The Forbidden Life of Alex Moore(20)

She cleared her throat. “It is if you’re hungry.”
He came around the counter and took the coffee cup Lilly had filled for him while she made a production of gathering the eggs, skillet, and utensils. She couldn’t help it. She felt all twisted up inside.
She shook her head and rolled her eyes at herself. What was wrong with her? She didn’t even knowthis man. But perhaps that was the crux of the problem. She wanted to know him but he didn’t even trust her enough to tell her where he was from.
“I’m from the Beyond,” he said to her back, reading her mind with that effortless way of his. His voice was so deep, it sent chills down her spine. His words so close to her thoughts that she turned, wondering if she’d somehow blurted out what she was thinking without realizing it.
He leaned against the counter, long legs stretched in front of him, mug held between his big hands. His hair was still wet; his jaw shadowed. He looked dangerous and sexy and she suspected that if he said, Again? she’d jump his bones right here on the kitchen floor.
“The Beyond,” she repeated, with an awkward horsey laugh and scalding blush, hoping he couldn’t pluck that thought out of her head…and, of course, hoping that was exactly what he’d do. “Is that in Minnesota?”
“Probably not,” he answered, his eyes smiling.
“I didn’t think so.”
She turned back to her eggs, scrambling them with more aggression than they deserved. “So are you going to tell me where that is or make me guess?”
“The Beyond is everywhere, Lilly,” he said gently.
As if he knew all the turmoil she was trying so hard to disguise. She whipped the eggs into submission and poured them into the skillet.
“You mean like heaven?”
“Heaven. Hell. It’s that and all the outliers that meet in the middle.”
Outliers. “Like hellhounds.”
She chanced a look over her shoulder. Beneath all that sexy, Alex looked tired and sore, battered to the bone. He leaned his head back and looked at the ceiling.
“Like hellhounds,” he agreed wearily.
“So are you one of the outliers, too?” she asked.
He shook his head, thought about it, and shrugged. Great. He didn’t even know.#p#分页标题#e#
“The middle—the in-between, where it all meets? It’s not a nice place. I make sure everyone stays on their own side of the fence.”
“And when they get out, you round them up and kill them.”
“It’s what I do.”
“When they aren’t on top of you, you mean.”
He grinned. A devastating grin that she felt right down to her toes.
“This may be hard to believe,” he said, “but it doesn’t usually play that way.”
No. It wasn’t hard to believe at all. She’d had an unimpeded view of all his muscle and strength. It was a wonder the stupid hellhounds hadn’t bolted as soon as they saw him.
“Why did you run away?” he asked in a husky voice.
She knew what he meant. She’d left the bed like it was on fire. What he didn’t realize was the fact that she’d been the one burning.
“Is it because of what I am?” he asked, his voice low and troubled. “What I’m not…”
Human. That’s what he meant.
“Well, that and the fact that you’re a stranger. You may find this hard to believe, but what just happened between us…it doesn’t usually play that way.”
His eyes glittered with amusement, but his question came with a serious tone. “Why did you do it, then?”
A play on her words this time. She’d asked the same thing when Alex said he’d made himself an outlaw by protecting her from Jared.
They stared at one another, the query hanging between them. How could she answer? She didn’t understand this attraction herself. Certainly, the physical aspect was obvious. She would have noticed Alex under any circumstances. But there was something deeper than beautiful eyes and a muscled body that drew her.
Maybe it was the way he listened when she talked. Maybe it was the way he seemed to hear more than just the words she spoke. For her entire life she’d felt…lost. Abandoned children usually did. And even though she’d been taken in by good, loving people, she’d lost them, too.
Lilly had moved on, forged a life. She had friends, if not family, but she’d never had the permanence of blood relations, something that connected her by its very existence. Until her sister had appeared without warning, and for a short, poignant time, Lilly had been part of something more. Then Amy had died and Lilly had felt so empty and alone. The kind of empty that never went away.
But now here was Alex, and Lilly felt a little less hollow. She felt hopeful. He understood what it meant to stand against the tide while it sucked everything you valued out to sea. She felt bonded with him, paired. And it scared the hell out of her.