Everything she was in that moment, sitting naked on his bed, marked by the long night, arrested him. He couldn’t blink. Couldn’t do anything but stand there and stare at the stunning picture she made, paralyzed by the terrible beauty of her.
She was his Walden. A secret utopia yet to be destroyed by man.
Their eyes locked. The fire crackled. Outside, the hunt continued—moans and laughter drifting from shadows as bells continued to toll. But in this room, time had stopped.
Jack looked away, his gaze rushing to the floor like a rat seeking a crevice to hide. Anger surged inside of him as his body betrayed him.
“Why didn’t you use the safeword when Volkov gave you the chance?”
“I didn’t come here to lose.”
He pinned her with an accusatory stare. She’d already lost so much—because of him. “You would have been compensated for your time?—”
“But it would have cost me. For the rest of my life, I would have wondered if I was still somehow less than everyone else, because I didn’t make it to dawn.”
How could she ever wonder such a thing? She was so much more than anyone else out there.
He frowned. “You could have?—”
“Why was Dr. Tannhäuser on your list?”
His stare jerked to her face, heart slamming against his ribs. Was she doing this on purpose? Using her body to disarm him?
“I didn’t like the picture he took of you.” The words escaped before wisdom could intervene.
She stiffened for a breath. “Oh.” Small. Hurt. Ashamed.
That single syllable broke something inside of him. “No.” He stepped forward, recklessly, stupidly, and for once she didn’t flinch. “I didn’t like…the look in your eye. You didn’t like it.”
She met his stare. Her eyes glistened in the firelight. “No.” Her rough confirmation proved he’d read her correctly. Vulnerable. Scared. Guarded.
His voice dropped lower, scraping bottom. “I didn’t like that others saw you that way.”
“He…” She looked at him for a long moment. Measuring. Searching. For what, he didn’t know. “He was awful.”
Jack swallowed tightly, his hands clenching into fists at his side. “He won’t be practicing medicine for long.”
Her lips twisted. “I doubt?—”
“Don’t doubt me. Not when it comes to that. I have my ways.”
Her gaze sharpened. “Why was Peter on your list?”
His chest heaved as his heartbeat raged in his throat, his wrists, his throbbing cock.
Pounding.
Relentless.
His jaw clenched as he thought of the footage he’d watched. “He put his hands on you.”
Her brow pinched with confusion. “Isn’t that the point?—”
“I wanted to break his hands.”
Did she see him now? A valley of ruin and ash. A bleak soul grown from grey dust. A solemn, brooding dumping ground where careless people left footprints up and down his spine.
They smashed up things and creatures, then retreated into their lies. He was every ugly truth they left. The evidence of their crimes too filthy for anyone to believe.
