"Fuck," he said.
"She's come home, huh?"
"I'll deal with Manello. Later."
As he hung up, he wasn't sure he could do this to her. If he left now, he'd still have time to get to the Other Side before Phury took the Primale vow.
Shit.
* * *
Chapter Forty-one
Jane backed into her garage, put the Audi in park, and just sat there with the engine going. On the passenger seat beside her were the results of the CAT scan Manello and she had sneaked in. Big all-clear. No evidence of tumor or aneurism or anything out of order.
She should have felt relieved, but the lack of explanation bothered her because her thought processes remained slow and cumbersome. It was almost as if her neuropathways had to work around some kind of obstacle in her head. And her chest still hurt like a bitch—
A man stepped into the beams of her headlights… a huge man with dark hair and a goatee and leathers. Behind him the landscape was blurry, as if he had stepped out of a fog.#p#分页标题#e#
Jane immediately burst into tears.
This man… this apparition… he was her shadow, the thing in her mind, the haunting presence that she knew yet couldn't recognize, that she mourned yet couldn't place. It all made sense—
On her next breath pain lanced into her temples, a horrible crushing burden.
But instead of rolling through her, it dissipated, just floated off, leaving not even a sting behind. In its wake images came to her, images of her operating on this man, of her being kidnapped and being held in a room with him… of them being together… of her… falling in love… then getting left behind.
V.
The onslaught of memory warped and shifted as her mind struggled to find purchase in a slippery reality. This couldn't be happening. He couldn't be back. He wasn't coming back.
She must be dreaming.
"Jane," the apparition of her lover said. Oh, God… His voice was the same as it had been, deep and lovely, sliding into her ear like wine-colored silk. "Jane…"
Fumbling with the ignition, she turned off the lights and got out of the Audi.
The air was cold on her wet cheeks, and her heart pounded as she said, "Are you real?"
"Yes."
"How do I know?" Her voice cracked, and she touched her temples. "I don't know anything anymore. I can't… think right anymore."
"Jane…" he breathed. "I'm so sorry—"
"My head's not right."
"It's my fault. It's all my fault." The strain and the sorrow in his proud face pierced her confusion, offering her some ground to stand on.
She took a deep breath and thought of Russell Crowe toward the end of A Beautiful Mind. Bracing herself, she walked up to what seemed to be V, put two fingers on his shoulder, and pushed.
He was solid as stone. And he smelled the same… dark spices. And his eyes—those brilliant diamond eyes—glowed as they always had.
"I thought you'd left for good," she whispered. "Why…"
At this point she only hoped to understand what was going on and why he'd returned.
"I'm not getting mated."
Her breath stopped. "You aren't?"
He shook his head. "I couldn't do it. I can't be with anyone but you. I don't know if you want me—"
Before she had another conscious thought, she jumped up and latched onto him, not giving a shit about the barriers of species and circumstance. She just needed him. The rest was conversation to be figured out later.
"Of course I want you," she said right in his ear. "I love you."
He let loose some kind of hoarse word, and his arms crushed her to him. As she found herself not being able to breathe because he was squeezing her so tight, she thought, Yup, this really was him. And he wasn't going to let her go this time.
Thank. God.
As he held Jane up off the ground, Vishous was wholly happy. Complete in a way that having all your fingers and toes couldn't hold a candle to. With a shout of triumph, he carried her into her condo, pausing only to put the garage door down.
"I thought I was going crazy," she said as he sat her on the counter. "I really did."
Bonded male that he was, he was dying to get inside her, but he held off his baser urges. For chrissakes, he should give them time to talk a little.
Really.
Shit, he wanted her.
"I'm sorry—shit, Jane, I'm sorry I had to erase all that, I really am. I can imagine it was disorienting as hell. Scary, too."#p#分页标题#e#
Her hands went to his face as if she were still working on the whole V-is-real thing. "How did you get out of the marriages?"
"One of my brothers took my place." V closed his eyes as her fingers went over his cheeks and nose, his chin, his temples.