The sensation of silk and satin slid over him. Into him. Need crawled through his body in a slow, desperate burn. He picked her up and cradled her against his chest. He’d walked through a hail of gunfire with a friend over his shoulder, he could carry a featherweight a few feet to a bathroom.
He tried not to feel the way her body melted into his or the silk of her hair brushing over nerve endings, setting them on fire. She really was the perfect weapon. She could feel seductive even when she was so ill. He couldn’t imagine what she would be like when she was perfectly healthy and wanted to seduce a man – but he found himself a little desperate to find out.
He took her into the small, very tidy guest bathroom closest to the parlor. Nonny had insisted on a bathroom for guests. She had a private bathroom upstairs and a much larger one for all her grandsons to share growing up, but she had been very vocal about needing one just for guests. He couldn’t blame her. The downstairs bathroom the boys shared had always been in a state of chaos, although if it got too bad, Nonny would hand them all cheap toothbrushes and tell them to go to work.
The guest bathroom was charming and always smelled sensational. Nonny used a mixture of flowers and herbs to create the scents she used throughout the house. The moment they both inhaled, some of the terrible need faded, giving them a bit of a respite.
“My grand-mere is the real genius in the family,” Wyatt said, attempting normal conversation. He set Pepper on her feet. “Can you really do this by yourself? I am a doctor. I’d do my best to be impersonal.” He had to admit the truth. Stripping her down would be anything but impersonal, but he’d give it his best shot.
“I’ll have to ask her what blend she used. I watched her coming into the wonderful piece of swamp with all the wildflowers and herbs planted together, and she always knew exactly what she wanted. She fascinates me.”
“You’re goin’ to fall on your face if I let go of you, aren’t you?” He dropped his hands to her jeans and unzipped them, not looking at her face. “I’ll turn away.” He hooked his thumbs in the waistband of her jeans and stripped her, forcing himself to keep his gaze to himself. Still, his thumb brushed bare skin along her hips and thighs, and he knew he would carry that sensation for a long time in his body.
“This is humiliating,” she said between clenched teeth. “I’m never going to be able to look at you again.”
“That’s too bad, woman, because I intend to be lookin’ a lot in your direction,” he said. The declaration slipped out before he could stop it, and he knew he was in trouble.
“Wyatt.” Her voice was soft.
He didn’t turn around, keeping his back to her like he promised, but the way she said his name, all soft and silky, a husky, sensual whisper of pure seduction, a lure he couldn’t get out of his head. No matter how hard he tried to control himself, his body still responded to her voice. He sent up a silent curse that he’d been born so susceptible to sound.
“I’m not a woman you can ever get mixed up with. I don’t even know what part of me is real anymore. I don’t want to hurt you. The moment I’m back to full strength, I’m taking Ginger and leaving. I have to find a way to get the other two babies out and find a safe home where I can protect them.”
“We’re goin’ to help you get those babies out of there,” Wyatt said. “And we’ll talk about the rest. How hard are they goin’ to come lookin’ for all of you?”
She flushed the toilet and he felt her move, staggering to her feet. He whipped around and steadied her, his hands on her slim waist. The moment his hands touched her silky bare skin, his cock reacted, an urgent, wicked demand involving pain as he grew hard and thick, nearly bursting the material of his jeans. He didn’t care. He didn’t move his hands, just let the heat from all ten fingers sink into her, branding her with him.
She gasped. Even as sick as she was, as weak as she was, she felt it too. He could tell by the shiver that went through her body. He knew women. He knew when one was attracted to him. There was satisfaction in the knowing. He forced air through his lungs.
“Don’ fall,” he cautioned.
Wyatt waited until she felt steadier and then he tugged up her clothes, fastening them as she leaned into him and washed her hands in the sink, all the while studiously avoiding looking at him.
Pepper swallowed hard. She had to tell him the truth. He had to know what he was up against. She often was desperate for sex, but not like this, not in direct reaction to a man. She knew what she felt for Wyatt Fontenot was dangerous to her. Wyatt wasn’t a man to be controlled. He took control. It was in the way he walked. The set of his shoulders. The stamp of his mouth.
Heat flared in his eyes when he looked at her, and something else. Something she’d never seen before but recognized as possession. He wanted her. That wasn’t anything new, but the way he wanted her was.
“Dr. Thomas Braden, the head of this company, has several scientists working for him in France. That’s where the children were created, born and worked on. I was an orphan and brought up in the school there. Braden is the one who decrees when an experiment has to be terminated.”
She felt a wave of weakness wash over her, and without thinking she leaned into him, her back to his front. His breath hissed out. She felt the heavy, thick erection pressed against her, but she couldn’t have moved if her life depended on it – and maybe it did. There was no sanity, no thinking, only feeling. Her body betrayed her, burning between her legs, her breasts tingling, achy and swollen. It didn’t help that her blood ran hot when she needed to slow everything down so the venom didn’t have a chance to make things worse.
“Breathe,” he ordered softly into her ear.
He knew. She was mortified that he knew. She tried to straighten, to stand on her own two feet, but his fingers turned to steel and he held her close.
“Don’. You know better. Just breathe slow and it will settle a little. Enough that we both can manage.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“It’s not your fault, sugar,” he said, his breath on her neck.
She closed her eyes, and allowed herself to lean against his chest. His rock hard erection. The man that was stamping his fingerprints into her bones. She slowed her breathing, fighting to stay upright when pain was hammering to get in. The pain wasn’t just physical either.
“I – he – I angered Braden,” she admitted reluctantly. “I wouldn’t cooperate with things he wanted me to do. He threatened to terminate the babies if I didn’t do what he wanted, and I lost my temper. It wasn’t good. Two months later, he sent us all here. He has four trackers – he calls them his elite – although I think someone else provides them, otherwise he would have sent them after me right away. But they’ll come. He also has his own special little army that he created.”
She had just attained freedom. Only just. She’d lived her life under the control of others. Orders. Discipline. She barely knew there was another world out there. The taste of freedom was in her mouth. In her heart. She responded to the wildness of the bayou, the primitive, primal swamp. She had been so close and yet now…
She looked over her shoulder at Wyatt Fontenot, at the strength in his face, the intensity of his eyes and a mouth a woman might give up a lot for. She was lost. Not because he was sexy and hot. He was a family man and he protected and cared for those he loved. In all of her life she had never thought she might find such a thing. She had secretly longed to find it, especially when she was up all night with the three little ones, wishing she had a partner to help lighten the load for one moment.