Savage ignored the byplay. “I think it was smart to sunbathe. Anything to get that healing going. Did Player take off the bandage around his head? Maybe he’ll get his brains back. Got any fresh cookies?” Savage added, getting to his main agenda.
“Since I was the one making the cookies,” Player said, “no, there aren’t any. At least for you. Stick around for a little while. I’m heading out for a ride.”
He’d told Anat he was leaving. Now he wasn’t so certain. With Zyah’s scent surrounding him, with her taste in his mouth and breathing her into his lungs, it wasn’t so easy to just walk away from her. He didn’t dare look at the older woman. She would know she’d gotten to him with her reprimand—and she had. He’d never quite looked at things the way she’d laid them out to him. He had a lot to think about, and he thought better on his bike.
Zyah whirled around to face him. She all but planted her body directly in front of his. “What do you mean you’re going out for a ride?”
He shrugged casually, pressing his fingers deep into his thigh to keep from tucking stray strands of her dark, flyaway hair behind her ear. “I haven’t been out for a while, and I need to ride. I get restless. I’ll just be gone a short while.”
“Steele said you shouldn’t try it yet, Player. I heard you ask him last night.” She lifted her chin at him, daring him to call her out for eavesdropping.
In the last few days, he’d offered to exchange rooms dozens of times, but she said it was too much trouble. Hell, he wanted—even needed—to get out of her bedroom; she was everywhere inside those walls. It was silly, really, to want to exchange rooms, since she came into the bedroom every night. She had to when he had nightmares, when the illusions started and then reality blended with illusion and he was building bombs he’d never seen before. It was just that things in that room that were sacred to her bothered him. Really bothered him.
He’d spent a great deal of time after he’d taken Anat out in the sun, over two hours, just sitting on the bed, staring at the picture her grandfather had drawn for her grandmother. It was truly a work of art. There was no question about it. The man had painstakingly drawn out every line, and it must have taken him months to complete the work.
Every time Player looked at the masterpiece, it gave him a headache. The worst part about it was that he felt compelled to look. Zyah talked about it all the time. There was love in her voice when she did. She spoke about the love between Anat and her husband, Horus. There was the signature falcon rising from the drawing, and Zyah had explained that Horus meant “falcon” and that the bird was often drawn into his things.
Maybe it was because Zyah had such a history of family that Player disliked the charcoal image so much. His own father had allowed Sorbacov to murder his mother right in front of him and sold his son to be used by pedophiles and trained as an assassin.
Yeah, Player detested that charcoal drawing. He looked at it and saw something else. It actually hurt his eyes and made his head pound and feel like it was coming apart worse than ever. At times, he would rearrange those lines, the wings and whorls, making them into other, much more lethal things, because his mind was really fucked up like that. Worse, there was her father’s beloved frame.
Player loved his Harley. He loved music. And he loved wood. He had an affinity for it. When he touched the surface of any type of wood, alive or not, he felt the roots going all the way to the earth, deep, connecting him. He could almost hear whispers of the past in the wood. He liked the stories the various types of wood told him. Touching the frame around the picture Zyah’s grandfather had drawn, he’d expected to feel love along with the stories from the tree’s native land. He didn’t feel love at all in that frame, other than the places Zyah had touched. The frame felt sinister and threatening. Even more than the drawing, he found the frame disturbing, but he had no idea why.
“Player.” Zyah’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Steele said you shouldn’t ride yet.” She was insistent. “Your migraines are too severe and they come on too fast.”
“Steele said it wasn’t a good idea for me to ride, but he didn’t say not to,” he corrected as gently as possible.
She was upset, and that was the last thing he expected or wanted. He’d planned on leaving, but now he wanted the time to think. If she was this upset just at the thought of him riding his motorcycle, she was bound to really be upset if he left her house altogether. At least he hoped she would be.
“He said if a migraine came on, you could have balance issues.” Her hands went to her hips. Her lips pressed together ominously.
The problem with her belligerent stance was, he found it sexy. Her voice was too smoky, far too sinful and sexy for her to sound as if she was lecturing him. Player also had a very vivid image in his head of those lips wrapped around his cock, which sent that part of his anatomy into a frenzy of activity. Shit. That wasn’t good. Not with them being in her grandmother’s room. He lifted a hand to Anat and slid back into the shadows, inching toward the door.
“A short ride, Zyah. I just need to clear my head a little.” He began moving again, edging around her, trying to make certain there was no body contact. If he made it to the open road, he could decide if he was going to leave for good or not.
“Wait a minute. Destroyer, can you stay with my grandmother, make certain she’s safe? I’m going with you, Player.”
Player’s heart stuttered. He put his hand over his chest and pressed hard. “Baby, you can’t do that. You just got home from work and you’re tired.” He forced his voice to be gentle, to not dictate. She couldn’t ride with him on the motorcycle. It was far too dangerous for either of them, and not in the way she was thinking. She’d resisted every time he’d tried to get her back in the bed with him, and he knew she was trying hard to save herself. He was trying just as hard to save her.
“No, Player.” She glanced back at her grandmother, placed a hand on his chest and put pressure on him, so either he had to move backward or she would walk right into his arms.
Player had no problem with taking her into his arms, but not there. Not with her grandmother looking on, or Maestro or Savage, for that matter. What was between them was private and intimate in a way he didn’t want anyone else to see. Their connection didn’t just strip him naked and make him completely vulnerable, it did the same to Zyah as well. He wasn’t allowing that, not even in front of his brothers. He let her walk him backward out of the room.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
Her tone was low. Musical. It vibrated through his body, sending little electrical charges right through his veins straight to his groin. Her hand was still on his chest, and he doubted she was even aware of it, but he was. The heat of it seared him through the material of the tee he was wearing. Her head was thrown back, and more of that thick hair of hers had come loose, so untamable, just like she was.
“I need to breathe,” he answered honestly. “My head is coming apart, and being so fuckin’ close to you, breathing you in night and day, is turning me inside out.” He caught her hand and slid it down his body to the front of his jeans. “I’ve got to just take a breather, babe. Ride along the highway.”