Instead of going to her, he prowled the hall outside her room.
So close and yet so far away from where he wanted to be.
It would be so easy to just shove open her door, stalk in there, pin her to the bed as he made her take back her words, punish her for thinking that any man in their right mind wouldn't be attracted to her, make her blood run as he showed her exactly how gorgeous he thought she was, how hard she made him.
Talk about terrifying her.
As it was, she was barely tolerating being near them. Not because she thought they were monsters, he believed her when she said she knew they weren't, but because she still thought they wanted to punish her for actions she’d been given no choice in.
There was no shortcut, Whitney would have to learn to trust them as they showed her that they posed no threat to her. Hopefully, handing over her intel and seeing that nobody had kicked her out onto the street would help, as would Dragon’s assertion that she’d been adopted into their family.
Could he go in there now and assure her that what Dragon said was true?
The light was on so he assumed she was awake. Although he couldn’t hear her moving about, he could hear the steady and reassuring beat of her heart.
Curling his fingers into fists to stop himself from making a rash decision, one he knew when he was thinking with the right head would do more harm than good. Bursting into Whitney’s room at midnight wouldn't convince her that she was safe there and they saw her as family.
Yet she’d wanted him to come to her today.
Been disappointed that he hadn't.
Thought that he hadn't even been thinking about her when it was all he’d done.
Overwhelmed with a need to show her how very wrong she’d been, Blade couldn’t hold himself back any longer. Bad idea or not, he needed to see her, talk to her, taste her again. That kiss earlier had caught him by surprise, and by the time his brain caught on to what was happening, Whitney had already been pulling back.
Not going after her earlier had been a mistake, one he wasn't going to repeat now.
Shoving open the door, he came to an abrupt halt when the thin light of the lamp on the nightstand didn't show Whitney lying tucked under the covers like he’d expected.
The bed was empty.
Next, his gaze flickered to the rocking chair by the window, but that was empty too.
There was no light on in the bathroom, so he knew she wasn't in there, and he could hear her breathing, evenly like she was asleep, so she was somewhere in the room even if she wasn't in bed like she should be.
Worried, Blade spun in a circle, finally finding her curled up in a corner of the room, her forehead resting on her knees, apparently fast asleep. What the hell?
January 14th
1:43 A.M.
Something nudged her from sleep.
The eerie feeling of eyes on her.
Wouldn't be the first time Whitney had had someone watching her while she slept. There were two men in particular who would sneak into her room at night or would flat out refuse to leave when she retired for the night, stating she was a security risk, even though her chances of escaping had been zero.
One of those men was dead now. Mark Lucas, her handler, had been killed in the forest by Blade. She knew he was dead, had seen it happen, felt his blood splatter her clothes, there was no chance he was watching her now.
Terry Richards then?
While she was most scared of Mark, that was mostly because she just saw him every day, heard his lewd comments daily, endured his rough treatment with no way to stop it from happening, there was a coldness about Terry that said quite clearly he was someone to be feared. He was head of the entire security division, so most days he wasn't on site, moving around with Dr. Gardner, but when he was there …
He terrified the life out of her.
More than once, she’d caught him watching her with an assessing detachment that turned her blood to ice. If he was watching her now, she was in big trouble.
“Relax, darlin’,” a voice soothed. Blade somehow realized that she was afraid even though she hadn't said anything. Hadn't even opened her eyes, didn't even know he was there.
