Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 133531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 534(@250wpm)___ 445(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 534(@250wpm)___ 445(@300wpm)
Her stalker hasn’t left, Javier reported. He’s going all the way to the end of three blocks, but he hugs the shadows. He pays attention to the traffic. Twice, undercover cops have walked the same three blocks on either side of the street. Not the same cops that were in the first vehicle. Not Carver and Westlake.
Gideon framed Rory’s face with his much larger hands. Held her still so he could stare down into her vivid green eyes. “Be the real deal for me, Red. Don’t be someone looking to harm me or my family. Come to me because you honestly see me, and I matter to you.”
If it were at all possible, her green eyes softened even more. “Gideon. I want to be real for you. More than anything on this earth, I want to be real for you. I’m so afraid though. What if I’m not? You’re the most wonderful man I could ever imagine meeting. If I ever stayed in one place, it would be here with you, but I’m terrified now that I could be something horrible.”
No one’s first thought would be that they were something horrible. They would think they’d been in an accident and had no memory of it. A brain injury. A significant event happened that traumatized them. They wouldn’t consider that someone had programmed them to become something harmful to others.
“Why would you believe you may be something horrible?” He repeated her words back to her in question form, pitching his voice low. Gentle. Soothing. Used his weapon ruthlessly. Compelling an answer.
She frowned again and rubbed her left temple just the way she had before. Her body gave a little shudder.
“What’s happening right now, Rory?”
“That feeling.”
“Describe it to me.” Now he was the interrogator. Soft-spoken but very much in command. No one disobeyed when he used that particular tone. He reached out and took her hand, his thumb sliding along her palm in a gesture of soothing comfort. He turned her hand over so his fingers could brush caresses over her inner wrist and feel her pulse pounding there.
“It feels as if I’ve got another skin covering me. Like a snake. Or a lizard.” She gave another shudder. “It’s a sickening feeling.”
She was panicking, struggling to breathe. He could hear the wheeze starting, and it was very real.
“Rory.” He placed her palm on the side of his rib cage. “I want you to look at me. Only at me. Feel me breathing with you. Think only about the air moving through your lungs and my lungs. We’re safe up here. Nothing can get to you.”
“It’s in me. On me. I can feel it.”
“Breathe with me.” He made that a command, using his voice to direct her. Using the sound of his own breathing. Loud. In. Out. His eyes staring into hers. Compelling her.
She followed him, settling into the rhythm, able to pull out of her panic attack, but she definitely needed her nebulizer. Once she was steady again, he was concerned she might have to leave in order to get to her medication.
“Did you bring an actual nebulizer or just an inhaler?”
“I have a small travel nebulizer with me.”
“Use it, Red. We’ll talk about what’s worrying you after. I meant what I said about being safe up here. If you have a second skin that needs to be shed, we’ll figure it out.”
She pulled out a small machine that resembled an inhaler but used her medicine in it. Gideon took the opportunity while she inhaled it to study her skin with his superior eyesight. Her skin was abnormally soft under the pads of his fingers, but his hands were rough, calloused.
He used the superior vision of the eagle, studying every square inch of exposed skin Rory had. She had a dusting of freckles along her forearms, but he couldn’t detect anything that might indicate she had a second skin. He reached up to brush a caress along her left temple. He traced her entire face from her forehead to her eye with the pads of his fingers. This was where she said she always seemed to feel the strange sensation.
She removed the small nebulizer and gave him her green-eyed steady gaze. “Gideon, you’re doing it again. That frown. You worry about everyone. Who takes care of you? Who looks out for you? Don’t tell me your family does, because it’s very clear to me that you’re the one watching over them.”
“Red, do I look like a man who needs others to watch over me?” It was worrisome to him that she could see that frown in his mind, and yet he couldn’t see into hers no matter how hard he looked. And he was looking.
She nodded slowly, not taking her gaze from his. “Yes, I think you do. Do you think I’m programmed to hurt someone? Tell me the truth, Gideon.”