by Lora Leigh
All this for the ugly little girl who couldn’t get a boyfriend when she was a teenager and couldn’t get a lover now unless he had an agenda that required he force an interest in her. A man who hadn’t been able to achieve his satisfaction with the ugly woman she had become.
She covered her mouth with her hand and turned away from him, all but running from him. She was running away. She was hiding because she was weak, because she couldn’t face the truth of what she or her life had become.
“Risa, dammit,” he cursed as the door slammed closed behind her.
She pressed her back to it as her legs gave out and she slid to the floor. As she hugged her knees to her chest, the tears began to fall. She couldn’t hold them back; the pain was too intense. It dug inside her soul and sent a wash of ugly black emotion tearing through her.
For the first time in her life, she hated. Hated with a vicious, horrible strength that frightened her. And the awful truth of it was, there was no one she hated more than herself. She hated her weakness, she hated the helplessness she felt against the events transpiring against her, and she hated the face that Jansen Clay had always assured her was so ugly. So ugly he couldn’t pay a man to fuck her. And God forbid, he had once said, that she would have children and pass that ugliness on.
God forbid that Risa should ever believe that she deserved the things other women did.
FRUSTRATION ATE at Micah as he paced the living room in the apartment across from Risa’s. Morganna was in the apartment with her, giving him a chance to gather his control after she had run back to her bedroom. She was running away from him and running away from the danger. She had to face both. She would face him, and she would do it soon, he assured himself.
He was willing to let her bury her head in the sand for the moment, because he understood that the implications of the danger she was in were overwhelming. But tonight she would face him, and she would face the fact that there would be no turning away any longer.
“I have her psychologist’s report here.” Kira Richards was sitting on the floor in front of a long coffee table scattered with files. “This is a mess, Micah,” she sighed. “Her father did a job on her before he ever allowed her to be raped.” Micah flinched at the word but turned back to Kira and retook his seat on the couch.
He hadn’t had the reports before meeting with Risa last night. There hadn’t been time. They knew Orion had accepted the job. Moving quickly had been imperative. It was still imperative, but for different reasons.
Micah had read the files when he stepped in the room. He’d spent over an hour reading them as he waited for the delivery time that the restaurant had quoted for the food. Blanchard’s, one of his favorite restaurants, didn’t deliver fast; they delivered good food instead.
That extra time had given him the chance to go over the files, pages and pages of childhood events that Risa had told the psychologist about, as well as the psychologist’s diagnosis.
“How did she survive this?” Kira whispered as she read one of the papers. “He told her she was so ugly he couldn’t imagine her passing it on to her children?” Horror crossed her face as she lifted her gaze to Micah. “She remembers when he helped drug her, that he laughed that he’d never be able to sell her. He was lucky to pay someone to fuck her? She had no boyfriends when she was younger, and only a few friends.” She shook her head. “Her psychologist is amazed she doesn’t have to put her on drugs. According to her report—”
“According to her report, ‘Risa is sound mentally, physically, and psychologically, with only a few issues that need to be worked out. Most important is that of her worth to herself as well as to others,’” he quoted. “I read the report.” He may not totally have agreed with it. Risa was wounded, but she was strong. Healing her would require more than dealing with a few issues.
He forced himself to calm as he checked his watch again. He wanted to be there when dinner was delivered. He was going to make certain she ate. She had lost too much weight in the past year. She was still healthy, but he knew it wouldn’t take much longer before that changed. She hadn’t eaten before the meeting this morning, and she definitely hadn’t eaten afterward.
“Risa is our best chance to catch Orion.” Jordan spoke up from where he sat at a bank of security monitors. “If she cracks emotionally or mentally, then there’s a chance he’ll take her and we’ll lose her.”
“She won’t crack.” Micah was going to make sure of it.
“Micah, you might not be able to stop it,” Morganna said softly. “She’s twenty-six; she’s had a lifetime to believe the crap her father filled her head with. With the addition of the Whore’s Dust and now Orion, she may not come out of this without scars none of us can fix.”
“There will always be scars.” He flashed her a harsh look. “Her soul is scarred from the inside out, Kira. No one can change that. That doesn’t mean she can’t be happy. It doesn’t mean she’s not a beautiful, vibrant woman.”
Kira knew that Risa wasn’t ugly in any way—she had pretty eyes, a beautiful smile when she bothered to smile—but she wasn’t exactly pretty, either. The girl leaned a bit to the plain side. Her features weren’t distinguishing. She was a woman who would easily be overlooked unless you knew her. But the more Kira got to know her, the more she saw that there was a uniqueness to Risa that made her very pretty.
Kira watched as Micah picked one of the eight-by-ten black-and-white pictures that had been snapped of Risa during their surveillance of her in the past week. Black-and-white did nothing to compliment her, but Micah’s expression was…entranced?
“Her eyes sparkle when she finds a reason to be happy,” he murmured. “And even saddened, there’s a light in them that assures me she will fight to live.” He touched the face in the photo. “Why do you think she doesn’t see herself as pretty?” He lifted his gaze back to Kira as he frowned. “Her smile is filled with warmth, and even in these pictures you can see the need for laughter, for passion, lighting her features.” He tossed the picture back to the table. “How could a father be so vile, Kira? So evil?”
Kira almost smiled. When she looked at that picture, she saw it, too. She saw the life on Risa’s face that Micah had picked up on. She saw the curiosity in Risa’s eyes; she saw the latent passion. She had missed it all before, and seeing it gave the girl a prettiness that couldn’t be denied.
Hell. Beauty was in the eye of the beholder; she had always heard that. In this case, perhaps it was more true than she had ever known.
CHAPTER 7
NIGHTFALL CAME too soon. Risa had never realized how much she’d hated the earlier winter nights until that night. When she was faced with the prospect of getting ready to go to bed with Micah.
She couldn’t do it. Every time she thought of it, she remembered being in his bed the night before, and that farce it had turned into.
But it was dark. She always went to bed early. She got up early. If she managed to sleep at all. Last night, she hadn’t slept, and her body was demanding rest.
Her mind was another matter entirely.
“You’re worrying too much,” he stated as she found herself staring at her computer screen, the numbers in the accounting program blending in front of her eyes. “You’re tired, Risa. Get ready and go on to bed. I’ll come in later.”
She hated that tone. That compassionate let’s-pamper-the-baby tone. She didn’t need him to pamper or patronize her.
She turned slowly in her chair and glared at him. He was sitting back on her couch as though he owned it, the television blaring some news program as those black eyes flicked over her body before coming back to her face.
As though he was remembering the night before. How did he remember it? she wondered. As the total failure it had been on her part?
“Why would I want to do that?” she asked carefully. “It’s barely ten.”
His lips seemed to thin. God, those lips were so gorgeous, and they could kiss like a dream. Like a particularly hot, wicked, sensual dream. She kne
w. His lips had been on hers, licking at her lips, nipping at them. He had kissed her as though he had meant to devour her.
“You’re so exhausted, you’re close to falling asleep at the computer.” He frowned back at her. “You should be well aware by now that I’m not going to hurt you. Sleeping in the bed with me won’t be nearly so traumatic as fucking me in one, surely.”
Her face flushed. Risa felt the rise of red-hot color washing over her features as she stared back at him in furious amazement.
“That was completely uncalled for.” She jumped from her seat, outraged. “If you can’t keep a civil tongue in your mouth, then don’t speak.”
She fell back on her grandmother’s antiquated superiority. God, was she so lacking that she couldn’t even bear hearing the word from his lips? Fucking. They had fucked. He had fucked her. She wanted to cover her ears in the hopes of blotting out the thoughts. Because she didn’t find it nearly as distasteful as she wanted to. The implications of the word brought to mind the sweaty, slick movements of their bodies together. Her cries. His groans. The touch of his hands, the thrust of his cock inside her.
She nearly had to clench her thighs together to hold back the overpowering lust.
Whore’s Dust, was it? She couldn’t imagine it. Nothing had felt so natural as wanting Micah.
“You go to bed if you’re so tired,” she finally snapped. “I’ll be in later.”
He grinned. That sensually full, mobile mouth curved into a grin of sheer male confidence and superiority. The kind of grin she had seen her friends’ husbands give their wives when they were determined to get their way.
“I’m very tired,” he informed her. “A little minx kept me up well past my bedtime last night, then skipped out on me and forced me to follow after her. I stared into her window like a lovesick Romeo pining for her attention.”
“Or a covert agent hoping she hadn’t managed to get herself kidnapped before you could capture her murderer,” she snarled back in reply. “Orion matters so much to you that you were willing to fuck someone you didn’t even know to get to him?”
His brow arched. “Such language, Risa.” Amusement glittered in his black eyes. “Be careful. You’re liable to give me a hard-on talking that way. I’d be extremely uncomfortable sleeping if you did.”
She almost lost her breath at the thought. Micah, aroused, in her bed. A shiver worked up her spine before she managed to turn away from him and stomp to the window on the opposite side of the room.
She stared into the park across from the apartment building, fighting to make sense of her response to him rather than any other man.
Not that there had been men to choose from, unfortunately. But Micah was like the epitome of men. Look in the dictionary for “male” and there most certainly would be a picture of him staring back.
He was tall, dark-skinned. Jeans hugged his ass. A white cotton shirt emphasized his leanly muscled shoulders. And he wore boots. He was wearing boots. Cowboy boots that were well worn, faded, and scarred. The perfect kind of bad-boy boots.
“Risa.”
She jumped as his face joined hers in the glass of the window; then his hands fell on her shoulders as he pulled her back, allowing the curtain to fall into place once again.
Risa shuddered at the warmth of his hands even as she pulled herself away from him and turned to glare at him.
“What?”
He watched her, his eyes no longer amused, but somber instead.
“You should stay away from the curtains,” he said. “A direct line of sight will allow certain devices to hear anything you’re saying. The heavy curtains over the windows and the interference of the television would otherwise block it.”
Oh.
She stared at the television, then back to the window as dismay washed over her. She’d spent so much time in a perpetual shadow during the months she had been in the clinic. She loved the sunlight. She loved having it shine through clean windows and brighten the rooms that she lived within. Just as she loved staring into the black velvet night as well.
“I see.” She hugged her arms over her breasts before turning away from him once again. “I’ll go shower. Or something.”
She wanted to sit in the middle of the floor and start wailing in fury. Where was it fair? She had endured enough; she didn’t need a killer adding to the nightmares she already knew.
“Risa.” His hands gripped her shoulders again, this time refusing to allow her to jerk away. “We’re going to keep you safe. I promise.”
“Of course you will,” she said faintly. Did she have any other choice but to believe it? “Tell me, Micah, has he ever failed?”
She knew he hadn’t. The man the federal attorney had told her about was nothing short of a perfect assassin. He had never been caught. He had never been identified. He had never failed to kill the person he had been hired to kill.
“His past has nothing to do with our present. We know who he’s after; wherever he gets his information whenever he’s investigating a victim won’t know about us. We’re not a part of any government, nor are we part of a traceable agency. He’ll see us as a nominal threat. When he makes his move, we’ll be here, and we’ll capture him.”
His hands kneaded her shoulders, his head lowered until his lips were so close. Until she could almost taste them.
“And then what?” She shook her head against the rising need. “Someone else takes his place?”
“Then he’ll talk.”
Risa almost flinched at the icy tone of his voice. Pure menace glittered in his eyes.
Her lips parted, and she almost believed he would.
“You’ll kill him before he can talk,” she whispered, suddenly knowing that whoever or whatever Orion was, Micah hated him with a passion that most would reserve for love.
But he shook his head. “No.” His thumb touched her lips. “I won’t kill him until I know who threatens you. Then yes,” the word hissed between clenched teeth. “Oh yes, Risa. Then, I promise you, I’ll kill Orion, then I’ll kill the bastard who dared to think he could continue to torment you.”
She didn’t have to tear herself away from him this time. He stepped away. The shadows on his face gave him an almost cruel, faintly savage look. A foreign look, for just a space of a moment.
Risa swallowed tightly.
“Go shower,” he told her, his back to her as he headed for the kitchen. “It’s nearly bedtime.” He stopped at the doorway and turned back to her. “And you will learn to sleep with me, starting tonight. If by chance he manages to get into this apartment to lay another listening device, then there will be no doubt in his mind that you’re not sharing a bed with me. There will be no doubt in any man’s mind, Risa, whose woman you are.”
MICAH WATCHED the widening of her eyes before he turned and moved into the kitchen. He paced to the sink, ran a glass of water, and drank it down as though the fire that raged inside him could be quenched so damned easily.
It couldn’t be. Lust for Risa. Hatred so overwhelming it was barely contained for Orion.
His jaw clenched as an image flashed before his eyes. His mother, so delicate, so white. She’d been bled dry, her wrists slashed. And she would have suffered. Orion had stripped her of her clothes and of her life, but he hadn’t stripped her of her dignity. Of all his victims, only Micah’s mother had been found with her eyes closed, a serene expression on her face.
Knowing she had died as she had lived gave Micah no comfort, though. Ariela Abijah had been the epitome of female strength. It had been in her eyes, in the way she held her head, in her love for her husband, her son, and her country.
His fingers dug into the counter as he gripped the edge with lethal force. He imagined Orion’s neck there, feeling the life slowly ease from his body. Watching his eyes. The hatred that filled Micah couldn’t be contained. It burned like a black flame inside his soul, corrupting it. Staining it with the dark emotion.
Then, the image of that faceless enemy was erased. Instead, Mic
ah saw Risa’s image. He saw her as they danced, her expression filled with wonder as she experienced her first taste of passion. Her face flushed with lust, her blue eyes darkening with it as she fought to reach her orgasm, then pulled herself back from the brink.
He saw her, so filled with a quiet beauty that asked for nothing. He saw the strength in her beautiful eyes, the struggle to survive, the determination to fill her life with more than nightmares.
His head lowered as he grimaced at the hunger that rose inside him, as fast, as hard, perhaps more so than the hatred he had for Orion.
He had believed nothing could be as all-consuming as his need to kill that bastard. But he had learned in the past twenty-four hours that something could rise inside him with the same force and knock him on his ass.
Lust. A hunger for one woman, not just any woman, a need for Risa that bit into his balls like sharp teeth and left him almost shaking in his need to touch her.
And tonight, he would be sleeping with her.
He reached up to wipe the sweat from his brow at the thought of that.
He was going to have to slide into that bed beside her, sleep beside her, and hold back his lust. Because if he didn’t, he could very well ruin the delicate plan he was laying in place for her. Something far different from using her to catch his.
No, Micah wanted Risa for much more than the fact that she was the only lead they had to Orion. He wanted her because her warmth reached into him. For the first time in his life, someone had touched a part of his soul that he didn’t know existed. A part reserved solely for her.
His father had once told him that every man knew when he found his mate. That one woman who could change a man simply because he loved her. Whether he could actually have her wouldn’t matter, Garren Abijah had warned Micah. What would matter was that loving her, knowing her, would make him a better man.
He feared Risa would be the one woman whom walking away from would destroy the man he was now. He sensed it, like a wolf sensed his mate. Like the flower sensed the sunlight. Like a dead man sensed his ultimate destruction, he thought darkly.