Air Bound (Sea Haven/Sisters of the Heart 3)

What the hell are you doing? If I move my finger he can pull the trigger and kill you. Get the hell away from here.

She ignored the warning and kept crawling, telling herself she was a tiny spider on the deck and the captain wouldn't see her. The two men were grunting and cursing, their heels drumming at each another while both fought for control of the rifle. She pushed herself into the small space between the captain and the wall.

Damn it, shoot the bastard if you're going to. What are you waiting for?

She'd been so focused on getting to the captain's neck, it hadn't occurred to her that she could dart him anywhere. She pressed the gun against his thigh and pulled the trigger. Just for good measure she shot him again in his chest. The drug was fast acting and hit the captain hard. His eyes rolled back in his head and he went limp.

Maxim tore the rifle from his hands and glared at her. "Are you deliberately trying to get yourself killed? Airiana, all he had to do was push that muzzle toward you and squeeze the trigger."

She let the dart gun fall from her hand, drew up her knees and put her head down on top of them. Her eyes burned with tears, her throat was clogged with them. There was no way to stop them, no way to keep not just her eyes from weeping, but her entire body. She'd killed a man, using gifts meant for good. The world around her was complete madness.

Maxim felt as if she'd just delivered a wicked punch straight to his heart. He'd made her cry. Really cry. Her entire body was shaking and she'd wrapped her arms tightly around her knees, locking him out.

"I'm sorry. You just scared me, honey. It's no big deal. You're safe. I'm safe. We're good." He used his most soothing voice. She had to stop. What was wrong with him that he could be tortured and yet couldn't stand the sight of her crying? How cliche was that?

"I want to go home. Can you just take me home?"

Airiana lifted her head abruptly, her sky blue eyes wet with tears. It was worse looking at her like that than listening to her. The impact was a knife through his heart, much worse than a punch.

"I'll get you home, baby. Just stop." He reached over the captain and lifted her into his arms, cradling her against his chest. She winced as if lifting her hurt her physically. "I know it doesn't seem like it, but we're much closer to our goal."

She held herself stiff, as if she couldn't bear his touch, and that hurt worse than if she'd just slapped him. He had to give her something--a truth about himself. Something she would recognize was more than an apology. He searched for the right thing, feeling a little desperate, needing to make things right between them.

"I never considered that I might have a double standard, Airiana, but I do. I wasn't given a choice when I was taken from my family and placed in that school. There was no running away, no way to be anything but what they wanted me to be. I became what they made me."

He nuzzled her neck. Inhaled her scent. She was warm and soft and made for him. He had known that from the first time he'd researched her.

"The point, Airiana, is I had no choice. I made up my mind that, although I had to accept the hand dealt to me, never again would I be in a position where I had no choice."

She was listening to him. The tension hadn't left her body and she wasn't melting into him the way he wanted her to, but still, she was listening.

"Clearly I'm not good at explaining myself. I've never had to, nor have I wanted to. But you came along and my well-ordered world was turned upside down. Inside out. You messed with my head. I had no choice when it came to you, honey."

There. It was out. He made it sound so matter-of-fact, not at all like the fire raging in his soul. He hadn't wanted to want her. He didn't want a woman he was destined for. He didn't want a woman at all. She complicated everything. She left him with no choices--something he'd vowed would never happen again, and he was damned angry with her.

He turned her hand over and pried open her fingers, exposing her palm. His thumb brushed over the center and for a moment the two interconnected circles appeared beneath her skin and just as quickly disappeared. He sighed. "Baby, you have to stop crying. I'm trying to tell you something important and I can't think straight when you're like this." If he could have ordered her to stop, he would have.

She leaned her head against his chest and looked up at him with tear-drenched eyes. "I'm listening."

He nodded and pressed a kiss into her palm. "I have this anger inside of me, buried so deep and it never gets let out--I wouldn't dare let it out. I don't even know how to let it out anymore, which is a good thing. It just sits there, smoldering like a volcano, and once in a while it tries to surface. You changed my world, and I put you deep inside, where all that anger resides. I didn't want some slip of a woman forcing me to put my mark on her. I knew what it meant, and I knew neither of us would ever be free again, but, still, for all my discipline, all my training, I couldn't stop myself."

Airiana frowned and looked down at her palm. "I had nothing to do with that."

"A man in my position lives with absolute discipline. Everything I do or say is planned carefully. I don't have compulsions I can't overcome. That would be suicide. But I couldn't stop myself from putting my mark on you. I tied us together."

"Shouldn't I be the one angry?"

"Yes. I can concede you're right--even logical--but crazy, out-of-control emotions don't make sense, and I have never chosen to live with emotions or be dictated to by them. Until I met you. All along you've screwed me up."

Airiana finally relaxed into him completely, melting like she did, so that she felt a part of him. How could he explain to her how that felt? He was a man apart. He didn't have a woman melt into him. He didn't feel as if they shared the same mind or the same skin.

"Still, I offered myself to you and you rejected me."

He winced at the hurt in her voice. He hadn't had sex with her--something that was always calculated. He didn't want that and refused to allow his mind or body to go in that direction with her.

"I've never made love to a woman. I've had sex a million times, I won't lie, but I've never made love to a woman, and if I get that chance again, in the right time and the right place, I want it to be with you."

He kissed her palm again and brought it to his face, rubbing it along his shadowed jaw. "I know I sound a little crazy right now, but that's the way you make me feel. I just thought you should know."

He waited, holding her palm to his jaw, willing her to understand when he wasn't certain he understood what he was trying to tell her. An apology for rejecting her offer? A confession of anger because she made him feel something? That made no sense. Nothing he'd done after meeting her made any sense at all.

"You do realize I just killed a man, Maxim. I used the wind to push him overboard. I heard his back break and I don't think I'll ever get the sound out of my head. You're telling me how you feel while we're on a yacht out in the middle of nowhere and most of the crew is either dead or drugged."

"I'm very aware of those things, yes," he said.

She sighed. "Just checking that we're on the same page, because I'm a little bit upset over it all. Especially the killing part."

"Really? The killing seemed the least of it all to me. I'm upset over your crying. That just has to stop. You do it just a little too much, and I think my hair is going a little gray."

"Killing is wrong."

"Not if it's in self-defense, honey, and you were defending yourself." He was still inside. Waiting. She was turning what he'd said over and over in her mind. He needed acceptance from her.

Airiana sighed and pushed her fingers through his hair. "I don't see any gray, Maxim. Tell me the rest. I need to hear everything."

Everything made him even more vulnerable. Maybe that's what love was, and he didn't want to go there. He had no choice again. She wasn't about choices, only truth. "I don't want to love you. Not a woman like you. Loving you would be terrifying, Airiana, every minute of every day. I was terrified as a child and again, swore I wouldn't ever be as an adult--and I haven

't been, no matter the circumstances--until you."

She pressed her lips together as if stopping herself from condemning him. He couldn't blame her if she did. He'd tied them together and then run for his life. The silence stretched between him, taking away his choices again. She wasn't going to give herself to him again. He understood that. She'd offered once and he'd thrown her offer back in her face.

"You're the kind of woman that consumes a man. I can't get you out of my head. I'll never be free of you. I know that already and I haven't shared your body yet." He'd slipped up and used the word yet. There was a part of him already accepting that he couldn't walk away from her. He could use every excuse, but he wasn't that strong.

"You make loving me sound like it just possibly could be the worst thing in the world. Worse than the life you lead now."

He winced. He supposed as a declaration of love, he hadn't done a very good job. "I suppose you could take it like that."

For a moment the storm in her eyes grew a little turbulent and he braced himself for her answer. He'd never exposed himself to anyone like that in his life. He'd never looked into his soul, let alone showed who he was to another human being. She had such power over him, and that was the problem. He didn't want anyone to have that kind of control over him.

Her gaze softened and she nuzzled his chest. "I'm going to take everything you said as a compliment. Thank you for thinking I'm worth loving, even though you don't want to love me. I can understand feeling as if you don't have a choice." She lifted her face and bit him gently on his chin. "Just remember, you aren't in this alone. You may think you are, but I'm right here with you. I didn't have a choice when you did the palm thing. I can't help being drawn to you. There are two of us feeling this way, not one."

He nodded slowly. He felt he could breathe again. His lungs actually felt raw, burning from lack of air, but the moment the storm clouds had faded from her eyes, the moment she indicated she understood, the world righted itself.

"I'll remember that, honey, I promise. You just work very hard on the crying thing. You could be the perfect woman without that little flaw."

Her eyebrow shot up. "Flaw? You might be the perfect man if you didn't actually open your mouth and speak."

The storm was back, at least threatening to come back. He could see it in her eyes. "On further thought, flaw would not be the correct word."