Predatory Game (GhostWalkers #6)(87)
Author: Christine Feehan

“Then marry me.”

She sat up abruptly. “Not that again. Honestly, Jess, you’re relentless when you want something.”

He tugged on a curl. “I can keep you safe from Whitney.”

“Maybe. And maybe you’ll get me pregnant and we’ll have to go underground like Lily. She’s leaving her home in order to keep her child safe.”

He shrugged. “We can go up into the mountains near Jack and Ken. They have a fortress up there. It’s all good, Saber, as long as we’re together.”

She moved from his lap. “Come on, dragon king, let’s go eat. I haven’t had food yet and I’ve got to go to work.” She needed something after expending all that energy.

He slid his body from the futon to his chair. His right calf jerked. He caught his leg and positioned it. “I’ll cook tonight. You can explain why you don’t think moving to the mountains would be a good idea.”

“Your parents, for one thing, Jesse. And Patsy. After you moved here, Patsy followed you and then your parents bought a house as well. You told me that yourself. You just can’t leave them.”

He laughed at her. “You’re really grasping at straws, aren’t you?”

“Why marriage?”

“Because I believe in it. My parents have been married for over thirty-four years. They’re still very much in love. I don’t think the real thing comes along all that often, so I’m grabbing it and hanging on.”

“How can you be so sure that it’s not pheromones?”

He caught her hand again, tugging until she was beside him. “Sex with you is fantastic, no doubt about it, better than anything I ever imagined.” His grin turned wicked. “And I can imagine a lot. But the truth is…” His smile faded and he brought her onto his lap, his arms enfolding her close, sheltering her against his heart. “I’m so in love with you I can’t think straight. One has little to do with the other. I wouldn’t feel like this if it was all pheromones.”

She bit her lip. “You thought you loved Chaleen enough to ask her to marry you.”

“She was pretending to be someone she wasn’t. I thought she liked all the same things I did, and I didn’t know what real love was. I mistook a sexual attraction for the real thing. I think I knew all along, but I didn’t want to know because a home and family meant so much to me. You’re the real thing.”

“What if you’re wrong?” she persisted, turning her face up to his. “You could be wrong.”

He slid his hand around the nape of her neck, the pad of his thumb caressing her face. “I’m not, Saber.”

She shook her head. She was tired already and she had a show to do. “I’ve got work tonight. Do you think we could talk about this later? I’m starving.”

“Fortunately for you, I called and had dinner delivered earlier. I just have to heat it up.”

“You cheat,” she accused, sinking into a chair. Her hand was shaky as she pushed it through her hair. “That was more difficult than I imagined.” She had to hide the effects of the psychic drain from him or he’d insist she stay home, and she needed a little time to put everything in perspective. But she was exhausted.

“It makes sense, you’re using energy to direct an electrical current. And you worked for over an hour and a half.”

“I didn’t notice the time passing,” she admitted. “Whitney’s file was actually more helpful than I would like to admit. Everything he speculated and how to do it was dead on.” She hadn’t deviated at all from the instructions, too afraid of doing harm.

He put a plate in front of her and turned back to get his own. “You said you read the second file, on your target. Senator Ed Freeman was your target, right?” He looked back at her when she didn’t answer.

Saber’s gaze slid away from his. “I don’t like talking about what went on before I came here. I’m trying to be someone else and forget all of that happened. Maybe, just maybe if I could help you, I wouldn’t feel like the villainess of the world all the time. And maybe your friends wouldn’t look at me like they expected me to fry them with my gaze.”

Jess put his plate on the table and rolled his chair beneath it. His legs were twitching, both of them, tiny sparks of pain zapping him. He didn’t dare mention it, not when she was so certain she could harm him. “You’re too sensitive. No one looks at you like that except you. What happened to you made you who you are, the woman I’m in love with, Saber. And we need to figure out who is trying to kill the GhostWalkers.”

“Whitney is a good start.”

“Maybe. Possibly. But then maybe it’s someone else and Senator Freeman was involved in espionage.” The pins and needles were painful and his muscles cramped and spasmed.

She shrugged. “Whitney thought so. Freeman’s father was friends with Whitney but apparently they had a falling out over Whitney documenting the senator’s involvement with a General McEntire, who was part of an espionage ring. I saw the evidence and it was pretty damning. The senator looked a legitimate target to me, but then evidence can be falsified fairly easily.”

“I don’t think Whitney made anything up, Saber. Freeman set up two GhostWalkers for capture and torture in the Congo. He’s part of a ring trying to destroy us, although it doesn’t make sense because he’s married to one of us.”

“Violet. I read about her,” Saber said. “Whitney wants her dead too.”

“He would if they were selling secrets to foreign countries, especially now with all the terrorist attacks. And I can’t blame him. Freeman was about to be named as a vice presidential candidate. Can you imagine what he’d have access to?”

Jess’s legs were jumping. Beneath the table he pressed his hands down hard on his knees in an attempt to control the involuntary spasms. Pins and needles were like hot pokers stabbing into his flesh. He broke out in a sweat. He had meant to have her stay home from work, but he didn’t want her to see him like this.

Deliberately he glanced at his watch. “Have I made you late?”

She grabbed his arm and turned his wrist over. “Oh no. I’ve got to go. Brian’s going to be pulling out his hair. I’m sorry about the dishes. You heated up the food, I should clean up. Just leave them for when I get home.”

She rushed around the table, dropped a quick kiss on his head, and catching up her purse, paused at the door. “If you need me tonight, you call me, Jess.”