Ghostwalker 09 - Ruthless Game

again, and he couldn’t help but look at the vulnerable nape of her neck. He had the sudden urge to lean over and brush his mouth over that soft spot.
    “I needed you , Kane, not your friends. They aren’t my friends. They aren’t people I trust. I’ve lived too long in captivity and I’ve had a taste of freedom. I won’t let our child live like I had to, with Whitney documenting every single moment of my life and dictating what I could and couldn’t do.”
    “I understand.” And damn it al , he did. She’d been trained to be a soldier, experimented on, and then shoved into a breeding program. It was a monstrous life she’d led, and had it been him, he would have done anything to get free and stay that way. “Tel me about Jimenez.”
    She flashed a brief, rather wan smile. “I’m getting there in my own roundabout way. I knew I had to find a safe place to have the baby, and just in case, learn how to deliver it myself.”
    “You fucking have to be kidding me, Rose,” he burst out. “You make me crazy. You real y do. Both of you could die, don’t you know that?”
    “Of course I know it,” she said. “I’m not crazy and I’m not stupid. I’m careful, Kane. I studied hard. I was careful to learn about pregnancy and what I needed to make the baby healthy.”
    “You didn’t have a blood test, or any of the tests, did you?”
    “How could I?” she defended. She sounded close to tears. “I did the best I could for her. Better both of us dead than back with Whitney.”
    Kane put the empty soup bowl down and slipped his arm around her shoulder. “I know you did. It’s just the thought of you out there alone, trying to figure it al out by yourself, when I should have been there with you, makes me want to shoot somebody.”
    She leaned into him. “Preferably not me.”
    He laughed at her choice of words. “Not you, sweetheart. You might make me want to pul out every hair on my head, but I’d never hurt you.”
    Rose studied Kane’s face—that face she dreamt about for eight long months. His beautiful, masculine carved features and his vivid piercing green eyes took her breath away. She couldn’t look too long at him, afraid he’d see her reaction. From the window of her cel and the workout yard, she’d watched him just like a stalker might. Looking had turned into longing. He was a strong, confident male, definitely one who was skil ed in his chosen profession. She watched other males, al strong as wel , step back when he walked through a smal crowd, yet he always seemed to treat everyone fairly.
    She loved everything about him from his wide shoulders to the strong lines in his face and his sudden, heart-stopping smile.
    She had dreamt of him long before she betrayed him. Wanting him. Building fantasies and unrealistic dreams until she became almost obsessed with him. When Whitney insisted on bringing in those horrible men with their lecherous smiles, uncaring that she didn’t want them, men wil ing to force her, she’d become a desperate woman who would do anything to escape. A woman who would sel another human being into a living hel to gain her own freedom. She swal owed hard and looked away, ashamed of her need and her cowardice. She sold him out, and even now, she couldn’t let him go.
    “Rose, what is it?”
    His voice was so gentle it turned her heart over. She felt his baby kick inside her, a strong reminder she would always have a part of him. The soup tasted like ashes now, the seeds of guilt and shame stripping her of al appetite. She placed the bowl on the nightstand. He was a man of honor, and she’d taken his pride, forced him into an untenable position with no way out. He loathed himself for getting her pregnant, and no matter how many times she told him it had been her choice, her decision, he refused to al ow her to shoulder the blame. He was waiting patiently for her to answer his simple question—“What is it?”—but the answer wasn’t nearly as simple as the question.
    “I’m sorry I got you into this, Kane, but I’m not sorry you’re here with me. I’m afraid.”
    There. She’d admitted it out loud. If the truth were told, she was terrified. She was so tired and she desperately needed to rest, to spend twenty-four hours without fear.
    She’d been alone for so long, scared for herself and for the baby. She looked up at him, ashamed, but unable to lie to him. “I need you.”

    She loved his face, al those hard lines, his strong jaw, those cool, clear