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Audi knew why, just as he knew the danger his daughter faced because of it.
“I’ll fix it, Jane,” he promised, closing his eyes and praying that he wasn’t lying to his wife for the second time in their marriage.
Just as he prayed this daughter didn’t pay for his failure to protect her as the first had. God help him, Liza was the child he and Jane had always dreamed of. She was a fighter, intelligent and adept, compassionate and loving. There wasn’t a manipulative bone in her body or a single death wish to torture her family.
She had given their lives purpose at a time when he had wondered if they would drift forever in a haze of guilt that never seemed to find relief.
Yet, from the moment she had opened her eyes and called him “Dad,” he had felt a healing begin. Just as Jane had.
She was a true mother to Liza.
Their daughter had learned to cook, to clean, to laugh and to tease. She had talked him into teaching her how to skate, how to rock climb, and finally, she had allowed him to teach her how to drive.
If he lost her—
God help them both if they lost her.
CHAPTER 10
Liza had learned years
before exactly how to avoid the facts of life.
Stepping into the hotel room and seeing the two beds separated by a small table, she sighed heavily.
“Really?” She turned back to him in disbelief. “They didn’t have a larger room? A suite, perhaps?”
His shoulders lifted, a rakish smile curling his lips despite the somberness in his dark eyes. “Hotel’s all booked up, sweetheart.”
Of course it was.
“You have a few of your sleep shirts in the wardrobe.” He indicated the tall entertainment center with its four drawers beneath the screen. “Isabelle had one of the officers who followed us to the hotel go back for them. There are clothes in there as well.”
“Great, some guy pawing through my clothes.” It was all she could do to hold back a shudder at the thought.
“It wasn’t like that, Liza.” The frustration in his voice only seemed to infuriate her further.
Turning on him, she crossed her arms beneath her breasts and confronted him with all the anger she couldn’t seem to bury. “It wasn’t like what, Stygian? Like some asshole pawing through my silk panties and bras? Do you think they didn’t snicker as they chose the gowns? That they didn’t imagine me naked or wearing one of the silk camisoles I sleep in? Since when are Breeds any better than any other man when it comes to lust?”
Dropping her arms, she turned to stalk to the bathroom, to get away from him. To strangle the fury tearing through her before she choked them both with it.
Before she was entirely certain what was happening, Liza found herself being pulled around and hauled against Stygian’s chest, his large hand still holding the arm he had gripped to pull her to him.
“Do you really believe I would allow another man to do something so damned intimate?” he growled, shocking her.
That was possessiveness in his voice. That low, primal growl held a vein of pure, determined ownership that at once pricked her independence and pulled at the woman who longed to belong—
To something. To someone.
“I don’t really know what you would do, do I, Stygian?” Her breathing was suddenly rough, heavy.
The need to know if Isabelle had been right about a Breed’s kiss being addictive was suddenly overwhelming. If not addictive, then what about the aphrodisiac it was supposed to contain?
She licked her lips, suddenly desperate for the answer.
“No male Breed pawed through your clothing, your silk, or your gowns,” he snarled down at her. “Ashley chose each piece and she alone packed it before the Breed who drove her back to the house returned her to the hotel. Never, ever, Liza”—his lips were so close to hers now that she swore she could almost feel them against hers—“would I allow another man to touch what you would wear so intimately against your flesh.”
Breathing was a chore. Her chest was so tight with the need to hold back the moan rising inside it that she felt light-headed from the battle. Every second that she felt the heat of his chest sinking past their clothing to the sensitive, peaked hardness of her nipples, she could feel the flesh between her thighs growing wetter.
