I can't bury another friend."<br />"You won't."<br />"If anything ever happened to you, Rowan-"<br />"Don't" he breathed. "Don't even say it. We dealt with that enough the other night."<br />He lifted a hand - hesitated, and then brushed back a strand of hair that had fallen across her face. His callused fingers scrapped against her cheekbone, then caressed the shell of her ear. <br />It was foolish to even start down that road, when every other man she'd let in had left some wound, in one way or another, accidentally or not.<br />There was nothing tender in his face. Only a predator's glittering gaze. "When we get back," he said, "remind me to prove you wrong about every thought that just went through your head."<br />She lifted an eyebrow. "Oh?"<br />He gave her a sly smile that made thinking impossible. Exactly what he wanted - to distract her from the horrors of tomorrow. "I'll even let you decide how I tell you: with words"- his eyes flickered once to her mouth- "or with my teeth and tongue.