I began to get up only to be stopped by Kayden’s grip on my shoulders.

“Hold up. You need to tell me what he said in there.”

“Nothing,” I muttered.

His eyes darkened to a navy blue and narrowed. “Try again, Arden.” Edgy

command lined his voice. “Whatever he said in there dropped your skin tone two

shades past death, so tell me.”

“He’s playing games,” I snapped back. “He’s provoking me, and it threw me,

okay? That’s all.”

Kayden didn’t say a thing, he simply regarded me with a piercing gaze.

Unsettled by his silence, I blurted, “It’s a psychological game. One I

should’ve been prepared for based on the info in his file, but I wasn’t. It won’t

happen again.” I grabbed his hands and squeezed. “Now, can we please go find out how the hell he got in my gun safe?”

“First, let’s get you cleaned up.” He rose to his feet to tower over me.

I scrambled up, confused, and my head took a sickening spin. “Cleaned up?”

He caught me as I swayed, then he gently took my wrist, and brought my hand up until I could see the blood smeared on it. “You had a nosebleed.”

I looked from the rust-colored smear to his face.

Grim determination stared back. “That’s not a good sign. Bleeding of any

kind with most psychics implies pressure on the brain. It stopped when I touched

you.” I opened my mouth to protest, but he cut me off. “No. If you want to do

this, you’ll have to deal with me touching you, because I won’t stand by and watch you hemorrhage to death.”

Unused to having someone be concerned about me, his gruff concern

burrowed his spot a little deeper in my heart. It felt…nice. “Okay,” I said.

When a straight line proved challenging, he took over and guided me to the

kitchen. At the sink, I washed my hand, then snagged a paper towel. Wetting it, I

went to clean my face only to have Kayden take it from me and grasp my chin.

With a gentle touch, he tilted my face back and cleaned it.

Flustered by the strange intimacy, I gripped the counter, so I wouldn’t touch

him. Unfortunately, my mouth had no such reservations. “I like it when you touch me.”

His movements stilled, and his gaze sharpened.

Mortification stained my cheeks. For fuck’s sake, I sounded like some dippy

thirteen-year-old with a crush. I scrambled to explain. “But I think us touching when we do this takes me too deep, too fast.”

He resumed his careful ministrations. “So, no touching when you go under.”

I shook my head. “I need you to touch me.”

His hand stilled, and he quirked an eyebrow at me.

Realizing how that sounded, I winced. “So, I can hear, Kayden. Sharing a

physical connection with you gives me a soundtrack.”

“And stops the bleeding,” he added.

Unable to read the small smile hovering on his lips, I stood mute.

One last brush of the wet towel and he let me go. He tossed it in the trash.

“What did he say when you grabbed me?”

Guilt overrode my discomfort. “That I was sloppy to leave Kelsey

unprotected.”

As we faced each other, Kayden leaned his hip against the island and folded

his arms across his chest. “That means he was here before he went to Sedona.”

I went to nod, but stopped, unsure. I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Any way to tell when these images are happening?”

I bit my lower lip, thinking. Kelsey’s images overpowered Ellery’s because

her emotional signature was stronger. The timing of the two memories—Kelsey

getting ready to leave with my gun and Ellery in the room—were too close together to tell which came first. But there was one thing we could use. “His wrists.”

“What?” Kayden asked.