as he went into the house. Pepper moved away from the door, her face lighting up when she saw him and then darkening to a frown when she
really
saw him. She bit her lower lip and stepped aside.

“Trap, Cayenne’s fine. She just has bruises and a few stitches.”

Pepper tried to soothe him, but he barely registered her voice. He couldn’t assimilate her reassurance. There was no way to calm the deadly beast rising like the molten lava in a volcano. He tried to breathe it away because now it was in his belly, hot and ugly, swirling like the fireball it was, spreading through those various cracks so there was no dam that could possibly stop them.

He moved unerringly through the house, his footsteps utterly silent. In his ears, his heart thundered. Roared. The jackhammers were back, driving deep into his skull with every step he took. The scent of blood was heavy, mingling with Cayenne’s fragrance. That sent the rage swirling a notch higher. The blood scent nearly obliterated Cayenne’s beautiful exotic natural perfume just as the bullets had almost taken her from him.

Nonny stood in the door of his old bedroom, but after taking one look at his face, she reached inside the room, caught Malichai’s arm and tugged. Malichai filled the doorway, opened his mouth and closed it, reading Trap’s darkened face and the lines carved deep. Both stepped outside the room and aside, allowing him to brush past them. They wisely closed the door, leaving him alone with her.

Cayenne was in his bed – the bed he’d lain in for four long months. He’d dreamt of her being in that bed. Fantasized about her being there. Jacked off thinking about her and what he’d do to her – all in that bed. Now she was sitting up in the damn,
fucking
bed, smiling up at him as if nothing had happened. As if she didn’t have a care in the world. All around her was the aftermath of her surgery. The empty bags of fluid and blood. Her bloody clothes shredded and on the floor. More blood – all hers – saturating the cloths they’d used to try to stem it.

“What the
fuck
do you think you were doing?” The words hissed out of his mouth. Low. Lethal. It felt like an explosion in his chest. His chest hurt more than any injury in his life had ever hurt him, and he’d had plenty.

Cayenne frowned at him. She studied his face for a long time. He remained still, just inside the door, every muscle locked in place.

“Are you angry with me, Trap?”

She sounded shocked. Innocent. As if she didn’t know she was his entire world and she’d nearly allowed a bullet to take her from him. He wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled.

“What the fuck do you think, Cayenne?” He bit the words out, enunciating each. His breath came fast, as if he was running through the swamp again, running to keep those soldiers off of her.

Trap leapt across the room and yanked up the thin tee she was wearing. One of his old ones he’d carelessly left behind when he’d packed to move to his new home. Packed to move wherever the hell Cayenne was, because even then, he knew she was home.

“
Hell
yes, I’m angry. Have you
looked
at your body? That bruise covers your entire chest.
Both
breasts.” He yanked the covers down to expose her legs. “Your thigh. You could have been killed.”

She touched her tongue to her top lip. Then outlined her bottom lip. He wanted to lean down and bite that full lower lip and if she kept it up, that was exactly what she was going to get. Hard. He was going to bite that lip hard and leave his mark on her.

“Trap.” Cayenne said his name gently. “I’m perfectly fine. If I hadn’t covered Nonny like I did, they would have killed her. They weren’t only coming after me. I feel things and their energy hit me before the bullet was fired. I had a much better chance of survival than Nonny
.
”

He crouched beside the bed, his face inches from her. “You fucking don’t get to take that chance. Your life isn’t yours anymore. You need to get this right now, Cayenne. I’m not fucking around with you. You belong to somebody. That somebody is
me
. You gave yourself to me. You let me believe I could fucking live again, not just exist. Not walk around like a fucking zombie. I could live.
You
did that. That gives you responsibility to keep yourself alive. Not throw your ass in front of bullets because you think you’re fucking invincible. You’re not.”

“Trap.” She whispered his name, reached out to touch his face.

He couldn’t bear her touch. Not right then. He would shatter into a million pieces if she touched him. He batted her hand away.

“Don’t try to sweet talk your way out of this. If you didn’t have bruises all over you, I’d bend you over the bed and use a fucking strap on you. You wouldn’t sit comfortably for a couple of weeks and maybe you’d think about what a fuckup this was every time you tried.”

She touched her tongue to her upper lip and then moistened her full lower lip with her tongue. He was up abruptly, pacing away from her, fury riding him so hard he shook with it. She just sat there, looking innocent. Not comprehending the enormity of what she’d done. Not understanding what she was to him.
Not feeling the same way
.

“I have to get out of here. I’ll be back to get you in a little while.”

“I’m going with you.” Cayenne flung the covers all the way from her body and swung her legs off the bed to the floor.

“You’re not.” He glanced over his shoulder and nearly froze. Every muscle locked in place. Her face was set in stubborn lines. That beautiful face, heart-shaped, her silken skin inviting touch. Eyes large, a vibrant green framed with impossibly long, thick, black lashes. Straight nose and that exotic, perfect mouth. Her chin was up in a line that challenged any man.

“I am.”

The roaring in his head increased. “You don’t have one fucking ounce of self-preservation in you, do you?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. Lifted one hand to the mass of dark hair falling around her face, down her back and pooling on the sheets. Her hand actually shook, and the vulnerability there on her face and in that action caused his heart to seize in his chest.

“I had to sit here knowing you were out there, Trap, with soldiers I brought here. Soldiers bent on killing everyone. Soldiers you were facing in the swamp while I was lounging around in a bed. So, yes, I’m going with you, and I’m going to make certain I have you in my sights for as long as it takes to get rid of this terror inside of me.”

She stood up. Trembled. He was there instantly, settling his hands around her upper arms. His fingers closed around her silken skin. He felt the movement of muscle beneath his vise-like grip, but she didn’t pull away from him. She was cold, as she often was and actually leaned into his body for warmth and shelter.

His heart contracted. Hard. Tight. He tightened his grip on her, not knowing what he was going to do. Not trusting himself. For the first time, he was afraid for her. Really afraid. She’d made him open himself to her. She became part of his life. Not just part. She became his life. She acted instinctively and she’d almost been killed. That was a part of her character.

She’d lived in a little cell thinking of herself as not human. As an experiment to be studied. She’d been pitted against teams of trained soldiers determined to kill her, and she’d come out the victor. She was fearless in battle.

“Damn it, Cayenne, you aren’t disposable. Your life is worth something. Everything. You can’t keep thinking the way you do.”

She tilted her chin at him, her green eyes searching his face. Brooding. Moody. Those lashes fanned the high cheekbones concealing the brilliant green of her eyes and raised again to reveal multifacets. Gems of emerald. His breath caught in his throat. This woman was his. She was his everything, and she went into battle prepared to die. Fearless because she didn’t believe she had anything to lose.

“You have
me
to lose, Cayenne,” he corrected. “You die, and what the fuck do you think is going to happen to me? You can’t give a man who had nothing everything, and then take it away from him. You don’t get to do that. I lived in a void. It was a kind of hell, and maybe I thought I belonged there because I didn’t die with my family. I believed for so long I didn’t deserve a damn thing because if I hadn’t lived, they wouldn’t have touched my aunt. I had nothing.
Nothing.
Do you fucking understand that? I had nothing until you gave me you.”

She took a breath. He could see her pulse pounding in her throat. He wanted to bend down and lick it. Taste her skin. Taste her passion. But he couldn’t because she’d been shot. Twice.

“The thing is, Trap,” she said softly, “I
do
understand. You’re not in this alone. I had nothing. I lived in a void, a kind of hell. Maybe I thought I belonged there because I was convinced by everyone around me that I wasn’t human. I believed I didn’t deserve anything at all. Until you saw me. The human. Until you chose me. I had nothing to live for. I had nothing at all, until you gave me you. So please don’t tell me I don’t understand. You were out there, in danger. You pushed aside all feeling and you did your job. When you did it, you weren’t thinking about whether or not you could be killed and what would happen to me if you did. You simply did what you were trained to do. You aren’t less than me. I don’t love you less.”

His heart clenched so hard he thought it might shatter.
Love.
There it was. She said it. Brought it right out into the open. He had skirted carefully around that particular word and the terrible emotion it conjured up. A single word couldn’t describe the way he felt about her. There was no getting around it. The powerful, overwhelming emotion he felt for her had to be love and more. More than love. Worship maybe. Whatever, she couldn’t leave him.

He didn’t know if he was steadying her or himself when he pulled her closer to him, when he fit her small body against his side. It wasn’t the revelation of how she felt that got to him. It was her voice. That soft, shaky admission. Close to tears. The revelation of love. Of fear. No, not just fear. A soul-shattering terror. It was there in her voice. In her mind.

Cayenne always gave him everything without reservation. She wasn’t ashamed of her feelings or what that exposed to him. She didn’t care that by knowing how she felt, he might have power over her. She just gave him everything. Straight up.

His hand moved over her face, brushing aside her hair. “Baby.” He said it softly. “I can’t breathe right now.”

“Then kiss me and I’ll breathe for you,” she whispered back. In that voice. The one that could turn a roomful of decent men into a pack of salivating hounds. The one that sent fingers of desire dancing up his thighs and down his spine to spread through his bloodstream straight to his cock.

He didn’t deny either of them. He
needed
to kiss her. More than he needed to draw air into his lungs, he had to kiss her. He bent his head and took her mouth. She opened to him instantly. He didn’t take her along for the ride on the kiss, she participated fully. Her lips were soft, his were hard. She was cool. He was hot. His mouth melted her as he took possession, his tongue stroking along hers. She had paid close attention every time he kissed her or touched her and she learned fast.

They exchanged breath. Air. Passion. He felt it, the rage retreating under the force of her love. Of her giving. She gutted him with her kiss. With her love.

You give me everything. All of you. I can taste you in my mouth. In my lungs. You’re wrapped around my heart. Stamped into my bones.
He gave her that because she deserved to know. She had to know.
Baby, you can’t risk yourself. I wouldn’t survive the loss. Not intact. You have to give me this.

Trap.
She kissed him again, melting into him.
I would give you anything. I want to give you what you’re asking, but you aren’t being logical.

Fuck logic.
He lifted his head, his hand spanning her throat, his thumb on her jaw, holding her head still. “Fuck logic,” he said aloud for emphasis.

That little tongue of hers came out again, moistening her lips. Lips swollen from his kisses. “I have to be me. I’m a warrior, just like you. I have to be me. You have to love that part of me, Trap, just like I love all of you. Was I terrified for you? Yes. Did I know you had to do it? Yes. Did I believe in you? Yes.”

“It isn’t about believing in you.” He raked his free hand through his hair, wanting to fist it and tug in sheer frustration. “I can’t do this with you in danger.”

“Yes, you can. You have to. Because we’re always going to be in danger,” she said. “When we have children, they’ll be in danger. You have to trust us. Trust me that I know what I’m doing just like you know.”

“They have armor-piercing bullets. You think they aren’t going to use them?”

“They did. That’s why the bullet penetrated almost completely through the silk, but Trap, I knew it would. I’ve been shot before. Did you think they hadn’t used them on me when I was in that maze with them? They tried everything. I couldn’t let Nonny die. I won’t be able to do anything but stand in front of our children either. That’s who I am.”

“Fuck.”
The word exploded out of him.

“Trap.”

That was her answer. That would always be her answer. He could dictate, and he knew he would, but she would go her own way when she believed she was right. The rest of the time she’d give him everything.

He repeated the expletive several more times. She kept her eyes on his. He shook his head. “We do this your way, baby, and you’re fucking locked to my side. And by that I mean you go where I go, and you do what I say when we’re out in public. You have any more cooking lessons I’m there, not
cute
fucking Malichai. You got that?”

Her green eyes moved over his face. Soft. Warm. Loving. Turning his heart over. Making it stutter hard in his chest. A slow smile curved her mouth. That beautiful mouth he was putting to work the moment they got home.