Page 43 of Skinwalker's Bane
“If Lincoln didn’t want you to know, he would have made damn certain you’d never suspect,” Adam said gruffly. “He bedded anything that moved, that made an interesting offer. Yet I never once heard him boast about any of them. He knew how to keep his mouth shut.” He leaned toward her. “There’s a reason he returned to you for six years.” His hand shifted on the box. “I think this is it.”
“Because I gave him a stupid gift?”
“I never did tell you what his message was, did I?”
“Do I need to hear it?” she asked, her pulse leaping.
“He said he was sorry.Tell Devin I’m sorry. That was the whole message.”
“Sorry for what?” She was genuinely bewildered.
“It didn’t make any sense to me, either,” Adam admitted. He touched the book. “Only, now, I think I understand.”
Devin pressed her lips together tightly. She stared at the book. The stupid book and her silly, sentimental gesture.
“I think he wanted to apologize for dying because he loved you.”
She shot to her feet, her eyes stinging. “That’s impossible.” She moved over to the counter, putting her back to him so he couldn’t see her face. “Lincoln wasn’t the type to fall in love with anyone.”
“He wasn’t the type to cling to keepsakes, either,” Adam said dryly. “Yet here it sits.”
She closed her eyes, as her throat closed up painfully and her chest ached. “Why couldn’t it have stayed clean and simple?” she whispered, as the tears squeezed out anyway.
“Because you were both human,” Adam said quietly, from right behind her. He rested his hand on her shoulder. “He abided by the terms, because then he could keep you in his life. And he hid the truth about the mess he was making of his life, because he was shielding you. And, I suspect, he wanted you to think better of him than he deserved.”
Devin shook her head. “Such awaste.” Her voice was harsh.
“It was all that,” Adam said in agreement. “Hey. Look at me.”
She shook her head again, more firmly this time.
“You think I don’t know you’re crying, Devin?”
He pulled her around and she let him, because he had guessed the truth. “I don’t know why I am crying,” she admitted. “I didn’t love him. He never let me know him well enough to even start to love him. I didn’t want it, anyway. Now I feel as if I was selfish and self-centered. Helovedme and I made him tuck it away.”
“He was a grown man. He could have said something if he really wanted to,” Adam assured her. He wiped at her cheeks. “Don’t cry harder…! Stars, Devin, a woman crying makes my insides kink.”
“Sorry,” she said, trying to control the sobs.
He pulled her against him with a rough, impatient sounds. She rested her head against his shoulder, feeling the scratch of the rough fabric beneath her damp cheek and the smell of Adam, just beneath it.
It seemed very natural to kiss him, after that. Almost inevitable.
Adam didn’t push her away as she lifted her lips to his. He met her halfway, as if it had been his intention, too. She was already in his arms. They tightened, so the hot, heated length of him was pressed against her. The kiss deepened. She closed her eyes and sank into the pleasure of it.
His hands roamed over her back. She wound her arms around his neck and gave him access. The stroking was a delicious accompaniment to the taste of his kisses. She hadn’t suspected he would taste so sweet.
The kiss didn’t end with him pushing her away and cursing. He didn’t let go of her lips as if he had suddenly come to his senses.
They both stayed locked together, breathing hard, their lips just barely apart, as if they would both go back to taking more, as soon as they recovered their breaths.
Devin said the first thing that came to mind. It was a raw truth that shocked even her. “You’re not just a replacement skinwalker. Not to me. Not now.”
Adam swallowed. “This could be…complicated.”
“Can you stand complicated?” she whispered.
“For you, I can stand anything.”
