Raven’s Prey(26)
Author: Jayne Ann Krentz

“Too bad! Because I do have time for them! All the time in the world! I’m not going anywhere with you, damn it!”

“Honor, you said that if I gave you the extra time here in Mexico you’d go with me without a lot of trouble, remember?” he asked patiently.

“My life was at stake. I would have promised anything. But under the circumstances you’ll have to forgive me for not being willing to live up to my promises.” She scrambled off the cot, still clutching the sheet in front of her. He couldn’t tell if that sheen in her eyes was from incipient tears or not, but he rather feared it was. “I will not get on that plane with you this morning! What’s the matter with you, Judd? Are you really so inhuman that you can’t trust anyone? Not even after what we shared last night?”

Judd looked at her across the cot. She was so sweetly disheveled from the night, her hair in intriguing disarray. And she was quite naked behind that sheet He could remember every inch of that nakedness. The memory of it warmed him even now when he had more crucial matters to deal with. Last night she had been infinitely soft and gentle and unbelievably passionate in his arms. What the hell was the matter with her this morning? She was staring at him as if he were a monster.

“I’m not, you know,” he heard himself say.

“You’re not what?” she nearly shrieked.

He winced at the edge in her voice. “I’m not a monster.” He searched for the words he needed and realized he didn’t know how to say what should be said. “Honor, last night was inevitable. Don’t you know that? It became inevitable after that first night when you attacked [_me. _]I’ve been wanting you since I began looking for you. After I found you I knew that sooner or later—”

“You knew that sooner or later you’d get me into bed and satisfy your curiosity about what it was like to lay a suicidal, compulsive liar, is that it? Now that you’ve satisfied your curiosity you’re going to turn me over to Garrison and Prager, collect your two thousand and fly away into the wild blue yonder! You’re disgusting. An arrogant, cold-blooded mercenary. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to think that I could reach you on some human level. Last night—”

“You seem to have a slight misconception about last night,” he interrupted icily. He felt an unaccustomed wave of anger at her accusations. Grimly he controlled it. Nothing was to be gained this morning by letting this little witch goad him into losing his temper. “You gave yourself to me last night, Honor. Do you really believe I’d casually turn you over to someone who wants to kill you?*

“That’s exactly what you’re planning to do!”

He shook his head, keeping his tone low and trying to sound soothing, which probably didn’t work very well. He hadn’t had much experience trying to soothe hysterical women. “You should be the one doing the trusting this morning, honey. You trusted me enough to surrender in my arms last night.”

“I thought we were making love!” she hissed furiously. “It wasn’t a case of my [_surrendering. _]I went to bed with you because I thought we could share something meaningful. I thought that afterward you’d realize I couldn’t have been lying to you all along. I thought you’d know me intimately enough to trust me. My God, Judd, how can you be such a coldhearted bastard? Last night you seemed so….so human!”

Once again Judd had to clamp down firmly on the anger that threatened to erupt in response to her words. Why could this one woman out of all the people he had met make him come so close to losing his self-control over and over again? “I am human ” he assured her, his voice more chilling than ever. “Enough of a man to want to protect what’s mine. And make no mistake about it, Honor, you belong to me now. I’m going to take care of you. Trust me!”

“Trust you?” she gasped disbelievingly. “When you said you’re going to hand me over to Garrison and Prager?”

“Will you just shut up and listen to me? I have a plan….”

“What sort of plan?” she challenged.

“I’m going to get to the bottom of all this,” he said quickly, seeing an opening at last, “I’m going to find out exactly what’s going on and I’m going to make sure you’re safe during the process.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” she snapped, brushing her hand impatiently across her eyes. Damn it, she [_was _]crying.

“If you’ll settle down and stop yelling at me I’ll explain,” he told her quietly. Instinctively he took a step toward the bed. The tears bothered him. But when she immediately backed away he stopped in annoyance.

“Don’t touch me,” she ordered shakily, putting out a hand to ward him off. “I don’t want you touching me. Not after last night.”

“Damn it to hell, woman! I don’t know what you [_think _]happened last night, but I can tell you what actually [_did _]happen!” He ran his fingers restlessly through his hair and then planted his hands on his hips. It was either that or he was going to reach out and take hold of her. Something told Judd that that wouldn’t be the wisest move at the moment.

“I [_thought _]we meant something to each other last night,” Honor said tightly. “I thought that we would achieve some kind of understanding. I [_thought _]you’d realize that I wasn’t lying to you. I [_thought _]we’d wake up this morning able to communicate with each other. I thought that making love together would give us a bond, a link that we could use to trust each other. I [_thought _]you’d listen to me this morning, that you’d [_want _]to listen to me. That you’d want to believe in me. That you couldn’t do anything else!”

His eyes narrowed. “You wanted all that from one night in bed?” he asked in mild amusement.

“Don’t you dare mock me! Yes, damn it, I did want all that from one night in bed with you. I thought we were falling in love. Why the hell do you think I was willing to risk going to bed with you?”

A light began to dawn at the end of the tunnel and Judd realized what was happening. His expression softened and he shook his head ruefully. “Honey, you’re a romantic, do you know that? You’re trying to romanticize what was really a very straightforward, fundamental happening between two people. You’re as attracted to me as I am to you. Last night you gave yourself to me and now you belong to me. It’s as simple as that. Don’t look for some rosy, mystical explanation for what was essentially something that wasn’t rosy or mystical at all. It was something very basic. Don’t romanticize last night, Honor. You’ll just work yourself up into a state of hysteria and tears.”