The sensuous curve of his mouth promised delight. The sharp angle of his jaw and his high cheekbones cast loving shadows across his face and throat. They drew her gaze in, daring her to reach out a hand and touch. Even his silky, dark hair called to her, begging her to slide her fingers close to his scalp and drag his mouth where she wanted it most. She wasn’t even entirely sure where that was, though she could imagine the fun she’d have finding out.
Not that she was going to do any of that. She wasn’t. But a girl could dream, and Logan was definitely the stuff of dreams. “My memory isn’t exactly trustworthy. I’ve learned not to pay any attention to it.”
That news made an inky black brow lift in question. “I’ve always adored memories.”
His eyes brightened, seeming to glow from within for a split second. His aura shifted, pulsing with an infrared flush of desire. Hope felt herself lean forward, trying to get closer.
Logan reached out and drew one finger from her forehead, down her temple, over her cheek, and onto her neck. A heated shiver swept through her as his finger made contact with the spot his mouth had been last night. “I’d like you to share yours with me.”
“Share?” she asked, her voice barely there. Her chest was tight with longing, leaving little room for air.
Not that she needed it. She didn’t need anything except the sight of this man and the feel of his fingers on her skin. It made her insane, but there was no help for that now.
“I only want a quick peek. Just a glimpse of the woman you are.”
His hand slid around her neck, curling at her nape. He pulled her close, bowing his head until his forehead rested against hers.
He smelled of sunlight on snow—cold and clean. But the warmth of his skin seemed to burn into hers.
This wasn’t right. There was something odd about him, and she needed to put some space between them in order to clear her senses and figure out what it was.
She shifted her weight to take a step back and was suddenly jerked against his torso, his arm wrapped around her, his hand splayed low on her hip. The hold was possessive. His grip demanding.
“Just relax,” he whispered, and she was sure she could feel it in her mind as well as hear it in her ears. “I won’t hurt you.”
There was a hot pressure behind her eyes—not painful, but not right. It didn’t belong. She instinctively fought the invasion, which seemed only to make it worse.
“Let go, lovely. Let me inside.”
His words made heat flare in her belly. She pulled in a gasping breath. This wasn’t right. It felt good, but it wasn’t right.
Hope had no chance of breaking his grip. His body felt like hot steel against her front, his arms hard metal bands. And he smelled so good. She kept dragging his scent into her lungs, letting it become a part of her. She was losing herself in this man, slipping away.
With a surge of willpower, Hope gritted her teeth and shoved against that pressure in her head. “No!” she shouted, pushing him away.
Logan flew backward, slamming into the pavement.
Shock held Hope immobile as the realization of what she’d done set in. Her whole body trembled with fear and fatigue. A headache screamed behind her eyes. Her breath came out in harsh, uneven gasps, billowing in the cold air.
He pushed gracefully to his feet, his eyes never leaving her. “What are you?”
Not who. What.
Hope had always known she wasn’t normal. The best guess of the doctors had placed her in her late teens or early twenties the night her life began. There were no records of her birth. No parents. No friends. Not a single person had come forward when her photo had been plastered all over TV and newspapers. No one claimed her. Except Sister Olive.
And now, nearly a decade later, Logan was voicing her deepest fears. No one had claimed her because no one knew her. It was as if she’d been plunked down, out of nowhere. An alien.
Or worse.
She’d always pretended she was normal. Her memory loss was a head injury no doctor could find on any CAT scan or MRI. She’d built a life for herself—a home for herself—based around a fundamental, flimsy lie: Hope was human.
Between Logan’s question and the powerful outburst she’d just displayed, Hope’s house of cards was beginning to fall.
“Leave me alone,” she said, her words lacking the strength she’d intended to give them.
Logan dusted off his jeans and shook his head. “Not on your life. I need you.”
Hope scoffed at that, letting out a laugh of derision she couldn’t contain. “I bet you do.” She nodded down at the bulge in his jeans—the one she’d been trying to avoid acknowledging.
“Would my erection be less offensive if I told you that’s the first time that’s happened to me in a long, long time?”
“You’re such a flatterer. And a liar.”
“Sometimes,” he admitted, “but not now.”
“I need to go. Do not follow me.” She turned to walk away, determined to search the inside of that blasted memory-stealing building despite how freaked-out she was now.
Logan took hold of her arm and his living heat slid through her coat into her skin. “I’m sorry. I can’t let you go. I need you. My people need you.”
“The bullshit just keeps getting deeper.” She tried to jerk out of his grasp, hoping for another burst of strength, but his hold stayed firm.
He stepped forward until his body was pressed against her back. Instantly, she wished for a longer coat—one that would mask the thick press of his erection against her ass and the languid warmth it caused to pool in her belly.
His arm snaked around her, sliding under her sweater until his fingers curled along her ribs. They were so warm. So gentle.
Never before had she allowed a stranger to touch her like this. She had no idea why she was now.
Hope felt his breath flutter across the top of her ear. “Please don’t run. I promise I won’t hurt you.”
A comforting weight descended over her, but she knew it was a trick. Some kind of magic trick he was playing on her screwed-up mind.
“Five minutes. Please give me five minutes.”
“To do what?” She could think of too many things a man like him could do with that amount of time. Her heart pounded hard at the idea, and a burst of need exploded in her chest.
He let go of her and caressed his way up her arm, over her shoulder, and up her throat until his hand settled along the side of her face. “I want to see your memories. Learn who you are.”
“How is that even possible?”
“How was it possible you were able to cast me to the ground with more strength than a man twice your size?”
He had a point. “Why? Why do you want to see my memories?”
“I think we can help each other.”
“How?”
“So many questions. It would take less time to show you than to explain. Aren’t you curious?”
She was. That was the problem. She’d wanted to know the answer to so many questions for so long that even the merest hope of learning the truth called to her. What if he wasn’t lying? What if he could see her memories and tell her once and for all if she was human or something else?
Hope nodded, feeling the heat of his fingers slide along her face. “Okay. Take a peek, but I swear that if you try anything funny, I’ll beat your head in with my flashlight.”
Chapter 6
She was a violent thing, but Logan discovered that it aroused him. Like everything else about her.
He truly shouldn’t have allowed himself to get this close, to let the soft swell of her ass cradle his swollen cock. The appendage had a mind of its own, jerking and pulsing against her as if it could get closer.
She was meant for someone else. He had to remember that.
Logan had spent years ignoring hunger. This was simply one more type of hunger he would learn to ignore. Quickly.
Before she changed her mind, Logan pressed his advantage and swooped into her thoughts. She didn’t fight him this time. In fact, he felt himself being pulled in, welcomed as if he belonged here.
He started with her most recent thoughts and memories. Tonight.
She was afraid of him. Attracted to him. He saw himself through her eyes and there was an odd sort of colorful halo surrounding him. He’d never seen anything like it before, but she was so used to it, her easy acceptance made him skim over that detail.
She was looking for someone. A friend. Logan could see the young woman’s face clearly. Pretty. Dark eyes. Blond hair that had once been dyed pink, growing out to hide her face.
Logan tucked that away, and moved back along her memories, seeing a stream of nameless people sliding through her life. Some of them she knew well. Others were strangers. She seemed to care for all of them, worry for them.
He moved back to her memories of last night, knowing he needed to remove all traces of the Synestryn she’d seen. That memory could lure others to her, putting her at risk. It had to be cleaned from her thoughts for her own safety.
Logan found the memories from last night. He saw himself battle the demon, and felt her fear as she’d watched. She’d seen him as courageous and noble. It was such an odd thing to witness that he lingered there for a moment, reveling in her perception of him. To her, he was a hero. He’d saved Steve’s life.
Of course, she didn’t know that he’d done it for his own selfish purposes. He needed Steve to survive. His people needed Steve. There was nothing noble at all about what he’d done last night. It was all cold, practical logic.
And yet, witnessing how she felt about the event gave him pause. He liked how she saw him. He found himself hesitating when he knew he had to rid her of the memory.
But if he did, how would she see him then? Would she remain in his arms, pliant and cooperative? Or would she become mistrustful and bolt the moment she got the opportunity?
That was not something Logan could allow. No matter how much he liked playing the part of a noble hero, her memories of the demon had to be erased.
Like a surgeon extracting a tumor, he found the edges of that memory, preparing to cut it out. The seams between when she showed up and saw the demon, and the time she woke up in the hospital had to be knit together in a way that would not leave her curious. The less he removed, the easier it would be for her, but if he left too much, she might poke at the memory until holes formed and the events came rushing back to her.
He found what he thought was the optimal balance and began to extract those memories to take them into himself.
It didn’t work. No matter how hard he tugged, the memories remained fixed in place. If he tried any harder, he’d hurt her, and that was simply not something he could tolerate.
This kind of thing rarely happened, but he had heard of it. Sadly, that left him with only one option: He had to blur what was there.
His skills with this kind of work were far less advanced. He had to leave the majority of the memory intact, while hazing over that which would draw Synestryn to her.
Slowly, Logan began layering a fog over the creature, covering it in every moment of her memory. It took several iterations, but when he was done, all that was left was a black, shadowy spot in her vision, as if she’d never been able to clearly see the thing that had attacked.
