Raven's Prey

as if he were a monster.
    “I’m not, you know,” he heard himself say.
    “You’re not what?” she nearly shrieked.
    He winced at the edge in her voice. “I’m not a monster.” He searched for the words he needed and realized he didn’t know how to say what should be said. “Honor, last night was inevitable. Don’t you know that? It became inevitable after that first night when you attacked [_me. _]I’ve been wanting you since I began looking for you. After I found you I knew that sooner or later—”
    “You knew that sooner or later you’d get me into bed and satisfy your curiosity about what it was like to lay a suicidal, compulsive liar, is that it? Now that you’ve satisfied your curiosity you’re going to turn me over to Garrison and Prager, collect your two thousand and fly away into the wild blue yonder! You’re disgusting. An arrogant, cold-blooded mercenary. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to think that I could reach you on some human level. Last night—”
    “You seem to have a slight misconception about last night,” he interrupted icily. He felt an unaccustomed wave of anger at her accusations. Grimly he controlled it. Nothing was to be gained this morning by letting this little witch goad him into losing his temper. “You gave yourself to me last night, Honor. Do you really believe I’d casually turn you over to someone who wants to kill you?*
    “That’s exactly what you’re planning to do!”
    He shook his head, keeping his tone low and trying to sound soothing, which probably didn’t work very well. He hadn’t had much experience trying to soothe hysterical women. “You should be the one doing the trusting this morning, honey. You trusted me enough to surrender in my arms last night.”
    “I thought we were making love!” she hissed furiously. “It wasn’t a case of my [_surrendering. _]I went to bed with you because I thought we could share something meaningful. I thought that afterward you’d realize I couldn’t have been lying to you all along. I thought you’d know me intimately enough to trust me. My God, Judd, how can you be such a coldhearted bastard? Last night you seemed so….so
human!”
    Once again Judd had to clamp down firmly on the anger that threatened to erupt in response to her words. Why could this one woman out of all the people he had met make him come so close to losing his self-control over and over again? “I am human ” he assured her, his voice more chilling than ever. “Enough of a man to want to protect what’s mine. And make no mistake about it, Honor, you belong to me now. I’m going to take care of you.
Trust me!”
    “Trust you?” she gasped disbelievingly. “When you said you’re going to hand me over to Garrison and Prager?”
    “Will you just shut up and listen to me? I have a plan….”
    “What sort of plan?” she challenged.
    “I’m going to get to the bottom of all this,” he said quickly, seeing an opening at last, “I’m going to find out exactly what’s going on and I’m going to make sure you’re safe during the process.”
    “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she snapped, brushing her hand impatiently across her eyes. Damn it, she [_was _]crying.
    “If you’ll settle down and stop yelling at me I’ll explain,” he told her quietly. Instinctively he took a step toward the bed. The tears bothered him. But when she immediately backed away he stopped in annoyance.
    “Don’t touch me,” she ordered shakily, putting out a hand to ward him off. “I don’t want you touching me. Not after last night.”
    “Damn it to hell, woman! I don’t know what you [_think _]happened last night, but I can tell you what actually [_did _]happen!” He ran his fingers restlessly through his hair and then planted his hands on his hips. It was either that or he was going to reach out and take hold of her. Something told Judd that that wouldn’t be the wisest move at the moment.
    “I [_thought _]we meant something to each other last night,” Honor said tightly. “I thought that we would achieve some kind of understanding. I [_thought _]you’d realize that I wasn’t lying to you. I [_thought _]we’d wake up this morning able to communicate with each other. I thought that making love together would give us a bond, a link that we could use to trust each other. I [_thought _]you’d listen to me this morning, that you’d [_want _]to listen to me. That you’d want to believe in me. That you