After glancing at him doubtfully for several moments, Lena finally turned to leave. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a clue of where she was going. She sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere near the barracks.
She was already halfway down the corridor between Dax’s cabin and the access tube when she heard him behind her. One look at his face was enough to shoot a rush of adrenaline through her and set her feet in motion. He caught her while she was still trying to decide whether to race up, or down, the ladder. Hooking an arm around her waist, he yanked her off the ladder. Instead of setting her on her feet, though, he turned and strode back to his cabin.
She wouldn’t have minded being ‘made’ to do what she wanted to do anyway, except that he was in a mood she didn’t quite trust. “Put me down!” she demanded, trying to pry his arm loose.
She couldn’t, and he ignored her demand until they’d stepped into his cabin again. When he finally released her, she whirled and headed for the door again.
He caught her again just as she reached for the release to open it, whirling her around and shoving her against the panel with a palm planted just beneath her breasts. “Baby girl, you are trying my patience.”
“You don’t have any patience! At all!”
He ground his teeth. “I know you don’t have a clue of what’s going on here,” he growled. “But these people here know their lives are on the line. And it’s really stupid to make them nervous about your loyalties by asking questions like the one you asked while ago.”
“I’m not stupid!” she spat at him, struggling with the wobble in her chin. “I know they’re just as afraid of me as I am them. I’m just … tired of being scared all the time. I want Nigel. He’ll know me!”
Dax stared at her a long moment, his expression haunted. “I know you, baby girl.”
She sniffed, trying to blink back the tears that began pooling in her eyes. “Then why do you act like you hate me? Why don’t you trust me?”
He lifted his hand to her chin, stroking his thumb lightly over her lower lip. “I don’t trust anybody, baby girl. That’s why I’m still alive.”
She squeezed her eyes closed, twisting her face away from his hand. “I don’t see how you could possibly think I would be any sort of threat to you.”
“Then you’re not as smart as I thought you were,” he said dryly. He caught her cheeks between both of his hands, pressing his forehead against hers. “I don’t hate you. I’m trying to protect you.”
She looked at him in surprise. “From what?”
His lips tightened. “From me.”
ChapterTen
Lena gaped at him in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“No?” he growled, dropping his hands from her cheeks and lifting his head.
Lena couldn’t prevent the blush that heated her cheeks.
His gaze flickered over her face. Abruptly, he caught her arms and dragged her up against him. His mouth was hard, hot, almost savage as he caught her lips beneath his and breached the sensitive barrier where her lips met with the possessive thrust of his tongue. A tidal wave of need broke over her instantly, swamping her senses, sucking her down into a dizzying whirlpool of mindless need. She made a sound in her throat of want as his taste and scent enveloped her with a breathless rush of excitement, inebriated her until her mind was a swirling morass of confusion. Her strength abandoned her, sucked away by the hot friction of his tongue as he raked it along hers in restless possession, by the heat and hardness of his body as she leaned weakly against him for support.
He broke the kiss almost as abruptly, pressing his forehead against hers for a moment, his breathing ragged as he struggled for control.
With an effort, she lifted her lids to stare at him when he released her and stepped back, swaying weakly until she managed to lock her knees to keep from melting to the floor. There was wariness in his expression and something else that took her many moments to understand. “You think I’m afraid of you,” she said in surprise and then frowned, trying to think what she’d done to give him that impression. Abruptly, she remembered that time when he’d been forced to enact a rape to keep her from actually being raped and she knew that had to be it. She hadn’t been terrified then but not of him.
He slid a glance her. “Aren’t you?”
She was, but not afraid that he’d deliberately hurt her, she realized.
His lips curled wryly. “That’s what I thought.”
She frowned when he scrubbed his hands over his face tiredly, realizing that he’d managed to regain control when moments before he’d been within a hair’s breadth of completely losing it. She should leave well enough alone, she knew, but she found she couldn’t. She lifted a hand and placed it lightly on his chest. “I’m not.”
He fisted one hand around her wrist. “Leave it alone, baby girl.”
The warning growl of his voice almost tipped the scales in the other direction, but she was beyond caution. Lifting her free hand, she placed it on his chest, slipping it upward as she came up on her tiptoes and tipped her head back, offering her lips to him, offering her everything to him. He glared at her warningly. Refusing to back down, she brushed her lips lightly along his throat, just above his collarbone. “I’m not Morris’ baby girl anymore,” she murmured.
Settling one hand in the middle of her back, he cupped the other over the back of her head, digging his fingers into her hair and tugging her head back. “I did warn you,” he muttered hoarsely, covering her mouth with a violent possessiveness that sent Lena’s heart skittering into overtime. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, locking her knees as her world seemed to spin off kilter in a dizzying rush that was, impossible as it seemed, more debilitating than the one she’d experienced before. Her own sense of urgency, fed by the hunger of his possession, goaded her to kiss him in return, to move closer, to feel his body against hers. She traced her tongue along his, suckled it.
Uttering a groan from deep in his chest, he withdrew his mouth from hers abruptly and dragged open mouthed kisses over her throat to her ear. Her knees buckled as he teased the sensitive shell with his mouth and tongue. He caught her, his hand slipping from the middle of her back to cup one buttock and pull her snugly against his erection. Her flesh, all over her body, seemed to tighten, prickling with keen sensory perception so that the faintest of contact between them sent fresh waves of delight and awareness through her to gather at her core.
