Authors: Lora Leigh
She couldn’t do this. She blinked back her tears, realizing that the shields she had used to keep herself hard, to keep her emotions cold and unfeeling, were gone. She was vulnerable now, and she had no idea how to fix it. Hell, she didn’t even know how it had happened.
The man had no idea what she was. He couldn’t. If he did, he would have reviled her, just as Jonas so obviously did.
Six months. She sighed wearily as she leaned back and stared up at the ceiling, a frown pulling at her brow. She just had to make it six months, that was all. By then, this heat stuff, whatever it was, would surely dissipate. She could find a way to control it, to walk away as she needed to.
Ely said she had given her the hormonal treatment to prevent conception, and she hadn’t been lying about that. Harmony could smell a lie a mile away. She could read it, even in Jonas; the doctor hadn’t been deceiving her.
Okay. She straightened her shoulders. Six months. She could do this. She would be free then. Free of Jonas and of Lance.
She ignored the prick of regret at the thought of ever being free of Lance. It wasn’t emotion, she assured herself; it was the thought of losing something she had never had and always wondered about. The warmth. The pleasure in touch. That was what she would miss.
Not the man. Never the man.
She flipped off the jets, pulled the plug to drain the water from the tub and stood carefully. She was still weak, but it would go away soon. The inactivity and lack of food had caused it, not anything serious.
Pulling the towel from her head, she shook her hair out, then moved to the counter and the overnight bag sitting there. Ely’s voice had held some disdain when she spoke of the lotions inside. Lotion, hair products, makeup, oils and the tools needed to keep every inch of her body clean, soft and gently scented.
Not like it had been that first year of her escape. Her skin dry and flaky, the filth of the labs lingering on her, drawing in every Coyote sent to look for her. Tracking her had been easy then. Hungry, living on raw nerves and what scraps of food she could steal, Death had been close to succumbing to her own curse.
Not anymore.
An hour later, she shook her dry hair around her shoulders, feeling the thick, silken strands caress her satin-soft skin. It shimmered with life as the subtle morning dew scent of her lotions blended with the scent Lance had left on her body.
She was no longer the scrawny, dirty animal who had been yanked from the gutters and dragged into the world of the living. She was Death when she killed. A dark shadow of vengeance, unstoppable in its resolve. As a woman, she was Harmony. Serene. Calm. And she would survive this.
Maybe.
CHAPTER 7
The only advantage of the hormonal therapy was prevention of conception, Harmony thought as night fully descended over Lance’s home. Because it sure as hell wasn’t helping with the arousal.
Well, the pain wasn’t there. She could feel the building hunger growing inside her without the white-hot flames exploding in painful awareness of the need. But she ached. She was wet. And she wanted nothing more than to lick Lance from head to toe.
Sitting in the open living room, Harmony tried to keep her attention on the news program showing on the widescreen television hanging on the wall across from them. Sitting cross-legged in one of the broad, comfortable chairs as she worked on her nails, she could see Lance from the corner of her eye.
He was slouched back in the corner of the couch. A large pillow rested behind his back and he held the remote with firm possession at his side.
The position gave Harmony the advantage of tracking every hard muscular line of his body. Long, powerful legs were encased in denim that did nothing to hide the absolutely luscious muscle beneath. He shifted a bit, stretching out more comfortably, drawing her attention to his thighs as they flexed. And she had no business letting her eyes wander to that area, because keeping her gaze from the hard bulge between them was damned impossible.
He was hard. His erection was like a thick wedge beneath his jeans, reaching toward his lower stomach. She jerked her gaze back to the television, but the pretty-boy charm of the newsman had nothing on the rough-around-the-edges, earthy draw Lance projected.
Within seconds her eyes shifted again, moving back to the temptation of the body stretched out in abandon on the couch.
He looked half-asleep. Drowsy-eyed, relaxed. Unthreatening. It was hard to believe this was the man she had allowed to cuff her, to gag her. The man who had kept her belt on, her pants around her thighs and fucked her to dizzying heights.
Her vagina clenched at the memory. She could feel the dampness growing between her thighs as her nipples began to press tighter against the loose tan cotton sleeveless shirt she wore with the wide-legged matching pajama bottoms.
If she sat there much longer, she was going to end up crawling up his body like the cat he called her. And God, wouldn’t that feel good. Stroking along his body, licking at every delectable inch of male flesh as she went.
“Is it working?”
His voice jerked her out of the daydream, causing her eyes to widen as she jerked her head around to stare at him more fully.
“What?” Had he known how she was watching him? Hungering for him?
“The hormone therapy.” He lifted his hand, still gripping the remote, and waved it toward her. “Is it working?”
The need to taste him was killing her.
“It’s working fine.” She nodded before ducking her head and pulling her gaze from him.
She lowered her head and concentrated on buffing her nails.
“Hmm.” The low, dark murmur had her eyes lifting as they narrowed on him.
“What does that mean?”
She expected another of those wicked smiles, or at least a heated look. He was watching her with a slight frown instead, his expression much too serious.
“You’re a strong woman,” he finally said softly. “Megan said the heat is impossible to ignore, even with the hormones.”
“What do you want me to say, Lance?” She swallowed tightly. “This isn’t a comfortable situation for me.”
“Why? You were comfortable enough that night in the bar to come home with me. What’s changed, Harmony?”
“A one-night stand…”
“Have a lot of those, do you?” he asked mildly.
“No.” She shook her head, confusion tearing through her. Where the hell was her self-control, her ability to smack a man in place with no more than a look?
She stared back at him, his scent wrapping around her, affecting her senses in a way that threw her system into chaos. Nervous awareness sizzled along her nerve endings as her breathing began to roughen and the arousal began to grow.
“So why should it be different now?” he asked her.
“You weren’t a weakness then,” she snapped, jumping to her feet as she wrapped her arms over her breasts and paced to the doorway. “You’re a weakness now.”
He didn’t move; he just lay there.
“Running away, Harmony?” he asked as though she intended to do just that.
“This conversation is pointless.”
“You can’t run away from yourself forever. Aren’t you tired of running by now?”
Harmony turned back to him, knowing she wasn’t hiding the effect his accusation had on her.
“Hiding is the only way to survive,” she whispered. “Do you believe Jonas was the only person searching for me the last ten years, Lance? Or the only one to get close? Eventually, my enemies will find me. When they do, they’ll strike where I’m weak.”
“Chemistry doesn’t bind you to another person, Harmony. Emotion binds.”
She stared back at him in shock. Emotion?
“I have no emotions,” she snapped. “Unless you count vengeance.”
“Then you have no weakness.” He shrugged. “Your enemies can’t use what you care nothing about.”
She stared back at him, pressing her lips together as she clenched her teeth on the furious words threatening to fall from her lips.
“A one-night stand does not a lover make, darling.” His smile was faintly sardonic.
“So I should just become your little bedmate and forget the danger in it?” she snapped.
His brow arched slowly. “I wasn’t asking you for sex, Harmony. I was trying to get to know
you
. I was pointing out how stubborn and willful you are. Not trying to find out how easy you would fall into my bed.”
“I’ve had to be stubborn. Strong,” she bit out. “I would have died that first year I escaped if I hadn’t been.”
The year Dane Vanderale had found her, broken, all but dead. He had saved her, just as he had saved her many times since.
“Yeah, there were a few notes in your file concerning that first year.” He nodded as though the information were general knowledge. “The Coyotes sent after you reported you were wounded, severely. They would have caught you if they hadn’t been diverted by an unknown team of men.”
One of the Coyotes must have lived. She had hoped she had taken them out. There had been two, merciless and bloodthirsty.
“I don’t know about that.” She shook her head firmly. “I just know I escaped. That was all that mattered to me.”
“You were fifteen years old, severely wounded and alone,” he pointed out. “Yet you survived.”
“What’s your point?”
Harmony watched Lance warily now. He was fishing for information, which meant he knew something. Something more than her file had provided for him.
She remembered well the fight between those two Coyotes. Running on nerves alone, hungry, exhausted, they had nearly taken her. Instead, she had escaped when two shadowed figures had jumped into the fray.
The knife wounds she had carried had nearly been fatal once infection and fever had set in. The wounds had been too deep, and her body too weak to fight. She would have died if Dane hadn’t found her.
He was the son of an African industrialist, a rogue and a man who followed his own rules. At that time, he had been tracking the Coyote Breed who had been sent to kill a friend of his, a young man who knew more than he should have. His death had not been easy. And neither had the Coyote’s after Dane had caught up with him.
The secretiveness of his work was imperative for him to succeed in his goal of helping the Breeds destroy the Genetics Council. If it were ever learned that the heir to the vast holdings of Vanderale Enterprises was no more than a vigilante, it could destroy all his family held. It was a secret Harmony had sworn to carry to her grave.
“How did you escape, Harmony?” He lay there asking the question as though the subject meant no more than the weather. He wasn’t demanding answers, he wasn’t interrogating her. He was asking.
“I had help,” she whispered. “Two men heard the fight. I ran while they distracted the Coyotes.”
“Why did the Coyotes say they didn’t have a scent?” A light frown furrowed his brow. “The interrogation reports stated that the Coyotes swore there was no identifying scent. Does everyone have a scent to the Breeds?”
“Yes.” She nodded slowly. “Everyone has a scent.”
“Is it unique, or can it be disguised by perfumes and whatnot?”
“It’s unique,” she answered carefully, watching him warily.
She knew where this was going and was helpless to prevent it.
“So, why would the two men who saved your butt have no scent?” He frowned as he laid the remote on the floor and scratched, rather absently, at the hard, well-muscled flesh of his abdomen.
The movement lifted his T-shirt, flashing the dark tough skin before he allowed his hand to rest there. Harmony fought to drag in enough oxygen to make her brain work again.
Dammit, she was a cold-blooded assassin, not his sex kitten. But at the moment, the sex kitten was definitely making itself known.
“I’m not certain.” She really didn’t understand the process, so she wasn’t technically lying to him. Right?
“But you have an idea?”
Harmony stared back at him suspiciously.
“Why all the questions? What does this have to do with the fact that a mate is a weakness and I’m not willing to play the sex kitten for you?”
“Sex kitten?” Wicked amusement lit his eyes then. “I hadn’t thought of that one, but I like the idea. I like it a whole lot.”
“You are not making sense.” She held her hand up to halt the words his lips were parting for. “These myriad little subjects of yours are not going together well, Lance.”
“Hey, you brought up the sex kitten thing, not me. It just happened to interest me, that’s all. Tell me.” His brows lifted then lowered suggestively. “How does a Breed sex kitten do it?”
“With claws?” she suggested in irritation.
His lips pursed as his eyes gleamed with playful lust.
“I like claws,” he whispered as he raised his hand to rub absently at his shoulder, the area next to his neck. The exact area where she had bit him. “You could come over here and show me how it’s done.”
She actually moved to go to him. Harmony stared down at her feet in alarm when she took that first step; then she stopped and glared back at him furiously.
She hissed.
Without thought, without realizing the sound was moving through her chest, she really hissed. She had never hissed in her life. Not the catlike, growling hiss that came out of her mouth now.
She stared back at Lance in shock.
“Keep that up and you’re going to make me come.” His voice had lowered, thickening with arousal as his eyes gleamed with heated hunger.
“You are insane.”
“I’m so fucking horny I’m about to come in my jeans just listening to you hiss.” He grunted in irritation. “Insanity is probably closer than you think it is.”
The pain of her arousal before the doctor had begun the hormone treatments had been horrible. Did he suffer too? She frowned, drawing in the scent of the room deeper than she had allowed herself to this point.
The smell of male arousal was intoxicating and thick. It permeated her senses, rushed through her brain, and sent her heartbeat to a thundering speed as she felt her mouth fill again with that strangely sweet taste.
“Does it hurt?” she whispered, fearing the answer. Knowing the answer.
“No, baby, it doesn’t hurt.” Lance sighed heavily. “It’s just aggravating as hell.”