He told her then, all of it, holding on to her hand, his voice a soft, compassionate caress, his thumb stroking back and forth across the back of her hand.
She kept her head down, long hair spilling around her face so he couldn’t see her expression, but he was in her mind, trying to surround her with warmth, with love, with everything protective in him. She remained very still, even in her mind, as if she was afraid that if she moved, she’d shatter.
Baby.
He breathed the endearment, tempted to pull the car over to the side of the road and hold her tight. She didn’t want him to though, he read that much. She needed time to assimilate what he’d told her.
“You’re absolutely certain?”
“He told me himself.”
“Mom doesn’t know any of this?”
“No.” He brought her hand to his chin and rubbed his jaw back and forth in an effort to comfort her.
“Good. I don’t want her to ever find out.” She looked at him then and he saw raw pain in her eyes. “Can you find out if my birth mother really is dead?”
“Whitney keeps files, and Lily has access to them using some complicated back door to a computer I don’t understand. I’ll ask her to start looking. If he has records on you, and I’ll bet any amount of money that he does, she’ll find them.”
She gripped his hand tighter. He felt her in his mind. “Did you kill him? Is that why we had to leave so fast?”
“I wanted to,” he admitted quietly, wishing he could feel remorse or shame. The man was her father. “For a minute I thought I might. But I think he’s punished himself more than I ever could. And he does love you, Tansy. He certainly loves his wife.”
“Don’t tell me he loves me. He didn’t love me.”
“It feels that way right now, baby, but when you look back over the years you had with him, you’ll know he couldn’t fake the way he treated you. He loved you.”
“But he didn’t want to risk what he had to save the rest of the girls, or to find out if my birth mother was alive or dead or even murdered by Whitney.” Her fingers fisted in his shirt. “He would have had Fredrickson turn me over to Whitney if I’d gone back.”
“He wouldn’t have had a choice. Fredrickson would have been willing to kill everyone to take you back to Whitney.”
“You wouldn’t have wanted to kill him if he had been trying to save my mother. You would have understood. It was more than that.”
He didn’t know what to say to ease her pain, and he cursed his lack of words when she needed . . .
something.
“I’m sorry, Tansy.”
He wished he could take her pain on himself. He would have done anything for her, but instead he could only feel helpless. “I put a pillow there between the seats so you could lie down if you wanted.” He willed her to close her eyes and rest. They had a long day ahead of them and she was worn out.
Tansy didn’t reply, but she did straighten the pillow and lie down, her head against his hip. He stroked little caresses over her hair while he drove through the night. She didn’t sleep for a long time. He had been afraid she’d cry, but when she didn’t, it felt worse to him.
In her mind, Tansy withdrew from him. Even connected as he was, he could feel her huddling in a corner as far from him as possible, too hurt to trust anything or anyone. And he couldn’t blame her. Don Meadows had been her hero, the man who rescued her from Whitney, and all along he’d been keeping Whitney’s dark secret.
Kadan drove through the night, keeping one hand on her, insisting on the one connection when she was so far away. It took her a couple of hours to drift into a fitful sleep. By the time he’d pulled up to the house, she was in a much deeper sleep, and he was able to carry her inside and put her on the bed. He stretched out beside her and finally closed his eyes, wrapping both arms around her to keep safe, even in her dreams.
CHAPTER 14
Kadan woke with his arms filled with warmth, and the scent of cinnamon and sin surrounding him. His body throbbed with a monster hard-on, his shaft full to the point of pain as he lay curved around Tansy. He kept very still, breathing through need, disgusted that he could be dripping like a rutting animal, hot and thick, pressed so tight against the soft, tempting curve of her bottom, when she was still reeling in shock from the devastating revelations of her father’s betrayal.
What was wrong with him that he couldn’t give her the comfort she needed? He pushed his forehead against the back of her silky head, for the first time in his life really wishing he was different. He’d never cared before. It had never mattered to him to articulate his thoughts and feelings to another human being. He had no family or home, and he’d never believed he would either. And now here she was, soft and warm and smelling of heaven, feeling like paradise against his body, and all he could think about was riding her for hours, instead of finding the right words to comfort her, the right way to hold her, without seeming like all he really wanted was a fast, hard ride.
Sometime in the night he had wrapped his arms around her, his hands cupping her breasts so her nipples pushed into the center of his palms and the soft weight of her lay in invitation. He realized he was rocking his hips gently against her, rubbing his shaft along her buttocks, and he forced himself to stop, breathing deeply to stay in control. Cursing under his breath, he pulled his arms free and rolled away from her. With his groin so full and aching, it was a kind of torment to sit on the edge of the bed and just breathe her in.
He felt her move, felt her awareness, heard the small hitch in her breath as she woke. He didn’t look at her, because if he had, he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from sliding her body under his. Instead, he padded to the bathroom on bare feet and took a long, cold shower that didn’t seem to do anything but make him more uncomfortable.
His jeans seemed tighter than usual and his body didn’t want to cooperate; there was no comfortable place to tuck his hard shaft, but he did his best. Tansy was already up and in the other bathroom, obviously taking a bath. He could smell the fragrance wafting out from behind the half-open door and hear the splash of water as she bathed. He closed his eyes, trying not to see an image of her nude, rising up out of the water, long hair flowing around her like a silvery waterfall.
He stalked into the kitchen and put on coffee, trying to keep his imagination from running wild, thinking about the water beading on her skin and where it might be running. And what the hell had he ever thought about before she came into his life? He used to have a brain; now all he thought about was sex.
He tapped his foot, determined not to go look at her. All that soft skin. The silky hair. Her enormous eyes. Mouth to die for—a mouth made for sin. He found himself at the bathroom door, nudging it open with his foot. He stuck his head in and lost his breath. She was rising up out of the tub, wrapping her hair in a towel. She looked at him, not even making an attempt to cover up, one eyebrow raised in inquiry.
“Uh. Breakfast.” His voice sounded rusty. “I figured you’d be hungry. What would you like to eat?” Because he’d like to eat her. Or have her eat him. Hell. He was losing it. He had to solve a murder, not turn into a teenage walking hard-on.
“Oh, that sounds great. I’m really hungry.” She bent over to pick up the folded towel resting on the vanity, her breasts spilling forward. Small beads of water ran down the soft curves and dripped from her nipples to the floor.
Kadan licked his lips. There seemed to be a strange roaring in his head, and if he didn’t adjust his jeans soon, the seams were going to burst. “Egg preference?”
She straightened and shook out the towel. Tiny droplets of water traveled down the valley between her breasts, across her tempting belly, to find the vee of white gold curls at the junction of her legs. He caught himself staring, wanting to drop to his knees and sink his tongue in her. She seemed oblivious, running the towel along the curves of her body, soaking up the tiny water drops.
“Anything is fine, but I really like scrambled.”
“Scrambled it is, then.”
Kadan left her because she had a small, sexy smile on her face, and was barely rubbing the towel over her skin, and he was going to ruin a good pair of jeans and embarrass himself. He stomped down the hall back to the kitchen, wishing he smoked. He slammed a frying pan onto the stove, muttering to himself. His radar went off and he spun around.
Tansy stood in the doorway, one towel in her hand, the other wrapped around her hair, and nothing else. “Have I upset you?”
Kadan shook his head, keeping his gaze on her face, willing his wayward eyes to focus. Unfortunately they focused on her mouth, which did little to help his situation. “Of course not. I’m just feeling a little out of sorts.”
“I don’t mind cooking. I need you to put the game pieces back on the table for me anyway. I’m not a great cook, but I manage.”
Naked. She was going to cook for him without a stitch of clothing on. He wouldn’t survive. “Like that?” Now his voice had dropped to pure smoke.
Tansy looked startled. She glanced down at herself. “No, of course not. I was planning on getting dressed first.” She turned and stormed off, her shoulders stiff.
Now he’d really upset her, and all he could think about was the sway of her ass as she stomped down the hall. Relationships were complicated when they really shouldn’t be. He sighed again and went down to the war room. He may as well set up the pieces before cooking. He needed to get his head straight, and walking into a room with so many victims screaming for justice had a way of reducing everything else to nothing. He might not be good with women, but he knew how to track killers.
She joined him when he’d finished separating the small figurines, using his gloves to ensure no prints or impressions of him transferred to a game piece. She came up behind him, so close he could feel the heat of her body. She smelled so good he wanted to breathe her in.
“I may as well finish the East Coast pieces. I’ve only got one left.”
“Not yet. You need to eat something. Come have your coffee while I cook you some breakfast.” He captured her fingers and tugged, taking her with him, wanting to put off the inevitable as long as possible.
She went with him without protest, making him feel a little better. Nothing had ever rocked his world or gotten under his skin until Tansy. Feeling shaken was a new experience for him. He pulled out her chair, brushing a kiss on top of her head. For the first time she sent him a real smile, one that lit her eyes, and he breathed again. When she was settled with a cup of coffee in her hands, he broke the eggs and began beating them into a frothy brew.
“How does your job work?” Kadan asked. “Did
National Geographic
hire you to take pictures for them?”
She shook her head. “I do freelance work. In this case, they picked up an article and photographs I did for them last year and loved it, knew I was still studying the cougar, and agreed in advance to help fund me. I was pretty thrilled. I had a great tutor in photography, and I’ve slowly been acquiring a reputation, but this was a huge break for me. But no, technically, they don’t employ me.”
“Who knew you were up in the Sierras?” Kadan asked. Now that his brain was working again, something was nagging at the back of his mind.
She took a sip of coffee and frowned at him over the cup. “My parents knew. And Charlie, at
National Geographic.
Well, he didn’t know where I was exactly, only that I was filming mountain lions.” She put down the coffee mug and leaned her chin into her palm. “How did you track me to the Sierras? I mean, it’s a big mountain range. How did you know I was at that exact location?”
“There was no way you were going to go anywhere without contacting your parents. Everything I read about you told me you wouldn’t go more than a few days without letting them know you were okay, even if you were in Africa somewhere shooting pictures.”
Tansy swept her hair back from her face. “So you just waited until I called home and traced the signal back to me.”
He shrugged. “It was easy enough. But no one else was watching your parents. I would have known.”
“Why is it important?”
“Your father said something to me that just keeps nagging at me.” He put the eggs in front of her and placed the other dish across from her. He sank down across the table from her and picked up his fork. “For just a moment let’s set aside the killers we’re tracking. They can’t know I was sent to find you. But someone knew where you were, and I don’t think they followed me.”
“Why? You can make mistakes,” she teased.
He forked eggs into his mouth, frowning as he chewed. “Not like that. I thought, at first, that they were after me. They were there to get you. To kill you. They weren’t going to bring you back to Whitney.”
She sat up straighter. “I thought they were men Whitney sent to get me, or someone who wanted you dead because of this investigation.”
“I imagine a lot of people would like to see me dead, but as far as I know, only the general asked me to clear up this murder mess. Everyone else thinks I’m involved in a different type of mission. So no, the killers weren’t there to stop me, they had to be there to kill you and I just happened to be in their way.”
“Who would want me dead besides Whitney?”
“Whitney doesn’t want you dead, honey, he wants babies out of you. And if I’d been thinking with my head and not my cock, I would have realized that immediately. He wants a baby out of us. You might not have been paired with me, but I was definitely paired with you. He wants our two talents bred into a child.”
She swallowed hard. “That’s sick, Kadan. What if I do get pregnant?”
He laid his hand over hers. “He’ll never take our child. We’re building a fortress in the mountains. We’ll have escape tunnels and routes and protections, so much so that it will be difficult for anyone to get to us. You’d be safe there and so would our child.”
His tone was the same as always, that low, velvet conviction that made her a believer. “So if the murderers we’re tracking didn’t know you were investigating them and Whitney doesn’t want me dead, who does?”