He wanted her to see him at his worst. She caught his hair in her hand and secured it at the nape of his neck. She needed to see his eyes and he needed to see hers.
“But you couldn’t kill her.” It was a statement, not a question.
“No. She looked at me with such innocent eyes and I thought, ‘Why?’”
“Why did she need to die?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“I wasn’t trained to think. Just kill.”
“Oh.” It was hard to think of Isaiah functioning with mindless obedience.
“What was the penalty for not completing your . . . job?” It galled her to realize she didn’t know what else to call it.
“Torture and eventually death.”
That “eventually” was said so matter-of-factly, it made her shiver. The Reapers had been assassins. They’d delivered death and they expected it as part of their day-to-day lives. Isaiah had expected it. Dear heavens, how much pain did it take to change a boy into a cold-blooded killer? Her gaze fell to the faint scars on Isaiah’s neck. How much torture did it take to keep him that way?
She touched the marks, rage simmering inside. For the boy he’d been. The man he was. “What did they do to you when they found out?”
“They never found out. I came back and they just assumed I’d completed the job.”
Because he’d always had before then. “They never expected you to find your humanity, did they?”
He paused as if rolling the description around his mind. “No. They didn’t.”
“What happened to the woman in the picture?”
“I don’t know. I like to think she’s happy and doing fine.”
But the not knowing haunted him. There was more than he was telling her. “And the picture?”
“I kept it as a reminder.”
Addy shifted beneath Isaiah, hooking her calves over the backs of his thighs, holding him to her. “Of who you wanted to be.”
“Of who I could have been,” he corrected.
“Of who you are,” she countered, pulling him down, getting nowhere when he tightened his muscles against her. No wonder he thought she wouldn’t want him. No wonder he stayed in the shadows. He couldn’t forgive himself. She knew about that kind of guilt. But she also knew Isaiah. No matter what they’d done to him, Isaiah was more than a soulless killer. Of that she was convinced. He might have lost who he was for a time, but somewhere in the middle of hell, he’d found himself. She knew that as surely as she knew her name.
“Don’t go making fairy-tale endings, sweets.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” This time when she tugged him down, he went. She waited until his lips were just a breath from hers before confessing, “I was thinking more along the lines of beginnings.”
“Shit.” His mouth bit at hers. “You are crazy.”
“I know.” She trailed her nails down his nape and kissed him softly, feeling his desire, his hesitation, matching it with the reckless conviction inside her. Isaiah was hers. “However, the only man I want to be crazy with is you.”
“Damn it, it can’t work. There are things you don’t know—”
“But someday it will.” She bit his shoulder, his chest, arching her hips so her pussy aligned with his cock. A single pulse of her hips enticed him in that first delicious bite. “But until then, I’m willing to take it day by day. How about you?”
His growl rumbled against her neck, his teeth grazed but didn’t bite. His cock surged deep, stealing her breath, her voice. She clung to his shoulders, absorbing the impact, the beauty as they became one, rejoicing when he finally, finally, gave her what she wanted.
“Maybe.”
It wasn’t a yes, but it was a beginning.
15
ISAIAH LOOKED AT HIS IMAGE IN THE MIRROR. HE DIDN’T recognize the man looking back at him. His hair was slicked back. His body was incased in a black wool suit. A starched collar threatened to choke him and, failing that, was going to drive him crazy from the itching. He was from every angle a respectable member of society about to go courting the woman of his dreams.
But until then, I’m willing to take it day by day. How about you?
Maybe.
For a week he’d been trying to dissuade himself from following through on that “maybe.” For a week he’d been unsuccessful. For a week he’d been caught up in the dream Addy had held out. For a week he’d been happy. And for a week he’d been waiting for the other shoe to fall. He gave the tie a tug. It fell back in the same position as before. Looking over his shoulder at Reese, who lounged in the wing-back chair by the window in Addy’s parlor, Isaiah asked, “Men court in this getup?”
Reese, who’d designated himself his shadow since that night last week, leaned back in the chair and picked up his whiskey. “Every day of the week.”
“Hell, all I need is a pine box and you could prop me up outside the undertaker’s.”
Reese took a sip of his drink. “Not a bad idea. With a Reaper on display, we could make some money.”
Isaiah tugged at the stiff collar. “I’ve got news for you. A dead Reaper looks the same as any other corpse.”
“Now that’s a pity, considering how hard it is to kill one of you.”
He met Reese’s gaze in the mirror. “You should know. You’ve tried.”
Reese shrugged, not denying the second shot that night last week had been meant for Isaiah. “Not as hard as I should have.”
Isaiah held his gaze. He wanted to know why Reese had missed that night. A Reaper wouldn’t have. “Why was that?”
“I could say a lot of things.”
“How about the truth?”
“How about part?”
Something was better than nothing, until he could get it all. “Do it.”
“Because I’ve never seen Addy as alive as she is when she’s around you.”
“For that you took away her protection?”
“Nah. For that I’m risking Cole kicking my ass. He wants her safe.”
As if he didn’t know that. “And you?”
“I want her happy.”
“At any cost?”
Reese sat forward. “Pretty much.”
Reese’s love for Addy was a weakness that could cost her life. He’d have to remember that. “I’m not staying.”
“So you’ve said.”
“I mean it.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’m a Reaper.” Reapers didn’t have homes. Didn’t wear ties. Didn’t take women to dances. He looked at his reflection. Reapers only had the illusions.
“So you’ve said.”
“Not to hear myself talk.”
“I’m not the one you have to convince.” He took another swig of his whiskey. “But I’ll tell you this, if I have to put my money on Addy or your beliefs, my money’s on Addy.”
He’d learned over the last week, when dealing with Reese, that nothing was what it seemed. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Reese smiled. “A whole lot of shit you should know, no doubt.”
“No doubt.” Isaiah tugged at the collar again. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”
“Nope. My orders are to stick to you like a fly on shit.”
“Cole?”
“Yes.”
“Does he know what a lousy chaperone you are?”
“He might have forgotten to ask a few pertinent questions.”
“That doesn’t sound like Cole.”
“He was a bit aggravated at the time. I believe you’d just beat his ass.”
Isaiah smiled with remembered satisfaction. “A fact you took advantage of.”
“Yup.” Reese motioned with the glass. “Stop messing with that collar or you’re going to have it crumpled.”
“I’d rather just take it off.”
“So would every man who has ever donned one of those suits, but women love a man spiffed up, and you promised to do this courting right.”
“Which brings up another question. Why didn’t you stop me?”
Reese shrugged. “I didn’t get the impression at the time that anything could have stopped you.”
Probably not, but someone should have stopped him. He wasn’t thinking straight. The beast was too strong. Addy’s allure too great. “You should have tried. We’re talking about your cousin.”
“Being my cousin just makes her a Cameron. And when Camerons make up their minds that they want something, they get it.”
Isaiah arched a brow at Reese. “You wanted me dead.”
“Uh-huh.”
Isaiah gave the tie a tug. It still listed to the right. The starch in the collar of the shirt still itched. And he still wasn’t a man who had any right to touch Addy.
He yanked the tie off and started over. “You should have pulled the trigger.”
Reese smiled that smile that could have meant anything from amusement to intent. “You never know. I still might.”
The tie still listed to the right. He left it. However it was, however he was, both were going to have to do.
“Did you get the flowers?” he asked Reese.
“Mrs. McGillicuddy wasn’t willing to offer them up. She’s mighty particular about her first roses of the season.”
He cocked an eyebrow at Reese. “You could have just taken them.”
“Did I forget to mention that she’s a damn fine shot?”
“You probably would have if you’d thought there was a chance I’d believe an old woman with a shotgun could dissuade you.”
Reese finished his drink. The glass clinked down on the table.
“Damn, you’re getting to know me.”
“A casualty of you living as tight as fleas on a dog.”
“That’ll complicate things.”
Isaiah shot him a grin that was only half forced. Reese had a way of growing on a person. “Not if you get lost.”
“Uh-huh.”
Isaiah grabbed his hat off the peg by the door with a sense of finality. He was as good as he was going to get.
“Where are you going?”
“To get my ass shot off.” He bared his teeth at Reese in a parody of a smile. “Want to join me?”
Reese bared his right back. “Absolutely.”
Isaiah jammed his hat on his head. If Reese wasn’t such a pain in his ass, he could find himself liking him.
ADDY looked like an angel standing in the doorway, dressed in a gown the color of the sky on a clear spring day. Her smile radiated happiness, her appearance elegance. Her hair was drawn up in an elaborate collection of ringlets that at once enhanced her natural grace and heightened the air of vulnerability he’d always sensed beneath her strong exterior. When she bit her lip, he realized the vulnerability wasn’t an illusion.
“How the hell can you be anxious?”
Addy blinked. “How can you not be? We’re going dancing!”
Reese laughed. “Quite the ladies’ man. A week of courting and your lady is still as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.”
“Shut up, Reese.”
“Yeah,” Isaiah growled. “Shut up.”
Reese held up his hands. “Pardon me.”
This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go, Isaiah thought, with Reese laughing and Addy covering for him. He shoved the roses he’d stolen at her. “You look too damn beautiful to be nervous.”
A tinge of pink dusted her cheeks. “Thank you.” She took the roses. “Where did you get these?”
“I found them.”
“You found roses?”
“Yes.”
She looked at Reese for confirmation.
“Don’t ask,” Reese advised.
Addy sniffed the roses and then angled Isaiah a glance out of the corner of her eye. Her “all right” was very soft.
From down the other side of town came the faint sounds of musicians tuning their instruments.
“Last chance for you to come to your senses,” Isaiah advised, half serious, half joking. Looking as she did tonight reminded him how far Addy was beyond his reach. How far she could fall if he slipped.
Addy touched the spot on her neck where he’d bitten her. He frowned. He hadn’t seen any signs of her turning, but it made him nervous that whenever he was around, she compulsively reached for that spot. Was it a new ritual or something more?
Addy tipped the roses toward her and breathed in their scent. “I think I’ll chance it.”
“If you go to the dance with me, your cousin Cole will know.”
She rolled her eyes. “If I go to the dance with you, the whole town will know.”
“Even your fiancé, Mr. Hackleberry.”
“What?” Reese straightened. “When did you get engaged to that mama’s boy?”
Addy’s blush deepened. “He doesn’t actually know I picked him.”