“Roni, you have a home here now…” Taber’s voice only fed her fury. It was soft, remorseful. As though her pain was breaking something inside him. The loss of her home had been nothing compared to the agony she had faced when she had lost him before.
“Do I?” She fought the surge of adrenaline that cried out for a fight as she turned back to him, watching him with brooding fury. “With you, I presume?”
“With me.” His expression hardened as he said the words.
“Poor Taber.” She sneered. “Stuck with me after all. Not exactly what you envisioned for a future mate, am I?”
He watched her with a slight frown and no small amount of heat in his eyes.
“I actually never imagined anyone else.” He finally shrugged, confusing her further. “Though I can tell you aren’t exactly pleased.” And why did it seem to bother him so much, that she wasn’t pleased?
So where was the man who decided he needed more of a woman than she was? His attitude wasn’t making sense to her. Unless it was just the hormone or whatever the hell it was driving her insane. The thought that a drug, no matter how natural, was their only bond broke her heart.
“Not exactly pleased would be a little mild for my reaction.” She made certain her smile was all teeth and no warmth. Her pu**y was hot enough to make up for it, though she had no intention of letting him know that any time soon. The adrenaline thundering through her system seemed intent on building the arousal that much higher. “Where are my clothes?” She ignored the cramps building in her womb as she turned away from him.
She didn’t even have a home now, and she couldn’t allow herself to believe that anything she could have with Taber would last longer than it took for her to become pregnant. Where would she be then? She had to leave, had to run, or she would never be free of him. Taber sighed heavily behind her. “I know you’re scared, Roni.”
“I’m not scared.” She fought back a shudder of pure sensation as heat sizzled between her thighs. Then
made sure the look she gave him glittered with her need for retribution. “I’m mad. So get the hell away from me before I take your head off like I should have done when you put this damned mark on me. Where the hell are my clothes?”
She re-entered the bedroom, determined to ignore the man stalking behind her. She could feel him and he wasn’t even touching her.
“Your clothes are being washed,” he told her, his voice too soft, too carefully controlled as he came up behind her. “Roni, you’re in pain. It doesn’t have to be this way.”
Roni stopped at the bottom of the bed, gripping the footboard with desperate fingers as her stomach clenched almost violently. She closed her eyes, fighting the man, fighting the knowledge of what was happening to her with everything inside her. God, she was so weak, because she knew that despite the unnatural height of the arousal, she would have still found it hard to resist him, to maintain her fury. His voice was soft, regretful, reminding her of the years he had always been there for her. Reminding her how much she had loved him, how much it had hurt when he suddenly wasn’t in her life any longer. Even the fear of conception couldn’t dim the needs rising in her body like a flashflood of sensations. How was she supposed to deny him? How could she fight her body, its needs and her heart as well?
“I’m fine.” She forced the words between clenched teeth. “Find me some clothes. I want out of here.”
If she could just get away from him, she thought desperately. It hadn’t been this bad, this intense, until he showed up in her life again. If she could leave, maybe it would ease; settle back to the mild irritation it had been before.
“It won’t go away, Roni.” His hands settled heavily on her shoulders, his thumbs smoothing over the taut muscles as she fought the shivers of pleasure his touch evoked. The calloused pads of his thumbs rasped over her skin, heating her flesh, making her moan with the pleasure that streaked through her body. It was exquisite, his touch, the scent of him wrapping around her with a warmth that seared her to her soul.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered, fighting the tears that thickened in her throat. She had needed so much more from him. “Everything’s happening too fast.”
“You don’t have to do anything, baby,” he promised her gently, his lips whispering over the mark he had made so long ago. Making her shiver in longing. “I’ll take care of everything, Roni. I promise.”
Every cell in her body screamed out in pleasure when his tongue stroked over the small wound. She would have denied him, she assured herself, if she could have fought past the web of arousal and need that tightened about her, leaving her breathless beneath his touch. How could he do this? How could nature have been so cruel as to give him this advantage over her?
“I can smell your heat,” he whispered at her ear. “Like warm, sweet cream. It draws me, Roni. I want nothing more than to go to my knees, draw the gown to your h*ps and bury my tongue in your hot pu**y.”
She shuddered violently at his words, a whimper of longing escaping her throat as he drew the robe from her shoulders. She felt weak, dazed, unable to fight him when she wanted him with every breath in her body.
“You’re so warm, so soft and tempting, you make me lose any semblance of control. You make me desperate, Roni, so hungry for you I can barely think of anything except tasting you.”
His tongue licked over her shoulder, raspy, slightly roughened, drawing a gasp of pleasure from her lips at the sensation. His hands drew the thin straps of the gown over her shoulders as his lips trailed hot kisses down the slope of her arm.
“I lost control before.” The gown slipped over her hardened ni**les, but she had no chance to miss its dubious warmth.
Taber’s hands covered the swollen mounds, his palms cushioning the elongated points, rasping them gently as she moaned in rising pleasure. That was good. Too good. Too hot. She stared down at his hands, amazed at the contrast between his dark skin and her paler flesh. It was so erotic, watching him touch her, seeing the differences between his hard, muscular body and her softer one.
“I won’t lose control now. I’ll show you how good it can be, baby.”
His voice was rough, a sensual caress to her senses as the gown slid to her hips, caressing her as it slipped lower and finally pooled at her feet.
“See, all you have to do is relax,” he assured her, his voice at once soothing, stroking her senses as carefully as his hands stroked her br**sts. “Let me show you what we missed out on all those months ago.”
“You left me.” She fought to breathe, to find the strength she needed to refuse him. But it wasn’t there. Her body was overruling her mind, stealing her objections, her fears.