Authors: Lora Leigh
And he was lying. Why was he lying when telling the truth could guilt her into giving him what he wanted? He could have easily played the wronged male and had her in his bed hours ago.
“Then why aren’t you moving?” she asked him then. “You’ve been in that same position for more than an hour. Sit up.”
She could see his erection outlined by his jeans, pressing hard against the material.
“I think I’ll just lie right here for a while.” He chuckled instead. “Did I mention I’m a little low on rest myself?”
He hadn’t slept in two days, not enough to matter. He had watched over her, protected her when she couldn’t protect herself.
Harmony licked her lips nervously. “When I was wounded, the men who fought off the Coyotes found me a week later. I was very ill.”
His gaze sharpened on her.
“They had known then about the Coyotes. They hunted them; I wasn’t certain why.” She hadn’t known then, though she knew now. “They nursed me back to health and protected me. They never told me exactly why they had no scent. But sometimes, if I’m in trouble, they know it, and they show up.”
“Does Jonas know about them?”
“The information contained in the Breed database on me isn’t everything the Council had,” she revealed. “I don’t know why Jonas has hidden the files on the few times the Coyotes actually managed to capture me, but those reports aren’t in there. Just as the reports reveal that each time I was captured, the same two men rescued me.”
“Who were they?”
She glanced away for a second before turning back to him. “I can’t reveal their names to you, Lance. Their lives…”
He held his hand up. “I don’t want names. Why do they watch you, Harmony? What do they want? What does Jonas want?”
She shook her head, a frown creasing her brow.
“Jonas wants me dead, Lance. But he can’t kill me without giving me a chance to redeem myself first. But make no mistake, he hates me.”
“Why?”
She inhaled painfully at the question.
“I killed his mother. The only person at those labs who cared anything about Jonas, besides me. And I couldn’t show him how much I cared, or I suffered for it. Madame LaRue was very possessive of her personal creation. As for why the others help me, it benefits both of us. They help me, I help them. It’s enough that they’ve been there.”
“So why tell me this much now?” he asked her, rather than pursuing the information further.
“You protected me while I slept,” she whispered. “You didn’t have to do that. You deserve to know what you’re facing.”
“You’re my woman, Harmony,” he growled. “I always protect what’s mine.”
She shook her head slowly. “I can’t belong to you, Lance. Not ever. In six months, when this is over and I’ve redeemed myself by Breed Law, then I’ll leave. If I can manage to keep my enemies from finding me that long. You can’t afford to take me as your woman, any more than I can claim you as anything of mine. Doing so will only get us both killed.”
“How much longer can you fight alone? How much longer, Harmony, before Death gives up because she can’t kill enough monsters or save enough children?” he asked as she moved to turn away from him.
“Why are you doing this?” It was a question she had fought for too long now herself. “Why can’t you just let it go, Lance?”
“Come here.” His voice gentled.
“What?”
He lifted his hand, crooking his fingers in a wave back toward himself.
“Come here,” he repeated.
She moved toward him slowly, hesitantly. He didn’t know what it did to her to be too close to him, how much he made her want. It rose inside her like a hungry beast, tearing at her soul with a need she had pushed back all her life.
“What?” she asked again as she paused by the couch.
“Touch me, Harmony.”
“I told you…”
“I didn’t say fuck me, dammit, I said touch me,” he growled. “Right here.” He thumped his chest. “Just touch me.”
She bent and placed her palm on his chest.
Heat. Harmony felt the weakness that flooded her as she went to her knees beside the couch, feeling the incredible heat of his body moving into hers. The phenomena was unlike anything she had ever known with another person. She had touched others, she wasn’t a virgin, but she had never experienced this.
“This is why, Harmony.” He brushed her hair tenderly back from her face, his thumb caressing her cheek as she stared into his eyes. “Feel my body giving to you. I’ve never done that before. As though my soul knows what you need, just as my body knows, and it gives to you selflessly. That’s why I can’t walk away. It’s why I claim you as mine, even knowing that isn’t what you want. Because that bond is already there. It was there when I pulled into the parking lot of that bar when all I wanted to do was head home. It was there the second my eyes met yours, my skin touched yours. Run away if you have to, but at least be aware of what you’re running away from, baby.”
He looked so sincere. His eyes darkening, his expression pulled into lines of worry and concern. As though he cared.
“Why?” She couldn’t stop the question from passing her lips even as the heat of his body poured through her palm. “Why do you care, Lance? I kill…”
He shook his head slowly. “What the child was forced to do is not her fault,” he whispered. “What the woman has done to survive, and then to wreak vengeance, can be forgiven. It’s where you go from this point that matters. Learning the difference between what is just and what is justice could mean the difference in your freedom or your own death. But what’s between us goes deeper than life or death.”
“It’s a chemical reaction,” she snapped, attempting to jerk her hand back.
His hand gripped hers, forced it to flatten against his chest once again as his gaze turned fierce.
“How many one-night stands have you had, Harmony? How many men have you picked up in bars and spent the night fucking?”
“Stop!”
“Answer me. Or should I answer it for you? None.” His voice lashed at her as his anger, lust and need seemed to lie in the very air around her. “You’ve never done it before. Why?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“Why, Harmony?” His voice rose, trapping her in place as effectively as his hand trapped hers against his chest. His arm had come down from the pillow behind him as his free hand shackled her other wrist, keeping her in place. “Answer me.”
“I didn’t want to.”
“The truth, damn you!”
“Because their touch didn’t matter.” She tore away from him then, the memory of her first night with a man, a man she trusted, lashing at her brain.
She had forced herself to go through with it, forced herself into an intimacy she knew she didn’t want. Dane was her friend; he had helped her, had given her a place of safety to hide. His touch hadn’t sickened her, but neither had it heated her, drawn her.
“My touch mattered then.” There was no smugness in his voice as she heard him rising to his feet. “Just as your touch matters to me, Harmony. You matter to me. Hiding isn’t going to help you, or me. If your enemies find out you were here, whether you’ve been gone a week or two years, they’ll find me.”
Harmony stared back at him, her breathing rough as fear began to race through her mind. He was right. It wouldn’t matter; the Coyotes and Council soldiers still stalking her wouldn’t care. They would strike for the hell of it.
“Run now, Harmony.” He waved his hand toward the door as she turned back to him. “There’s the fucking door. Do you think it’s going to make a difference?”
“Why are you doing this?” she cried out desperately, her fists clenching at her sides. “Why can’t you let it go? Let me go?”
“Because you fucking belong to me!” he yelled back, his voice furious, his blue eyes blazing. “Mine, by God, just as much as I belong to you. Deny it. Go ahead, Harmony, look me in the eye and deny it.”
“Where do you get these insane ideas?” she screamed back, pushing her hands through her hair as frustration began to tear through her. Frustration and anger. “Why are you doing this?”
“You want to know why? Why?” he snarled. “Try this, Harmony.”
Before she could fight him, his arms were around her; one hand clasped her head, the other wrapped around her back as his head lowered. His lips, heated and possessive, covered hers as his tongue swept possessively into her mouth.
The glands along the underside of her tongue flared to life, spilling the sweet taste of arousal. Lifting her arms, she twined them around his neck, as desperate to be close to him as he was to pull her against him. Desire raced through her nervous system as her objections, her fears, were swept away.
Lance devoured her, took her kiss and gave in its return a pleasure that should never be so intense, so fiery from such a simple caress.
Tongues dueled, battled, as moans began to fill the silence of the room. Harmony strained against him, feeling his erection grinding against her lower stomach, fueling the heat building in her vagina.
This was perfect. His kiss was perfect. His lips matched hers, his tongue stroked hers in a caress too heated to deny. As though every cell of his body, every breath, every touch had been created just for her. At each point that their bodies touched, his heat sank into her, warmed her, bound her.
“No. Dammit. I won’t take you like this.”
Before Harmony could protest, Lance broke the kiss and set her carefully away from him. His hands swiped through his hair as his expression tautened with the effort at maintaining his control.
“What? What did I do?” Harmony shook her head in confusion.
“I won’t take this choice from you,” he growled, grimacing painfully. “I won’t take anything from you by force, Harmony. If you want me now, then you have to come to me.”
Lance shook his head, his frustration evident on his face as he propped his hands on his lean hips, lowered his head and shook it slowly. When he lifted his head once again, a wry smile crossed his lips.
“I’m going to bed, baby.” He sighed. “I need some rest. We have to go to work tomorrow morning. I’ll see you in the morning.”
He leaned down, kissed her cheek gently then walked away. Harmony stared at him in shock as he just walked away.
Her hand lifted to her cheek as she turned and stared at the doorway he’d disappeared through. Why had he done that? He could have had her. He was obviously painfully aroused, hungry, why walk away when he could have what would ease him?
God, he made no sense.
She growled in frustration then grimaced at the animalistic sound. Damn him, she was starting to sound like Jonas now.
“Men!” She stomped to the kitchen, certain she had seen ice cream somewhere in that huge freezer he kept in the pantry. Aggravation like this definitely called for ice cream.
CHAPTER 8
He was trying to protect her.
Several hours later Harmony stood at the open bedroom door staring into the room and watching as Lance slept. The blankets were kicked back from his long, muscular body, the dim light from the hallway shadowing his form.
Nothing could shadow his erection rising from between his thighs.
Harmony inhaled slowly as she dipped her spoon into the pint of butter pecan ice cream she had tried to stay away from. She brought the frozen confection to her lips. It eased the swelling in the glands beneath her tongue, stilled the hormone wanting to spill from them, but it did nothing to ease her arousal.
As she paced the house over the hours, she had assured herself she had to be imagining things. She protected others; she wasn’t used to being protected.
She licked the spoon as Lance shifted on the bed, his legs spreading, the fingers of one hand curling around the width of his cock for a second before a frustrated groan left his lips. His hand fell back to the bed.
The spoon dipped into the carton again, bringing back another spoonful of sweetness to her lips. She let the icy flavor melt in her mouth as she watched him. As tasty as the ice cream was, she knew it was nothing compared to the taste of the man attempting to sleep through his arousal.
Her lips quirked into a smile. There was one thing she could do for him. She remembered once, several years past, when she had watched a very naughty movie. Just out of curiosity. The movie involved a very vampish female, an aroused male and ice cream.
Lance was very sexual. A sexual creature with the experience to please any female. Her experience was lacking, but she knew he enjoyed her touch. Would he enjoy ice cream?
She licked her lips as she moved, dipping the spoon into the ice cream again as she placed her knees on the bed and moved into position.
———
Lance came awake awash in pleasure. A chilly, sensual, exquisite pleasure that had his balls tightening and his body rearing as his hands reached out to hold the pleasure in place, to keep it from retreating.
“Stay. Or I stop.” Harmony’s voice was silky smooth, dark and aroused.
He watched as her mouth rose from the aching length of his erection. She lifted a pint of ice cream from the bed beside her, dipped the spoon in and brought a healthy chunk to her lips. Lance tightened, watched, waited. Her head lowered as one hand gripped the base of his cock and tucked it at her lips. Then she flowed over it.
“Oh fuck!” His hips arched from the bed as she began to suckle at his flesh with greedy hunger.
The cold cream washed over his cock, sending a riot of icy sensations to attack his overheated flesh. Her tongue flickered over the violently aroused flesh, stroking and caressing as her mouth suckled at the engorged head.
Lance fisted his fingers in the sheet beneath him, his hips arching, his head grinding into the mattress as ice and flames battled, dragging a tortured groan from his throat as he felt sweat begin to bathe his body.
Son of a bitch, this was good. So fucking good he wondered if he would survive it. He fought to stay still, to keep his hands at his sides and to let Harmony choose. Oh hell, if she didn’t hurry and choose to let him fucking come then he was going to have a stroke.
“Harmony.” Fuck, he was panting. “Baby. Hell.” She was teasing him again. Her tongue licked around the engorged head before she sucked it deep into her mouth again, her tongue working on the underside like a silken flame.