The big man lowered his weapon. "What the hell? Where the fuck could it have gone?"
"We shouldn't be here, Dave. I think we should go find the others ..." The big man took a few more steps into the cave. "Don't be such a pussy. Give me that light." As the smaller man reached out to hand it over, his boot caught on a loose rock. He stumbled, went down on his knees with a yelp of pain and surprise. "Oh, shit! I think I cut myself!" The coppery proof of it rose up in a sudden olfactory blast. The scent of fresh blood drilled into the predator's nostrils. He breathed it in and hissed it back out of his lungs through his bared teeth and fangs. Below him on the floor of the cave, the nervous little man's head jerked upward. His stricken face went slack with horror under the alien, amber glow of now-thirsting eyes.
He screamed, his voice as high and curdled as a human girl's.
At the same time, the big man wheeled around with his rifle.
The cave exploded with a sharp crack of gunfire and a blinding flash of light as the predator leapt from his hold on the rocks overhead and launched himself at the pair of humans. Alex couldn't remember the last time she'd slept so deeply or so uninterruptedly. Nor could she recall ever feeling quite so spent and sated as she did after making love with Kade. She stretched beneath the fluffy pile of blankets and sleeping bags on the floor, then rose up on her elbow to watch him as he added more wood to the fire in the cabin's little pipe stove.
He crouched on his haunches, the thick muscles of his back and arms bunching and flexing as he pivoted to place another log in the stove, his smooth skin bathed in the warm amber glow of the firelight. His short black hair was a bed-rumpled mess of glossy spikes that gave him a wilder air than normal, all the more so when he turned his head to glance her way and she was hit with the chiseled angles of his killer cheekbones and jaw, and the piercing silver of his dark-fringed eyes.
He was gorgeous, a hundred times more breathtaking when he was sitting there naked in front of her, his gaze intense and intimate, locked onto hers. Alex's body still hummed with the memory of their passion, the pleasant ache between her legs pulsing a bit warmer for the way he looked at her now, as if he wanted to devour her all over again.
"Did we sleep through daylight?" she asked, suddenly needing to fill the heated silence. He gave a brief nod. "The sun's been gone for a couple of hours."
"You've been outside, I see," she said, noting the fresh supply of split logs stacked up beside him.
"Yeah," he said. "Just came in a minute ago." She smiled, arching her brows. "I hope you didn't go out there like that. It can't be more than zero degrees in the dark."
He grunted, his sensual mouth curving with wry humor. "I don't have any shrinkage issues." No, this was definitely not a man who'd have the slightest insecurities about his masculinity. Every inch of him was lean, hard, sculpted muscle. At nearly six and a half feet, he had the brutal form of a mythical warrior, from the thick, ropey bulk of his shoulders and biceps, to the carved planes of his chest and the washboard abs that tapered to narrow, perfectly cut hips. The rest of him was impressively perfect, as well, and she could testify that he certainly knew what to do with it.
Good lord, he was a living work of art, which was only enhanced by the intricate yet subtly rendered pattern of ink--what kind of ink was that, anyway?--that tracked over the golden skin of his torso and limbs like the path of an appreciative lover's tongue. Alex followed the swirling, intriguingly strange designs with like the path of an appreciative lover's tongue. Alex followed the swirling, intriguingly strange designs with her eyes, wondering if it was only a trick of the firelight that made the henna color of his tattoos seem to flush a deeper shade as she stared at him in open appreciation.
Grinning as though he were used to women admiring him, he stood up and slowly walked back over to where she lay in their nest on the floor, totally uninhibited in his nudity. Alex laughed softly and shook her head. "Does it ever get boring for you?" He cocked a dark brow as he dropped into a negligent recline beside her. "Boring?"
"Women falling all over you," she said, realizing with a bit of stunned surprise that she didn't exactly like that idea. Hated it, in fact, and she wondered where the pang of jealousy was coming from, considering she had no personal claim on him simply because they'd shared a few sweaty--and, yes, okay, flat-out spectacular--hours enjoying each other's bodies.
He stroked a stray lock of hair out of her face and drew her gaze to his. "I only see one woman here with me right now. And I can assure you, I am anything but bored."
He cupped her face in his palms and kissed her, easing her back onto the blankets. His gaze smoldered as he looked down on her, and she could feel the rigid pressure of his erection nudging at the side of her hip where he'd stretched out beside her. "You're a special woman, Alexandra. More special than you know."
"You don't even know me," she protested quietly, needing to remind herself of that fact more than him. They'd known each other for what--a couple of days? It wasn't like her to allow someone into her life so quickly, or so deeply, especially after such a short time. So, why him? Why now, when everything in her world felt as though it were perched on the edge of a very steep cliff? One strong push from the wrong direction, and she was gone. "You don't know anything about me ... not really."
"Then tell me."
She looked up into his eyes, startled by the sincerity, the raw plea, in his voice. "Tell you ..."
"Tell me what happened to you in Florida, Alex."
All the breath seemed to squeeze out of her lungs in that instant. "I did tell you--"
"Yes, but you and I both know that it wasn't a drunk driver that took your mom and brother from you. Something else happened to them, didn't it? Something that you've kept secret all these years." He spoke with gentle patience, coaxing her trust. And God help her, she felt ready to give it to him. She needed to share it with someone, and in her heart, she knew that someone was Kade. "It's okay, Alex. You can tell me the truth."
She closed her eyes, feeling the awful words--the horrible memories--rise up like acid in her throat.
"I can't," she murmured. "If I speak it, then everything I've tried to put behind me ... everything I've worked so hard to forget ... it will all become real again."
"You can't spend your life running from the truth," he said, and something haunted crept into his voice. A sadness, a resignation that told her he understood some of the burden she'd carried for so long.
"Denying the truth never makes it go away, Alex."
"No, it doesn't," she replied quietly. In her heart, she knew that. She was tired of running and sick of fighting to keep the horror of her past buried and forgotten. She wanted to be free of it all, and that meant facing the truth, no matter how awful--no matter how unfathomable--it may be. But fear was a powerful enemy. Maybe too powerful. "I'm scared, Kade. I don't know if I'm strong enough to face it alone."
"You are." He dropped a tender kiss on her shoulder, then brought her gaze back to his. "But you're not alone. I'm with you, Alex. Tell me what happened. I'll see you through it, if you'll let me." She held his imploring stare and found the courage she needed in the steely strength of his eyes.
"We'd had such a good day together, all of us. We picnicked down by the water, and I had just taught Richie how to do a backflip off the dock. He was only six years old, but he was fearless, and willing to try anything I did. It had been a perfect day, filled with so much love and laughter." Until darkness had settled over the swamp, bringing unholy terror with it.
"I don't know why they chose our family. I've searched for a reason, but I've never been able to find one for why they came out of the night to attack us."