by Lora Leigh
“You make me ache.” She couldn’t hold back the words or the need. “Sometimes I can’t stand it, Taber, I need you so bad. I love you.”
They had been friends for years. His cabin wasn’t far from hers and he had been a presence in her life for so long that she wondered if she could survive without him.
He swallowed tightly. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I’ve loved you since I was eleven, Taber. Ever since you carried me out of the damned mountain and took me back to your mother’s house. Don’t you know you own me?” She hated that thought. Hated how much she needed him, how much she ached for him. “Am I so terrible, Taber, that even you don’t want me?” Were the upright, uptight prudes who judged her for Reginald’s actions right? Was she somehow tainted? Unworthy of love? The thought of that pierced her soul.
Taber’s eyes flared with hunger, as though her words had set loose something inside him he could no longer contain. Hope surged within her. Arousal heated further, searing the already moist depths of her cunt.
“Not want you?” he almost snarled then. “Dammit, Roni, it would terrify you if you had any idea what I do want from you.”
There was nothing he could ask of her that she wouldn’t give him.
“Then it’s yours,” she whispered as his thumb stroked across her jaw, drawing slowly to her lips. “Anything, Taber. I would die for you.”
“You’re still a baby,” he groaned, his thumb pressing against her lips until she enveloped it in the heat of her mouth. “God, Roni . . . ” She bit down on it, holding him there as her tongue raked over the rough pad.
Roni had always hated her lack of control, the hungry needs that often pushed her to hurt herself, to reveal her emotions in ways that allowed others to hurt her. She was hungry, starving for Taber in a way she never had for anyone else.
She needed him now worse than she needed the air that sustained her.
“Let go,” he whispered as his other hand pulled her closer. “Let’s see if I can’t fill your mouth with something a hell of a lot more enjoyable.”
Before she knew what was happening he had pinned her to the seat, rising over her as he jerked the handle under the seat to slide it back. Roni whimpered, staring up at him in dazed disbelief as he moved between her thighs, the hard, hot heat of his denim-covered cock notching between her thighs perfectly.
“Taber . . . ” Her womb convulsed then. Like a punch to her lower stomach it stole her breath, leaving her gasping.
“Feel me, Roni,” he ordered her hoarsely, grinding against her, his eyes darkening further as she felt the moisture spill between her thighs. Feel him?
How could she do anything but feel him?
It was too intense. A broken cry escaped her throat as she arched to him, feeling her breasts throb, her clit swell. Her hands gripped his arms as he braced himself above her, his expression pulling into a painful grimace as he stared down at her.
“I bet you’re so fucking tight I won’t last a minute inside you.”
His voice was grating, exciting her senses in ways she could have never imagined.
“Find out.” She could barely breathe, let alone speak, but she forced the words from her lips, needing him now with a ravaging hunger she couldn’t dispel.
One touch. That was all it had taken. Just one touch from him to destroy any self-control she might have had.
Her hands went to his waist, clawing at his shirt as she jerked it from his jeans, desperate to touch him, to taste him. She wanted to run her fingers down his chest, test the hard-packed muscles of his abdomen, loosen his jeans and see if his cock was as thick and hard as it felt.
“Inside.” He lowered his head to her neck, his lips trailing down the side of it, his breath hot and heavy against her flesh. “I refuse to fuck you in the damned pickup like a kid.”
“I need to touch you.” Her hands flattened against his skin, her fingers curling against the heat of it, her senses overloading with the silken feel, the impression of small, downy hairs covering what she’d thought was a hairless chest.
He jerked against her, a pure primal growl issuing from his throat as her hands trailed down to his abdomen, then to the waistband of his jeans. Her fingers moved to the wide belt buckle, her gaze locking with his as she slid the leather of his belt through the metal loop.
“No. Not like this.” His hand covered hers, though his hips thrust fiercely against the mound of her pussy. “Not like this, Roni. Get your ass in that garage and think about this. Think about it hard and deep, baby, because I promise you, once I get inside you, that’s how I’ll fuck you. Hard and deep and without mercy. And I’ll be damned if I’ll let you ever walk away from me once I do it. So you better be real fucking sure it’s what you want.”
He jerked away from her, groaning at the effort she could tell it cost him. He wanted her. The thought rushed through her brain as pleasure heated her body.
Roni stared up at him, amazed, a little frightened, but more than willing to give him whatever he needed from her.
“I have to get the hell out of here before I lose all control.” He settled back into his seat, watching her carefully as she sat back up. “Open the garage for me. I’ll be back later. And do as I say, Roni. Be sure. Because once I take you, there will be no escape. Remember that. This is your last chance, baby. I won’t have the control to give you another.”
“I don’t want to escape.” She promised herself she wouldn’t beg, but God knew she was within seconds of it.
He was breathing hard, heavy. His face flushed, his eyes glittered with stark, unabashed lust. “I’ll be back this evening. If this happens, I want it to happen right, baby. I want you to be sure.”
She opened the door, prepared to stumble from the cab of the truck.
Before she could do more than turn to leave he caught her around the waist, his mouth pressing against her neck.
“Taber.” Her entire body weakened, her eyes closing at the feel of him against her back, his arms going around her, his tongue stroking over her skin.
“I need to taste you.” She could hear in his voice the war being waged within him.
His tongue was rough, rasping, almost like a cat’s, causing her to shudder with the sensual pleasure streaking through her body. It licked over her lower neck at the point where it met her shoulder. Then his teeth raked, tearing a strangled moan from her throat as he bit her a little roughly, the pleasure/pain overwhelming her, destroying her.
His hands flattened beneath her breasts, pulling her tighter against his chest as he suckled gently at her skin, then licked over it with a rough growl of pleasure.
“God, how good you taste,” he whispered at her ear. “Will you be this good, Roni, when I lick your soft pussy? Will your sweetness drive me insane for you?”
“Oh God.” Her head fell back against his shoulder as his lips and tongue continued to torment the sensitized skin.
“You’d better rest today,” he whispered as he slowly released her. “Rest well, Roni, because if you’re still here when I come back, it may be days before you sleep again.”
Roni fought for breath. Fought to find the strength to leave the truck. She didn’t want to let him go, didn’t want to take the chance that he would change his mind and leave her aching like this forever.
“I don’t have to think about it.” She didn’t look at him, terrified if she did, she would beg him to take her. “I want you now, Taber.”
“Then it won’t change in a few hours.” His voice was strangled, rough. “Go. Before I lose all control.”
She moved slowly from the truck before turning back to look at him.
“You’ll be back? For sure?”
“Oh, I’ll be back,” he said softly. “We may both regret it later, Roni, but I’ll be back.”
She closed the door, stepping back so he could leave, so she could think about and anticipate the coming night.
The night came, but Taber didn’t. The next morning, his brother
Dayan was there, and in his hands he held the destruction of all her dreams. The letter Taber had sent her had shattered everything inside her.
You’re still just a child, Roni. I’m a man. Mature and needing more of a woman to fulfill the needs I have. Someone old enough to understand those needs, not a ripe little virgin. Go home. You’re just a little girl playing with something you and I both know you can’t handle. Upon reflection, I’ve decided it’s best that our friendship terminate. I’m sick of rescuing you. Sick of the burden you’ve placed on me to protect you. Learn to protect yourself, and how to grow up. I have no idea how to raise a child, and I don’t want to start with you.
Taber.
“I could fill in for him.” No sooner than she read it she found herself pushed against the wall, and staring into Dayan’s lust-filled features. “I could train you to please him.”
Shock held her immobile for precious seconds as the touch of his hands against her bare arms sent a surge of sickening distaste through her senses.
“You bastard!” Her knee slammed upward, almost striking his balls before he shifted at the last second.
Brown eyes narrowed on her as the thin, narrow lines of his face twisted in anger.
“He laughed at you,” he sneered. “How stupid you were to think he wanted you. Come on Roni. Fuck me. I’ll tell him if you’re any good.”
She fought against him, barely managing to struggle free and keep the tears that filled her eyes from overflowing.
“Get out,” she cried. “Now.”
Cruel laughter filled the apartment. “Honey, this place belongs to Taber. He wants you out. Go home where you belong, because he doesn’t want you here.”
At least he left. Once he delivered the cruel words, he slammed from the apartment and left her alone.
She wasn’t going to cry.
She refused to beg.
But dragging herself from the apartment was like tearing a piece of her soul from her body.
She returned to her home, the silence, the fears, and a hunger for Taber that had grown to nearly painful proportions. And fury. Sweet, hot fury coursed through her, both at Taber and at herself. Little girl. The words haunted her.
He may not have fucked her, but he had made certain she had grown up quickly.
One day, she swore, he would pay for that alone.
Chapter One
Fifteen Months Later
Shock held Roni immobile as she watched the news. Betrayal burned like acid inside her as it spilled through her already broken heart.
“If you’ll notice the small mark on her shoulder, you’ll see it appears to be a love bite.” The reporter pointed to a bruise-like shadow on the picture of Merinus Lyon’s shoulder, at the point where it met her neck. “We have no confirmations, but rumors are suggesting it’s a ‘mating’ mark. That there is an instinctive mating recognition between the Feline Breed, Callan Lyons, and his wife. It includes the mark, as well as a semen and saliva-based hormone that essentially acts as an aphrodisiac on the female. The Feline Breeds are denying this, but the reports that were slipped from the labs where the tests are being conducted are proving the theory . . . ”
Roni was in shock. She stood beneath her father’s regard, watching the report, feeling the blood drain from her face as her eyes centered on the mark revealed by the photo.
It would be easy to claim it was no more than a love bite, but several photos over the course of three months showed it never changed, never healed. The reports smuggled from the Breeds, the newscaster reported, said it never would.
Roni’s hand rose to her shoulder, covering the mark she knew marred her own flesh, just as it did Callan’s wife.
“What the hell possessed you to fuck that freak?” her father sneered as he paced the room, his breathing harsh, fury outlining every inch of his body.
Reginald Andrews was a big man, not as muscular and tall as Taber, but strong enough that his anger caused Roni to flinch at the thought of remembered beatings. She was an adult now. She wouldn’t tolerate physical violence from him anymore, but she had never gotten over her fear of him.
Her fear, or her hatred.
“Go back to wherever you came from,” she told him harshly as she continued to stare at the television screen. “They’re wrong.”
She had survived just fine without Taber, even after the way he marked her skin, destroyed her dreams. She had survived the endless threats and attempted attacks her father’s creditors had staged, and she had survived it alone. She could and she would get through this.
“You think you can lie to me?” he spat out as he came up beside her. He jerked her around until he could stare down at her, his washed-out brown eyes darkening in fury. “Do you look in the mirror often enough to see that disgusting place on your neck, Roni? Or does it sicken you too much to remember you spread your thighs for an animal?”
Roni watched him suspiciously. He didn’t care about her one way or the other and she had enough sense to know it. She highly doubted that he cared who she fucked, which meant there was more behind his anger than any parental concern or personal insult.
“Take your hands off me before I call your last employer and let him know exactly where the hell you are.” She kept her voice low, but there was no disguising the hatred that welled up inside her for her parent.
She hadn’t seen him more than half a dozen times in the past three years. None of those sightings had been pleasant. This one least of all.
“Roni, you’ve gone and ruined everything,” he yelled back at her furiously, but he did release her. “I nearly had you married, girl. Mr. Tearns would have paid for the use of you, while you let that cat have it for nothing.”
Ah, so now we get to the real story, she thought mockingly. How very typical of Reginald. Marriage to his boss, though, was a little bit extreme.
“Married? To your boss?” She laughed at him. “Is that why you showed up, Reggie? Do you think I’d so much as talk to the snakes you run with? I don’t think so. Fend for yourself. It’s what I do.”
What she had always done. She turned back to the television, nearly losing her breath at the recorded interview with the five Feline Breeds.
“The reports are farcical,” he stated. “The Genetics Council will do anything to frighten the world into destroying us. That’s their sole aim. Until our scientists say it’s true, then as far we’re concerned, it’s nothing but propaganda.”
Taber’s voice sent a surge of heat flowing through her body that she didn’t even attempt to fight.
She had learned over the years not to fight it. It only hurt worse when she did.
“Beats fucking an animal,” he sneered again. “You’ll be lucky to live if anyone sees that mark on your neck, Roni. I bet those Council bastards would love to get hold of you.”
Fear shot through her as she turned back to her father.
How desperate was he, she wondered? She wasn’t stupid enough to think that any parental bond would keep him from selling his information to the highest bidder. He would turn her over in a heartbeat, if he hadn’t already.
“Don’t look at me like that, girlie.” His mouth twisted in disgust. “I’m not about to tell anyone. Hell, like I want it known my kid is a dirty cat fucker.”
She almost flinched at the term. Almost. She hadn’t fucked him; hell, he hadn’t even kissed her. All he had done was mark her, ruining her forever for any other man, then left her in a way that made her father’s desertions pale in comparison.
“Leave, Reggie.” She turned off the television. “I don’t need you here now any more than I’ve needed you over the past years. I don’t have any money, and I don’t want to put up with your crap. Just go away.”
She had learned that it wouldn’t do her any good if she did need him. The minute he thought she might, he ran.
“You can use this, Roni,” he finally said, his nasal voice wheedling. “We could give ’em a story that could make us millions. We wouldn’t have to worry anymore.�
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Horror rushed over her in a wave of sickening realization. She hadn’t seen him in months, and now he was here. Another scheme, another get-rich-quick idea, and once again he didn’t care how he used her to attain it.
It was time to leave. She silently admitted that there was no way in hell her father would ever keep this to himself. She might have a few days at the most to get her things together and run.
She stared around the small house she had lived in all her life. It wasn’t much, but it was all she had. The home her mother had dreamed of, but hadn’t lived long enough to enjoy. She would lose it now.
The small cabin was no longer the shack it had been. The job she had found in Morehead as an accountant had allowed her to fix it up; new curtains and appliances, a comfortable sofa in a dark forest-green with matching chairs, a small cherry coffee table and matching end tables, a delicate glass lamp. And she had a new bed rather than the mattress on the floor she had used for years. And now she was going to have to walk away from all of it.
“Go away,” she told him again. “And keep your mouth shut unless you want to die. Doesn’t sound like the Council is something you really want to tangle with, Reggie. They would kill you before they paid you a penny.”
There wasn’t a chance he would listen to her.
Fury flowed through her veins like acid, eating away the peace she had managed to find in her life in the past fifteen months. Just what she needed. To be drawn into something so dangerous that it made her father’s escapades look like tea parties.
“I’ll leave. But I’ll be back. You think about this, Roni. The bastard fucked you and left. What do you owe him? Make him pay, like he should have to begin with.”
He stomped to the door, casting her an angry, narrow-eyed look before he slammed from the house, leaving her alone once again. Roni shook her head wearily as she collapsed in the new chair. Leather, sinfully soft and supportive beneath her body.
“God, now what?” She raised her eyes to the ceiling as she fought back her tears and the reality of this new blow.
She didn’t want to leave her home. She had fought most of her life to stay, to hold together the fragile remnants of happier days and comfort herself with them. Now that was being taken as well.
