The Man Within

  hest and she felt the deep, heavy pulses of heated sperm shooting hard and hot inside her.

  Roni was only barely aware of Taber collapsing over her. His breaths were hard, gasping; his voice rough as he whispered words she could make no sense of. Their bodies were damp, locked together, and loath to separate. They could have stayed that way for eternity and she wouldn’t have protested. Her eyes were closed and as the last violent pulse of her climax shuddered through her body, she allowed exhaustion to capture and take her away.

  Darkness swept around her as Taber’s body blanketed her, warmed her. She sighed, for the first time in years sated, replete and safe. She allowed herself to sleep.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Taber was aware when Roni slipped into an exhausted sleep. Her body relaxed beneath him, becoming boneless, accepting of his weight as he struggled to learn how to breathe once again.

  His hands were clenched in her hair, his face buried at her shoulder, his teeth still locked into the mark he had given her so long ago. He could taste the sweet essence of her blood in his mouth where the skin had broken and he had lapped at it like a man dying for the taste of ecstasy.

  Moving away from her was the hardest feat he had ever attempted in his life. Pulling away from the fisted grip her pussy had on his cock was torture, an agony of pleasure nearly as intense as achieving the soul-destroying release that had ripped through him.

  The animalistic barb had receded, drawing back beneath the head of his cock, releasing him from the sweet heat he had been locked inside. He dragged his body off her, amazed at the incredible weakness that had overcome him.

  God, he felt as though he were dying and would be more than willing to give himself to the arms of the Grim Reaper. Anything to stay there just another second, to relish the sublime pleasure he had found locked inside her heat.

  It was unlike anything he had ever known. Every cell in his body had gloried in touching her, making her scream, making her beg as the rush for release came upon her.

  He moved from the bed almost drunkenly, a wry grin tilting his lips as he forced his legs to hold him up, albeit a bit unsteadily. Then he made the mistake of turning back and gazing at the woman responsible for it all.

  His chest clenched. A brutal ripping agony swept over him as he stared into her pale face, the gentle line of brow and cheek. Her lips were slightly parted, kiss-swollen. God help him, she was his life. He stared at her as though seeing her for the first time, realizing what he had forced himself to deny for months. The woman had the ability to destroy him. Hell, she had already nearly killed him with her first rejection. What would it do to him now if she walked away? How could he force her to stay if she conceived and being with him wasn’t what completed her heart? Would nature be cruel enough to have mated him with a woman who couldn’t—or wouldn’t—love him?

  Taber reached out, pushing back a thick strand of golden-brown hair as he slowly pulled the sheet over her body before turning quickly away from her and walking to the bathroom. As he did, he remembered the first time he had ever laid eyes on her, over ten years before. He had found her huddled in the woods, her arms wrapped around her small body. Her eyes were gazing into the wilderness, though he had known it was something inside her, not without, that she was focused on.

  He knew that feeling. He had been a young age, but the brutality of the labs and the horror of their escape had forever wiped away a part of his humanity. How can you miss something you never remembered having, he wondered as he braced his hands on the sink and stared into the feral expression staring back at him. He had been no more than an animal in those days. Furious, wounded, unwilling and unable to fit into the carefree lifestyle Maria had tried to give them.

  He had been stalking the woods, escaping, allowing the savagery that filled him to release itself in the hunt. Until he found Roni. Her face was tear-stained, her knees scraped, her eyes vacant as she lost herself in whatever horrors filled her young mind.

  He had imagined they saved each other that night. He had picked her up and taken her to Maria, holding her against his chest, feeling a sense of rage, of protectiveness that anyone so fragile, so innocent and pure, could be forced into such pain. The look in her eyes had reminded him of his sisters, their minds as violated as their bodies had been before their escape.

  Roni hadn’t been raped; rather, she had been terrorized. Left alone, with no food, no one to care for her, and her father’s enemies stalking her, striking out at her when the bastard who sired her couldn’t be found.

  From that day on, Roni had been his. At first, it had been friendship, a protectiveness, a need to care for her. Later, it had grown, terrifying him with the depth of emotion and desire she inspired in him.

  He drew in a hard, deep breath. The child had grown into a woman before he could make sense of his own changing feelings for her. Her smart mouth and wild ways had worried him incessantly, but he had always known what she was thinking, what she was feeling. The woman whose screams had rocked his lust moments before was not the woman who had sworn her love to him the year before. This Roni was too quiet, too self-contained, shut down. As though life had dealt her one blow too many and now she refused to trust or to try again.

  He breathed in tiredly as he pulled a cloth from the small shelf beside the sink and wet it with warm water. She would be sore, and wouldn’t rest comfortably with her thighs slick and damp from their mating.

  Taber moved back to the bed, feeling his cock harden, lengthen, as he stepped closer and drew in the faint, distinctive scent of their combined releases. It was reminiscent of a wild wind after a summer thunderstorm, untamed and earthy.

  He drew the sheet back from her slumbering body, grimacing at the effort it took to keep his hand from trembling as he began to clean her. From her neck, along her arms, her full, firm breasts—rosy from his earlier suckling attentions—down to her slender torso, her delicately rounded tummy to her thighs. He swallowed tightly as he spread her legs, ignoring her pleasured moan as he cleaned the slick, inner juices from her body.

  He was breathing hard and heavy by the time he covered her once again and dragged his own weary body into the bed beside her. Dawn was approaching and it felt like weeks since he had slept.

  He pulled her close to him, ignoring her first instinctive move to pull away from him, shushing her gently, wrapping his arms around her and tucking her against his chest.

  “What happened, Roni?” he whispered into her silken hair before bestowing a soft, gentle kiss to her forehead. “What the hell happened to you?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “You can’t bathe yet, Roni.” It was late afternoon before Taber awakened, drawn back to consciousness by Roni’s furtive escape from the bed.

  She paused, gripping the footboard as her body tensed.

  “I’m sore.” Her voice was low, but he could hear the vibration of anger. It sure as hell beat the confusion he had heard the night before.

  “I know you’re sore, baby.” He flipped the blankets back, rising and padding over to the chest at the end of the room.

  He drew a soft, blue, cotton button-up shirt from one of the drawers, which would make it easier for Doc Martin to check her out while maintaining her modesty.

  “Put this on.” He walked back to her, handing her the shirt as she stared at him suspiciously.

  “I stink of you,” she snapped, raising her head, her blue eyes so filled with anger he almost flinched. “I want a shower.”

  Taber frowned down at her, uncomfortably aware that her fury was only sparking his lust. His cock was beginning to stiffen, to pulse in hunger.

  “Put the shirt on, or get your ass back in bed where I’ll fuck you until you’re too damned tired to argue with me. It wouldn’t be wise to push me right now, and you know damned good and well once I touch you, you won’t deny me.”

  She was breathing hard, her breasts rising and falling sharply, her nipples peaking at the harsh sound of his voice. His mouth watered as his gaze f
lickered to them.

  “Stop.” She jerked the shirt from him, drawing it roughly over her arms and holding the edges tightly together. “Do you think I don’t know just how little you do want me, Taber? Do you think I’m just going to willingly accept what you’ve done to me?”

  Well, if he had, he guessed it was time to change his mind, he thought sarcastically.

  “Doesn’t look to me like you have much choice.” His cock was insistent now. Damn, Doc said to be in the lab first thing after Roni awoke, not after another hour or two of fucking her silly. “Button the shirt, Roni. We have to go down to the lab and I’ll be damned if I’ll let you flash that pretty ass for whoever is standing around outside this room.”

  He stomped back to the dresser, jerked a T-shirt and sweat pants from the drawers, and hastily donned them.

  “Lab?” At least she was buttoning the shirt, even if her voice did pulse with disgust. “Do I look like a fucking rat to you?”

  He turned to her slowly. Her voice was harsh, guttural, the scent of her building heat reaching him effortlessly.

  “Don’t push me this morning, Roni.” He was holding onto his temper and his arousal by the thinnest thread. “You won’t like the consequences.”

  She eyed him with brooding fury and a bitterness that confused him no small amount.

  “You mean it can get worse?” she asked with vicious sweetness. Damn, that smile could cut a man in two without even trying.

  He stepped closer, his hand reaching out, catching in the long strands of her hair before she could jerk away from him. He watched her eyes widen as he exerted just enough pressure to force her head back, to look into her face, fighting instincts he hadn’t even known he had.

  “It can get worse,” he snarled, allowing his lips to pull back, the lethal canines at the sides of his mouth to flash dangerously. “I warned you years ago, baby, I was more than you could ever imagine. You should have heeded that advice.”

  She didn’t show fear as he had expected. Fury leapt into her gaze—hotter, stronger than before.

  “And I thought I had.” She mocked him with a sneer. “What are you going to do now, Taber? Take me to the floor and mount me again? Is that the only way you know of to make your women submit to you?” He leaned closer, inhaling the sweet scent of her arousal. “The good thing about taking you to the floor is how much I know you would love it.” He allowed the growl building in his throat to escape with his words.

  Instantly, the smell of her heat intensified.

  “Unwillingly.” Her lips thinned, her nostrils flaring as she tugged at the grip on her hair.

  She liked it. The knowledge pierced his anger like the sharpest sword, making him damned near desperate to have her now.

  “Unwillingly?” He backed her against the bed, watching her eyes darken and her cheeks flush with lust.

  Oh yeah, that’s how he wanted her. Hot and hungry for him.

  “It’s a drug, Taber.” He stilled against her as she spoke with chilling emphasis. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t allow you within a mile of me. You drugged me. I can’t stop it, I can’t control it, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let you sugarcoat it.”

  She spoke as though there had never been natural desire between them. As though the hunger and the heat were something she would have never felt otherwise. It sent a surge of anger crashing through his system, ripping aside his natural control as he faced his mate’s defiance.

  “You wanted me before,” he snarled, furious that she would deny the bond they once had. “I hadn’t kissed you then, Roni. Before the mark, before the kiss, you still wanted me.” He dared her to deny it, staring down at her, praying she wouldn’t because he knew if she did, his control would break.

  “I was a child, remember?” A flash of pain, quickly covered yet so deep it seared his soul, shadowed her eyes. “I grew up and I grew up fast, thanks to you. Now either fuck me, or let’s get these tests the hell over with because I need a shower. I told you, I stink.” He released her slowly but watched her more closely than ever before. She looked angry, sounded furious, but beneath the smell of her arousal, the scent of fear and pain surrounded her.

  She thought she was so tough, standing up to him, hating him for only God knew what, when he could sense the agony slashing at her soul. She was a part of him, more than she knew, more than she could ever understand.

  Taber’s hand reached out, his fingers touching her cheek despite her instinctive flinch.

  “You were mine when you were eleven years old, and mine when you turned into a woman. You’re no less mine now, Roni.” He kept his voice soft, fought back the beast roaring to make her submit and to do it now. “You can fight it all you want to, for now. But I won’t let you go. Don’t deceive yourself there.” She inhaled slowly, deeply. He could see the moisture shimmering in her eyes. Not tears, but close, though she maintained the disdain in her look.

  “You must enjoy deluding yourself, Taber. If so, that’s fine. But I won’t play the game with you. Not this time.” Her voice trembled on the last word.

  Taber stepped away from her carefully. He could feel his fragile hold on his control weakening.

  “We’ll take the elevator to the lab.” He refused to comment on her statement. Let her believe as she wished. For now. “Doc was impatient an hour ago, I’m sure he’s less than pleased by now.” He gripped her upper arm lightly, needing to touch her, no matter how small that contact was.

  “I don’t need you to lead me like a child.” Her voice was low, pulsating with a mix of anger, arousal and fear as she tried to pull her arm from his grasp.

  “Stop fighting me, dammit.” He turned back to her, jerking her against him, allowing her to feel the erection that was throbbing like a raw, open wound. “Give it up for now, Roni. Let it the hell go before I do something we’ll both regret.”

  Déjà vu swirled around them. Would I regret it? She had once asked him.

  “I already regret it,” she snapped out, trembling with the excess of emotions that seemed to be tearing her apart. “Don’t you understand, Taber? I regret it all, more than you can ever imagine.” He clenched his teeth as an unbidden rumble of warning escaped his chest. He was rock hard. Every instinct he possessed screamed out that he show her differently, that he force her to admit that it wasn’t just the hormone causing her need, that it wasn’t something her heart and soul regretted. The animal was roaring for submission, the man was screaming out for more.

  “One day,” he snarled softly, “you will admit differently, Roni. Pray, baby, that you haven’t pushed me too far to hear the words by then. I’m not one of those civilized little boys you used to date. I’m your fucking mate, and by God, you’re testing my limits right now. Stop, before I hurt us both.” Fear flickered in her eyes. Taber thanked God that she stayed silent as he slowly released her, that she didn’t protest further as he gripped her upper arm once again and began leading her from the room.

  Because if she had, he had a feeling he would have showed her more of the animal than either of them wanted her to see.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Just how many more needles do you own, anyway?” Roni snapped as Doc Martin inserted yet another in her vein and began drawing blood.

  Her skin was crawling, the touch so sickening she wanted to vomit right there on the pristine floor beneath the small gurney she sat on.

  “I have several boxes actually,” he said drolly as he withdrew the needle, then stared down at her with a kindness that brought tears to her eyes. “I know how hard this is on you, Miss Andrews. I promise, I’m trying to hurry.”

  She glanced over at Taber where he stood propped against the wall beside the door. He was tense, his expression savage as his gaze watched her with a hungry fury.

  “Take your time. I have plenty of blood.” She drew in a deep breath, determined to get through this. “So tell me, have you come up with a cure yet?”

  Taber growled. The doctor glanced over at him a bit worriedly, though she caught h
im smothering his chuckle.

  “No cure that we know of.” He finally moved back, giving her a chance to breathe in air that didn’t smell male. “I’ve run every damned test I can think of and we now have over two dozen other scientists working on it. The only answer is conception.”

  “As if!” Roni allowed all the pent up anger and fear to power the small exclamation. “I need my birth control pills. I’ve already missed one.” It was the only answer. She had taken them before to keep her cycles timely but now she needed them desperately. “You’re a doctor; get them for me.”

  “Doesn’t work.” He shook his head as Taber snarled, a low, dangerous sound that rocked her body, not with fear as it should have, but with excitement.

  “Excuse me?” She lifted her brows, fighting back her shock. “What the hell do you mean it doesn’t work? Fine, give me a Depo shot, an IUD. I don’t give a damn, but do something.” Having a child was out of the question. She had no intention of becoming pregnant, not by Taber, not by anyone, and especially not amid the danger she was beginning to realize lurked outside the estate Taber and his family were working frantically to secure.

  “Depo doesn’t work.” The doctor stuck a swab in her mouth, swirling it around quickly as she nearly gagged.

  She pushed her hands through her hair as he moved away, fighting back the rising panic welling inside her and the pain blooming through her body. Every bone and muscle felt as though it were on fire, blistering her insides with heat. Perspiration dotted her skin and no matter how she fought it she couldn’t hold back the small wracking trembles that attacked her body.

  “I need a vaginal sample.” The doctor’s voice lowered, filling with regret. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t easy.”

  Taber paced closer.

  “Get back, Taber!” She was amazed at the fury that echoed in her demand. “If you come near me I’ll shove one of those damned needles into that black heart of yours.”

  “Dammit, Roni, you can’t do this alone,” he retorted. “I’m only trying to help you.”

  “You’ve helped enough,” she sneered, dragging several deep, strengthening breaths before turning back to the doctor. “Why is this so hard?” she demanded of the other man. “Tell me what the hell’s wrong with me before you do anything. I feel like fire ants are eating away at my insides and I’m getting damned sick of it.”

  She could handle it, she assured herself as she watched the doctor, keeping her expression fierce. It seemed neither he, nor Taber, responded to anything other than complete determination and more than one threat of physical violence.

  Doc Martin heaved an impatient breath. “Young woman, let’s get these tests completed first…”

  “You touch me and you may not be walking straight for days.” She cocked her leg back as he watched it warily. “I want answers before you stick another needle, swab or whatever the latest device of torture is at the moment.” She sure as hell didn’t like the looks of that damned speculum he was holding in his hand.

  “Roni, I told you what was wrong.” Taber stepped closer.

  Roni turned her head slowly, watching him with all the pent up violence raging through her system. He stopped again, only feet from the gurney this time.

  “A mating does not a relationship make,” she told him with false sweetness before turning back to the doctor. “Answers, if you please. In English would be nice, too,” she ventured, unwilling to try to understand whatever doctor’s jargon he used.

  “In a nutshell,” he sighed. “For the time being, your body is addicted to the hormone contained in Taber’s saliva as well as his semen. The effects are intense, bringing violent illness and pain, which only goes away after, uuhh…relations are attained.” He flushed before her shocked gaze. “The best we’ve been able to figure is that it’s nature’s way of ensuring the species.Normally, the minute amount of normal sperm the Feline Breed males possess makes them virtually impotent. But the hormone infecting you forces your body to ovulate every three days. To further ensure procreation, it strengthens normal arousal to the point that it cannot be denied.”

  Roni cursed her own stubbornness. She could feel the blood draining from her face as her stomach pitched and her mind fought to reject the diagnosis.

  “It ends with conception?” Her voice was thready as she fought to speak.

  “The symptoms left Merinus upon conception,” he agreed. Sympathy filled his voice. “It is something that, so far, seems to occur only with a woman with whom the emotions of the Feline Breed are involved.

  A natural mate, in Callan and Merinus’ case. It has never occurred before.” She pressed her hands to her stomach, swallowing tightly, refusing to allow herself to be sick.

  “Prevent conception.” Her voice was shaking.

  “Roni…” Taber’s protest was ignored.

  She stared up at the doctor, fighting the rage rising sharply within her. She would not allow this. She couldn’t.

  “I don’t care what you have to do, or how you do it, but stop it.”

  * * * * *

  Taber stood still, refusing to speak despite the pain lodging in his chest. He could hear the terror shaking in her voice, the pain rocking through her and would have given his own life then and there if it would save her from this. He couldn’t bear the stark agony resonating through her voice. God help him, he would give anything to go back, to take back the mark, to make this easier on her somehow.

  “I’m sorry, Roni.” Martin’s voice echoed his own regret. “If I could do this for you, I would. IUD won’t work. The body will reject it. The hormone is affecting every organ, working to ensure conception. The same for the Depo shot and the birth control pills. We’ve found no way to prevent this. Not yet.” It was then she turned to Taber. His soul shattered with pain as he glimpsed her eyes. They were deep, shadowed wells of misery that had every animal instinct inside him demanding that he protect her. She was terrified and he had no idea how to help her.

  He stepped to her before she could speak, his hand weaving through the tangled strands of her hair as the other caught her close. And in that second he damned his own soul. His lips took hers, his tongue plunging into her mouth, forcing her to accept him despite her instinctive cry of rejection.

  She would never make it through this while everything inside her clamored for him, the hormone attacking not just her mind, but her body as well. Her hands caught his shoulders as a whimpering cry whispered from her throat. But her tongue stroked his, her lips drawing on him as her breath hitched on a sob.

  He held her tightly, easing her, stilling the instinctive rejection of the tests the doctor needed to perform.

  When he pulled back, her eyes were nearly black with emotion, tear-filled and hazy with arousal.

  “With my life, Roni,” he pledged to her. “With everything I am, I swear to you, I will protect you and any child that comes of this. Whatever you want I will give you, baby, as God is my witness. Anything to make up for what I have done to you.”

  He could barely hold back his own tears. He who had never cried, who had fought emotion since he had first learned of its effect on him. He would give her anything she desired, if only it could ease the pain he knew was flaying her soul.

  Her arms tightened around him, her face pressing against his chest, her shoulders quivering as she fought her own sobs. He tightened his hold on her, bending protectively over her, rocking her, hating himself with every cell in his body.

  Finally, she drew in a deep, hard breath. Her nails clenched at his back and he felt the dampness of her tears on his shirt.

  “No more tests,” she whispered.

  “Taber, I need those tests. All we’ve had to go on were Merinus’ samples…” Taber snarled in fury. His head turned, his gaze locking on the doctor’s as he fought to protect her from any further pain.

  “A swab only,” Martin demanded. “For God’s sake. This isn’t just her, Taber. It’s the future.” He tensed, intending to pull her from the table and stalk from t
he room.

  “No. He’s right.” Her arms tightened around him as shudders quaked through her. “He’s right. I can do this. I can.” But she didn’t release her hold of him.

  “I’ll hold you, baby.” He lowered her slowly to the gurney, remembering Sherra relating how Callan had been forced to do the same for Merinus. “Just hold onto me, Roni. I won’t let you go.”