She should have pulled her hand away, but she didn’t. She just looked straight into his eyes while her palm curled over his heavy erection. While she pressed harder and rubbed a caress over him.
“Don’t you think it’s doing the same thing to me? I’m breathing you in too.” There was an ache in her voice. “Neither one of us knows why you’re continuing to get migraines, Player, but you can’t take chances. I don’t know why you keep going back to building that bomb, but the last time, that bomb was too real. I saw it. It wasn’t filled with some kind of soda, Player. It was real.”
He had to think. Clear his head. He had to make choices, and one of them was to talk to Czar. He had to let him know the truth about his illusions and what happened when things went wrong. How they were going wrong now. Worse, he had to tell Czar about the things Zyah knew about him. About the club. About his brothers and sisters. He wanted to pound his fists into the wall until they bled. He wanted to pound his cock into Zyah’s body until he stopped hurting so damned bad and he could think with a clear mind.
“You think I don’t know that? How dangerous I am to you? To your grandmother? To my club? My head is so damn fucked up and I can’t stop what’s happening to me.”
“I can,” Zyah hissed, for the first time sounding angry. Not loud. Not belligerent. Her voice was still musical, but it took on the tones of an older instrument, a crumhorn. “Not Steele, none of your brothers or sisters. Not a doctor. They can’t heal you or stop what’s happening. I can do that. I’ve been doing it. You’re almost there, and you’re not going to mess it up.”
She pulled her hand out from under his, away from his pulsing cock, and turned away from him, but not before he caught the glitter of liquid in her eyes. His heart stuttered.
“Zyah. I swear to you, I know my limitations. I wasn’t going on some suicide run.” Even to himself, his voice didn’t sound sure, because he hadn’t been so certain. He was a danger to her. To her grandmother, to everyone he cared about. He was the most fucked-up human being on the planet.
He’d learned to build bombs, several different types, but none like the one he’d been building over and over. He was getting good at putting that unknown bomb together. Fast too. He knew the parts now. The order. He was getting faster and faster while the shadowy figure timed him with that pocket watch.
She swung around to face him, and he shoved both hands through his hair and winced when he inadvertently touched the long, deep, carved-out groove in his skull. “Damn it, Zyah, I don’t know, I just have to think. I can do that on my bike.”
“Fine. Then I’m going with you.”
He took an aggressive step toward her, hooked her around the nape of her neck and used his thumb to press into her jaw, forcing her face upward. “We get on that machine together, and when we get off, I swear I’m going to fuck your brains out and you’re going to let me.”
“Fine, then. Let’s do it. It’s just sex. I can do just sex.” She shoved at the wall of his chest without rocking him, turned and flounced up the stairs.
It was breathtaking, watching her walk away from him. The way her jeans clung to her hips and hugged her bottom. He was a damn fool to even consider putting her ass on the back of his bike. He’d made up his mind that he wasn’t going to have anything to do with her, not after their last insanity in her bed, but he had to have her. And it was never just sex.
He’d been the one to push her away, over and over. She had tried to connect with him, but he’d been ashamed for her to see his past. He didn’t want her to know about the many kills he’d made. She’d been so far into his mind, he was certain he hadn’t managed to protect her from those things anyway. She’d been the one accepting and forgiving. Nonjudgmental. He’d been the one pushing her away, over and over.
He turned away from the stairs and picked up his jacket from the sideboard, shrugging into it. Anat had made some damn good points. Really damn good points. What was the standard he was judging himself by? His talent? It wasn’t a talent, it was a fuckin’ curse. Everyone else in his club had a psychic talent that contributed in a big way to their survival. He didn’t. A couple of times, his talent had pulled them out of the fire, but then he’d nearly killed them all.
Building illusions and using them had been a disaster until he’d learned how to control that power. He’d kept quiet at first, afraid he was going insane, figuring he was useless when they had been children fighting for survival. He still felt that way. He glanced toward the stairs. Most people, if they did have psychic talents as Czar believed, never developed them. They still went after what they wanted. They still fought for happiness. He had one chance, and that one chance was that woman up those stairs.
Was he using his past as an excuse because he was afraid of failing with Zyah? Afraid of letting her down? Or was he afraid of failing himself? Being the one in the club who couldn’t cut it yet again? Was Anat right? He had to take a good, hard look at himself. He never ducked a tough assignment. Never. He pulled his weight when it came to any kind of dangerous assignment. Hell no, he wasn’t a coward.
Damn it all. Maybe when it came to personal shit he was. He never talked about his cursed gift to the others. Not even to Czar. He’d never admitted to them that illusion turned to ugly reality, and reality could kill. He was always afraid of being rejected by the others. Was that what he was doing to Zyah? Rejecting her before she could refuse him?
What was he doing standing there in the Gamal house-hold with his colors inked on his skin, feeling them all the way to his bones, when he hadn’t gone to Czar and told him the truth? Laid it right out in front of him. All of it. The White Rabbit with that pocket watch who persisted in turning into Sorbacov with his fucking gold watch. The ticking time bomb that was so real even Maestro and Anat heard it. They heard it. If Zyah hadn’t stopped it by kissing him, connecting them so deeply, that bomb could have gone off.
He cursed under his breath in his native language. Anat was right. He was a fucking coward. Now not only could he lose his standing with the only family he’d ever known, but he could lose Zyah. Really lose her, as in she could be dead. He couldn’t take that. He wouldn’t be responsible for that. He needed time to think things through. He had to make certain she was safe, but also that his family was safe. The ocean air would help. The open road and his bike would clear his mind. They had to. He couldn’t make mistakes, not when lives were at stake.
Player felt Zyah’s presence before she even appeared on the staircase. He turned slowly to look up to watch her descend. It was almost a compulsion. A need just to be in the room with her. To breathe her in, to see her like this, doing mundane, simple, everyday things. She flowed in silence down the stairs like the dancer she was, so gorgeous she took his breath away. Her beauty wasn’t just skin deep.
He didn’t think she was perfect for him because he found her curvy body sinful beyond temptation, a playground he could spend hours teasing and playing with, or even because she had a gift that could counter the mess of his own talent. She was unique. A soft-spoken woman unafraid of hard work, capable of unconditional love and loyal to a fault. She was worth fighting for, and he’d be a damn fool to let her slip away because he was afraid of failure.