Wild Cat (22 page)

“You'd go to Alonzo?” he asked. He sounded tortured. “
Mi amorcito
. That doesn't even make sense. You're so mixed up, and until I know what you think you heard, I can't make this better.”

“You can
never
make this better because I don't believe you. I. Don't. Believe. You.” She enunciated each word, biting it out between her teeth for emphasis.

Elijah stared down into Siena's face, seeing the stark hurt there. He'd put that look in her eyes and caused the terrible pain that was evident. She wasn't good at hiding her emotions, and he could see the pain was very real. Somehow, and he wasn't certain how, he'd made her doubt him all over again.

He wanted to curse. To hit something. Someone. He knew he was a violent man. He'd been raised in violence and he knew he would always have that reaction, but not with Siena. She got his gentle. She got his heart and soul. He'd shredded something important in her, taken her self-esteem, her confidence, with the things he'd said to her after the first time they'd had sex.

He couldn't take it all back, and he wanted it done between them. Over. He'd apologized more than once. He'd explained. He
couldn't
have blown this. Siena was too important. There was no one else. There had never been anyone else. He was a fucking robot, and he knew if she left him, he was lost. Not even Drake would be able to pull him back from the edge. That was how far gone he was.

He dropped his forehead to hers, pressing into her. Breathing her in. Needing her. What the hell did a normal man do when he'd ripped out his woman's heart? She was alone. Pregnant. Emotional. He'd clearly gutted her, but he didn't know exactly what he'd done. What he said. He tried to go over the
conversation with Drake in his mind, replaying it, but he'd been furious. He'd wanted to strangle Drake with his bare hands.

He hadn't wanted to lay his life out in front of her. Or their future life. Not until he was absolutely certain she would stay with him of her own free will. He'd been so close. What the hell had happened? He felt lost. He'd never been in a relationship, and he didn't know the first thing about them. He was floundering and Siena was far too important to him to be taking chances with saying something wrong. Still, he had nothing to give her but the truth.

“All right, baby, let's start at the beginning. I know you're upset. I see that. I promised you that you would be safe with me. I gave you my word and I meant it. That shooter shouldn't have gotten anywhere near the property, let alone within distance to fire on us. On you. I was angry. Furious. I wanted to rip Drake's head off. You should never have been in any danger. Not even a little bit.”

She didn't reply. She kept her eyes closed. Her body was stiff. He wasn't getting anywhere. But he wasn't giving up. Nothing was more important than this moment in his life. He had to take away the hurt. For both of them. He didn't know a human being could hurt so much. He felt raw on the inside, just as gutted as she was. Maybe more so because he'd caused this. The ugly, hurtful things he'd said to her had contributed to her believing he was playing her. How could she have gotten that from his conversation with Drake?

“Baby, please. I need a little help here. I need you to look at me. I need you to talk to me. I say things when I'm pissed. I know that. And I was royally pissed at Drake. By bringing you here, I put you in jeopardy.
Hell.
” He spat the last word and rolled off of her to lie on his back, both hands pressed to his eyes. Eyes that burned like a son of a bitch.

She didn't move. He took a deep breath and tried to control the fear snaking through him, knotting his belly and putting bile in his throat. He tried to remember every single thing he'd said to Drake, but all he could hear was her accusations.

You didn't fuck me because you wanted me. Because I meant something to you. This was all a charade. You made the ultimate sacrifice, didn't you? You had to have me in your bed. The worst you ever had.

He groaned softly. He was never going to live that down, no matter how many times he apologized to her.

Let's see if I can remember this right, because there was a moment when you were so angry you told the truth. My amateur performance, I believe you called it. The worst cocksucker you ever experienced. Those words are branded on my brain, but I was stupid enough to let you make me forget them for a moment.

What had he said to Drake that would have brought all of that back when they'd been doing so great together?

“What did I say, Siena? What did you hear that set you off? That made you believe I lied to you? Baby, you have to tell me. I swear to you, I don't know what I said that you could have misconstrued.”

Beside him, she stiffened, a small sound escaping, as if she wanted to yell at him, or hit him. Scratch his eyes out. He wished she'd try. At least he'd have something to work with. He turned on his side toward her, his arm locking around her waist, dragging her resisting body into his. He caught her hand and forced it down to his cock, holding her palm over the thick erection there.

“Do you really think I could fake this? Do you, Siena? Never in my life have I walked around with a permanent hard-on—until you came into my life. I can't look at you without wanting you. It isn't possible.”

He studied her face, her averted eyes. Closed off. Hell. She wouldn't even look at him. But there was genuine pain there. She wasn't faking that. This wasn't some little manipulative tantrum she was throwing. Whatever she thought she heard had ripped her apart.

Siena tried to pull her hand out from under Elijah's. His erection felt huge, hot. It pulsed with life. She couldn't help
but feel the velvet-soft flared head and the thick steel spike of a shaft, the way it throbbed with need, calling out to her for attention. She didn't know if men could fake that kind of thing. She heard the raw pain in his voice, and his tone rang with truth. But she'd heard him. It wasn't idle gossip she'd listened to—she'd heard him with her own ears. She hated the look on his face. So torn up. If she looked at him, she'd burst into tears and throw herself into his arms. She couldn't be that stupid. She'd already humiliated herself twice for him.

“Baby.”

She closed her eyes. When he called her baby in his gentle, rough-with-need voice, everything in her responded. Melted. He was getting to her, because she heard the ring of truth in his tone, she heard the genuine pain.

“You have to stop, Elijah,” she burst out. She struggled to get her hand back again. His hold tightened, both on her hand and the arm locked around her waist. “I
heard
you.” He might sound truthful now, but he had then as well.

“All right, I'll accept that you heard something,
mi amor
, something that has really upset you. Something that made you
think
I was lying to you.” Elijah's voice was soft, almost stroking caresses over her skin. “Tell me what I said, because I swear to you, I don't have any recollection of a conversation with Drake that could possibly make you believe I'm lying about wanting to be with you.”

She bit her lip hard and maintained her silence. If she moved she was afraid she would shatter. She had already made herself so vulnerable to him, she feared if she let him in even a little more, if she cracked that door again, she would be lost. Already she felt broken, and she knew she couldn't take any more.

His hand rubbed hers over the thick bulge, and her heart nearly stopped. That bulge had grown, gotten even harder.

“Siena, you can't offer me the world and then take it away from me. Do you have any idea what my life was like before you came into it? Bleak. Lonely. Violent. One of my earliest
memories was of my grandfather blowing a man's brains out. I saw it. The blood spattered everywhere, all over the walls. All over me. I was there when they beat a man to death. I think I was about six when that happened. When I threw up, my grandfather beat me while his men all laughed.”

Her entire body jerked. She gasped, her breath catching in her throat. She'd been lonely as a child, but she'd been happy.

“I was trained from the time I was a boy in the use of guns, knives, martial arts, boxing, kickboxing and good old street fighting. I knew I was going to be an enforcer in my family's world. That was my job, and I did it from a very early age. You don't have friends. You don't dare care about a lover. You keep to yourself. If you're the son or grandson or nephew of a Lospostos, you're always a target.”

He was killing her. He couldn't tell her this. She didn't want to feel anything at all for him or for that little boy growing up. She'd been safe in boarding school with bodyguards all around her. He'd been fighting to stay alive. She heard the truth and knew what it meant. He didn't have to spell it all out for her.

“Stop,” she whispered, because already her fingers, of their own volition, wrapped around his thick cock, holding him tight in her fist, as if she could hold him close and keep him safe that way. “You have to stop, Elijah.”

“My uncle murdered my parents. He wanted to be the sole power in the Lospostos family, and my father was taking us in a direction my uncle didn't want to go. He threatened to kill my sister if I didn't cooperate with him. He turned me into a killer, Siena. For years, that's all I was. That was my life.”

“Stop,” she whispered again. She couldn't stop her body from turning into his. She wanted to be strong. She sternly told herself to be strong. Where was her sense of self-preservation? She was an idiot for listening to him. For letting him tell her these things. So personal. So deep, so real
she knew no one else had ever heard the things he was saying to her. “Elijah, don't.”

“I'm not going to let you go.” He moved suddenly, his body rolling back over hers, his chest pressed to hers, his hips wedged between her thighs. One hand spanned her throat and his beautiful, exotic molten eyes moved over her face, a brooding, hooded perusal that stole her breath.

“I
can't
let you go. I brought you here instead of locking you in a safe house until all this shit was over because I believed Drake and the team could protect you. I
believed
that. I know Drake. He's the best there is, and he was certain this was the best place to keep you safe. I agreed with his assessment, but maybe I wanted you so much I didn't think it through.”

His tone was a sensual rasp. His hard cock pressed tight against her mound, and against her will she felt an answering heat in her core.

“You have to know who I am, Siena.”

His hands framed her face, forcing her head around until she had no choice but to look at him. That was a mistake, just as she'd known it would be. He looked ravaged with pain. So much. Her heart broke for him, compassion and caring slithering through her own heartbreak and humiliation in spite of her desire to stay strong and hard against him.

She tried to shake her head, to stop him from telling her things he should never tell anyone. He should never
ever
say aloud.

“I'm a killer. Straight up. That's who I am. That's what they made me. My own flesh and blood. My grandfather. My father. My uncle. I was never a little boy playing baseball with my friends. I was the little boy learning how to beat the brains out of someone with the baseball bat. I was learning the ropes of the family business and how to defend it. How to hurt others and scare and intimidate them into doing whatever the family wanted or needed. So you have to know, baby, you're in my bed and I'm touching you, you're in bed with that man.
The hands touching your beautiful body are hands that beat people. That hurt them. That killed.”

“Elijah.” Her voice broke. Tears blurred her vision. “You have to stop.”

“I can't say any one of those I was sent after was innocent, because they weren't, but still, that's what they made me into, my own family, that's what they made me into.”

She could barely breathe with the pain she saw in his eyes. On his face. It was raw and terrible. “Honey.” She breathed it, trying to find balance. Trying not to wrap him up in her. She needed to help him, but she was terrified of losing herself again in him and being torn apart. She didn't think she could put herself back together.

“I live in hell, Siena. That's my world and I have no fucking right to drag you down with me, but I can't stop myself. You're the one thing in my life that's worth anything. I can't let go of you, no matter how much I know I should. I'm not that strong. I can't come to you as an innocent. You are innocent and beautiful. Your body is. Your mind is. Your heart and soul. You think I don't feel the weight of that every fucking minute I spend with you? You gave yourself to me, Siena. You
chose
me and I'm going to do everything in my power, with everything that I am, to protect you. To cherish you. To keep you exactly the way you are. Innocent and beautiful. But I can't give you up. Don't ask that of me, because, baby, I swear, I'm not that strong.”

There were tears in his eyes. He blinked them away, but she
saw
them. He couldn't take that back any more than he could take back the things he'd revealed to her. She was more confused than ever. Her arms slid around him, holding him to her and already, her body had softened, melting a little so that he sank into her. She took his weight because she needed to.

“So, I'm
telling
you, baby. I'm not fucking asking. Tell me what the hell you overheard that has you this upset. Right now, before I lose my mind.”

She took a breath. Let it out. “You're asking me to put myself in your hands all over again, Elijah. You hurt me.”

“No, baby, you're still not getting it.” He ground the words out between his teeth. His body moved against hers and there was nothing subtle about what it was saying. “You're already in my hands. I'm holding you to me and I'm
never
letting you go. It isn't going to happen, so we work this shit out now. You promised me, Siena, and you're going to keep that promise no matter what you hear, what you think you hear or what kind of bastard you think I am.”