“Is there? More going on between you?”
Her gorge rose. “I’d rather set my vulva on fire.”
Did one corner of Angel’s mouth twitch? “I take it that as a no?”
“That is a hell no. I’ll spend the rest of my life rotting away in an eight-by-ten before I touch so much as a hair on that man’s…” Since Grafton didn’t have any hair on his head, she finished with “chin.”
Silence filled the kitchen after that little display of feeling. Then Angel took a step toward her.
She instinctively retreated. Angel projected an aura that said he knew one hundred different ways to kill a person with his bare hands.
He lifted those very hands in the air, palms out. “Are you afraid of me?”
“Yeah. Duh.”
“I will not hurt you, Sonya.”
She looked into his eyes and saw a million secrets. Secrets she would never uncover. But one thing he didn’t try to hide was the truth of his words.
“Do you believe me?” he asked.
“Yes.” Like before, her mouth answered without permission from her brain. “But I don’t know why.”
If it were possible for Angel’s fiercely intelligent face to soften—which she wasn’t sure it was—it would have happened then. Instead, the only thing that changed in his demeanor was the slight firming of his gorgeous mouth as he advanced on her again.
Even though she trusted him to remain true to his word, her inclination was still to run. Run from the spark of unnameable emotion in his eyes. Run from the way he made her feel. Run from the memories of that other time and that other man his presence inexplicably evoked.
To her credit, she held her ground.
Or, rather, the kitchen sink held it for her. Its cold porcelain lip pressed against her back.
“Wh-what are you doing?” She was dismayed by the husky timbre of her voice.
He was directly in front of her now. Close enough to reach out and touch. Close enough that she could smell the spicy, masculine scent of his aftershave and see the crinkly black chest hair peeking above the vee of his T-shirt. His faded, worn jeans seemed to be in love with his body—not that she could blame them. And she realized with a start that he was barefoot.
How odd.
A small vulnerability in a man who appeared, in all other ways, impervious to everything around him.
When he lifted one broad-palmed hand toward her face, her heart went crazy inside her chest. She couldn’t stop her sharply indrawn breath.
“You missed one,” he said as he gently—so heart-stoppingly gently—thumbed a tear from her cheek. It was dizzying that a man as hard as he was…hard body, hard face, hard life…could ever be so tender.
When he dropped his hand, Sonya was surprised to find herself disappointed by the desertion. His touch had been brief, but still she’d felt his warmth and the rough scar on the pad of his thumb where his fingerprint had been burned off in an attempt to further obliterate his true identity.
The Prince of Shadows…
How much had he suffered and lost in the name of saving the world? Would he save the world now? Would he really follow through and do what Grafton was asking?
“Who are you crying for?” he asked again. This time his sandpaper voice was barely a whisper.
“Why do you care?”
And yes, she’d used his earlier words against him. It was a ploy to cover up how much having him close affected her equilibrium, her ability to compose a rational thought or speak an intelligible word.
He lifted his hand again, this time cupping her cheek in his warm palm. The calluses were deliciously raspy against her skin. His pupils dilated the instant his eyes landed on her mouth, and her lips tingled as if his gaze were a physical touch. Her jaw slipped open the slightest bit.
An unconscious invitation.
