Sea Haven 01 - Water Bound

never be the same and he didn’t want to be. Her hands found his chest and fluttered there. She felt slight, fragile, warm and soft, and so feminine, yet he knew a core of steel ran through her.
    He lifted his head, breathing deep, drawing air into his burning lungs as he rested his forehead against hers. How did a man tell a woman she moved him? Changed him? Took wrong and made it right? How did he tell her she was a miracle? He didn’t. He just held her to him, with the strength in his fingers. His body was trembling, allowing feeling to sweep inside and take hold.
    “Lev, it will be all right,” she whispered, comforting him.
    She thought something was wrong—not that being with her was the most right thing in the world. An incredible gift he wasn’t passing up. He couldn’t lift his head yet, the emotion was too strong, too overwhelming. So he just pressed his forehead against hers and kept his thoughts contained so she wouldn’t accidently connect with him and decide to run. He was going 124

    to have to be careful, very careful. His woman—and there was satisfaction in thinking in those terms—was skittish at best.
    She represented hope. Belief. Trust. And he had lost those things before he’d ever had a chance to know them.
    “Come on, I’ll help you back to bed.” She slipped her arm around him.
    He shook his head and straightened, knowing she wouldn’t talk about kissing him. She simply ignored the things she didn’t want to talk about, but he could see arousal in her eyes, hear it in her breathing. He knew the signs and she’d been just as affected physically as he had been, but her emotions ... She hid them well and she wasn’t meeting his eyes.
    “Look at me.”
    She drew back, flinching, dropping her arms. “Don’t say that to me.”
    She tried to get up, but he caught her arms and held her. He could see she was annoyed by his strength, but she stilled under the shackles of his fingers and turned her dark eyes on him, and they were filled with fury.
    “Thank you,” he said quietly. “Sometimes I need to look into your eyes.”
    She clenched her teeth and he could tell she was still seething.
    “Why can’t I ask you to look at me?”
    He felt the wave of fierce anger well up and rush through her. The black in her eyes sparkled.
    “What do you think I heard growing up a million times? I was in foster homes and a state-run facility. I don’t look at people. I can’t tell you why, but I just don’t. I can’t tell you how many times I got my face slapped for not doing something I couldn’t do or didn’t understand how to do it. I trained myself to look at a person’s nose, so I appeared to be looking into their eyes and then, apparently, I was inappropriately staring.” She jerked back away from him and stood up. “This is my house. I can look anywhere I damn well want.”
    He stood up too, his speed catching her off guard. He tugged her off balance so she fell against him, her eyes spitting fire. He killed coldly, professionally; it was always a job to him and nothing more, simply exterminating where there was a need. But that soft hiss of her memory— I got my face slapped —built an instant rage so deep, so extraordinary, he was shaken at the depth of his ability to feel.
    “You don’t understand, lyubimaya, I love the way you look at me. I need it the way others need to breathe.”
    Her stare was so intense. She’d managed with her direct stare to break through the wall his trainers had erected in his brain. She’d penetrated deep with her intensity, finding him beneath the layers and layers of armor. He 125

    never thought he’d ever be capable of feeling such intimacy with anyone and knew he wouldn’t with anyone else.
    He growled the declaration at her, allowing fierce desire to show in his eyes as he bent his head toward her. She didn’t move away, going still in that way she had, as if she were making up her mind whether to fight or flee, but she stood under his hands, her face upturned, her gorgeous eyes watching intently as he lowered his head slowly to hers. He felt the small tremor run through her body just before his mouth claimed hers.
    She opened her mouth to his and at once he was swept into her secret world of sensation. She kissed the way she dove, with complete and utter focus, with absolute passion—she gave herself to him and took everything he offered. The world vanished. Every disturbing memory in his mind vanished, leaving only Rikki with