“Why?” She had to turn away from him, the need she glimpsed in his gaze weakened her, made her want to forget the past thirteen years, and she didn’t dare forget.
“Because you’re the most beautiful vision I’ve ever had.” His voice was rough now, the sound of it flooding her senses and her body with the most incredible weakness. The pleasure that flooded her entire being shortened her breath while causing her heart to race in excitement.
How did he do this to her? Why had her entire life been consumed by this one Breed and all the conflicting, pain-filled emotions he inspired in her?
“Why are you doing this to me, Graeme? Why are you trying to destroy me?” He’d been her world then he’d destroyed it. She’d been a child. Nothing had mattered to her but him, and he’d destroyed her.
“Destroying you was never my intent.” He moved behind her, stopping only when he was within a breath of touching her. Gently, firmly, his fingers curled around her hips as his head lowered to her bare shoulder. “Hurting you was never my intent, Cat.”
“Then what was your intent?” Fists clenched, she fought the lure of his body, the memory of the incredible sensations his lips could create against her flesh. “Because for something you didn’t intend, you’re doing a damned good job of it.”
He was destroying her senses, her determination to remain aloof, her promise to herself that she would never allow him to shred her heart again. Or what still remained of her heart.
Callused fingers clenched at her hips, holding her in place when she would have eased away from him.
She couldn’t do this. If she continued to stand here, to let him hold her against him, then she would cave and she would beg him to take her, to continue ripping her apart. One hand slid from her hip to her stomach where it flattened against the clenched muscles of her lower abdomen. Her eyes closed, the sensual weakness building, making a mockery of her determination to withhold herself from him.
“I can smell your need, soft and heated,” he whispered at her ear. “An addictive scent I find myself longing for at the oddest moments.”
“I’m sure there’s a twelve-step program for that somewhere. I bet Jonas Wyatt could point you in the right direction,” she assured him, forcing the sarcasm into her voice rather than the breathless need she couldn’t hide from him.
The feel of his teeth raking against her neck was followed by a low, warning growl in reply to the suggestion.
“Bad girl,” he berated her. “I’m sure I don’t need Jonas’s help in any way.”
“You need help period,” she assured him before gasping and finding herself turned so quickly she barely registered the move.
One second she was staring away from him, in the next she was staring up at him, her breasts pressed into his cheek, his erection, restrained only by the denim he wore, pressed into her lower stomach.
“When I found you, I was completely maddened,” he growled, staring down at her with a hungry demand that flickered in the gold flecks of jungle green eyes. “I was instinct and intellect only. No mercy, no compassion.” One hand threaded into the back of her damp hair, clenching there as his gaze flickered over her face. “The last time I was in this desert searching for you, only the scent of Claire Martinez surrounded your body. There was no hint of my Cat, no matter how similar you were in looks, I was fooled. When I returned, there was no hint of Claire, only my Cat, and her pain. Her loneliness.” His voice dropped, his head lowering as his lips brushed against the corner of hers. “All the madness that had driven me for so long eased away and the monster I’d been settled back. What little sanity remained snapped into place and I knew why the monster existed to begin with.” He paused, his lips whispering over hers, but refusing to initiate the kiss she was suddenly hungry for. “Do you know why it existed, Cat?”
She shook her head, fighting to breathe, fighting not to take the kiss she needed.
“Why?” She forced the question out, wishing he’d just hurry and give her what she needed.
“For you,” he breathed. “It lived for you, Cat. To protect you. To hold back the horror of the risk of Bennett finding you and dragging you back to the center. It existed, to ensure you lived.”
The monster everyone spoke of in the past months had existed for blood . . . And each time it had taken blood it had been someone that threatened her, or those she cared for.
“You swore to kill me.” It was all she could do to force the words past her lips. “To kill me and Judd. You knew what you were saying.”
She remembered that clearly. Cold, deadly purpose had filled his eyes, his expression.
“I was a child, G,” she whispered, remembered pain slicing at her heart again. “You were all I had to depend on. All I knew of love.”
I never loved you . . . You were my experiment.