Page 108 of Red Zone Awakened

He was on his feet, prowling toward her, his gaze so hot it made her melt.“We can talk after.”

“Mace…” Anything she had to say was lost as he stood in front of her.Her massive Viking of a man, rippling with strength and power, seemingly indestructible.

Slowly, gently, he reached out to cup her face.“Thought I’d lost you.Said goodbye in my head while I watched you shoot your way across the terrace, running to get to me when you should have been running away.I told you everything when I was sure I was dying.And now that I know I’m gonna live, I need to tell you again and make sure you hear me this time.I love you, Keiko Sato.I love everything about you.”

“Mace,” she whispered, drowning in the depth of emotion in his eyes.

“I want you to stay with me, baby, to spend the rest of your life with me.I can’t promise you an easy life, but I can promise that I’ll love you through every minute of it.You know everything there is to know about me.I don’t belong in this time, and I doubt I ever will.I’m an outlaw without a country.And because of my weird-ass DNA, I don’t know what the future holds.In all honesty, I’ve nothing but negative prospects to offer you, and yet I’m still asking you to stay.I’ll beg if that’s what it takes.Because I don’t want to deal with this new world without you.”

Keiko sniffed back tears that threatened.“How am I supposed to tell you no when you say things like that?”

His thumb gently stroked over her bottom lip.“Were you planning on saying no?”

“That’s not the point.I have things I need to shout at you about.”

His lips twitched.“Can you tell me that you love me first and that you’ll stay with me?Because I’m kind of hanging here.”

Keiko reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck.Instantly, Mace grasped her hips and lifted her, allowing her to wrap her legs around him.As he pressed her back against the cool, hard wall, she ran her fingers through the overgrown hair she loved.Just like she loved the man.

“You’d better not disappoint me, Mace Armstrong.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”His smile was devastating.

“There’s something else we need to discuss.Seems I have a bite mark, one your bat planted on me in Houston.”

“Oh, that.”His cheeks turned pink.“I was kind of hoping you wouldn’t notice before I woke up.”

“Which means you already knew about it.”Something she’d guessed after putting two and two together over his strange reaction in the communications room, when he first explained about his bat.

“To be fair,” he said, “if you’re going to be mad at someone, it should be the bat.It wasn’t my idea to bite you.”

Keiko tried to frown at him, which was hard when she was wrapped around him, feeling all those wonderful muscles, hot against her.“That’s a convenient argument.You told me you were one entity.Something new.A hybrid.Your bat bit and infected me.Which means you’re both to blame.Now my genes are changing, and Friday’s treating me like her own personal lab rat.I don’t think I like her very much.”

“Welcome to the club,” he muttered.“What did Friday say?”

This was the part that made her stomach clench and her need to hyperventilate go into overdrive.“She thinks the same thing’s happening to me that happened to her.She thinks I’m becoming half bat, that I’ll have an animal to match yours.”

Mace stilled under her touch, staring at her intently.“Do you have a tattoo?Like Friday’s baby snake tattoo?”

She swallowed hard.“Some marks have appeared on my back.They’re faint, but Friday thinks it’s the beginning of a tattoo.”

His expression softened, understanding in his gaze.“That’s a lot to take in, princess.Are you okay?”

“I’m doing what a wise man once told me to do,” she said drily.“I’ve locked that shit up in a box and thrown away the key.”

His smile was slow and sexy.“I am a very wise man.Wise enough to know a good thing when I see it.”

A delightful shiver passed through her body.“Well, you might want to use some of that wisdom to keep the furball away from me because I still have the urge to sit on him.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Keiko trailed her fingers down his cheek.“You weren’t the only one who said things because you thought you were dying.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah.”Her heart stuttered at the memory of watching Mace fall, watching him die.Before she’d saved him.“I told you that I was mad at you for leaving me.That I’d follow you into the next life and make you suffer for eternity.That you’d cost me my job and my life, and you weren’t getting off that easy.”

With a smile, he leaned in to nuzzle her throat.“Sounds brutal.Anything else you felt the need to tell me while I was dying?”