Viper Game (GhostWalkers 11)

"Look at me, baby. I want to see your eyes. I want you to look into mine." He waited there, cradling her close to his chest. When she finally complied, very reluctantly, he held her gaze captive with his. "I'm not goin' to hurt you, woman."

She blinked back the tears that were suddenly swimming in her eyes, making the color more purple than black. The sight turned him soft inside.

"You can't know that, Wyatt," she whispered. "You don't even trust me."

He carried her through the house back to his bedroom. "I don' know you - yet. But I intend to, after all, you're the mother of my children. I think we owe it to them to get to know one another, don' you? We'll need to know each other so well that we'll be able to read each other's every move. We'll have to be that close. I don' think we have a choice."

She leaned her head back against his shoulder, her eyes searching his. "Why? Why do you say that?"

"We'll be the ones protectin' them from men like Whitney and Braden. Who else is goin' to do it? You know how dangerous and determined the men we're dealing with are. It will take both of us. Maybe others as well, but we'll do it." He injected absolute confidence into his voice.

"Are you really going to help me take care of the children?"

He deposited her gently back on the bed, carefully laying her down on his grandmother's homespun sheets. "Yes. I believe I'm their father and you're their mother. They trust you. If they see you interactin' with me, they'll accept me more readily. The only person I really worry about is Nonny. She's not so young anymore, and even if I were to manage to develop an antivenom, I would be afraid to use it on her."

Pepper frowned. "There's something about Nonny I can't explain. It's a feeling I get when I'm close to her. I know Ginger feels it too. It's the same way we both feel when Ezekiel is close."

Wyatt scowled at her, a dark shadow moving through him. "What the hell does that mean? Exactly how does Ezekiel make you feel?"

"It isn't how he makes me feel. It's how he feels to both of us. He has this energy of sheer calm. It's very soothing and not a threat or a food source. I can't explain it any better than that." Pepper's gaze searched his face. "You don't have to be jealous, Wyatt. You give off that same soothing energy. Ginger would never have tried to bite you, but she thought you were a threat to me."

"I am jealous, darlin'," he admitted. He wanted her to know how dangerous it would be with her tempting other men. "You need to get it into your head right now, that there isn' goin' to be any other man for you. You aren' goin' to be usin' your charms to seduce my friends or anyone else to get your way. You look to me if you've got an itch. I'll take care of you."

"How lovely. How does that make you different from any of the others?"

He swept back her hair, his hands framing her face. "I am different. I'm offerin' you a family. A man who will work a lifetime to make you happy. To make us work. I'll keep you happy in bed and out of it. But I'm no pushover. You're not goin' to be able to use sex to get your way."

Her lashes fluttered, a sign, he was coming to know, that her temper was rising. "I do not use sex to get my way. Why do you think they threw me away?"

Her voice, if anything, had gone softer. It found its way right under his skin and stroked his cock into a very hard demand.

"I know they created me with the idea of seducing the enemy, getting close to him with seduction, but I didn't cooperate and I've never been remotely interested in a man." Until I came across you.

He heard the words distinctly in his mind, only they weren't words, he actually caught her thought. She blinked, veiling her expression with long lashes.

He frowned at her. He didn't know what he wanted from her, but she seemed absolutely guileless in that moment. He usually knew lies when he heard them, and Pepper sounded honest. Puzzled. Confused. Joy had never been honest with him. He'd left his home and gotten himself into a mess because he'd been wrapped up in thinking he loved a woman. That wasn't going to happen again. She wasn't going to run his life, that much he wasn't confused about.

He stroked a finger down Pepper's face, feeling her soft skin beneath the pads of his finger. Sex with Pepper was bound to be off the charts. He could already taste the passion in his mouth.

Pepper jerked her head away. "I'm sorry you caught that. It wasn't a green light. You did connect us in some way and I can read you just as easily as you do me. I'm not looking for anyone to be my children's father."

Her voice sank into him. All heat. "I am their father, little darlin', whether you like it or not."

"I meant you don't have to do this because you think you can seduce me. I don't want that from you. Just because I don't have a last name, and I'm a failure as a soldier, a seductress and an assassin doesn't mean I have such low self-esteem I'd take a man who loves another woman and thinks of me with such contempt. More than contempt. With suspicion. I have no intentions of seducing you. You're perfectly safe and so are your friends."

He winced. He deserved every word she said. He wanted her attention centered on him, not looking at any other man, yet he didn't want to feel anything back for her, not real emotion, but it wasn't for the reasons she thought. He told himself it was her enhancements that drew him, that sexual lure she wove - except she didn't seem to be weaving it for him or anyone else. At least she claimed she wasn't and that meant some - or most - of it could be coming from him. She was the kind of woman a man didn't walk away from - ever. She would always have the upper hand whether or not she knew it - if he loved her. And he would love her if he let himself.

"I'm not in love with her," he denied. "Where did you get that?"

"No, you just feel you threw your entire life away for her and she got you into this mess. The children aren't your 'mess.' They're human beings, no matter what Braden or anyone else did to them. I don't want them anywhere near someone who feels they're a 'mess,' just a responsibility one has to clean up. They're children and they deserve a happy life."

Her hot little temper made him want to smile. That wasn't a good idea when he was so close to her. He knew she could be lethal, and he didn't want to test her until he knew exactly what he was dealing with. He hid the grin. "I didn' mean the children."

She shrugged and turned away from him, subsiding against the pillows. "I'm tired. I need to sleep."

Dismissing him. "No way, sugar. That doesn' happen. We talk thin's out in my world. Pepper, you're not goin' to run off with these kids because you're angry with me. That would be sheer stupidity, and you're not stupid."

"Maybe not, but I'd rather they feel loved than be with someone just hanging around because they feel they have to. That's not the way to raise a child."

"You caught a small glimpse of my thoughts and you're condemin' me. That's not right. When I first came home, that first night, I stood lookin' at this house, Grand-mere's house, my home, and I knew then what a fool I'd been over Joy. And then, long before I knew about the children, I acknowledged I was in a mess. When I joined the program to be enhanced, it was for a psychic enhancement, not a genetic one. I received both. I was goin' to have to go to ma grand-mere and let her see what I was - what I'd become - and I was ashamed of myself for doin' such a stupid thing over a woman who didn' want me and worse, and more importantly - I didn't want her. I was never in love with her, only the childish illusion of rescuing her."

"You mean like you're rescuing me?"

Her long lashes fluttered. He could see the sweep of them, feathery and full, sending little shock waves through his stomach straight to his groin. Her profile was beautiful, a work of art, and he realized no man could have produced that even with heavy sculpting. She had a small white scar on her neck just below her ear, but her face was flawless, rose petal skin smoothed over perfect bone structure.

Revelations were the very devil, and he didn't like where his mind, his brilliant mind, was taking him. All along, from the moment he'd laid eyes on her. Practically from the moment when he'd been aware on some level that the Rougarou in the swamp was really a woman. From t

he time he'd seen those small fingers curled around the hilt of a knife. The parlor floor had trembled under his feet and it had nothing at all to do with his temper and everything to do with this woman's impact on him.

He wanted to believe Whitney had created her for him. He wanted that excuse. He wanted to blame her for the sexual lure he felt every time he was close to her. He thought about her all the time, and he'd tried to make her less than human so he could believe himself superior to her. He even wanted the excuse she just handed him - that he wanted to rescue her. Even if it were true, there was far more to it than that.

Wyatt sank down onto the side of the bed, pushing one hand through his thick, wavy hair. He wanted to grab it and pull, to feel the shock of reality. "It's interestin' to me how humans manage to delude themselves into believin' the things they want to believe. You aren't tryin' to seduce me, Pepper. But I'm still bein' seduced. And no, I didn't want that. I wanted to believe I was madly in love with a woman who was heartless. But she's not. She just wanted somethin' different, somethin' that wasn't me. I realized I never loved her. I made up a fantasy and never saw who she was or what she needed."

Pepper turned over, her dark eyes moving over his face.

"She wanted out of the bayou, and I love it here. She wanted away from everythin' and everyone I call home. I wanted to blame her for what I'd done, but in the end, I have to face the fact that all along, ever since I saw my brother and the things he could do, I wanted that as well. I'm too much the scientist. My brain likes puzzles and answers. I did this. Not Joy. Me. Just as I'm the one attracted to you. Not the sexual enhancements, that's not the lure for me. It's just you."