Freeing the last button, she smoothed her hands to his shoulders to push the material over them and down his arms.
Her breath caught at the sight of him.
He’d taken her, sent her to heights of pleasure she’d never imagined could be reached, but she hadn’t really looked at the body capable of loving her for hours at a time.
In his primal state the stripes covering him weren’t black. They were a mix of black and tiger gold. Curling over his shoulders to his collarbone, over hard biceps, around his waist, across the tight, bunched muscles of his abs, they marked his body with animalistic beauty.
“I’ve dreamed of you coming to me like this,” she revealed softly as he stood tense and waiting before her. “This was all I knew. The beauty of the man and the beast. When I recognized you as Graeme, I nearly cried for the loss of who I’d known.”
As he’d grown older, even in the labs, the primal markings had eased until they’d disappeared entirely. The last year he’d been with them they’d gone entirely.
“There’s no sanity in who I am here, Cat,” he said, and the sound of his voice, the hard, deep rasp of it, stroked over her senses, drawing her into a place where only they existed, along with the hunger building between them.
“There’s no sanity in the world we have to face as others,” she corrected him softly. “Be my Gideon now, just for a little while? And I’ll be the Cat I’ve wanted to be for you for so long. Just for this moment? Let me have my Gideon.”
? ? ?
Jonas listened to Cat’s plea across the lines established by the communications nano-nit he’d managed to get in place. Staring at the holo-board controlling the almost microscopic device, he slowing reached out and deactivated it.
Damn, he should feel a measure of satisfaction. He’d suspected Graeme was Gideon for months and hadn’t been able to prove it. There were nights it had nearly driven him crazy, that uncertainty, the need to know.
Now, it was regret he felt.
“She loves him, Jonas,” Rachel stated softly from where she stood behind him while he was testing the nit. “And he loves her.”
Hell, he hadn’t expected it to work. Everything he’d had placed in Graeme’s vicinity seemed to malfunction.
Until now.
“They’re mates,” she pointed out when he said nothing. “Cassie will blow you out of the water if you attempt to bring him in after mating.”
Yeah, Cassie would have quite a bit to say to him if he attempted to arrest anyone’s mate, especially Cat’s. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t do it if he had to. But that all depended on Graeme.
“Jonas?” Rachel lowered her head until it rested at his shoulder. “What are you going to do?”
Glancing at her from the corner of his eye, he let a smile quirk at his lips.
“What I always do.”
She groaned, dropping her forehead to his shoulder now as her slender hands gripped his shoulders. “I love you, Jonas, but one day, a Breed is going to kill you for interfering in their lives the way you do.”
Yes, she loved him. She balanced him and often helped shape his plans as well as his views at any given moment.
“I only interfere now when I have no other choice,” he promised her. “That Breed is possibly the most intelligent and most dangerous Breed ever created. The things he knows about Breed creation and physiology could terrify Genetics Council biogenetic engineers for centuries to come. He’ll never be free, Rachel. Even his concept of freedom is flawed.”
“Is it, Jonas?” she asked softly. “Is it flawed? Or is it in opposition to your concept of his freedom?”
? ? ?
Let her have her Gideon?
The maddened creature that became a monster?
God, she had no idea what she was asking of him.
“Cat, this isn’t what you want.” It couldn’t be. The blood that stained his hands concerned even him at times.
His shirt dropped to the patio floor as her fingertips trailed down his arms to his wrists.
“Would you accept me as less than who and what I am?” she asked, the caress of those fingers moving to his sides, his abdomen. “Would you want less than who and what I am?”
He couldn’t bear it.
“Each time we’re together the pleasure is astounding, always better than before. But each time, I know something’s missing. A part of you is missing. I need all of you.”
Would having all of him change anything?
He couldn’t predict her answer to that question. He might have asked if she hadn’t chosen that moment to go to her knees.
“Cat . . .”
“You’re wearing your boots.”
Nimble fingers worked at the laces, loosening them in what amounted to only a few heartbeats before looking up at him. Holding the leather footwear, she waited as he pulled first one foot, then the other, free.
Reaching up, her fingers gripped his pants and tugged, pulling the fabric down his legs where he stepped from them.
“Now what?” The growl in his voice was a natural rasp of his primal state.