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She gave him a single glare but began to move more naturally, although nuns would approve of the distance she kept between their hips. The music’s bass vibrated through him, mimicking the heartbeat he’d lost centuries ago while the lights scattered colors across Cat’s shoulders, throat, and the tops of her breasts. The sight was breathtaking, but he was more interested in her eyes. Thus far, she’d tried to stare anywhere except at him, yet when she did, he caught anguish in her gaze.
He could guess why. The last time she’d been in his arms, she’d wept as she said goodbye. He’d only thought they’d be separated for a few hours.
Instead, it had been years…
“Why are you here?” Cat asked, her gaze suddenly swinging to his. “I thought you’d be busy with Felicity, with how the two of you looked. Unless you’re already finished with her? If so, that’s hardly up to your usual performance.”
Bones had forgotten about Felicity. Cat hadn’t, but her snippy question was merely deflection. As always, she’d rather attack than show how she really felt.
“Did seeing me kiss her bother you?” Bones asked with an arched brow. “Why? I was only doing as you instructed.”
She tried to pull away. He didn’t let her.
Fuck you, her expression said, but pain lingered beneath it. Her directive had hurt her more than it had him because she was still in denial about her feelings, and he wasn’t.
“The men who came to the hospital that day knew what I was, Bones,” she said, finally acknowledging the real issue between them. “My pathology reports tattled on me since they already knew about vampires. The one in charge-”
“Don?” Bones said with a pleasant smile.
Her eyes widened in surprise, but she quickly recovered.
“Yes, Don. He said he’d been looking his whole life for someone strong enough to fight vampires who wasn’t one of them. He offered to relocate me and my mom if I led his team. He also promised to leave you alone. We couldn’t all have survived any other way-”
“Bollocks,” he cut her off.
She stiffened. “We would have been hunted like animals! And my mother would rather have died than gone with you. She’d also rather see me killed than changed into a vampire, and let’s face it, that’s what you would have eventually wanted me to do!”
Her voice rose at that last part, as if she were confronting him with something he’d tried to hide. Frustration swirled like a tornado inside him, and Bones spun her faster than he intended. Cat jumped out of the way to avoid bumping into another dancer.
He yanked her back, still torn between anger and frustration. “That’s what kept you away after you left? Believing your mum that I’d make you turn into a vampire? Bloody hell, Kitten, did it ever occur to you totalkto me?”
“Talking wouldn’t have mattered,” she said stubbornly. “You’re a vampire. I’m not, so you would have insisted on that eventually.”
“No, I wouldn’t have, and when have I ever lied to you?”
“How about when you kidnapped and murdered Danny Milton?” she shot back. “You swore you’d never touch him, but I don’t suppose Danny’s off in Mexico sipping margaritas, is he?”
Bones leaned down until his face was only inches away.
“You made me swear never to kill, cripple, maim, dismember, blind, torture, bleed, or inflect any other injury on Danny,orstand by while someone else did. I did none of those things, and you should save your concern for someone worthy. Danny wasn’t. At least he was finally useful. He told me you lived in Virginia. I’d had you narrowed down to three states, and Danny saved me some time. That’s why I told Rodney to kill him fast and painless, but I didn’t stay to watch.”
“You bastard,” she breathed, seeming angrier at how he’d skirted his vow than she was at Danny’s death.
“Since the day I was born,” Bones agreed.
Shockingly, a tear formed at the corner of her eye.
Bones stared at it in disbelief. “You’re not grieving over that wanker, are you?”
“Not him,” she said in a thicker voice. “I lost a good friend trying to save Danny because I thought it was my job. Joke’s on me, right? I didn’t even realize you were the one who’d kidnapped Danny until weeks later, when I was finally shown the evidence from the scene. My boss sent someone else to the hospital since I was on forced grief leave at the time.”
Bones closed his eyes. She hadn’t reached out to him in Chicago because shehadn’t knownabout the watch. All his pain, the way he’d ripped himself apart, the colossal mistake he’d made with Annette…all of it had been for nothing.
He opened his eyes. Cat wasn’t looking at him, and she also didn’t speak. Neither did he. Oh, he had many things to tell her, starting with why her concern over him insisting that she change into a vampire was groundless, but right now, he’d shelve that and let the feel of her soothe everything else away.
Yes, she was stubborn, reckless, and clinically in denial over what she was and what she felt, but the pain seething beneath her prickly surface was one he well knew. She might have done it to herself, but that didn’t lessen the sting. Sometimes, it made it far worse.
Either his silence or the music soothed her because she gradually lost her stiffness and began moving with her usual grace. That plus her beauty earned her several admiring glances from the other dancers. Bones didn’t blame them, but it did bring up another sore subject.
