“I do care.”
She drew back farther, then got to her feet and moved near the glass-enclosed shower. It was about as far as she could get from him without entirely leaving the room. She swiped at the salty streaks that wet her face. “Yesterday, you said you didn’t want to add to my problems.”
“That’s right.” He stood, but remained where he was because he had the feeling one wrong move would send his brave, beautiful Leni running from him now. “I don’t want to do anything that’s going to hurt you or make things harder for you.”
“Don’t you get it?” She scowled at him, looking cornered and afraid. “By being kind like this, you are hurting me. Just by being here like this, you’re making things harder.”
Fuck. He had felt like the worst kind of bastard yesterday. Now, his self-directed anger multiplied tenfold. “I’m sorry for what I said. For the way I acted. All of it.”
She swallowed, her hazel eyes still wary and untrusting, still wounded. “I’m the one at fault. I asked something of you I had no right to—starting that first night when I assumed I could simply ask you to kill someone just to make my life easier.”
“That wasn’t why you asked me to deal with Travis Parrish. You were scared, Leni. By my guess, you were terrified of what he might be willing to do to take Riley away from you. After what he said to you at the diner today, I don’t think you were far off the mark.”
“But that’s not your duty, Knox. Just like it’s not your obligation to put your life on hold to help protect us—no matter what my Breedmate mark seems to make you believe.”
He exhaled sharply. “Your mark isn’t the reason I’m here now. It never was. I would’ve wanted to help you, protect you, even if I’d never seen it.”
“I don’t need protecting, remember? I don’t break. Nothing can wound me, not even Travis Parrish.”
“But I’ve wounded you,” Knox pointed out. He let a curse hiss through his teeth. “I saw that yesterday when you offered me your blood and I refused it.”
She gave him a withered look. “I don’t want to talk about that right now.”
“I do, Lenora.” He took a step toward her. “You offered me a gift, a sacred one. I threw it back in your face. Not because I didn’t recognize the honor of what you were willing to give me. I couldn’t take your blood because I’m not deserving of your bond.”
Her eyes held his solemn stare. She still looked as though she might bolt at any second, but she remained unmoving, watching him slowly close the distance between them.
“I don’t know how to be what you need, Leni, what you deserve. You make me want to be something I’ve never been before.”
Her brows knit over her uncertain gaze. “Not even with Abbie?”
“No. Not even with her.” He reached out to Leni, smoothing an errant tendril of dark brown hair from where it stuck to her damp cheek. “Abbie and I didn’t share a blood bond. She died on the night I planned to ask her to be my mate. Before her, I’d never let anyone in that close. Losing her gutted me.”
Leni’s breath sighed out of her lungs. “I’m sorry, Knox. I can’t imagine how painful that must’ve been for you.”
He nodded, recalling the depth of his anguish and his guilt. It had stayed with him for all of the past eight years. “The thought of hurting you has been its own kind of hell, Leni. So was not seeing you, not talking to you. Knowing I’d wounded your heart made me want to walk right back into the sun and stay there.”
“Knox, no.” Her expression softened along with her voice. She placed her hands on the sides of his jaw. “I hated seeing you in pain. It killed me to see your handsome face scorched so badly.”
“I told you I’d recover,” he murmured, her tender touch stirring his arousal. He hadn’t followed her upstairs out of lust, but it was impossible to be anywhere near her and not burn with the need to touch her, to kiss her. He leaned forward and brushed his mouth over hers.
When he drew away from her lips, Leni gave him a sheepish smile. “I had planned to ask you to leave when I got home tonight.”
He arched a brow, though he was unsurprised to hear the newsflash. God knew he’d earned it. “Is that still what you want?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t really want it even then.”
“Good.”
He kissed her again, reveling in the feel of her mouth against his. As they kissed, he swept her winter coat off her shoulders so he could feel her body’s warmth under his hands. She melted into his embrace, but there was no hiding the tension in the fine muscles of her back and shoulders.
The stress of her confrontation with the Parrishes was still riding her, and while he knew how to give her physical pleasure, what she needed even more than that was comfort and reassurance.
She needed someone to take care of her for a change.
Knox turned on the water in the shower, then began to undress her. She didn’t ask questions, didn’t reject his tender attention. He couldn’t resist caressing her silky skin as he unwrapped her to his fevered gaze. Amber heat filled his vision as he removed her bra and panties.
He drew in a ragged breath through his teeth and fangs. “I couldn’t tire of seeing you like this if I had a hundred years to look at you.”
