Spirit Bound - Christine Feehan [32]
She was afraid—for him. She was afraid of herself. And that told him so much more than anything she might have admitted aloud. She held great power and was unused to wielding it. So what was it? What could she fear?
“We’ll be okay, Judith,” he assured, the compulsion to be that man for her, the one man she could tell the truth to without fear. He needed to be the man to free her from that clawing fear she held so tight inside of her. He’d never had the need to protect anyone or save anyone. What was it about her that got to him?
She shook and ducked her head, but not before he caught the sudden terror in her eyes. She looked away only a moment and then she was back, but he had already seen the real Judith.
Her shoulders straightened, her chin went up, and her eyes met his courageously. “I’m not a good woman, Thomas. Whatever this thing is between us, you have to know it can’t go anywhere. It won’t go anywhere. You seem like a decent man. I’ll work with you if you really are interested in purchasing the gallery, and I’m willing to show you around, but you have to know that’s all it can ever be.”
He was fiercely attracted to her physically. Drawn to her psychic power—whatever that was—but now something else crept in and made being in her company all the more dangerous. And all the more necessary. Admiration. Respect. And he was drowning in the need to be a better man. The kind of hero who rode on white horses and rescued beautiful women with sorrow-filled eyes.
Sadly, Stefan Prakenskii was no such man. He was the kind of man who deceived women, targeted them, used them as tools of his trade and cast them aside without much thought. He didn’t even reside in the same world a woman like Judith lived in. She might think she wasn’t a good woman, but she’d shown her vulnerability to him and a man like Stefan leapt at that opening. Took it and used it.
He didn’t worry that Petr Ivanov would show undue interest in Judith, because he would believe Stefan was cementing his cover story by using a woman. Women were such easy targets, so vulnerable to a man preying on them—a man such as Stefan. He could read his quarry, every expression, the body language, and he was practiced and smooth at knowing exactly the right thing to say. Ivanov would expect him to use a local woman to insert himself into village life.
“I understand. I don’t know what it is between us, Judith,” he said, his left palm itching until he couldn’t help but run it down his thigh before he made a fool of himself and cupped her breasts right through all that tempting red silk. Even with her declaration—or maybe because of it—he had an urgent desire to lean that scant few inches that separated them to taste her mouth.
“I don’t expect anything to happen, but I won’t believe that you’re not a good woman. I have a sixth sense about these things.” That might be something Thomas Vincent would say. Stefan Prakenskii would have taken what he wanted—and he wanted Judith. The wanting was turning into something very dangerous.
Abruptly he dropped his arm and stepped back. He refused to be ensnared. Whatever small part that was left of his humanity was not going to be stripped from him. He forced himself back into the role of bashful Thomas, knowing that man was far safer for both of them.
Judith Henderson was forcing him to evaluate his life, to reassess what he wanted. He’d been all over the world and on some level, without realizing, he’d been searching for something to give meaning to life. He was a machine residing in the shadows and now, looking at her, he realized there was a glimmer of hope still left in him. His trainers hadn’t quite stamped out every bit of him. There was that tiny spark left. A glowing ember, no more, but it was there, hidden from sight, but still valiantly smoldering.
“I’ll walk you to your car.” It was necessary to establish that Thomas Vincent was a man who would walk a woman to a car, or to her front door, looking