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  He reached out and covered her hand. She hadn't realized she'd been rubbing her palm up and down her thigh. At his touch the burning between her legs grew hotter and she snatched her hand away. The Jeep's interior didn't allow her to shrink away from Wyatt's warmth. He was everywhere, surrounding her with his scent, his masculine hunger beating at her every bit as strong as her own.

  "I think you should drop those shields right now, Pepper. It's just the two of us. You and me. You know where this is goin'. So do I. I want to be inside you. I dream of bein' inside you and I know you dream of havin' me there. I want to feel your body wrapped around mine. I want to taste every inch of you. It's goin' to happen and both of us know it. There's no need to hide from me. Be as sexy as you like. Seduce me. I'm a grown-up, babe, and I can handle a woman. I can give you whatever you need."

  He was killing her. He didn't understand what they'd done to her. The heat and fire inside that burned and burned until she thought she'd go insane. If she dropped her guard, as connected as they were, and he saw the erotic images in her head, saw her cravings and her terrible need for him - for him - she would be lost. He would always be able to control and manipulate her. She wouldn't be the weapon, he would be.

  Desperate, she actually touched the door handle, thinking she might try to escape. There was no escape from her body's demands. None. She couldn't quiet the terrible hunger crawling through her veins, centering between her legs like a torch. Her mouth craved to wrap itself around his heavy erection every single time she saw it - which was hourly. He always seemed to be as hard as a rock.

  She couldn't think with wanting him. She couldn't sleep. Her skin was hot and her breasts ached. She needed him... She just plain needed.

  Wyatt swore in Cajun French, a bastardized version of the French she knew. "That's it, Pepper. That's all the time you've got. I was goin' to do this the right way, courtin' you like you deserve, showin' you we could be a normal couple, but I underestimated what they did to you. The hell they gave to you. Needin' sex is damned uncomfortable, and no woman of mine is goin' to suffer when I can do somethin' about it."

  Pepper just looked at him, feeling despair. She was fairly certain other men didn't contend with the mother of their children needing sex the way she needed it. She was suffering. It was agony. She'd had a handle on it until she met Wyatt; now she couldn't think of anything else.

  Wyatt turned off the main road onto an adjacent road, much narrower, one that ran along the river for a distance and then veered away from it for a while.

  "Pepper, take it down. The shield. Let it go. Give yourself to me."

  Her gaze dropped to the front of his jeans. His fierce, thick bulge. She licked her lips. Her mouth watered. The fire grew between her legs. It hurt to have her clothes on. Did she dare do what he asked? Reveal the dark side of herself to him? What would he think of her then?

  "Damn it, babe. Open your blouse for me. Unbutton all those cute buttons. The moment you put the damn thing on, all I wanted to do was unwrap you."

  His eyes cut sideways toward her, his gaze so hot she felt her stomach somersault. Hot liquid spilled between her legs. Fine. There was no saving either of them and right then she didn't care. The Jeep was hurtling through the swamp now on some old dirt road. He knew where he was going and he wanted to get them there fast. She hoped it would be fast enough.

  Very slowly her hands went to the top button of the blouse Nonny had found for her. She might never get this chance again. She'd never been with a man who mattered, one she wanted, one who wasn't training her. Aside from whatever made her outwardly tempting to men when she walked into a place, she was skilled and knew how to please a man, how to bind him to her. Never once had she ever wanted to use her craft. She hated it. Despised it. Until that moment. Her one chance.

  There was Wyatt. A man who knew how to love. A man of family. A man who could take command of a situation, lethal one moment and gentle and loving toward a child the next. That man. Her man. She knew him better than he knew himself. He wanted her giving herself to him, but he was holding a part of himself in reserve. That was okay too. She recognized that this one time might be the only time, but she was going to let herself enjoy every single second with him. And she was going to make certain he was going to enjoy it too, that he'd never regret being with her.

  She wanted to touch him. To feel his skin beneath her fingers. She was very tactile, and needed touch. Craved it. But only from him. Wyatt. She had no idea if the nightly erotic dreams had fed her hunger for him, and she didn't know if they were her dreams or his, only that she couldn't stop thinking about him.

  "There's no one else on this road, Pepper. We're headin' to the camp. Got a huntin' cabin there." His dark eyes moved over her, hooded, sensual, desire intense. "Keep opening the buttons, sugar. You're makin' me crazy goin' so slow like that."

  Wyatt was lean, all compact, very defined muscle with just enough bulk to him to look as if he could handle himself with ease. He was all man and she wanted him so badly it actually terrified her. Her hands trembled as she slid the last button out of its closure. His voice was nearly a growl, but a sultry, sexy one. She found herself shivering in anticipation.

  Wyatt pulled the Jeep onto a narrow bumpy trail. He couldn't exactly call it a road, but he knew it like the back of his hand. Since he'd been a child, once he'd been somewhere, the twists and turns could never throw him off. He remembered everything.

  Plants grew over the faint tire treads left behind in the mud. Great sweeping fans of moss fluttered around the Jeep as he drove through the cypress grove toward the hunting cabin. He glanced at Pepper again. Her blouse was open, but she hadn't parted the edges - and her hands trembled. She twisted her fingers together in agitation. His little seductress was actually nervous.

  "Baby," he said gently. There was no way to keep the growl from his voice. He wasn't going to lie to her. He wanted her with a vengeance, and he damned well was going to have her. They'd programmed her to need sex on purpose, mostly, he was certain, to gain her cooperation, but they hadn't counted on her strength to defy them. She was still shielding him, still afraid to allow him to see the real her.

  "Look at me, Pepper." He reached over and pried her fingers loose so he could curl her palm around the broad width of his cock. "You put that there and you weren't even tryin'. You did that. Not an enhancement. Not some fleeting physical attraction. I'm hard as a rock and I need you. You. Not some other woman."

  She shook her head, a low moan slipping out of her throat. He had the urge to stop the Jeep and lick her throat, to take her moan in his mouth.

  "This could ruin everything. You don't understand what my life is like," she whispered, refusing to give him her eyes.

  "Why? Because you want me too? You may wake up every morning needin' sex, babe, but here's a newsflash: so do I."

  "It isn't the same. You have no idea."

  She sounded a little desperate. He didn't care anymore. He'd had enough of seeing her suffer. He'd had enough of suffering himself. She was his woman whether she knew it or not. Her fear was that she would tie him to her with sex and that's what they'd have and only that. He knew better. Their bond was complicated, and intensely sexual, but it wasn't all about sex.

  He pulled the Jeep into the small overgrown pad for parking on the right side of the cabin and yanked on the brake. He was ending this right now. She was afraid to move, one way or the other. She was holding herself very still because she didn't know what to do.

  Wyatt leapt out of the Jeep, went around to her door and jerked it open, reaching over her lap, his shoulder brushing soft skin, over her soft breasts as he unsnapped her seat belt. The small little touch sent electrical shocks through his body, straight to his groin.

  "I can' bring two more men into the house until we're settled, Pepper. Until you belong to me all the way. Until you know for certain that you do." His fingers curled around her arm and he pulled her out of the Jeep, up tight against his body. "I'm not killin' a friend bec
ause you can' make up your mind."

  "I don't want this. I don't want to be like this." Pepper shook her head again, desperation filling her. He was too close. Too hot. His body so tight against hers she felt like she was melting into him. But if she let go, if they had sex together, for the rest of her life, that's all she'd ever be to him.

  Despair mixed with her rising temper. He didn't know the first thing about what he was getting himself into. "I don't want you killing a friend or anyone else over me. That's what I'm trying to protect you from. You're so arrogant, Wyatt. You don't think I know what's going to happen? Having sex with me isn't going to make it better. It's going to make it worse. That craving will never stop. Never. You'll wake up with it. You'll go to bed with it. You'll be at work with it. You'll make yourself crazy wondering who I'm with, what I'm doing. Worse, you'll be suspicious of your friends and the males in your family. The women won't accept me around their husbands."

  "You can tone it down."

  "I can't," she burst out, hating the tears filling her eyes. She didn't even have the painkillers to blame this time. She tried again to step away from him, but his strength defeated her. She looked up at him, desperate to save him, willing him to understand. "I can't." That came out in a whisper, and God help them both, her control was already slipping away.

  Wyatt stared down into her eyes. More purple than blue or black, with tears shimmering, with the strange starburst moving through the dark color, he saw far more than she would ever want him to. She needed him. She wanted him. There was paradise waiting. There was also hell. She was showing that to him. Both.

  He was no kid. He knew prices had to be paid. It would be steep for both of them. He was willing to risk it and he wasn't going to let her back out. His palm curled around the nape of her neck.

  In that moment, he recognized just how dangerous he could be and it didn't matter to him. And that was what she'd tried so hard to warn him about. It wouldn't matter. Nothing else would matter but having her. He was willing to burn in hell as long as he could have this. She shook her head, again, her body struggling against his, and he felt his temper rise to meet that challenge.

  "You want this," he hissed. "You fuckin' want this, Pepper, just as much as me."

  "Not with you. Not to you," she denied.

  But she did. It was there in her eyes. In the way her body moved against his. The heat. The fire.

  "With me, yes," he decreed in the face of her denial. "Only me, absolutely yes."

  Hunger starkly raw, fully aroused, he brought his mouth down hard on hers. There was nothing gentle about his kiss, not one single thing, but it didn't matter. The moment his mouth touched hers, she went up in flames. There was no holding back no matter how hard she tried. She'd waited her entire lifetime for him.

  A growl rumbled deep in his throat. His arm was an iron band, dragging her closer, fitting her body into his as his mouth sought to devour her. He drove her back until she hit the side of the Jeep, never once lifting his mouth. Pepper stroked her tongue along his, along the edge of his teeth, feeding the fire, tasting desire. His. Hers. She was familiar with hunger and need crawling through her and clawing at her relentlessly. This was entirely different.

  His arousal was a fever pitch matching the terrible heat of hers as he cupped the back of her head in his palm, holding her still, not allowing her to move while his mouth turned her body into pure liquid fire. He'd lit a match and thrown it right into a pile of dynamite without thinking it through, but it didn't matter to her now.

  Pepper heard her own soft little growl and her arms circled his neck as she fiercely kissed him back. The wildness in her unfurled. Stretched. Spread through her like a firestorm that raged out of control. Her body moved against his, rubbing like a cat in heat, desperate to get closer to his skin.

  Her body was sensitive, too sensitive for clothes. She needed them gone. Her mouth moved under his. Mindless. Insatiable. Hot. She was so hot she was burning from the inside out. He had gone from charming to pure primitive savage, sweeping her up, still kissing her, still devouring her mouth, taking long strides to take them inside the hunting cabin.

  She barely recognized the change from outdoors to indoors. She didn't know how she got there. She did know that she was more out of control than Wyatt, and it wasn't supposed to be that way. That didn't matter either. Only the taste of him, bursting on her tongue, sliding through her body, feeding her terrible need, the ache that would never go away. Now it was Wyatt she craved. She was addicted to. Wyatt's taste and the heat of his body, the press of his hard muscles against her softer body.

  Her growls of demands had changed to moans and soft little pleas. His growling had deepened, a primal sound of a male claiming his woman. She couldn't think, not surrounded by him. She could only feel, needy, hungry, so breathless her lungs burned.

  Wyatt swept her away, commanding her in a storm of fire, ruthless, decisive, yet he was every bit as wild and out of control as she was. He pinned her to the wall, lifting his head to look down into her eyes. For a moment she couldn't breathe. The fire there, the possession, it was stamped, no, carved deep, into his face.

  His eyes glittered down into hers, and a shudder of desire rippled through her. Still, there was a ripple of fear. He would own her. This man holding her so tight against the wall was taking her over and she was letting him, already craving him. He matched her heat and fire. She hadn't thought that possible. His face could have been etched in stone in that moment, and it would have been caught for all time, the look of a conquering male predator, sensual and implacable.

  She made a single sound of protest, and that was her undoing. Sheer male dominance crossed his face and he dropped his mouth to her throat. He wasn't gentle about his claiming, suckling and biting with sharp stings followed by the heat of his tongue as he left dozens of marks of his possession. He stripped the blouse from her shoulders, snarling as if the material offended him, sending it flying across the room.

  "If you want to save that skirt, get it the hell off," he snapped, his mouth already finding her breast beneath the bra she wore. His hands were busy, and the bra followed the blouse, sailing across the room.

  His mouth was on her, hot and demanding, and she cried out, a keening wail she couldn't stop. It felt so good. His teeth scraped over her soft skin while his tongue became a wicked insistent instrument of torturous pleasure, pressing over the hard tight bud of her nipple again and again. His arms locked her closer, while his mouth devoured her with an urgent hunger that only fed her own.

  He sounded feral, hot growls that rumbled from deep in his chest. "Lose the damn skirt, Pepper," he snarled, and closed his mouth once more around her breast.

  She arced into him, a small mewling sound escaping as she desperately tried to do as he commanded. Nonny had given her the skirt and she didn't want it torn, but that thought was fleeting. She couldn't hold anything in her head. There was too much sensation pouring over and into her.

  With fierce impatience, Wyatt hooked both thumbs in her skirt and dropped it to the floor. Pepper kicked it out of the way. His fist bunched her hair in his hand and he yanked her head back.

  "You're mine. Do you understand me? Mine."

  The ferocious declaration should have scared her, not thrilled her, but hot liquid seeped between her legs onto her inner thighs at the glittering look in his eyes. No one had ever matched her fierce passion, the deadly need that stalked her day and night. Wyatt with his burning hunger more than matched her, he took her with him to another place that was both frightening and thrilling.

  She waited too long to answer him, and his hand tightened warningly. She could see the fierce cat in his eyes, the driving need for domination, his mate submitting to his will. The prickles in her scalp sent another flood of liquid heat. His other hand went to her nipple, fingers tugging hard, rolling and stroking until she gasped, panting with need.

  "Fuckin' answer me, Pepper. You're mine. Say it. And know when you do, there's no takin' it back. We
stand together no matter what. Say it, damn you."

  He drew her breast into the inferno that was his mouth, using the edge of his teeth until she cried out. His tongue soothed her even as his fingers tugged at her other nipple roughly.

  Her body was no longer her own, burning up, a fiery storm of flames she couldn't control. She needed to feel his skin against hers, but he was still fully clothed. He kept at her body, using teeth and tongue, suckling, tugging and nipping until pleasure and pain mixed into one snarling ball of need that had her crying out, pleading incoherently with him.

  He ran his hands over her rib cage, her flat belly and the flare of her hips, possession in the strong fingers everywhere they touched her, as if he was branding her with his own name. It felt like that, his touch a brand, sinking deep beneath her skin to her very bones. The world faded, the room, even the floor beneath her feet. There was only Wyatt with his demanding hands and his mouth and tongue and teeth and the ravenous hunger that only grew between them.

  Fingers of desire danced down her thighs, teased the insides of them until every nerve ending she had seemed raw and exposed, throbbing between her legs. She felt the bite of his teeth, of his nails, another mark of possession on her body, his cat DNA feeding his fierce voracious hunger. A sob escaped.

  With a low, rough growl, wholly sensual, Wyatt grasped her panties and yanked, ripping them away from her body. His palm pushed hard against her moist heat at the junction of her legs, that fierce furnace, the liquid spilling into his hand.

  She gasped, cried out, thrown into an orgasm with just his touch alone. Her body rippled, quaked, tumbled hard into the wild ride as he clamped his hand over her, his thumb pressing deep against her hottest button.

  Again. Give it to me again. He snarled the command, giving her no choice.

  His fingers pushed deep inside her, thumb stroking, manipulating, while his mouth pulled strongly at her breast and ran up her throat, kissing and biting, until she was nearly mad with desire. He drove her up fast, his hands implacable, fiercely demanding she give him what he wanted. Her body careened over the edge a second time, this orgasm much stronger, ripping through her hard, rushing up toward her breasts and down toward her thighs, leaving her gasping and panting and crying out his name.