The Forbidden Life of Alex Moore(16)

The words sank deep inside him, a pearl falling to the soft sediments of his soul. He hadn’t had many protectors either. He was glad he’d been one for her.
“You realize that I’m the reason you needed protection, right?” he teased.
“Don’t do that,” she said. “Don’t belittle it.”
Her shoulder lifted in a small, meaningless gesture. Except right then, it was filled with meaning. About what he’d done…about what it meant to her…about the current that raced through him whenever she touched him.
He wanted to look into her face. He needed the cues of expression, of eyes to understand this deeply layered conversation. But she’d be the one to see too much. She’d know what it meant, the yearning inside him. The desire to pull her against him and make her his.
The idea of it was crazy. He was not meant for this world or this woman. Creatures of the Beyond didn’t mate like humans. They fornicated—of course they did. But that wasn’t what he wanted to do with Lilly and he knew it.
The thought led him down a dangerous path he shouldn’t tread.
She sighed, as if hearing his thoughts, and stepped away from him. He forced himself to let her go, but he didn’t want to. Silently, she stepped to the table where a box with a red cross on its lid sat.
“How do you feel?” she asked, not looking at him.
He should be grateful that she’d changed the subject, that she’d moved them both to safer ground.
But he wasn’t.
“I feel like I’ve been chewed up by a pack of hellhounds.”
She almost smiled as she reached for a small bottle and shook two capsules out. “Take these and sit down so I can check your bandages.”
“What are they?”
“Roofies.”
“What?”
“Just kidding. Amoxicillin. For infection. I don’t know if you need a rabies shot. Probably it’d be a good idea once the snow clears to find a doctor and get one. Sit.”
He took the pills and sat down at the table so she could change his bandages. He tried not to feel the soft brush of her fingers against his skin, but he’d have had better luck trying not to breathe.
“No bleeding,” she said, golden head bent. “That’s good.”
He was glad she thought so, but it hurt like a bitch.
She worked quietly, pulling off the old bandages, cleaning the wounds with something that stung, before covering them again with clean gauze.
“Who were the men you were with, Alex?” she asked, still not looking at him.#p#分页标题#e#
The question was soft. Lilting. She didn’t expect an answer from him. But she hoped. He heard it in the way she rushed the words, her voice so low that he almost missed it.
It was another way to ask who he was, information he knew better than to give her. He’d told her he wasn’t human. He’d told her he wasn’t a man. She should be hiding under the bed instead of teasing him with her feather-light touches and elusive scent. She glanced up and he found himself falling into the blue of her eyes. Eyes that spoke to him, to some different version of him. One he wanted to be.
“Caleb was a friend. Jared, a fellow soldier. I never trusted Jared.”
She dabbed at the cut on his forehead where Jared had slammed the hilt of his machete into Alex’s temple.
“I’m part of an army, Lilly, and I just killed someone on my own side. Others will come looking for me.”
She gave him a somber look. “I’m sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault. Jared had issues with humans. Always did. He never missed an opportunity to punish them. I couldn’t let him hurt you, though. Not after you’d saved my life.”
“Do you have issues with humans, Alex?”
He hadn’t seen the question coming and he had no idea how to answer it. Did he? It wasn’t a simple yes or no. Humans had freedoms that he’d never known. Choices he’d never had the chance to make. But did he harbor resentment because of it?
He cleared his throat. “No issues,” he said.
Lilly’s eyes called him a liar, but she didn’t say the word aloud, nor did she put into words any of the questions he saw lurking in the blue depths.
“I just need to be sure I’m gone before they come looking for me. I don’t want you involved any more than you already are.”
He took her hand in his. Her fingers were soft, small in his grasp. It felt overwhelmingly intimate to be touching her like this, but Alex didn’t understand why. Hands shouldn’t be so sensitive, so…personal.
“You can’t talk about what you saw today, Lilly. Not to anyone. Not ever.”
“I understand.”
She held his gaze for a moment, her fingers moving against his. A lump had formed in his throat. Alex swallowed and released her hand with reluctance.