“She’s scared, Trap.”

He nodded. “I know that. I know she’ll fight the attraction – and me. That isn’t the same as wanting to kill me.”

“When a wild animal is threatened – cornered – they often strike out. She’s never known freedom or kindness. She has no idea how to live in the world. She’s been locked up, experimented on, which means needles and God knows what else. She’s never had anyone give her compliments or romance her. She knows nothing but enemies.”

“I have a brain, Wyatt,” Trap said. For the first time impatience crept into his voice. “I’ve had a lot of time to think this through.”

“I don’ want you to do something you’ll regret – or worse, not do somethin’, which will get you killed.”

The ice blue flame in Trap’s eyes deepened. Nearly glowed. “She’s mine,” he said softly. This time there was a wealth of expression in his voice. Possession. An underlying anger. That strange shimmer slid into the room again, filling the space where air had been, completely at odds with his intention to reverse whatever Whitney had done to tie Cayenne to him.

“Doesn’ seem to me that you’re so willin’ to sacrifice your own happiness, or hers, to keep those uncles of yours in the shadows. Maybe you ought to consider courting her publicly. Get yourself in the tabloids, let the paparazzi take a gazillion photos of the two of you. That would bring them straight here. Right into a team of GhostWalkers waitin’ for them.” Wyatt flashed a cocky grin, knowing Trap was the most camera-shy man he’d ever encountered. “Whitney already knows where she is. It isn’t like he’d suddenly find her.”

Trap looked thoughtful as he took another pull on his beer. “That’s not a bad idea. She isn’t so easily compromised either. They try to tangle with her, she’ll kill them in a heartbeat. I’ve been trying to find them for years.”

“Maybe they’re dead.”

Trap shook his head. “Not a chance. They’re out there, living the good life. Once I find them, I’m going to kill them.”

Again his voice lacked expression. Still, that shimmer hung in the air. Trap took another drink and glanced toward the piano. If he played, it would get him through the last couple of hours before Thibodeaux shut the place down.

The door opened, and the night breeze drifted in. Along with it came the scent of rain. Of storms. Of her. Of Cayenne. She was there. At last. He lifted his gaze and for one moment, indulged his need to drink her in.

CHAPTER 2

Cayenne was even more beautiful than Trap remembered. Truthfully, she took his breath away, although he knew Wyatt was watching him closely, so he refused to allow any expression to show on his face. Still, he couldn’t just look away quickly as he should have. She moved into the room with such fluid grace it was impossible for any man not to look at her. Every man in the bar turned, and for a moment there was silence as they watched her pause just inside the door. She was all woman, soft curves and wholly feminine. A lethal weapon even without the enhancements she possessed.

Trap thought she was stamped so hard into his memory that she was in his very bones, but still, he’d forgotten the long thick mass of dark shining hair, so black under light it gleamed almost a dark blue. Straight down the middle of the back of her scalp, almost in the shape of an hourglass, the color changed to a beautiful, dark rich red. The effect should have been shocking, but instead, it was intriguing. The difference only made a man want to sift his fingers through those red strands, tunnel deep to see just how far that red went inside that black mass.

Her face was an oval, high cheekbones, a wide, generous mouth with lips that took a man’s breath away and gave him way too many fantasies. Her eyes were large, a deep green framed with long, thick black lashes. The dark lashes served to play up the brilliant green color of her eyes so that all a man could think about was staring into them when he was deep inside of her, watching her as he gave her orgasm after orgasm.

Stop. One hand went to the wall beside the door.

The word was whispered in his mind. Sultry. Sexy. A wisp of sound like butterfly wings fluttering gently against the walls of his mind. The sensation didn’t stop there, it floated through his body – such a light touch – but it brought every nerve ending possible alive in his body. He was wholly aware of her. Every detail. Trap was watching closely, so he noted the slight trembling. She wasn’t nearly as confident as she appeared.

He’d also been broadcasting his thoughts to her. Mind to mind. A detail that vaguely shocked him.

She wore soft vintage blue jeans, worn, as if she’d had them for years when he knew very well she hadn’t. They clung lovingly to her hips and framed her ass like a caressing hand. Her camisole was a deeper blue with a light blue contrast – the ribbons binding her breasts behind the material, so that all he could think about was loosening the tie to help himself to those soft, inviting curves. He wanted to see her creamy breasts spilling free for him, with all that dark blue material tight around her rib cage and impossibly small waist framing them.

I mean it, stop right now, Trap.

She might have meant it in her mind, but her body didn’t mean it. He could see the faint change in her breathing. For that moment, her green eyes clung to his, and he saw beyond the mask she wore, just as he was certain she could see the real Trap Dawkins. That wasn’t a good thing. Not by a long shot. He wasn’t a nice man. He was rough. Rude. Insisted on his own way in nearly everything. He had been dead inside until he laid eyes on her, and he blamed her for pouring life into him. Definitely not a good thing.

Cayenne forced her face to remain exactly the way she wanted. Soft. Confident. Interested in everything and everybody. She wasn’t any of those things. She was exhausted, starved, light-headed from being so hungry and bordering on desperation. More than anything else, she was terrified. She often came to the Huracan Club. They had free peanuts, and she’d been surviving on them for the last three months. The money she stole she left as payback for the clothes and then the shoes she’d stolen. A few times over the last four months she’d bought burgers right there at the Huracan Club.

She kept air moving through her lungs as she paused just inside the door. He was there. Trap Dawkins. She had avoided coming for the last five days, but she didn’t dare go without eating much longer. She was too weak and she needed the protein the peanuts provided to keep going. Once she had a little money, she could buy another one of Delmar’s burgers.