Right then, even that flame didn’t matter, because the terrible, vicious storm that had been building with every step she’d taken to get to him was close – too close and that terrified her. She couldn’t catch her breath. Her eyes burned like fire. Hot and uncomfortable and there was no way to stop it. No way to shove away the force that had to find a way out before she shattered into a million pieces.

“Ezekiel spotted you, Cayenne,” he said.

Cayenne. Not baby. His voice was neutral, not soft and caressing. She’d really blown it. She needed him. At least she needed the fantasy of him. She just needed, and this was the only human being she trusted enough to go to for… what? What did she expect from him? She didn’t even know, yet she’d come for something. Something she was desperate to have. His eyes were arctic cold. So cold she found herself shivering.

She shrugged as if it didn’t matter. Maybe it didn’t. If she didn’t have him… If she didn’t have this… What was there for her? She may as well have been terminated there in that cold, dark basement. She couldn’t look away from his eyes. Those eyes that saw everything, saw right past her armor. Right past her fight. Right into the heart of her, where she was most vulnerable. He saw her. He had to know what she was – not human. Made for one purpose – to murder. That alone should have had her running, or killing him.

She did neither. She stared at him while her vision blurred and the burning in her eyes worsened. Her throat clogged until she was fighting for air. She pressed a hand to her knotted stomach.

“Come here, Cayenne.”

There was hard authority in Trap’s voice. She didn’t accept authority. Not from anyone. People manipulated and corrupted. She didn’t trust anyone enough to recognize them as an authority. She had vowed she’d never do anything anyone said. She’d been five years old and so tired of the needles and the fear and the punishments when she had first made that vow.

Her captors didn’t like her. She was nothing but a specimen. Not human. Nothing. A throwaway. They made certain she knew it, and she despised them all. And herself. She despised that she couldn’t get away from them, that they’d taken all her power from her and made her helpless. She’d vowed never to be helpless again. But here she was. In Trap’s room. The last place she should have gone. Feeling helpless. Lost. Completely lost and very vulnerable.

“Baby, just come to me. Two steps. I’ll do the rest, but you have to take those two steps.”

There was no give in his voice – or his eyes. He was implacable, and she had no idea what would happen when she did what he said and took those two steps toward him. Still, she obeyed the command in his voice, in his eyes, moving toward the side of the bed, not looking away from him, but no longer seeing him. Not when her vision was totally blurred. She felt a trickle of wetness making its way down her cheek.

She felt as if she were giving herself to him with every step she took. Letting him take the last little part of herself that she guarded so carefully. Her throat closed, but she forced her body to move, because if she didn’t, she would lose everything. She would have nothing. She couldn’t live like that anymore, believing she was worthless. That child in the laboratory, in a tiny little cell with eyes staring at her all the time. She had to be more, and she had to have someone see that she was more. That someone had to be this man.

Trap’s fingers shackled her wrist as she lifted her hand to wipe at the drops. He tugged until she was forced to put a knee on the bed. Then she was up on the bed with him. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t catch air. Her throat was too clogged, and her eyes burned like hell.

“Don’t, baby,” he whispered.

There it was. That voice. His beautiful, sensual voice that caressed her skin, but more, slid deep inside to caress her empty heart. He could fill her with just his voice. Give her an anchor, something to hold on to when she was being tossed around in the wind like so much silk. Instinctively, she knew he didn’t use that tone on anyone else. Just her.

“I could have really hurt you,” she confessed, a hitch in her voice. Her throat was so tight she could barely squeeze words out.

“You didn’t,” he assured, dragging her down over his chest, pressing her face into his neck. Showing no fear in spite of the fact that she’d bitten him. Injected venom. She couldn’t detect the least bit of fear. None.

Everyone was afraid of her. She couldn’t remember a time that anyone came near her without elevated heart rates and weapons close. Even when she’d been a child. She had often watched every member of the Fontenot household – even the scariest of them – cuddling the triplets. Holding them close, just as Trap was holding her.

Her body lay curled over his chest. Her front to his front. She straddled him, her legs on either side of him, pressed tight to his ribs. She took up his entire chest, her face in his neck, breathing him in, pulling him straight into her lungs. Her heart pounded harder than ever and blood roared in her ears, but she didn’t move, because the storm kept building and she knew it was going to be terrible.

She held herself very still. Fight or flee? She didn’t know what to do. He was warm and his hand was soothing in her hair. He was comforting, like Nonny’s room, only better. His arms went around her, holding her close, not demanding anything from her. Not speaking, but he began to hum softly. Like Nonny’s music box, only better. He had a beautiful pitch to his voice. She’d never really heard anything that beautiful in person before and she knew it was only for her.

Cayenne loved his speaking tone, but found his music voice even better. She closed her eyes because she couldn’t help herself. She was completely vulnerable to him in that moment and she knew it. She just didn’t care. All the fight was out of her. She just needed. Trap. She needed Trap. She was giving herself to him and she knew it, and she was acutely aware that he knew it as well. She allowed the last bit of feral spider in her to move aside enough to let the soft notes Trap hummed to penetrate until she stopped shivering.

The storm broke, wild and uninhibited, yet quietly, sobs welling up uncontrollably, terrible, from her heart. From her soul. Her fingers curled into his shoulders and she pressed her face tighter against his neck while the storm took her.

Her eyes leaked tears and she wasn’t certain why, only that she felt safe enough in his arms, there in the dark, to shed them. She had years of tears stored up, so she was very happy when the humming turned to words and he sang softly to her, stroking soothing caresses through her hair and down her back. She could spend a lifetime right there, letting the tears flow, listening to his voice and feeling the warmth of his body against hers while his hands moved through her hair and massaged the nape of her neck.