Page 97 of Hunt Me

But there was something else I couldn’t read.

“I don’t understand.”

Mikhail clenched my jaw, wrenching it, the fire in his eyes exactly what I would expect from him. He drew closer, lowering his head until our lips were almost touching. “It’s important for you to remember.”

When he brushed his lips across mine, a swirl of desire swept through every cell and every muscle. I was lightheaded, uncertain what he was getting at, but a memory… Images rushed into my mind. No, wait. As he captured my mouth, I was lost in him almost immediately. He was different, drinking from my mouth as if a dying man.

I was breathless, stars floating in front of my eyes and images rolling through the back of my mind. No. This wasn’t possible. Not even a small chance.

The kiss was powerful, a sweet yet deceptive moment. Nothing had changed. He wasn’t my lover. He wasn’t my friend.

He was my captor.

Then why was being his captive no longer terrifying?

After pulling away, he closed his eyes. I was frozen to the spot. His fingers continued dancing across my skin, the white-hot heat building between us.

When he stepped away, his chest was heaving. He turned around slowly and I craned my neck to see what he was doing.

He was unbuttoning his shirt.

I pressed my hand over my mouth and for some inexplicable reason, tears formed in my eyes. Memories surfaced, images playing in my mind like a broken record. I had no idea what to think yet I knew instinctively the reason for our strong connection.

As he peeled his shirt away, I held my breath. The moment he allowed the shirt to slip through his fingers, I gasped, a strangled sob rushing up from the darkness.

From the nightmares.

Another series of images attacked my psyche. I could see his face. Not as he was now but as a young man, a boy who’d peered down at me, thankful he’d save my life.

Scars mottled his back, crisscrossing his skin. Long and deep, they remained a testament to a dangerous boy who’d dared save the life of a little girl.

When I broke down, several sobs escaping, he turned around. In his eyes I could see reverence, a strange and twisted joy that he’d awakened something inside us both.

“Do you remember?” he asked, his voice dangerously sexy.

I nodded, uncertain how I was supposed to react. When I lifted my arm, he inched closer, turning once again so I could touch his scars. My legs remained shaky, but the longing to touch him, to brush my fingers across the boy who’d saved my life overwhelming.

With every light touch, his shoulders rose and fell and he slowly tipped his head over his shoulder. “Saving you is the best thing I’ve ever done in my life and I would do it all over again.”

His words echoed and I wrapped my arms around him, cradling him as close to my body as possible.

I no longer feared him or what he would do.

There was no hate, no regret for our passion.

There was something much deeper that gripped my very sense of being.

He was no longer just my captor. The handsome man with the piercing eyes was my savior.

CHAPTER 24

Bristol

The wash of emotions was equal to the explosion of desire.

Unexplainable.

Undeniable.