Saber handed him a mug of hot chocolate. “Tell me about Chaleen.”
He nearly choked. “Why would you want to know about her?”
Because she was still hanging around and Saber didn’t trust her for a moment. But she didn’t mind playing the jealous woman if it got her what she wanted. “She’s after you. I think that was made pretty plain. She gave me the look women reserve for competition. So tell me about her.”
“If you want to know about Chaleen, I’ll tell you, although there’s really not all that much to tell.” Because he had to be careful.
She could tell he was reluctant. “You don’t have to.” She tilted her head. “But I did overhear part of your conversation and it sounded as if she was warning you about an investigation you’re conducting.” She held up her hand when his piercing eyes went flat and cold. “I’m not fishing for details, but I think she’s a lot more than she wants you to know. She’s coming off as your friend warning you, but I could feel…”
She had a million secrets she couldn’t tell him, so it seemed unfair that he would have to reveal something obviously private to her-but she did want to know. She
Jess shrugged. “I met her skiing in Germany. It seemed innocent enough and she was beautiful and intelligent and loved doing all the things I did. She seemed perfect. Of course she was too perfect and I should have seen that, but I was too wrapped up in the sex to be thinking I might have been set up.”
Saber winced. Sex. She didn’t want to think about him having sex with perfect Chaleen, but she’d asked for this. She bit her lip hard to keep from interrupting.
Jess leaned back, pressing his head against the wide base of the tree. “It was so stupid, really. I knew better. I wasn’t some dumb kid. She began asking me questions about my work. Nothing big, nothing to raise alarms, but still, it should have. I just took it that she was interested, and believe it or not, I actually felt guilty that I couldn’t tell her anything.”
Saber drew up her knees and rested her chin on them. She could see clever Chaleen manipulating a man into feeling guilty.
“At least at first I felt guilty. Somewhere along the line I realized she really didn’t like all the things she pretended interest in. She was only acting.”
Chaleen had probably studied him, found out his every interest, and become the person he would be attracted to before she’d moved in on him. Chaleen-black widow spider. Saber twisted her fingers together, already afraid for him. If the woman had come back, she’d come for a reason.
“An assignment went bad. I was taken prisoner, and tortured. I’d been shot in both legs so they smashed what was left of my lower legs to try and break me. They wanted me to give up a colleague.” He looked at her, wanting her to know what kind of man he was. “I didn’t.”
She rubbed her palm over his thigh in silent sympathy.
He still felt it sometimes, those blows landing on the raw gaping wounds, felt the bones shattering inside his skin. His stomach knotted and for one moment bile rose. He fought it down. “I stared at the ceiling for three straight weeks after they brought me to the hospital. Just stared at it, without seeing or speaking.”
Instantly her eyes clouded and she caught his hand in both of hers. “Oh, Jesse, how terrible for you. I didn’t mean for you to relive a horrible memory.” She knelt close to him. “I’m sorry, so sorry I brought this up.”
His hand shaped her face, caressed her soft skin, traced her delicate cheekbones. “Don’t be sorry. I wanted to tell you or I wouldn’t have.”
“Were your parents with you?”
“I wouldn’t see them, I couldn’t. I had to decide on my own what to do with the rest of my life. I didn’t want anyone to pressure me one way or the other. The decisions I made had to be mine, ones I could live with. But Chaleen came. And went. I wasn’t of use to her anymore, or to her bosses. I couldn’t give them anything, so there was no point in our engagement.”
Her heart dropped. He’d been engaged to Chaleen. Had he loved her? Really loved her? Perfect Chaleen was probably perfect in bed. Saber was so far from perfect at everything there wasn’t even any contest.
His thumb slid over her mouth. “I realized that I didn’t love her, that I never really had. So I didn’t retaliate. I just let her go and chalked it up to a lesson learned. I have a job that someone out there is interested in-a lot of somebodies. And they want to know what I’m doing.” His fingers slid to her curls and fisted there, holding her still while his gaze drifted over her upturned face, inspecting her expression.
His eyes went flat and cold. “I won’t be so nice if I find out you’re deceiving me, Saber. You, I care about. You got under my skin. So if you’re working undercover, now’s the time to tell me, because if you ever betrayed me, I would break your neck.”
The tone of his voice and the look in his eyes sent a shiver down her spine. She didn’t doubt that Jess would come after her if she deceived him in the way Chaleen had.
“I don’t care about your secret life, Jess, not the way you mean it. I care about you.”
His smile was slow in coming. He was probably the biggest fool in the world, but damn it all, he believed her. He believed those large, beautiful eyes, even with the shadows in them. Deliberately he glanced at his watch. “We’d better eat if we’re going to. The temperature out here is dropping rapidly.”
Instead of drinking the warm liquid, Saber put the mug down and stretched out, snuggling under the cover, close to him. “I think I could take you in a fight.”
“Oh really?” Amusement crept into his voice, and his arm curved around the top of her head, fingers tangling in the silken strands of her hair. “You could take me?”
Her fist thumped his hip. “Don’t say it like that. Do you have to make everything sound sexual?”
“I’m feeling that way.” His hand stroked her temple. “You drive me crazy.”
He’d never just come right out and said it before. She wasn’t stupid. She certainly knew he was physically attracted to her, although after seeing Chaleen and knowing she and Saber were complete opposites, she wasn’t certain why.
She tapped her fingers on her knee and stared at the surrounding mountains. She had to give him something of herself. It wasn’t fair otherwise. He’d told her things, hurtful things that mattered, that were real, and just once, she wanted to give him something of herself.
Saber was silent and Jess remained so because of the little giveaway nervous tattoo of her fingers.
“I was trapped in a sort of hole in the ground once. It was completely black.” She watched his face carefully. She was giving him…too much. Enough to hang herself, yet there were abused children every single day. He would naturally think that of her, rather than something so bizarre and coincidental as that she was also a GhostWalker.
Jess went still inside. He could hear the catch in her voice as she revealed a traumatic event in her life. There was the faintest of tremors in her body. This was the real thing, not something made up to appease him. The suppressed emotion in her said it all and he felt rage-ice cold rage. He wasn’t certain he was prepared to hear this.
“I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face. After a while I thought I was going crazy. I couldn’t even breathe.”
She didn’t look at him, but kept her gaze on the mountains. “There were bugs. Oh God, so many bugs. They crawled on me.” She brushed at her arms and face as if to remove them. He saw her throat convulse as she swallowed hard and knew she was unaware of the tears gathering in her eyes. “I didn’t think I could stand it. I lost track of time. A minute, an hour, days. I could hear myself screaming, but not out loud, only in my mind. I didn’t dare make a sound. I would have never gotten out.”
The silence stretched between them. He was afraid of speaking, afraid his voice would break. He couldn’t touch her, couldn’t move his hand those scant inches separating them. He was shaking with anger unlike anything he’d ever experienced, and if he didn’t stay in control, the results could be deadly.
Saber became aware of the ground undulating beneath her. The trees trembled and the water in the fountains shot up like geysers. A branch in a nearby tree cracked ominously. She leaned into him, laid her head against his shoulder, and put a calming hand on his thigh. Instantly his hand covered hers and he took a deep breath.
“It’s all right,” she soothed. “I’m all right.” He was furious on her behalf, close to a loss of control-no good thing for any GhostWalker. It should have reminded her that Jess was dangerous, in or out of a wheelchair, but all it did was make her happy.
“How old were you?” His voice was very quiet. He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm, trying to
