She didn't want to return there, though, not yet. In her mind, she'd decided to take one night off, so these were her last few hours before she got on the vengeance trail... and lost this soft connection between her and John, this profound understanding they now had of each other.
Because she wasn't going to fool herself: The sad reality was the powerful tie that linked them was nonetheless so fragile, she didn't doubt it was going to snap once the present came back into better focus than the past.
"Qhuinn, will you excuse us, please."
The guy's mismatched eyes shot over to John, and a series of hand motions got traded between them.
"Fuckin' A," Qhuinn spat before turning on his heel and marching out the front door.
After the slam finished echoing through the house, she stared at John. "Where did you sleep?"
When he swept his hand to a corridor, she went with him past many rooms that had modern fixtures and antique art. The combination made the place feel like an art museum you could live in and she explored a little, ducking her head into the open doors of parlors and bedrooms.
John's crib was all the way at the other end of the house, and as she walked in to it, she could only imagine the culture shock. Squalor to splendor, all in the change of a zip code: Unlike the crappy studio apartment, this was a navy blue haven with sleek furniture, a marble bathroom, and a carpet that was as thick and full as a marine's brush cut.
Plus it had a sliding glass door that led out onto a private terrace.
John went over and opened the closet, and she looked over his strong, heavy arm to the small clothes that hung on wooden hangers.
As he stared at the shirts and fleeces and pants, his shoulders were tight and one of his hands was curled into a fist. He was sorry about something he'd done or the way he'd acted and it didn't have anything to do with her....
Tohr. It was about Tohr.
He was regretting the way things had been lately between them.
"Talk to him," she said softly. "Tell him what's doing. You'll both feel better."
John nodded and she could sense his resolve sharpening.
God, she wasn't quite sure how it happened--well, the mechanics were pretty damn simple, but what was surprising was the fact that once again, she found herself going over and hugging him, her arms wrapping around his waist from behind. Laying her cheek between his shoulder blades, she was glad when she felt his hands covering hers.
He communicated in so many different ways, didn't he. And sometimes touch was better than words for saying what you meant.
In the silence, she drew him back to the bed and they both sat down.
As she just stared at him, he mouthed, What?
"You sure you want me to go there?" When he nodded, she looked him right in the eye. "I know you left something out. I can sense it. There's a gap between the orphanage and that apartment building."
Not one facial muscle moved or even twitched on him and he didn't blink, either. But the tells of a male who was good at covering up his reactions were irrelevant. She knew what she knew about him.
"It's okay, I'm not going to ask. And I'm not going to press."
His faint blush was something she would remember long after she was gone... and the thought of leaving him was what brought her fingertips to his lips. As he jerked in surprise, she focused on his mouth.
"I want to give you something of me," she said in a low, deep voice. "It's not about making the score even, though. It's just because I want to."
After all, it would have been great if she could have taken him to her places and walked him through her life, but his knowing more about her past was just going to make her suicide mission harder for him: however she felt about John, she was going after her captor and she wasn't about to fool herself on the odds of her surviving that showdown.
Lash had tricks.
Bad tricks that he did bad things with.
Memories of the bastard came back to her, horrible ones that made her thighs tremble, ugly ones that nonetheless served to push her into something that she might not really be ready for. But she couldn't go to her grave with Lash having been her last.
Not when she had the one male she'd ever love in front of her.
"I want to be with you," she said hoarsely.
John's shocked blue eyes traced her face like he was looking for signs that he might be reading her wrong. And then a hot, hard lust broke through all his emotions, shattering them and leaving nothing behind but a full- blooded male's urge to mate.
To his credit, he did his best to beat back the instinct and hold on to some semblance of rationality. But all that meant was that she was the one who ended the battle between sense and sensibility--by putting her mouth against his.
Oh... God, his lips were soft.
In spite of the thundering she sensed in his blood, he kept himself in check. Even when she slid her tongue inside of him. And that restraint made it easier for her as her mind flickered back and forth between what she was doing now...
And what had been done to her mere days ago.
To help focus her, she sought out his chest and ran her palms down the pads of muscle over his heart. Easing him back onto the mattress, she breathed in his scent and smelled the bonding he felt for her. The dark spices were unique to him, and about as far as you could get from the sickening stench of a lesser.
Which helped her separate this experience from her most recent ones.
The kiss started out as an exploration, but it didn't stay that way. John moved closer, rolling his massive body against hers, his heavy leg riding up until the weight of it pushed down on her own. At the same time, his arms wrapped around her, bringing her in tight to him.
He was moving slowly, as was she.
And she was fine until his hand slipped onto her breast.
The contact scrambled her, yanking her out of this room and this bed, taking her away from John and the moment with him and landing her back in hell.
Fighting her mind's defection, she tried to stay connected to the present, to John. But as his thumb brushed over her nipple, she had to force her body to stay still. Lash had liked to hold her down and draw out the inevitable by scratching and pawing at her, because as much as he'd enjoyed his orgasms, he'd been even more into the foreplay of f**king with her head.
Psycho-smart move on his part. She'd have infinitely preferred to just get it over with--
John pushed his erection into her hip.
Snap.
Her self-control rubberbanded on her, reaching its limit and splitting in half: With a surge, her body bolted away from the contact of its own volition, breaking the communion with him, blowing up the moment.
As Xhex sprang off the bed, she could feel John's horror, but she was too busy reeling from her own fear to be able to explain. Pacing around, desperately trying to hold on to reality, she breathed in deeply, not from passion but derivative panic.
Well, wasn't this a bitch.
Fucking Lash... she was so going to murder him for this. Not for what she was going through, but for the position she'd put John in.
"I'm sorry," she groaned. "I shouldn't have started it. I'm really sorry."
When she was able, she stopped in front of the dresser and looked into the mirror that hung on the wall. John had gotten up while she paced and gone to stand before the sliding glass door, his arms crossed over his chest, his jaw clenched hard as he stared out into the night.
"John... it's not you. I swear."
As he shook his head, he didn't look at her.
Scrubbing her face, the silence and strain between them amplified her urge to run. She just couldn't deal with any of this, with what she was feeling and what she'd done to John and all that shit with Lash.
Her eyes went to the door and her muscles tensed for her exit. Which was straight from her playbook. For all of her life, she had always relied on her ability to ghost out of things, leaving behind no explanations, no trace, nothing but thin air.
Served her well as an assassin.
"John..."
His head swiveled around and his stare burned with regret as she met it in the leaded glass.
As he waited for her to speak, she was supposed to tell him it was best that she go. She was supposed to toss over another limp-ass apology and then dematerialize out of the room... out of his life.
But all she could manage was his name.
He pivoted to face her and mouthed, I'm sorry. Go. It's okay. Go.
She couldn't move, though. And then her mouth parted. As she realized what was in the back of her throat, she couldn't believe she was going to put it into words. The revelation went against everything she knew about herself.