Page 15 of His Asset
I shook my head.“I’d rather not talk about my past.”
“Then I guess you want my past to distract you from yours?”
“Please,” I said, my voice as dry as my throat, thanks, no doubt, to my scream.
He shrugged, but I saw a lot of pain in his eyes.“My parents were drug addicts.They spent more time fighting and screaming at each other than they ever did nurturing me.I ran away at thirteen and lived on the streets.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be.Believe it or not, I was a hell of a lot better off there than I ever was at home.It wasn’t easy, but I learned fast that being street-smart mattered just as much as any lesson in a book.Maybe more.It was rough, but the fights, the pain, for better or worse, that’s what made me.”
“Fighting?”I croaked, my voice catching as I took in his bare chest, his muscles defined like carved stone and marked with scars.His ink spelled out a phrase along his collarbone.
No fear.No failure.
The words seemed etched into more than just skin.It was as if they carried the weight of every battle he’d fought.
My eyes drifted lower, catching the long, thick outline pressed beneath his gray sweats.The closeness between us suddenly tightened, sparking a heat I hadn’t expected, a sudden rush of awareness that sent my pulse racing.
A flush rose to my cheeks, even as a quiet fire pooled within me.Was this what they called morning wood?If so, his was magnificent.
His nostrils flared as though he’d sensed my reaction, his eyes narrowing.Then he nodded and said in a low voice, “It’s probably better if I show you.”
Something between anticipation and anxiety burned through me.Having never lived a normal life, the anticipation won out.“I’d like that.”
He smiled, though I noticed it didn’t quite reach his eyes.Had he hoped for a different answer?Had he presumed I was a meek and gentle, peace-loving woman?I almost snorted.That right had been taken away from me a long time ago.
“Good,” he finally said.Then bending low, he kissed my brow before moving his weight off the mattress and placing his feet on the ladder’s rungs.“I’ll make breakfast,” he said huskily.
The tingles that lit through me vanished as quickly as his head as he climbed down the ladder, leaving me a little empty and wanting more.
I stifled annoyance, not at him but at myself.I didn’t want a man to want me.Doing so meant physical intimacy, which meant revealing my wings.Which meant showing a part of me that would likely turn any desire in a man’s eyes to disgust.
I couldn’t bear that kind of hurt, I wouldn’t survive it.
The scientists had made me feel inferior for my DNA.Only Adam had seen me as more.That my uniqueness was my value only made my self-aversion harder to shake.I wanted to be loved for me, not for how much one man thought I was worth or how worthless I was to another man.
Yeah, and pigs might fly.
Perhaps they did.I’d never been outside my own little laboratory and living quarters I’d shared with the people I’d counted as both friends and family.Who knew what other animals in other parts of the facility had been spliced with human DNA.Pigs might well be one of their experiments, though wings might be a bit of a stretch.As far as I knew, bats were the only mammal that had wings.
A pan banged as Reuben rummaged through a drawer in his kitchen.The fridge cracked open, a rectangle of light competing with the growing dawn outside.I yawned and stretched, thankful for the robe that covered me as I then turned around and put my feet in the rungs, then descended the ladder and stepped onto the cool floorboards.
Reuben had already begun to fry bacon, the scent filling my nose as I walked past then stepped into the bathroom to rinse my face and use the toilet.He was whisking eggs when I stepped back out.
The toaster popped, startling me.I forced a smile.If it hadn’t been for my kitchenette at Adam’s I would never have known this simple part of life.
“Anything I can do?”I asked.
He stiffened, a brief shadow crossing his face, as if my offer unsettled the careful rhythm he kept, a crack in the armor of his relentless schedule.Then he glanced my way and said, “Could you please butter the toast?”
I mentally shook my head.I hardly knew the man, but I trusted my instincts, they’d rarely been wrong.
His eyes flickered, something careful and guarded lurking beneath the surface.
I cleared my throat, breaking the sudden tension.“Sure.”I took a small knife from the block and stabbed its serrated blade into the butter.
He cocked one silver-blond brow, his lips twitching.“That’s a steak knife,” he said, tone mild but precise, before handing me one with a smooth-edged blade.“That’s the butter knife.”