“I’ll go to bed.” She rose quickly to her feet and headed out of the room. She had to think, but thinking and being in the same room with Kiowa wasn’t going to work. Immature, he had called her. A child. Unfortunately she wanted to rage at him just as she would have her father or brother when they were doing something unreasonable or enforcing a rule she disagreed with. If it were merely a question of disagreeing, then she would be in his face now. From what she had overheard, it was much more than that. The hormone that was making her crazy for his touch was no more his fault then it was hers, though. How could she fight that?
“You do that.” His quiet snarl behind her pricked at her heart and she didn’t even know why.
Chapter Fifteen
How was she supposed to sleep? Her mind wouldn’t settle, but even worse, neither would her body. She stared at the dimly lit ceiling, tracking the fragile motes of light that managed to slip through the heavy dark curtains and tried to find some way to accept this new reality she had been dragged into. Kiowa was furious. She could see that now. Where her father and brother turned icy, letting their anger freeze rather than burn, Kiowa pushed it back. He buried it under years of acceptance, beneath the tragedy of a childhood that never was and dreams he didn’t dare have. She remembered the look on his face when he pulled from her, his swollen c**k popping free of her, the knot barely subsided as she stared up at him in horror that first time. An animal she had called him.
His expression had shut down immediately, becoming quiet, emotionless, as he calmly left the Jeep. It had been the anger. He fought it, just as she fought for freedom. Now, his anger was escaping and she was bound to one person in a way she feared she would never truly be free of. If what she had overheard Callan saying was true, then nature had taken her choice away from her. She turned to her side, curling into a tight ball and pushed back the need lancing through her body. It was getting worse. Horribly worse. She closed her eyes and tried counting sheep, she bit her lip until she tasted blood. She covered her head with the blankets, but the ache just grew and grew. Her br**sts were so tight and swollen she feared her ni**les would burst. The touch of her own hands against them sent sensation ripping to her womb, warning her she was in for a long hard battle if she meant to deny what her body hungered for.
Would she have wanted him even without the hormone building in her system? She would have, she thought, remembering his natural inclination to touch her as she had always dreamed of being touched. His teeth tormenting her ni**les. His hand landing hard and heavy on the waxed mound of her pu**y. She flinched at the thought as a white-hot streak of remembered pleasure seared that swollen button of nerves. And his cock. She clenched her thighs at the thought of it. The pleasure pain of being impaled on that thick stalk had her juices flowing thick and heavy from her hungry cunt. She moaned in bleak of acceptance of the fact that she would only be able to fight the arousal for so long. The building pain was almost an agony, her womb clenching, spasming as the withdrawal tore through her.
Withdrawal. That was exactly what it felt like. Her body was protesting the absence of Kiowa’s, demanding his touch, demanding the heat and strength that was so much a part of him. Amanda couldn’t believe anything could hurt so bad. That arousal could become agony, tearing at the nerve endings and burning into the mind. She had to get away from him. Maybe if she could just get entirely away from him, then it would stop. Withdrawal needed a source, take the source and the body would adjust. Wouldn’t it? It would go back to normal, she could go back to normal. She just had to get away from Kiowa.
Some distant part of her mind was aware that she wasn’t thinking rationally. That the building pain and the need for his touch were becoming so extreme that her ability to process reality wasn’t as it should be. She stumbled from the bed, throwing the blankets aside as her feet tangled in them and weaved her way desperately for the living room. Silence filled the cabin, and rather distantly, she remembered a door closing just after Kiowa left the shower.
Had he left her alone? Didn’t the heat affect him as it did her?
The bastard, of course it wouldn’t.
“Amanda?” He moved from another room instead, one she hadn’t paid any attention to on the other side of the living room.
He wore his jeans low, several metal buttons undone. His c**k was thick and hard beneath the material.
“Kiowa.” She clenched her fists as his scent wrapped around her, drugging her with the need to taste him.
“You should be sleeping.” His voice was soft, regretful as he watched her. He didn’t move from the doorway, just stood there, his dark eyes bleak and filled with hunger and need.
“Do you hurt too?” she whispered, feeling her juices trickle down the inside of her thigh.
“Yeah, baby, I hurt too,” he said, his voice rough, a low growl of hunger that had her breath catching in her chest.
“It hurts too badly.” She shuddered with the pain.
“You know the alternative, Manda.” His tone hardened. He wasn’t going to let her hide; he wasn’t going to let her forget.
“I would love my child,” she cried out desperately. “I would.”
She would never force it to be alone, to hunger for love or attention. She would lavish praise on it, laugh with it, love it.
“And what of its father, Manda?” he asked her.
Tears fell from her eyes as her head tilted back and a low, painful moan filled the room.
“I don’t want to love you,” she whispered. “I don’t even know you. How can I love you?”
“Yes, you do.” He was closer now. “You know me better than you think you do. You know I’ll protect you, Manda. You know I’ll hold you close and keep you warm. You know you are my mate. Mates are forever. Just as you know your body will never go hungry for mine, your every desire, your every need fulfilled.”
Her head titled forward, something inside her shattering at his words. Sexuality was something to hide where she came from. God help her if her family every found her books, or discovered her perversions. But Kiowa knew them. He knew what she wanted, what her body craved. Marriages survived on less than that; surely a mating wouldn’t be too bad?
Your hormones are talking,her mind screamed out. Buck up girl. Remember, freedom? Time to be alone?
Time to be alone with her books and her daydreams, she thought. Kiowa was a sexual fantasy come to life.
“You’re manipulating me.” She was panting for air.
“Of course I am.” He shrugged carelessly. “You weren’t far off the mark when you called me an animal, baby. Those instincts are alive and humming and they’re screaming you’re mine. I won’t let you go, Amanda.”
“God you are such a headache,” she snapped, perspiration covering her body as lust built to a feverpitch. “Do you have any idea how impossible this is? This isn’t my life. It isn’t what I want.”