Spider Game (GhostWalkers 12)

She'd eaten some of the groceries he'd sent, mainly the fruit and vegetables. That made him inexplicably happy. It was the first thing she'd taken from him without protest, and he thought it was a good sign that she wouldn't try to kill him for being so late the moment she laid eyes on him.

She was staying in the lower level--the apartment he'd designed. He knew she was because the spiderwebs crept up the stairs and the cameras showed large veils of white silk covering the various rooms. He took it as a good sign that she had made herself at home there, especially after he'd confessed he'd had the apartment built just for her.

The space took up the entire lower story. He could fit two houses in her apartment. Clearly she wasn't used to the space, because she occupied only one room and the adjoining bathroom. She obviously slept behind that heavy veil of silk, and more webbing was strung across the room from wall to wall, but it wasn't dense and allowed her to sit on the cozy furniture.

The bathrooms--and there was a dozen of them--were mostly stark, ready to be decorated, but Nonny had begun to do just that in four of them. His master bedroom had a bath connected to it and there were three in the apartment on the lower story. Nonny had completed one downstairs--the one closest to the bedroom. He hoped Cayenne liked it. The only thing the cameras could see was the draped silk, beautiful masterpieces of silk, hanging everywhere.

From the moment he bought the place, he had suspected she was staying in the building, so he'd asked Wyatt's grandmother to make it especially nice. He'd inspected it and the bathroom had smelled really good and the walls were painted a soothing blue. The claw-foot tub he'd brought in was wide and long and he made certain several hot water heaters had been installed, so there was hot water on demand throughout the entire building. The shower was spacious, and the towels were particularly soft.

He moved with fluid grace to the gate. It was locked. He kept it that way. He could easily go up and over the fence, and he preferred that to bothering with unlocking the lock. He crouched, prepared to leap over it, when he noticed the almost invisible skeins of silk. She wanted to be warned when he moved onto the property.

Yeah, baby, I'm moving in, he whispered softly, intimately, into her mind. He knew the path to her. It was so ingrained in him, almost as if she were already a part of him, that it was easy connecting with her. I'm home.

There was silence. That made him smile. She was upset with him for taking so long. A good thing. He took the fence. It was high, but he had no trouble jumping it and landing softly on the other side. He deliberately broke a few of the fine silken threads, letting her know he wasn't going to be careful about it.

This is my home, Cayenne, he said firmly. Everything in it belongs to me. Including you. I told you that the other night.

Her breath hissed out. She moved in his mind, a stirring, and for the first time, she felt a little like a spider instead of the sensuous woman he knew her to be. This is my home. You should have come when you said you would. Now I've claimed it.

She was upset with him. He had taken too long. She'd given herself to him, cried in his arms, and he'd taken too long to get back to her. He had to do damage control, and he had the feeling he was starting all over again.

That's right, baby. And I'm in it, so that means I belong to you. That's the way it works, so get used to the idea.

He unlocked his front door, using the keypad. Just inside the entryway was a second door and his palm was coded in. Babe, you're going to have to have your palm programmed in. I'll have to do that now that I've activated this. You'll be able to use it at all entrances, including the vents and tunnels you like to travel in.

There was a small silence. Is he coming after us? Whitney? You said he was the mastermind of the laboratory in France. Do you think he'll come here? She sounded vulnerable again. She'd met Whitney and she despised him, sensing his madness, and his cruelty. That was before she'd witnessed it firsthand.

He felt a curious melting sensation in the region of his heart. He was a scientist and had never believed in those types of physical responses. He'd had his share of women, and never once did he have the type of emotional feelings that manifested as physical. Cayenne could make his heart stutter and his gut knot up. She could do a lot of things to his body without even trying, but he was beginning to realize it wasn't just his body that was affected by her.

I think he might--eventually. But we'll be ready for him. Wyatt's place is nearly finished. When you feel up to it, I'd like you to help me figure out some of the holes in his security. You got in, that means someone else might, and we have the girls to protect. Deliberately he acted as if he knew she would help them, that it was a fact, a given that she would be part of their team. He knew protecting the girls mattered to her, because already, once, she'd come out of the shadows and risked her life to help them.

What are you doing right now? he asked, as he strode through his home to the master bedroom.

Sitting in the chair looking out the window. I like that I can see out but no one can see in even if I have the lights on. I didn't know that was possible. The windows make me feel as if I can reach out and touch the plants. Have you noticed how beautiful the nights are here? I couldn't see outside from my cell. Not here and not in France.

He felt a surge beneath the ice, the one that told him his volcano was still present, would always be present and hidden beneath the glacier inside him. Fuckers, he whispered softly. You're free now. And I've got tons of plants up here, he enticed her. Because he wanted to see her. Even needed to see her. Even though he could acknowledge that to himself, it still bothered him, because to need any woman made him vulnerable.

It isn't the same thing as being outside.

That was true, but he didn't want her outside--especially at night. He wanted her there with him. Close. In his bedroom if at all possible. He made a mental note to add an abundance of plants throughout the building. With them came an automatic watering system so they wouldn't die. He'd forget to water. He was like that. He forgot a lot of things when he was working.

What are you wearing? He dropped his voice even lower. He had always been good with women because he had a voice that could seduce or compel as well. Tell me, baby. I've been working night and day, but I thought of you. So many times. Wondering what you were up to. What you were wearing. Do you wear clothes to bed?

He could feel her moving in his mind. This time there was no hint of the spider, only the woman. The seductress--that beautiful woman who was just as drawn to him as he was to her. He smiled as he placed his duffel bag on the floor and made his way to the kitchen. He had a few more treasures in store for her.

No. I don't like clothes when I'm sleeping. They twist around my body and wake me up.

His mouth went dry at her declaration. He didn't like wearing clothes at night either, but just the thought of her naked . . . All that silken skin. So close. Out of reach. Are you wearing clothes right now?

She'd better be, because if she wasn't, there was no way he was going to get any sleep. He'd spent the last few days and nights working on building a vaccine. He wanted his own body to build antibodies against the neurotoxin. He'd worked nonstop, no food, no rest, making certain he was right. The research he'd been conducting on trying to find a vaccine for the venomous poisons in Wyatt's little girls had actually given him a boost toward his goal, but it had taken much longer than he'd anticipated. He'd left her alone and clearly she felt abandoned.

I don't wear clothes when I'm alone. Too cumbersome. In any case, I don't have that many clothes and I don't want to ruin them. There's no need for clothes when I'm here in the house.

His heart nearly stopped. It definitely stuttered, another physical reaction he would have said was impossible. His mouth went dry. He'd just taken the cap off the milk carton and was raising it toward his face to take a drink. His hand seemed to lose its ability to grip and he nearly dropped the carton. The woman knew how to put images in a man's head. It wasn't just her voice that drew a man, it was

the entire package.

For some reason that opened up a small crack in the glacier, just enough to allow a vein of bubbling magna to escape. Fear burst through him. He didn't understand why, but it was brutal. He wasn't a man who ever felt fear, because he had nothing at all to lose. Suddenly she was there. He couldn't allow fear so he covered it, reaching for something else. Something dark and ugly. Something he hadn't known was a part of him.

They put you through seduction training? Did you take off your clothes in front of men so you learned how to strip slow and show off your body? Is that what you do, Cayenne? You seduce them before you kill them?

Pepper, Wyatt's wife had been trained to seduce a man and then assassinate him with one venomous bite. She hadn't cooperated, and she'd landed in the swamp, in the very building he resided in, when there was a crematory set up to get rid of the bodies scheduled for termination.

The idea of Cayenne being taught to use her looks, her voice, her body to please a man, to entice him so she could bite him, paralyze him or kill him, sickened him. Sickened him. He shoved the carton of milk back in the refrigerator and slammed the door shut. She would have been taught by male instructors how to please a man, the best way to seduce him. She'd pressed her body close to his. Kissed him. She was a dynamite kisser. Fourth of July. Fireworks exploding. A taking-a-man-to-heaven kind of kisser. He could still taste her in his mouth. He still had the scent of her in his lungs. He knew neither would ever go away. He pushed away the conversation they'd had about her training. About her being in a cell. She was beautiful. Sexy. Deadly.

Why would you ask me that?

There was hurt in her voice. One small note. He almost missed it. You kissed me, Cayenne. You kissed me, and I lost a part of myself to you. He had lost much more than he thought when he kissed her. He'd never felt so exposed before in his life. Need moved through him. Hunger. There was no way to stop it, and the idea of being out of control when he controlled his entire world hit him hard. I thought you were as into me as I was into you, but then you bit me. Paralyzed me. Left me out in the swamp as alligator bait. All along, while you were kissing me and I was lost in you, you were planning to paralyze me and leave me there in the mud.

Okay, maybe she hadn't done that. She'd asked him and he'd told her Wyatt was close. But he wasn't anything special to her. She watched over the Comeaux brothers as well. Maybe before he'd arrived she'd been pressing her body up against one of them. He could hear himself ranting like a jealous idiot, but that pressure inside his chest wouldn't let him stop.

You know I didn't do that, she protested, the hurt increasing in her voice. I was into you. I lost a part of myself there as well.

That small stream of orange-red lava continued to slip through the ice. I'll just bet you did, right before you paralyzed me. You're talking about sleeping nude and sitting downstairs right within my reach without a stitch on, putting that image in my head. Seriously? That's not seduction?

No! She sounded adamant. And maybe close to tears. The hurt was definitely there. You asked me questions. I have no reason to be deceptive. I just answered you. Was that wrong? Should I have lied? What difference does it make if I wear clothes to bed or sleep without them? Or lounge around in my own space without them? How is that seduction?

He nearly groaned. How was it not? Her voice rang with truth, but along with that honesty was the soft velvet note that brushed a man's skin and wrapped around his cock like a tight fist. Squeezing. Stroking. Caressing. His cock responded to that. It was impossible to maintain control.

You flirted with Pascal and Blaise. It was no wonder they thought they were going to score the way you were carrying on.

There was another long silence. He felt her frown just as if he was standing in front of her. He knew she had a habit of licking her full bottom lip with the tip of her tongue. He'd seen her do it in the bar when she was sitting there at his table. The only real sign of nerves other than when her fingers twisted together beneath the table. He knew she was doing that right at that moment.

Heat rushed through his veins and blood pooled low and wicked. His erection was painful. Huge. Worse than when he was a fucking teenager. It was impossible to walk around with an enormous hard-on. Cold showers weren't going to take it away. He needed Cayenne. Really needed her.

I don't flirt. I wouldn't even know how to flirt. I haven't been around all that many people.

What the hell was that in the bar? The edge to his voice was now in his mind. He couldn't take a step so he didn't try. He opened the front of his jeans to give himself a little relief. The material couldn't stretch that much. His hand circled his cock, fist closing tight. Why the fuck couldn't he stop being such a bastard? Why were images of her with other men wreaking havoc with his brain?

I think I'm angrier at you over that, putting yourself on display to those two morons, than you betraying me by leading me on with that kiss and then paralyzing me.

He wasn't angry with her for biting him. He actually understood that. She'd been terrified. A part of her was not only protecting herself, but she thought she was protecting him. She could have killed all three men, but she hadn't. She wouldn't have left them lying there for any wild animal to find. She had stayed to watch over them. Every time he thought about her sandwiched between the Comeaux brothers there at the bar with the sound of her laughter floating back to him, now that made him angry.

I had to find a way to survive in a world I was totally unfamiliar with. I needed money for food. I needed clothes. I followed various women and observed them and then I acted the way they acted. They appeared friendly. Most were married. When they talked to their friends they laughed. I laughed at the things they said even though, to me, it wasn't funny. I tested them to see what kind of men they were. But I wasn't flirting.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. She was crying. Again. He'd made her cry. He'd wanted to hurt her because sitting in that damn bar watching her with those two losers, two of the worst men in the swamp, had hurt him. He acknowledged that now. He had to. He had to come to terms that she gotten under his skin.

You fucking know you belong to me, Cayenne, so tell me why we're doing this dance. I don't want you going to a bar and standing close to other men, showing them your body. Letting them touch you.

I didn't let them touch me, she objected.

I didn't see his hand on your ass--the beautiful ass that, by the way, belongs to me? I didn't see that? Is that what you're telling me?

I don't want to talk to you anymore.

I'll just bet you don't. My cock is as hard as a rock. But then you know that, don't you? You make it that way. You sit there naked and tease me with your voice, knowing you shouldn't have allowed that man to touch you like that, not ever. The only man who touches you is me. The only man who kisses that mouth is me. And I'm the only man who is going to be inside of you. So stop fucking around. You need money, I left a cache in the kitchen for you along with plenty of food. Make a list of what you need and I'll bring it home. Figure this out soon, lady, or you're going to find I don't have patience for this dance and I'm going to be coming after you.

I don't understand half of what you're saying to me.

You understand me. You're in my head. You know what I want. You know what we're going to be doing together. I spell it out every time you're in my mind. I want you in my bed. I want you as my partner, including in the lab, because after that peanut comment I know damn well you'll be an asset there. You fucking gave yourself to me four nights ago, and I'll be damned if you take yourself away.

You didn't come. Her voice broke.

He knew he was being a bastard, but he still couldn't get that image of her sandwiched between Pascal and Blaise out of his mind. He couldn't push aside the black jealousy, because if he did, he'd have to face the reason. The real reason he was angry with her. He set his jaw stubbornly. He'd held her. Comforted her. She'd given herself to him and there was no going back, he wasn't allowing that.

I want your mouth on my cock a

nd I want to be buried balls-deep inside of you. I want to tie you up and take my time, making you scream with pleasure. I like playing, baby, and I want to spend the rest of my life knowing you'll let me do that. That you'll enjoy it. Not just enjoy it, but crave it. I want you thinking about me day and night, waiting for my touch. For my cock. For anything I want to do to you.

There was another long silence. He thought he'd lost her. He made it back to the master bedroom, every step painful. He was making his erection worse with every image rising in his mind. He wanted her to know what kind of man he was, what he would demand of her in the bedroom. The kind of complete surrender he would expect. The kind of partner she would be for him.

Cayenne drew her knees up, making herself very small in the chair she nestled in. Trap was angry with her, when he should have been apologizing, or at least comforting her. Instead, he acted as though she was a seductress and had betrayed him in some way. That wasn't logical and it didn't make sense. She'd had four months to study him. He was never out of control. He was often rude to people--even his teammates--but he wasn't out of control.

She pushed aside the things he'd said to her and tried to move deeper into his mind. He hid things from himself. Not things. Emotions. He was jealous, but he used jealousy to cover something else, something much deeper. She was under his skin, there was no doubt about it. His mind was consumed with thoughts of her. Images, most erotic, but many of just holding her. It had meant a lot to him, comforting her the way he had. That she'd come to him.

Trap wasn't used to feeling vulnerable. She was. He always was in control. She'd been powerless in her cell, at the mercy of others. He wasn't equipped to feel the force of their combined pull. All along, because he knew about families and relationships, because he'd lived in the world and she hadn't, she thought he had the upper hand. She realized he didn't. He cared for her. Really cared for her. She mattered to him. He seemed to be experiencing that for the first time, and it didn't sit well with him.