Water Bound (33 page)
Authors: Christine Feehan
“You’ve had plenty of chances to kill me, if that’s what you’re implying, Lev. I’m still alive, so I don’t think your threat is very real.” She continued stroking his hair, silently trying to send him a message that she accepted him without explanation. Whatever demons were riding him so hard didn’t need to be exposed or acknowledged, not unless he needed to tell her.
He sighed. “My entire life has been about survival and survival instincts. I’m not certain you have any. You should never just bring a stranger into your home, Rikki. Especially a man who has so much to hide.”
She found herself smiling. He was desperately trying to talk her into throwing him out, yet at the same time, his fingers were moving in those arousing circles and the way his arm was wrapped around her thighs was distinctly possessive. Maybe it was all in her imagination, but she wasn’t moving, mostly because he was more afraid of their connection than she was. She’d come to bed so afraid of giving him too much of herself, yet here he was, feeling exactly the same. And maybe that was love. Being so vulnerable and allowing someone else in so far they could hurt you, but they could also give you everything.
“I told you, Lev, I know all about you that I need to know.”
He lifted his head slightly, just enough to bite her leg in frustration, the smallest of nips. It felt more erotic than a reprimand. She laughed. “If you want me to throw you out, Lev, it isn’t going to happen.”
He rolled over enough to look up at her face. “You have to do it,
lyubimaya,
because evidently I’m not man enough to do it myself.”
lyubimaya,
because evidently I’m not man enough to do it myself.”
She would have laughed at the drama of his words, but there was too much pain on his face, when he rarely, if ever, displayed emotion. She smoothed the lines there as if she could wipe away the past for him—pursing her lips as if to kiss it away.
“You shared something beautiful with me tonight, Rikki. I want that sharing. I even need it. But I’ve got nothing so beautiful to give you in return. I’ve been thinking a lot about that, about what I’d bring to you—and I don’t have much of anything useful to give you.”
“That’s for me to decide,” she challenged. “If you need to talk about your childhood, you’re safe with me. If you need to break into a million pieces, I’m right here, Lev. I’ll find them all, I’m good at details, and I’ll put you back together. You’re safe here.”
The rain beat down and as usual she had the window open wide, needing the soothing sounds and scents. If a few stray drops hit her face or body, she was fine with it. She always made certain there was nothing too important near the open window during a storm. She sat in silence just listening. Usually the rain called to her and carried her away, but now she was too focused on Lev. His ragged breathing. The seduction of his fingers. The need in him.
In his own quiet way, Lev was as desperate to be saved as she had been before Blythe and the others reached out to her. Whatever revelation he was thinking of giving her, it was something he protected fiercely. A piece of himself—the last piece. And he was handing it into her keeping. She recognized the enormity of what he was doing. She remained silent, just waiting, unsure of what he was going to say, but knowing it would change her life forever if he said it, because she would never turn her back on him, never walk away, no matter how difficult it was. If he gave her such a gift, made himself that vulnerable, she would treasure and protect him with every breath in her body.
Lev continued to stroke his fingers along the satin length of her thigh. It was a gift to do something so simple, to lie in bed with a woman, touching her skin, inhaling her scent while the rain poured down on the roof. He wanted her more than anything in his life. He wanted this woman, this life with her, yet he felt guilty knowing she didn’t see the killer in him. That wasn’t fair. He was a violent man, a cold one, his emotions were buried deep, allowing him an expertise few could achieve. He’d watched the suffering of others, his need to go to their aid suppressed in order to focus on accomplishing his goal.
He was risking everything, yet he could never live with himself if she didn’t go into this knowing what kind of man he was. He wanted one person to know him. To see him. And if she took him as he was, broken, tainted, twisted even, he would never give her up. She had to see into him. It was the only real gift he could give her. He would love her fiercely, protect her with everything in him, but she had to see and accept who and what he really was.
“When I was a boy, we lived in a tiny apartment. It was cold most of the time. Not like this, but really cold. I remember ice on the inside of the door.”
Her fingers stilled in his hair, curled and held on as if she realized the story he was telling her was going to be ugly and horrific but told in a matter-of-fact voice, because he could never face it other than looking at it as if from a great distance and from behind a transparent wall, where emotions had no place.
“There were seven of us, all boys. We were very close in age and we slept together in the same bed, except for the baby. It was how we stayed warm, I think. I can barely remember the faces of my parents, but my memories of them are good. They were good to us. My father was a man who had amazing gifts and he passed them on to all of us. Gifts that allowed us to do things most people can’t do.”
“We have a family in this town that has extraordinary gifts,” Rikki conceded. “Remember, I mentioned them to you.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” he murmured, turning back to nuzzle her thigh. He rested his head on her lap again. “Sea Haven has a powerful energy. I can feel it every time I walk outside. It’s stronger the closer to the ocean we get. Power attracts power, just as elements attract elements. I wouldn’t be surprised if several people living in or around Sea Haven have some degree of psychic power.”
“I suppose you’re right. All of us felt the pull of this place, and I’ve never been happier,” Rikki admitted.
“We didn’t live anywhere near powerful energy, but my father had undeniable gifts and at the time, there was turmoil in the government, conspiracies and many individuals fighting for their own agendas. My father backed the wrong party and they came one night as a huge force, very frightening.”
“I huddled there with my brothers, so scared. The soldiers burst into our apartment.” He could feel her thighs tremble beneath his head, but her hand was anchored firmly in his hair, as if holding him to her, and her arm went around his shoulders. She was very empathetic, and although he was viewing his childhood from a distance, she was feeling what he should have been.
“They executed my father first and then my mother. I was separated from my brothers, and each of us was taken and sent to training facilities. With our particular genetics, they believed we could better serve our government if we were indoctrinated at a young age and held no loyalty to one another or to a family. Later, of course, I realized, as I’m sure my other brothers did, that they feared us, just as they feared our father. Unfortunately, we were so young that their indoctrination and isolation techniques worked.”
She began stroking small caresses through his hair. “What did they do to you?”
“They kept me from my brothers and put me in a facility where they trained and educated me. I speak multiple languages and had to perfect each accent. I learned weapons, hand-to-hand combat and sexual technique. I had to learn absolute control and discipline. Fun was defeating one’s enemy, and everyone there was an enemy. We were trained to work alone. We were trained to endure torture and not break. My forte was the ability to shed one identity for another. I can blend in anywhere, become anyone, and it has served me and my government well. Since they took me from my parents, I don’t recall one time when I was not in training. Duty and discipline were my childhood.”
There was no pity in his voice or in his mind. He accepted his life, and he accepted that he couldn’t change what had happened to him.
“It must have been a frightening childhood.”
“It shaped who I am, what I am. I killed for them, Rikki. Hundreds, maybe thousands in my lifetime. I lived in the shadows and hunted for them. I don’t know if it was a good thing or a bad thing. It just was. I still have no idea why I was on that yacht, but I have images in my head of events leading to my boarding the yacht. I think the man I was after was involved in human trafficking. There were women ...” He shrugged. “I had to make difficult decisions that affected other lives.”
Lev fell into silence—touching her mind, he showed her images of women being brutally tortured, of violent death, sudden and horrific, of the cold-blooded kills that stained his soul and over time had chipped most of it away. He waited for the full implications of what he’d told and shown her to sink in. Rikki might not believe him. There were many children taken for political reasons and raised to be assets for the government or the secret police, or even to be special assassins. He and his brothers were feared for their gifts, yet they were also seven of the most useful tools his country had. They were also the most dangerous.
“Have you ever seen your brothers?” Rikki asked, her voice soft, almost a caress.
He closed his eyes and savored the touch of her fingers on his scalp. He should have known she would focus on the loss of his family instead of the assassinations. “I’ve seen three of them. Our paths crossed on jobs.” He didn‘t—couldn’t—elaborate. They had all worried that if it was known that they had spoken, one of them would be chosen as an example to all of them and would be eliminated. They wouldn’t risk further contact unless it was an emergency.
Rikki was silent for a long time, turning his revelations over and over in her mind. He had never had a chance at life. He was so alone and lost, just as she had been. He was afraid to reach for something better. She knew how difficult it was to let go of the familiar. No matter how bad it was, one knew the rules in their own world.
She stroked his hair and leaned her head back against the headboard, allowing the rain to soothe her when her heart ached for him. “I think you’re better off here, Lev. Stay here awhile and just let yourself live. There aren’t any strings. I’m not asking anything of you. Just find who you want to be, who you really are underneath it all. Whoever that person is, will be welcome here.”
The burning behind his eyes hurt. He just lay there, holding her, afraid if he moved, he’d shatter, just break into a million pieces. He also knew it wouldn’t matter to her if he did—she wouldn’t view him as less than a man. She would simply accept him.
He took a breath and allowed himself to feel very real love for another human being. He told her the stark truth. The emotion was strong, swamping him, invading every part of his mind, his heart and his body. He shook with it. He let it consume him, filling up every empty space. Several heartbeats went by before he could speak.
“I want to spend my life with you, Rikki, not just a few moments, not a few nights. If you take me on, we’ll work together, no matter what comes up, and we’ll find a way to make it all work.”
Her heart jumped. He felt it, but he didn’t look up.
“I don’t want to go back to living in the shadows,
lyubimaya.
If we do this, it has to be all the way, because I don’t know how to be any other way than what they trained me to be. Here, with you, I’m different. If I leave you, I’m back in a black void. Maybe I belong there,” he nuzzled her thigh with his chin, “but I’ve had a taste of something else. You’re magic to me, Rikki. I don’t know why, but I know without you, I don’t have a chance of living a normal life.”
lyubimaya.
If we do this, it has to be all the way, because I don’t know how to be any other way than what they trained me to be. Here, with you, I’m different. If I leave you, I’m back in a black void. Maybe I belong there,” he nuzzled her thigh with his chin, “but I’ve had a taste of something else. You’re magic to me, Rikki. I don’t know why, but I know without you, I don’t have a chance of living a normal life.”
She made a strangled sound in her throat. “Lev. By any stretch of the imagination, I’m not the norm. Maybe you’re not seeing me as I am. I can’t even let you use my bathroom. You’ve somehow managed to get into the bed, but I still wince when you’re in the kitchen and I can’t watch you cook. Is that the kind of life you envisioned for yourself?”
“My life is killing, Rikki. I stalk my target, immerse myself in their life, kill them and disappear without a trace. There’s nothing left of me because I’m not real.”
“You’re real.”
He rolled onto his back to look up at her face. “I’m not real to anyone else. I’m a ghost to most people, a weapon the government lets loose on the world when they need it. When they get to the point where I’m too scary for them to handle, a contract will be issued and then it will be a matter of time before someone just like me shows up to eliminate me.”
“But you’ve been loyal and you’ve carried out whatever task they’ve asked of you, no matter how abhorrent to you, right?” Rikki protested. “Why would anyone you’ve served want you dead?”
“I have too much information running around in my head and I’m dangerous. They would presume that eventually, if I’m not working for them, I’ll work against them.”
She frowned and he couldn’t help himself, he reached up and traced her soft lips.
“Then it’s a good thing that everyone thinks you’re dead, Lev.”
He sighed. “That man on the platform that day. You called him Ralph. He saw me.”
“Not your face. I said you were visiting. And why would he remember?”
“You honestly don’t know, do you?” He was a bit shocked at her naïveté. “He was trying to flirt with you and you didn’t give him the time of day.”
“That’s just silly. He’s friendly to all the divers. And you had a concussion and were imagining things.”
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