Samurai Game (GhostWalkers #10)(24)
Author: Christine Feehan

She initiated the kiss when he pulled back slightly, chasing after him with her soft mouth, fingers digging tightly into the heavy muscle at his neck, sighing when his lips settled once more over hers. He took his time, kissing her thoroughly, again and again, all the while slipping deeper into her spell and hoping she was falling under his.

Is this your idea of sanity? He’d make it his reality. He was falling further down the rabbit hole and he’d make her his sanity if she’d fall with him.

Her soft laughter slipped inside his heart, winding there until there was no shaking her loose. Not really, but you have to be the strong one.

He kissed her again. And again. Why is that?

You started this.

Okay, that was fair enough. He sighed as he lifted his head. She didn’t make it easy for him to be a gentleman either, but he’d already blown that big time, so he just steadied her with his hands biting into her waist, holding her, looking into those dark eyes.

“Tell me how to properly court you, Azami. I’m serious. I’ve never courted a woman before, but you’re the one.”

A shiver went through her. A shadow crept into her eyes. “Why do you think that so quickly? You just barely met me.”

His brain threw on the brake, catching that wariness that was too strong to be a woman naturally wondering why a man found her so attractive so fast. Chemistry sizzled between them, but she … feared it. Distrusted it. His mind spun fast, throwing out answers he wasn’t so fond of.

“Have you actually met Dr. Whitney, then? Do you know him?”

Azami swallowed and took a step back, her long lashes veiling her eyes. “Yes, I’ve met him. He’s a monster. High IQ, but not anything like my brother.” Her eyes met his. “Or you.”

He recognized that she was telling him she’d investigated him thoroughly. Why him? Lily was purchasing the satellite. Did her company routinely investigate others living near or around someone making a buy from them? That made no sense.

“Why would you know anything about me?” He was a member of an elite military team that operated completely under the radar. They were not given credit for any mission. Few knew of their existence. Only those with the very highest security clearance would know anything at all about Sam Johnson. Azami Yoshiie shouldn’t know any real particulars on an individual soldier. He expected that she would know about the GhostWalkers because she wouldn’t sell a satellite to just any company and she was plugged into the military—she’d sold a few satellites to them. But there was no reason whatsoever to know anything about an individual member of that elite unit.

Thorn shrugged, her breath catching in her lungs. She was in murky waters now. If she’d read Sam wrong, she could blow everything. He was truly a man who could go from totally relaxed to full-out attack in a split second, and she had no doubt that he was an intensely loyal man. She was dismayed to find she wanted him to be loyal to her. She didn’t want him to be so suspicious of her, and yet she was immensely pleased that he was.

Thorn had never felt so conflicted. If he didn’t have the intelligence he possessed, or the skills as a warrior, she would never be able to respect him—or be attracted to him. He had to be suspicious or she would have dismissed him as she did nearly everyone else.

She spoke the truth, knowing she was deliberately misleading him. “Dr. Whitney attempted to purchase a satellite from our company about two years ago. Of course we don’t do business with anyone we don’t meet.” That much was true—but Whitney had refused the meeting. He’d gone so far as to offer more money and said he could handle the software installation and the training of the technicians to run the software—which made her brothers shake their heads at his enormous ego.

“He has one of your satellites?” Sam asked.

She shook her head. “No, we did not go through with the sale. My brother was not impressed with him. His manner is disrespectful.” Again that was strictly the truth, and anyone knowing Dr. Whitney would know he had an ego the size of Europe and was totally rude to anyone he considered inferior—which basically meant everyone.

Sam frowned at her. His expression gave nothing away, and she made a mental note not to try to play poker with him. She could keep her serenity all day and few could ever see what was going on inside of her, but she wasn’t going to bet her life—or those of her brothers—that Sam couldn’t read her. He’d been suspicious of her from the very moment he’d laid eyes on her.

“Were you ever alone with him?”

Her heart jerked hard in her chest. Memories flooded her mind, the silent screams of a small child, the pain wracking her body, a knife slicing through her chest. Her heart ceasing to beat and then jerking awake, just as it was now. She slammed the mental door shut hard. That way lay madness. She never looked at those memories unless they served a valuable purpose and there was no such reason now.

“We are a traditional family in many ways,” she replied enigmatically, avoiding a lie. She wasn’t above lying to serve her mission, but not to Sam, not if she could help it.

His eyes warmed. “So we’re back to you giving me instructions on how to properly court you. Do I ask your brothers’ permission?”

He was stealing her heart with his sincerity. She shook her head. “I am not a woman who would be practical in your life, Sam. You need a home and family . . .”

He laughed, interrupting her carefully chosen words. The sound was pure masculine amusement, sending a curling heat through her and making her forget everything she was going to say.

“I’m a soldier, Azami. That’s who I am. What I am. My woman will be my home—my family. Beyond that, who knows? I believe you’re that woman.”

Thorn swallowed hard. Now her breath was coming too fast, her lungs burning. He shook her like no one else ever had with his stark admissions. His honesty. Who in the world was like him? “You are an intellectual like my brother. What drives you to put your life and your tremendous brain on the line?” She couldn’t prevent that little bite in her voice. He was made for great things and yet he chose combat.

“You tell me,” he fired back.

“I have a duty to perform that is sacred to me. Perhaps the attraction between us is strong because our values are so very close.”

She wanted that to be the reason—or that for the first time in her life she’d met a man she truly couldn’t resist. Her attraction to Sam Johnson had nothing to do with Dr.Whitney. The idea was simply impossible. She’d been thrown away long before Sam had applied to the GhostWalker program. Even had Whitney paired Sam with Thorn, he couldn’t have paired Thorn with Sam. The wild churning in her stomach settled a little. Her attraction to Sam had to be the real thing, not manufactured by a monster for his own purposes.