Ghostwalker 01- Shadow Game

game attempt to smile, she sounded infinitely weary.
    His heart turned over. He drew her closer to him, felt her soft body yielding to his.
    Ryland fought down his body's reaction, knowing she needed comfort. He could feel the pain throbbing in her head. "Did you take something for your headache?"
    "I wouldn't take anything from them, I waited until I came home. I'm not sleepy or tired so much as just wanting to lie in the dark and feel sorry for myself."
    He brushed kisses over her face. Feather light. Tender. "You need a cup of hot chocolate.
    I'm going to call Arly and have him get a doctor here to look you over."
    "No! You can't do that, Ryland, you don't know them. Arly, John, Rosa, they'll be crazy.
    I'm fine, really, just a bump and a headache. And it gives me a great excuse to miss work for a couple of days and no one here will think anything of it."
    "I don't want you to ever go back there. There's no need."
    "Don't, Ryland." She touched her finger to the sculpted perfection of his mouth.
    "Don't what? Want to protect you? I'm sorry, Lily but there's no way that instinct is going to go away. I knew. That day you walked into the room. I knew right then in that heartbeat of time when my brain was going crazy and my skin crawled and my insides were knotted up so tight I was going to explode. You walked into the room, Lily, and you were so damn beautiful it hurt."
    "I don't remember it quite like that."
    He crushed her silky hair in his large hands, brought the strands to his face to rub them along his jaw. "You tore out my heart on the spot, lady. It's been yours ever since. Damn it, I can't do anything else, feel anything else, but wanting to protect you."
    "Ryland…" She looked up at him, her heart in her eyes. "I feel the same way about you, but we're both enhancers. Anything we feel is just more intense."
    He took the rose from her pillow and placed it carefully on the nightstand beside the candle. "I've thought about this, came at it from every angle. I don't believe what I feel for you has anything at all to do with enhancing, Lily. I'd walk through hell to protect you. I'm not one of the nice men you've always known in your protected world. Don't see me like that, because it isn't who I am. You're stuck with the man I am."
    "I don't want you to be any different, Ryland." It was true. In spite of herself, she couldn't help but love the way he was so protective.
    "You're magic, Lily, sheer magic. And you're mine, Lily, my everything. I'm drawn to you because you're Lily Whitney with more courage in your little finger than most people have in their entire body. You have a brain, a sense of humor, a smile that knocks me over, and every single time I'm near you, I want to tear your clothes off. And damn it, I'm not going to lose you."
    "You're not going to lose me." Her lashes lifted to give him a glimpse of her startling blue eyes. "I knew you would get around to sex sooner or later."
    His hands slipped around her to cup her breasts beneath the sheet. She fit into his palms, warm and petal soft. "I forgot to say you always smell good too." He inhaled deeply, taking her scent into his lungs where it swirled, a potent temptation. "Stop deliberately distracting me, Lily, I want to give you a lecture."
    Her mouth curved, her intriguing dimple appearing. "I believe you have your hands on my body, Captain Miller, not the other way around."
    He closed his eyes briefly, groaning aloud over the possibilities her murmured words conjured up for him. "The idea of your hands on my body is alarming, Lily. Then I start thinking about what might come next. You have such a beautiful mouth. The things you could do with your mouth might be interesting."
    A small laugh escaped; she opened her eyes to look at his face hovering inches from hers.
    "Life with you would be exhausting. You know that, don't you?"

    " Deliciously exhausting," he agreed.
    "And sinfully wicked."
    His grin was a satisfied smirk. " Deliciously sinfully wicked."
    He was simply cradling her breasts in his hands, his fingers wrapped possessively, but she felt the heat begin to spread from his hands to her body. A slow smolder. A delicious smolder.
    His breath caught in his throat. She was looking up at him without guile, without hiding anything from him. Her heart was in her eyes. Love. Acceptance. Unconditional. Lily Whitney was on his side always. And that was both good and bad. Good because she belonged to him. Bad because she believed she had to protect