Whispers in the Dark - Maya Banks [146]
“Yeah. I’m going to be working with my brothers from now on. There’s a possibility I could be injured. You and I talked about this, about the dangers I face working for KGI.”
She nodded solemnly.
“You can’t be butting in and taking my pain for me,” he said sternly. “You have to promise me, Shea. No more.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re so full of shit.”
His eyes widened and then he grinned. “Feeling feisty tonight, are we?”
“If you’d shut up and take me inside, I’d show you just how feisty,” she murmured in his ear just before she nipped at the lobe.
“Whoa, wait a minute. You aren’t distracting me from my original purpose. I want your promise, Shea.”
“You aren’t getting it, Nathan.”
He glared ferociously at her, but she merely smiled back and slid her hands down to cup him intimately. He was already hard and bulging against his jeans.
“So this is how it’s going to be,” he grumbled. “You distract me with sex anytime you don’t want to do something I’ve asked you.”
“Is it working?”
“Hell yes.”
He abruptly got up from the swing, carrying her with him as he headed toward the door. She reached out to open it and he shouldered his way inside.
He carried her into their bedroom and dropped her on the bed, coming down over her, covering her with his warm, hard body.
She stared up at him, all the love she felt shining in her eyes. It swelled in her chest and overwhelmed her with its power. She loved this man more than anything. He’d gone to the wall for her. He’d known and accepted from the very start that they were destined to be together. Not a day went by that he didn’t make her feel loved and cherished beyond measure.
Life was so very good, all the more sweet for everything they’d endured together.
She lifted her hands to his face and smiled up at him. “Just think. You’ll get a reputation as a pushover.”
He kissed her and then nibbled a path down her neck before pulling back to smile down at her with answering love and adoration. “I think I can live with that.”
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GRACE Peterson drew the blanket tighter around her and huddled in the dark. She stared blankly at the star-filled sky. The mountain air was cold. Not just chilly, as it had been as dusk had descended, wiping away the comfortable remnants of a sunny afternoon. It was frigid.
A low moan escaped as her muscles tightened and protested not only the cold but the weakness inflicted upon them by so much death and sickness. Pain had long since lost any meaning to her. What she felt couldn’t really be considered pain. It was worse. She couldn’t feel anything but the desolation of hopelessness and despair. The knowledge that she would probably die from the horrors inflicted upon her. And perhaps she deserved it, for she hadn’t been able to help all who had been thrust upon her.
Her escape had been a fluke. The mistake of one of the men charged with her care. Though it couldn’t really be considered care. They’d shown her no regard. She’d been treated like an inanimate object. Some magic wand they waved at a wound or an illness and expected her to make it all disappear.
She hated them for that. Hated them for their callousness. For using others as they’d used her. Pawns. Objects to provide them with information. They weren’t even people. Just numbers.
Another shiver rattled her teeth and settled deep into her bones. She simply couldn’t imagine ever being warm again. She curled her feet further into the blanket and tucked the ends securely under her chin.
She missed her sister, Shea. Ached for the comfort of her touch. The brush of her mind and the image of her smile. She hadn’t ever really understood and hadn’t ever taken seriously Shea’s decision for them to separate. Until the day she’d been captured and she realized that if they’d been together, they would have both been taken.
Shea had always been determined to keep Grace safe, but now, Grace was equally determined to keep Shea as far away from her as possible. Grace was hunted. She knew her