by Lora Leigh
She closed her eyes tightly before moving slowly to pull herself to her feet.
“Next time, I steal the fucking truck,” she muttered.
Luc grinned as he rose as well, staring down at her.
“You have to steal the keys first. Want to know where they are?” He stuck his hand in his jean pocket and rattled the keys teasingly.
“Figures. Likely where your damned brains are, too,” she snarled, heading back to the house. “Just my luck. All looks, nothing upstairs. Let’s hope for the sake of your past lovers that at least you know what to do with the equipment a little lower, because my personal opinion is, that’s all you have going for you.”
Luc stilled his laughter. She was amusing. Had there been anything other than irritation behind her tone, then he would have likely been just a little offended. But her tone was teasing, a bit abstract. She was plotting another way to escape while hoping to piss him off enough that he wouldn’t realize it.
“I’ve had no complaints,” he assured her as he walked carefully behind her.
“Perhaps you should test it for yourself.”
A less-than-ladylike snort left her lips. “No thanks. As difficult as I’m sure you think the decision is, I’ll have to decline your lovely offer.”
“For now,” he grinned. But not for long, he promised himself.
She came to a stop, turning to him, and he was surprised by the icy look she gave him, the pride and haughty disdain that filled her expression.
“Save your lust for someone who cares, Mr. Jardin. I don’t. And I sure as hell don’t want my sister’s used seconds. Please be so kind as to keep that in mind.”
NINE
Her sister’s used seconds? She was good, he had to give her that. Damned good.
Hell, he wanted to believe her and he knew better.
*
Nearly an hour later Luc was still fuming at the accusation as he dragged her into the house and up to his bedroom. She had fought him damned near every step until he had threatened to throw her over his shoulder instead. Her furious silence the rest of the way only edged his anger higher.
Fine. Maybe she hadn’t really known what her friends were up to the day they had nearly killed him and Jack. She looked innocent enough. There were none of the signs of drug use on her and she was a hell of a lot more spirited than he had ever expected. She could make him feel like slime with one look out of those wounded, shadow-filled green eyes, and he wanted to cringe each time she turned them on him in accusation.
And she was always so ladylike. She even moved like a lady. Smooth and supple, teasing and tempting him in ways he wouldn’t have imagined she could.
She was fucking classy, was what she was. Moving with grace and a regal bearing that had him watching her even when he didn’t want to. But she didn’t have to lie about who she was. All she had to try was the truth. Stupidity was forgivable; lying wasn’t. He hated liars. And she didn’t have to call him used seconds when he hadn’t even had a chance to fuck her. Yet.
That could change quickly, though, he thought as he headed for his bedroom. He was on fire for her. Less than a week in her presence and his cock was like hot iron in his pants, so ready to fuck he could feel the seeping of the pre-cum from its slitted eye.
“This isn’t my room,” she finally yelled furiously as he pushed her into his room and slammed the door closed behind him.
Tension, thick and hot, filled the air. His body was hard and primed and she was soft, and he knew she would be so damned sweet to taste that it would send him over the edge of his control.
She looked more like a scared woman-child than a seductress, though, as she rounded on him, her eyes wide, her face pale, and her fists clenched at her side. So innocent. Damn her. She had sucked his dick like a pro and now acted like a virgin wronged.
“No. It’s not,” he agreed coldly as he wrestled the sacked cat from her and released the tormented little feline.
For his efforts, the little black demon took a swipe at him a second before disappearing under his bed. He would have chased it out if Catarina hadn’t decided then to make a run for the door. The woman deserved a medal for sheer stubbornness.
He grabbed her arm, pulling her quickly to a stop before shoving her to the bed. If he had his hands on her for more than a second he feared he would lose any semblance of control. He was dying to take those lush, sweet pink lips in a kiss and see if her mouth tasted as hot and arousing as he knew it would.
“Since I can’t trust you to stay put, you’ll stay where I can keep an eye on you,” he snapped as he jerked the blankets off the four-poster bed, fighting the hunger. “Now strip.”
He turned back to her as her eyes widened in shocked outrage. “I will not.”
She should be on stage, he thought furiously. She pulled off the innocent virgin too damned well. That was no virgin sucking his cock two years before. That was a well-trained, experienced woman who had swallowed every drop of semen spewing into her mouth.
“Stop with the damned act,” he snarled back at her. “I’m tired and not in the mood for your snippy little protests of innocence. Strip your damned clothes off and get into the bed before I tear them off you.”
His fingers clenched with the need to do just that, then to tear his own off and plunge his cock as hard and deep inside her pussy as he could. He could feel the blood surging through his veins at the thought of it. Of holding her beneath him, hearing her scream his name, her hips pumping beneath him as he fucked her past defiance.
“Adding rape to your crimes now?” she sneered, surprising him. “Luc, surely there’s enough dumb women around here to take care of the stupid cowboys in rut. Or do you have to wait for a season, like the other animals do?”
Luc held on to his control carefully. He couldn’t blame her for being angry, for striking out at him with fury. But he’d be damned if he would allow her to push him much further. Further than he felt his own temper would allow. And that surprised him. No woman had ever touched that dark core inside him. The restless, hungry desire he had always been careful to keep hidden. She was doing more than tempting that pulsing, aching core, though; she was making it hunger, seethe. She was rousing a side of him that even he was wary of.
“You have one minute to strip and crawl into that bed,” he growled softly. Even Lobo, who had followed them into the room, looked at him worriedly when he used that tone of voice. “Starting now.”
*
Melina felt trepidation suddenly wrap around her senses. His tone was dark, dangerous, but the sudden shifting of the color of his eyes was even more so.
They darkened, became almost feral in intensity, and caused her to suddenly second-guess the belief she had formed that Luc Jardin was in any way safe.
He hadn’t hurt her yet, she reminded herself. He wouldn’t hurt her now. But damn if it wasn’t hard to fight back the fear.
She felt perspiration dot her forehead as he stared at her, felt the aroused hunger leaping from him to wrap around her. Twisted, nightmare images of pain and cruel hands touching her body attacked her mind then. She fought the instinctive need to trust him. To believe in the fantasy visions she’d had of him since their first meeting.
“Please…” She backed away from him. “I won’t do it again. I’ll be good.” She almost winced at the hasty words that suddenly flew from her lips. Dammit, she wasn’t a child anymore. She swallowed tightly, steadied her voice, and whispered, “Luc, don’t do this.”
There was no mercy in his expression. If anything, he appeared harder, more determined than ever.
Tension thickened in the room. It became heavy with his sexual tension, with her fear.
“Undress.” She flinched as his voice hardened. The wolf that lay in the corner of the room whined in confusion.
She wouldn’t do it. Melina straightened her shoulders, knowing she would lose the fight to come, but she wouldn’t stop fighting. She shuddered at the thought of how he could still her defiance, though—how it
had been stilled once before—and she wanted to scream out in fury.
Melina held back her screams. She would need the energy for those later, she feared. She backed farther away from him, watching him carefully as she fought to breathe. She could feel the hard throb of her heart in her chest, the blood pounding through her veins, and the cold sweat that covered her body. She hated fear. Hated the weakness it brought and the sense of vulnerability that seemed to only intensify.
“No.” She gripped the front of her shirt in defense as she defied him. He wasn’t a man who would take that defiance easily.
They had gone for her shirt first, during that night of horror and pain in the cells.
They had torn it from her body and then ripped the loose jail-issued pants from her hips as she fought to cover herself. Every time she said no, the blows had only grown worse.
But she hadn’t stopped, not until she lost consciousness, not until the pain had become so great that she knew death itself had come to rescue her. But it hadn’t. She had lived.
And now she lived with the memories as well.
She was going to be sick. She could feel her stomach roiling, feel the fear washing over her as she stared back at his stony expression. It was a nightmare that she wasn’t certain she could survive.
He took a step toward her and Melina jumped back, barely aware of the whimper that escaped her throat, or of Lobo’s sudden, soft growl. But Luc stopped then. His piercing eyes turned to the animal at the side of the room before moving slowly back to her.
Melina swallowed tightly, forcing back the bile rising to her throat. Luc was tall, strong. Stronger than any man she knew. If he tried to force her …
“Catarina, I won’t hurt you,” he suddenly breathed tiredly, though his look was too intense, too knowing now for her to find any comfort.
He moved instead to his dresser and pulled out a dark T-shirt. “Take this to the bathroom and change. You will be sleeping in this bed. With me. Don’t even doubt that. But I would never take anything from you that you don’t willingly give me.”
She was shaking. Melina hadn’t realized how hard she was shaking until she heard her teeth chatter as he came closer. She bit her lip, fighting the need to run, to flee as he advanced. She couldn’t scream, she couldn’t trust herself to utter a sound, afraid that if she did, the memories she had fought so hard to keep contained would pour out of her like bitter acid, scarring them both.
“Here.” He pressed the shirt to her then caressed her cheek as she flinched away from him. “Get ready for bed, Catarina. Now.”
She snatched the shirt. “My pajamas,” she whispered as she fought to speak without stuttering. “Will you get me a pair? In my room.”
The fleece bottoms would provide much more protection, more warning if he decided to change his mind. She needed that confidence more than anything else right now.
“No, Catarina.” He shook his head, causing her chest to tighten in dread. “You have to learn to understand I won’t hurt you. We’ll begin tonight. No pants. Now go change. You have five minutes, and not a minute more.”
She stared up at him, sensing the crisis had passed, though her mind refused to accept it. He seemed to surround her, to take up all the air in the room, all the freedom of movement.
Skirting around him, watching him carefully, she moved for the tenuous sanctuary of the bathroom and hopefully a locked door. She needed time to still the dark shadows that chased through her mind, time to repair the fragile control he had destroyed so easily.
TEN
He was shaking. Luc stared down at his hands as though they belonged to someone else, wondering at the trembling extensions. Suspicion coursed through him like a tidal wave, and he didn’t like the conclusions he was drawing.
Catarina was like a light, fluid and bright whether she was angry or teasing, and hot as a damned firecracker. Until he had let the anger simmer to the surface. Until she had realized she would be in his bed—naked, at his mercy. And terror had swamped her. And there was but one reason for such overriding fear.
Had she been raped? Of course she had. He shook his head, fighting the rage that began to burn in his chest. There was no other excuse for it. No other way to explain her reaction to him.
If it hadn’t been for Lobo, he feared he would have missed the sheer terror in her eyes as he fought her defiance of him. He had seen her beauty, his sudden arousal for her, but only at Lobo’s warning growl had he understood the true cause of the desperation. The animal had sensed what he had been too stupid to see.
“Fuck,” he whispered as he pushed his fingers restlessly through his hair.
His arousal had slammed to a stop the minute he realized how truly frightened she was. He knew the fear didn’t come from his confrontation with her two years before. There had been no fear in her then, only anger.
Something else about her reaction now didn’t make sense: confusion. She had been confused, wary, but resigned.
What the hell was going on? Joe wouldn’t lie to him, he assured himself. He had spent enough time with the man to know he wouldn’t willingly place his sister in danger. And he sure as hell wouldn’t place an innocent sister in the line of fire.
He moved quickly to his feet as the doorknob turned slowly long minutes later and then opened. She left the bathroom, her shoulders straight, her head held high as she faced him, dressed in his T-shirt. Damn. He envied that shirt in ways he couldn’t name.
It fell over full, luscious breasts and ended mid-thigh. Her legs were shapely, well-toned, and so tempting he could have spent hours touching them. Her eyes blazed, though. Green fire sparking with anger and the remnants of her fear.
“Lobo, keep her in here,” he ordered the wolf as he watched Catarina carefully.
*
“Get in the bed. I’m worn to the bone and don’t feel like fighting with you anymore, Cat. We’ll talk in the morning.”
“I’m going home in the morning,” she stated quietly. “And my name is Melina, not Catarina, not Cat, not Maria. I am Melina.”
Luc sighed roughly. “You’re acting more like that damned spoiled cat than anything else. And you’re not going anywhere tomorrow. Now get in the bed before I have to tie you in it. I’m not in the mood for theatrics or temperaments. I’ve had enough for the day.”
He stalked to the bathroom before he did something stupid. Something like pulling her into his arms, holding her to his chest, and swearing he’d never hurt her, never let anyone else hurt her. Making promises he knew she would never believe.
As he slammed the bathroom door, he came to a startling, horrifying realization. He was starting to care for her, and that just would not do. He couldn’t afford to care for this little wildcat. Not and survive with his heart intact. But damn if it hadn’t already happened.
Shaking his head at his own foolishness, Luc prepared for bed. He stripped to his briefs, washed the dust from his face, hands, and arms, and quickly brushed his teeth.
Weariness dragged at him, as well as arousal, and he wondered at the sanity of having her sleep in his bed.
He could have set Lobo to guard her. Had actually considered doing it until he watched how the wolf merely played with her rather than displaying the aggression he should have in turning her back earlier. She had charmed the animal Jack called a demon beast, and Luc wondered if he could trust him to do anything other than pant at her heels now. He snorted at that thought as he flipped the light out and left the bathroom. Lobo wasn’t the only one willing to pant at her heels right now.
She was in the bed, hugging the edge as though her life depended on it, the sheet and comforter pulled up to her shoulders as she lay on her side, her back to him. When he got into the bed he was careful to keep the upper sheet beneath his body and used the comforter alone for warmth. He flipped out the light and settled in the bed, resigned to a miserable night.
For long minutes silence filled the darkened room as Luc fought every instinct in his body to turn to her. He needed h
er as desperately as he needed air now. His cock was throbbing, making him insane with the desire to fuck her, to fill her with every hard inch of it.
Finally, he sighed wearily. He could feel her wariness stretching between them, the nerves that held her body rigid and kept her from easing into sleep.
“I won’t hurt you, you know,” he finally told her softly. “I might paddle that tempting little ass of yours if you don’t obey me, but I won’t damage you, Catarina.”
“You have no right to hold me here, Luc,” she finally answered him.
He wondered at the thread of regret he heard in her voice. It was almost hidden, carefully held back, but the lingering echo of it had his eyes narrowing thoughtfully.
“Is prison preferable, Cat?” he finally asked her.
He couldn’t imagine her in prison, her passion and energy restrained, the traces of vulnerability he had seen in her forever destroyed. She was too soft, too gentle for such an atmosphere.
Silence greeted his question, and though she didn’t make a sound, he could feel the sadness that seemed to wrap around her as snugly as the blanket on the bed. He turned over on his side, staring at the fall of fiery curls that lay over her pillow and down her back.
“No,” she finally whispered, and the sound of her voice had him frowning in confusion. It was rife with pain, with throttled rage, as she breathed in shakily. “Prison is not preferable.”
ELEVEN
“Well now, aren’t you a pretty little thing…” At the sound of a woman’s coarse, spiteful voice, Melina opened her eyes and stared around in horror.
Where had the guards gone? There were supposed to be guards outside the cells. Her door was supposed to be locked at all times. She wasn’t supposed to be harassed again. Not after the last time. The warden had promised.
“Why are you here?” She tried to sit up in the bed, to somehow put herself into a defensive position, but there was no place to go. Above her was another cot; there was no way out, no way to protect herself.
