Leopard's Kiss (Shadow Guardians) (Shadows Guardians Book 1) by Stephanie Rowe Page A

"What are you waiting for?"
    "The words."
    She closed her eyes, too tired to think. "What words? What are you talking about?"
    "I'm trying to figure out what words to use that won't offend you."
    "It's not the words," she said, not bothering to open her eyes. "Didn't you hear me? It's the emotion that matters. It doesn't matter what you say now. The mood for sex is long gone. God, no wonder you can be an assassin." She opened her eyes, studying him through barely-open lids. "Is there anything left of the boy who noticed flowers? Is there not a shred of humanity inside you? Was I that wrong about you?"
    He still didn't look away, his gaze boring into her so intensely. "I have never been driven by my physical need for a woman in my life." His words were slow and clipped, almost awkward, as if he were trying each one out before he said it. "My kisses are entirely one-sided, for the pleasure of the one who receives them. I feel nothing when I do them, other than a sense of responsibility to make death appropriate."
    "You feel nothing?" she repeated, the implications of his words dawning on her. The intense physical response he'd evoked in her had been one-sided? He'd felt nothing? Embarrassment flooded her cheeks. How could she have been such an idiot? She gritted her teeth and glared at him. "Get. Off. Me."
    He didn't even acknowledge her request, and his body was an immovable weight that she could never dislodge on her own. "When I gave you the kiss of death, I was unable to keep myself from feeling. I noticed how your lips tasted. I noticed you smelled like flowers. I noticed the feel of your body against mine. I was aware of your breasts against my chest. And I was not pleased that you were trapped by my mind control and were not in that kiss with me. I wanted you to be kissing me , not the illusionary fantasy man that you were seeing in your mind."
    Heat rushed over her body at his words, and she stared at him, searching his face. "Really?"
    "Who were you thinking of when I was kissing you?" His fingers tightened on her hips almost imperceptibly. "Who was your fantasy?"
    She shook her head. "I knew I was kissing you. There was no one else in my mind."
    He frowned. "What do you mean?"
    "I was kissing you. I knew I was."
    Shock rippled over his handsome face. "But that's impossible. I had control of your mind. I gave you the man you dreamed of kissing, the one who would make you die in peace knowing you were in his arms."
    She shrugged. "There's no one like that in my life. I guess a hot, irritating assassin was the closest thing I could come up with."
    His gaze searched hers, and then he released one hip long enough to brush his finger over her cheeks. "My parents were murdered," he said softly. "When you told me about your mother, I felt your grief. I know that pain, because I lived it. I said I was sorry because I thought that was the appropriate thing to say. You want to know what I felt?" His voice turned icy. "If you wanted my truth, what I would have done is ordered you to tell me the name of the bastards responsible. I would have hunted every one of them down and killed them in the same way they killed your mother, every last one of them. It would have been the only deaths I've done for free in my life, with the exception of those who killed my parents. I would have killed every last one of them, and walked away without a shred of remorse, guilt, or empathy, and I would have sent you their blackened hearts to burn in your mother's honor."
    His words were clipped and cold, his face like steel, but his fingers had tightened on her hips, as if even his supreme self-discipline couldn't completely mask his emotions. Tears trickled down her cheeks, both for his own pain, and for his offer. "I didn't know," she said. "And thank you for that." She knew he meant every word, and as horrible as his offer was on some levels, it was also beautiful. To offer to carry the burden of murder on his soul so she could avenge her mother's