He looked around his room. It was very large. Huge. He needed space. Lots of it. He liked to see what was coming at him. He had several escape routes scattered through the walls, floor and ceiling.

“I can protect you.”

The lashes fluttered. Raised. Her beautiful green eyes sent a wicked punch straight to his gut. I can’t relax like this.

“Spin your webs around the bed. Make us a veil, baby. I’d like that, a canopy over our bed. Do you have enough strength to do that?”

She studied his face, her eyes brooding. Thoughtful. A little frightened. She knew what he wanted. Her. In his bed. More of a commitment.

“Baby. I need this. You. Here. With me. I need this.” He admitted it aloud to her, trying to show her. Trying to give her that vulnerable part of him to make up for being a complete bastard. After watching her nearly die right in front of him, he needed to have her close. “I wouldn’t fit in your bed. I’m too tall. Weigh too much. All muscle, babe, which is good part of the time but not so good in that little bed you curl up in.”

You put the bed down there.

“My mistake. I didn’t think you’d be down there long and I was trying…” He trailed off. He’d tried to duplicate her cell in some ways, in order for her to subconsciously accept the apartment as her home. A good first step in accepting the place as home and then him as belonging to her.

He held her eyes to allow her to see the complete vulnerability in him. The stark, raw need. He knew it showed. There was no hiding that deep of a need. It came from a place of terror, something he hadn’t experienced since the first gunshot rang out in his childhood home. That nightmare was far too close, pressing on him, the loss of the ones he loved. He’d let her in. He needed her now.

She nodded slowly. It will take a few minutes.

“I’ll get ready for bed. Leave a route to the bathroom.” If she was feeling better later in the night, they’d need it. He didn’t say that, but he turned away from her, not giving her the opportunity to change her mind. He hurried into the bathroom and shed his clothes, took care of business, concentrating on keeping his heartbeat as steady as possible.

He’d planned out his battle strategy, trying to find ways he thought would appeal to Cayenne to lure her into staying during and after renovations of the only building she had been able to call home there in the swamp. His biggest hurdle was gaining her trust. As far as he could see, she’d never had a reason to trust anyone. He could see that in her eyes when she looked at him – her defenses working right behind all that green. Her fear. She was drawn to him, compelled to be close to him, but trusting him was an altogether different proposition. He knew the fact that she wanted to give him that was half the battle. If he could keep his terror – and his reaction to it – under control, he’d have a better chance.

When he walked out from the bathroom, stark naked, his room had been transformed. He stopped, his breath catching in his throat as he stared at the lacy, artistic design shrouding his bed. Floor-to-ceiling silk formed a heavy veil, with feelers running through the room, along the walls and creeping out the door. A web covered the two entrances. Neither of those was ornate, not like the beautiful one wrapping up his bed. She’d created a tunnel for them between the bathroom and the bed and he stood upright in it. The fact that he could meant she’d calculated the height and width of the passageway so he could walk easily. He loved that she could do that. Fucking loved it.

He padded through the tunnel to the bed. She was so small there under his covers, he might have missed her but for the black silk spilling over the pillow. Once again he put his knee on the edge of the bed and leaned so he could pull her smaller body to him.

Cayenne didn’t resist. She didn’t even move her head, but her lashes fluttered as he flipped back the covers. His breath left his lungs in a rush. She had shed her clothes and was as naked as he was. Her color was better. Her body was as lush or even more so than he remembered from the night before. This time his hands were free. He couldn’t help using his finger to trace the little hourglass nestled into the tiny black curls at the junction of her legs as he took in her body. Every inch of it. Looking for injuries. Memorizing the exotic luxury that was Cayenne. That was his.

The knife had gone in low and mean. He could see the cut there, a raw wound that still seeped a little blood. He hated knives. He was adept at using them and often did when he went into an enemy camp and didn’t want his presence known, but he knew often, the wound wasn’t the problem, infection was.

His fingers probed around the cut. Not deep. In fact, fairly shallow. He didn’t see how that was possible when she’d fought off a supersoldier, one with enormous strength. He should have been able to drive the blade deep. Clearly the bite she’d given the soldier had saved her. Very gently Trap cleansed the area around the wound with antiseptic and then placed a triple antibiotic cream over it. He added a bandage. She didn’t wince. She didn’t move, just kept her eyes on his face.

He used the pads of his fingers to whisper over her skin. Soft. Totally soft. Like silk. Like the silk of her hair. The silk of the webs surrounding their beds. Her lashes fluttered and then covered her eyes.

“Baby, is your skin made up of silk as well?” He couldn’t imagine how that would occur in her body, but he knew how strong woven spiderwebs could be – they could stop a bullet better than Kevlar – and he didn’t have any other explanation.

I’m so tired, Trap. Really, really tired. Can we talk later? Please?

He wasn’t certain she’d get the chance to say much of anything later. He didn’t intend to talk with his voice. Still, she’d killed a couple of men. She needed to retreat, to let herself grieve in her own way. Whatever she had to do to process that two human beings had lost their lives.

“You know you had no choice, Cayenne,” he offered softly, as he positioned her in the middle of the bed and slid in next to her.

She was on her side, facing away from him, one hand tucked beneath her cheek. Her body was cold. When he turned on his side and curled his body protectively around hers, she made no protest. He tucked her closer, his arm sliding around her waist, dragging her body almost beneath his. Close. So close the silk of her skin melted into the heat of his. He slid one knee in between her legs, and buried his face in her hair.

She felt… like heaven. In his wildest imagination – and granted he didn’t have much of one, he was all about science – he never once thought a woman could feel like her. He inhaled and took the scent of her into his lungs. Deep. Loving the way her fragrance was exotic, something wild. He knew she had wild in her. Her wild called to him, to the dominant in him.