Unleashed

His voice continues like a deep purr, dragging shivers across my skin. “The last time I kissed you I figured I had nothing to lose. You were leaving anyway.” His liquid dark eyes with their fire underneath the surface suck me in. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

I hear something in his voice then. An echo of the same thing that tremors through me. “Me too,” I whisper.

Then I’m kissing him, my hand cupping his cheek. It’s a heady and dangerous thing, but maybe it’s worth it. It feels good to feel again. To let emotion in.

I unbutton his shirt and slip my hands inside, hungry for the feel of him. He pulls back and slides it all the way off. He comes down on me all warm skin and lean muscle. Life. Vitality. I don’t even recognize the sounds breaking loose from my lips. Sharp inhalations, contented sighs.

He kisses my neck, my shoulders. His hand moves under my shirt and curves around my waist. I dig my nails into his back, revel in the flex of sinew under my fingers.

I arch, putty in his hands as he works the buttons open on my shirt. The fabric drops with a whisper. Long fingers round my shoulder and caress my stitches.

I wince.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No. It’s just not . . . pretty.”

“Everything about you is beautiful.” His dark eyes melt me, but his words . . . his words undo me.

I smile, feeling shy. Except my hands can’t stop moving, stroking his warm skin.

He pushes the hair back from my forehead. “You know you have to stay here with me.”

My smile slips and my hands still against him. I don’t like those words no matter the sound of them in his velvet voice.

He brushes a hand over my lips as if he can erase my sudden frown. “Don’t. You’re not a prisoner, and I’m not trying to trick you into staying with me—even though I want you to. I think I’ve dreamed of you here, like this, ever since you brained me with that rock.” He smiles, and I feel my face heat.

I swat his chest. “Be serious.”

He catches my hand and holds it over his heart. “I love that you can still blush.”

Because I’m a carrier. Someone who’s seen it all, done it all, and can still blush. I guess that is a rarity.

He sobers. Looks at me intently. “Claiming you . . . you staying in my cell. It’s the only thing Marcus and his crew understand. That you’re mine.”

That you’re mine.

Pressed against him, his heart beating beneath my hand, it’s a far too tempting thought. That I’m his. That he’s mine.

“Please, Davy, this way you’ll be safe as long as you’re here.”

Stay here every night with him until the next crossing? In his bed. Wrapped up in his warmth and arms. Could I do that? And still leave? Without splintering apart?

I sit up and push him back down with a hand on his chest. Leaning over him, I ask, “Does that work both ways?”

“What do you mean?”

“Does that mean you’re mine, too?” I try to keep my expression serious, but can’t help smiling.

He looks startled for a second, but then he sits up suddenly on an elbow, sliding one hand to cup my cheek, fingers burrowing into my hair. Only he’s not smiling back at me. His expression is deadly serious as he utters, “I am yours. Completely.”

And it’s my turn to be shocked. Peering into his face, what I see there robs me of breath. His eyes are deep and luminous, open and so full of life, so ready to embrace me. Love me. If I just let him. If I just let myself. It’s everything I’ve been running so hard from, and I feel so stupid to think I never wanted this again.

I watch him, wondering at these feelings. He makes me feel like I can do this. That HTS didn’t end my life. For the first time I see that. I believe it. I believe I can still be someone. Not the girl I used to be, but someone else.

Maybe even someone better.

I pull a hard, bracing breath into my lungs. Maybe I’m eventually leaving this place—I don’t know anymore—but that doesn’t mean I can’t have this while I’m here.

Sliding my hands around his neck, I bring my mouth back down to his.

* * *

Conversation between the president and the chief of staff

PITT: Who’s in charge of the Resistance?

SWITZER: Uh. I don’t understand, sir . . . I don’t know that any one specific person is.

PITT: This isn’t happening without someone taking control and directing movements. They have to have a leader. Someone they all respect. I want to know who . . . Find him.

TWENTY-ONE

WE KISS THROUGH HALF THE NIGHT. FEVERISH kisses that leave me aching. He always pulls back just before things get too carried away, and that’s a peculiar thing. For a guy. It hasn’t been so long that I don’t remember that much. Zac had been a master at persuading and cajoling, getting in my head and twisting me around his finger. I just didn’t know it then. Manipulating me, wanting to possess me. I thought that was love. I wouldn’t have resisted him much longer. If my DNA hadn’t turned up positive for HTS when it did, I would have given him what he wanted, thinking it was what I wanted, too. And I guess my heartbreak would have been that much more crushing, because there would have been even more regret wrapped up in the crumbling bits of my life.

It had never felt like this with Sean, either. Never so real. Sure, there had been butterflies in the stomach and heady kisses, but it had been me running from life, terrified and looking to hang on to something. With Caden I’m not running from life. I’m running toward it.