health.” His logic and further information helped to slow her accelerated heartrate. Her dad was a tough guy. Anyone who worked with large animals had to be hardy. It was an occupational hazard: from time to time, you got kicked, bitten, or squashed. It hurt, but torture was another thing altogether.
He turned her body in the water so that she was sitting between his legs, his arms clutched loosely around her tense body, her back to his front. Without much thought and wanting to offer what silent comfort he could, Bray began to gently massage her arms and shoulders. The bruising from last night was just starting to break through to slightly discolour her skin. His pressure was soft but still dripping with a sexual edge. It somehow felt right to be comforting her like this.
Rihanna leant into the strong strokes and found her body slowly releasing the tension but her mind continued to whir at full speed.
“So what is going to happen to me?” She finally asked the question that had been circling her mind all afternoon but had yet to be answered.
“For now, we wait here until my boss tells me differently.” Bray was so definite and his words so final, it irritated the hell out of her. How could they sit here doing nothing?
“How can you be so damn accepting of this?” she snapped, tension returning to her shoulders against his relentless efforts. He had almost given up on hoping that his touch would eventually help her relax. Brayden enjoyed the feel of her smooth skin and the closeness just sitting entwined together brought.
“I’m accepting of this because this is my job.” He paused and then continued. “It’s also my life. What I do for a great part of it.” The finality of his earlier comment was evident again. He looked off into the distance, as if searching for the right words or trying to decide just how much more that he wanted to disclose. Rihanna sensed that he had more to tell but was uncertain.
“So your job defines who you are?”
Wow, her question was blunt and to the point and hit him square on.
He lifted her from his lap and edged around to the other side of the spa. Her chin was raised again in that defiant manner he was beginning to recognise as her not being satisfied until she found a plausible answer that she could accept.
“You don’t understand…” He trailed off again, searching for words and deciding how much to disclose. How do you go about revealing that the reason you are defined by your job is because you have been specifically created, monitored, and trained since birth with someone else’s purpose in mind? To be the job. To be part of this team of operatives that were human in so many ways—but oh so different in many others. To be part of an elite team that has been specifically designed by humans to protect themselves from the rogues of their species who stray onto the dark side or threaten the greater population.
How do you disclose that you are not totally human or animal but rather a hybrid of both? How could he not be defined by his job? His unique abilities were designed to do this job.
He took a deep breath and looked into her serious face, zeroing into his like a heat-seeking missile.
“I’m part of a team. I have been since university. You just don’t walk away from that.”
He waited as if letting that sink in, gauging her response.
“So you eat, sleep, drink, and breathe this team twenty-four-seven?”
He raised his eyes to look at her and said, “Yes, I do.” His voice sounded resigned even to his ears, as if he resented this job and the life that went with it.
Rihanna let her gaze slip from his while she thought through what he was telling her. The obvious question that kept coming back to her mind was did he have relationships with all the people he rescued or just her? She had to know. She owed it to herself. Was this attraction between them real or just another fringe benefit of his job? And why the hell did he stay with a job that
He turned her body in the water so that she was sitting between his legs, his arms clutched loosely around her tense body, her back to his front. Without much thought and wanting to offer what silent comfort he could, Bray began to gently massage her arms and shoulders. The bruising from last night was just starting to break through to slightly discolour her skin. His pressure was soft but still dripping with a sexual edge. It somehow felt right to be comforting her like this.
Rihanna leant into the strong strokes and found her body slowly releasing the tension but her mind continued to whir at full speed.
“So what is going to happen to me?” She finally asked the question that had been circling her mind all afternoon but had yet to be answered.
“For now, we wait here until my boss tells me differently.” Bray was so definite and his words so final, it irritated the hell out of her. How could they sit here doing nothing?
“How can you be so damn accepting of this?” she snapped, tension returning to her shoulders against his relentless efforts. He had almost given up on hoping that his touch would eventually help her relax. Brayden enjoyed the feel of her smooth skin and the closeness just sitting entwined together brought.
“I’m accepting of this because this is my job.” He paused and then continued. “It’s also my life. What I do for a great part of it.” The finality of his earlier comment was evident again. He looked off into the distance, as if searching for the right words or trying to decide just how much more that he wanted to disclose. Rihanna sensed that he had more to tell but was uncertain.
“So your job defines who you are?”
Wow, her question was blunt and to the point and hit him square on.
He lifted her from his lap and edged around to the other side of the spa. Her chin was raised again in that defiant manner he was beginning to recognise as her not being satisfied until she found a plausible answer that she could accept.
“You don’t understand…” He trailed off again, searching for words and deciding how much to disclose. How do you go about revealing that the reason you are defined by your job is because you have been specifically created, monitored, and trained since birth with someone else’s purpose in mind? To be the job. To be part of this team of operatives that were human in so many ways—but oh so different in many others. To be part of an elite team that has been specifically designed by humans to protect themselves from the rogues of their species who stray onto the dark side or threaten the greater population.
How do you disclose that you are not totally human or animal but rather a hybrid of both? How could he not be defined by his job? His unique abilities were designed to do this job.
He took a deep breath and looked into her serious face, zeroing into his like a heat-seeking missile.
“I’m part of a team. I have been since university. You just don’t walk away from that.”
He waited as if letting that sink in, gauging her response.
“So you eat, sleep, drink, and breathe this team twenty-four-seven?”
He raised his eyes to look at her and said, “Yes, I do.” His voice sounded resigned even to his ears, as if he resented this job and the life that went with it.
Rihanna let her gaze slip from his while she thought through what he was telling her. The obvious question that kept coming back to her mind was did he have relationships with all the people he rescued or just her? She had to know. She owed it to herself. Was this attraction between them real or just another fringe benefit of his job? And why the hell did he stay with a job that
Similar Books
