"It's goin' to end with you underneath me and my cock inside of you. That's how it's goin' to end, baby. But I want to hear everythin' you've got to say so I can put those fears to rest. I just prefer you sayin' it when you have no clothes on." He slid three more buttons free before her hands stopped him. He settled his mouth on her skin, his tongue sliding down to taste the sweet curve of the tops of her breasts.
"Wyatt, why can't you just let me go? You're making this so hard for me."
"Babe." He swept aside the last of the buttons and pulled her blouse open. "You're wearin' my favorite bra." He bent his head to her right breast and sucked at her nipple through the fine lace. She gasped. Her body trembled beneath his.
He lifted his head and smiled at her. "I'm never goin' to make it easy for you to leave me. If I have to keep you tied to my bed, then that's what I'm goin' to do. The thing is, Pepper, I love you the way you are. You think you're flawed, but I know you're perfect for me. We fit. We're supposed to be together."
"It was wrong. What I did to that soldier was wrong," she burst out. "An abomination of what this is."
The tears and guilt in her voice wrenched at his heart. He kept his gaze steady on hers. "What we have between us is love, Pepper. There's no way that what you did can fuck that up. This is love. When I'm kissin' you. When I've got my mouth or my cock between your legs. That's love. That's me showin' you love. I'm lovin' you right now, sugar, keepin' you from doin' anythin' stupid because your heart is so big, you're thinkin' of everyone but yourself."
"Wyatt..."
He took her mouth. Gently. Tenderly. Because he'd read her file and he knew there was no gentleness or tenderness ever in her life. His hands brushed away lace and silk and settled over her breasts. He kissed her over and over, not giving her a chance to breathe. To protest. To do anything but hang on to him. He knew how to kiss, and this was his woman. He used his skills shamelessly.
She tasted like heaven to him. He wanted her to know that. He lifted his head and looked down into her eyes. Her beautiful, unusual eyes a man could get lost in forever.
"The thin' is baby, you have to understand, I wasn' alive until you came into my life. I went through the motions, but I didn' feel the things I was supposed to. I saw you there in the parlor, your hair all over the place, your eyes wild, almost feral. The mother in you watchin' over that baby. And then you did the one thing that sealed your fate. You threw yourself in between me and that child. You took her bite. You knew there was a tremendous risk, and you knew how sick you were goin' to be, but you still did it."
He brushed at the tears on her face with his thumbs, leaned down to sip and then lick one away. "You were never meant to be a soldier, babe. That's not in your makeup. You protect people. You nurture. You weren' trained for it, but that's what's inside of you. That's why it hurts so bad when you have to take a life."
His hand slid between their bodies and he dragged down the zipper of her jeans. "Whitney knew it, that's why he sent you to the children. You're not flawed, woman, you don' want to kill people. That's a good thin'."
His hand slipped inside her jeans to the sweet French-cut lace panties he'd chosen himself. He curled his fingers into her, found damp heat, just as he knew he would. His mouth found her left breast as he pressed deep inside her.
Her body moved under his. Not to fight this time. Melted, just like she did whenever he touched her. He lifted his head again. "Tonight, after I make love to you, baby, I'm goin' to fall asleep with my cock buried deep inside you. You lyin' on top of me. I want you that close." It was his favorite way to go to sleep. He'd done it several times, her on top of him like a blanket, him buried inside her. He loved that.
Her fingers stroked through his hair as she took a deep, shuddering breath. "You're sure, Wyatt? Because it will break me if I stay and then somewhere down the line you won't be able to look at me anymore because of what I am."
"I've never been more certain of anything in my life. I was born for you. I was born to keep you safe. To love and protect you. To keep your body from burnin' you up from the inside out. That was why I was born, baby, no other reason. I intend to do my job."
His tongue licked at the nipple of her right breast. His teeth scraped gently, a little rough, just the way she liked it. She arched her back and a moan escaped.
"You're seducing me again and it isn't fair. Not just your mouth and hands, but your words as well," she accused.
"I don' play fair, sugar. You have to know that by now. And Whitney's goin' to come for our children. He actually had the balls to tell me that in his note to me. He's lettin' me borrow them. We need you. All of us."
He turned his attention to her other breast, waited until she was panting and squirming, before he lifted his head again.
"You've got too many clothes on, honey. Let's get them off of you. Shoes first, although I like those boots on you. But we need to go to bed."
He shifted his weight, keeping his arm around her waist, still leery that she might try to run. She sat up gracefully and bent to reach for her boots. He couldn't help himself. He pulled the clip from her hair and tossed it across the room. His hands came up to cover her breasts.
"We're already workin' on turnin' this entire area into a fortress."
"If he's as wealthy as you say he is and has friends in high places..."
"So do we. The thing is, honey, we don' have to worry about money all that much. I'm not even talkin' about the money Trap will donate to the cause. I work with Trap all the time. I've been doin' it for years. We didn' meet up in the teams, we met in college. He was wicked smart. I mean I'm smart, but he's fuckin' off the charts. He's been comin' up with solutions to problems for years and he was smart enough to patent everythin' and either develop it himself or sell it to a company for big bucks. I started helpin' him in college. That means my name is on those patents and half the money goes to me. Later, when we worked with Joe, Zeke and the others, we offered them shares in whatever we were workin' on."
He skimmed his hand down her body, her rib cage and belly, feeling the helpless shiver run through her. He lifted her hair and swung it around to the front over her left shoulder so he could kiss the nape of her neck.
"Lift up, honey. Slide your jeans and panties off." He whispered the command in her ear, kissing that too. "You're so beautiful. Everythin' about you is beautiful to me."
She did what he said and that was beautiful to him too. She rarely got upset at his personality. She smiled at him sometimes with a look that said maybe he was skating the boundaries, but she rarely complained, and never in bed. In bed she always accommodated anything he wanted. Once, when he'd talked to her, asked her if there was anything she wanted different, she just smiled, shook her head and told him she trusted him to take care of her.
That had meant the world to him. She trusted him when she had no good reason to trust anyone.
"Crawl up on the bed, babe, on all fours. I want to be in you so deep you feel me in your throat. And don' ever do this again. I mean it, Pepper." He smoothed his hand over her hip. He loved her ass. The shape of it. The way she swayed when she walked. "The next time I might just put you bare-ass naked over my knee and whale on you."
She turned in his arms, sliding her hands up his chest and then her mouth was on him. She poured fire and honey down his throat. Into his belly. Into his groin. Filling him with her. His cock was so full for her, so drunk on her, he feared he wouldn't last long once he was inside her furnace.
When she lifted her head, her eyes searched his. For the first time since the soldiers had attacked them, he could see the beginning of amusement there.
"Why is it I hear that note in your voice, Wyatt? The one that tells me you like the idea of me over your knee."
She crawled up on the bed, straight to the center.
"Widen your legs, baby, you know what I like." He kissed the small of her back and then wrapped his hand around the nape of her neck, pushing her head down to the mattress so her bottom was up eve
n higher. His hand reached between her legs, stroking and caressing, making certain she was ready for him.
"I'd better like the idea. You'd better like it as well. I have the feelin' you're goin' to be there a lot over the next few years. But babe, if you are across my knee bare-assed naked, it had better not be for tryin' to run off on me." He let a warning growl into his voice, meaning it.
"I won't do it again," she said in a low voice.
He plunged two fingers deep and she cried out. "You told me that before. You said you'd come to me, talk first." He smacked her bottom, once, twice, and felt the answering heat surrounding his fingers.
"You feel that, Pepper? All that heat running right where you need it? Scorchin' hot. You'll like it when you need to. I'll make certain of that."
"I won't do it again, Wyatt," she repeated, her voice shaking. "Please. I need you inside me."
He pushed his fingers deeper, drew them out and licked at the honey there, that secret, wonderful taste he never wanted another man to know. "No, you won', honey, because I'm not goin' to be so nice the next time. We've had this conversation before. You get scared, you come talk to me. I know you don' have that experience, but you know me now. You know I'm goin' to listen and then we're goin' to take care of the problem."
Her breathing had changed. Ragged little gasps were interspersed with those beautiful little sounds she made in the back of her throat.
"Tell me you understand that, Pepper. You understand you need to talk to me." He knelt up behind her. Close. He pressed the tip of his throbbing erection into her hot furnace. It took his breath away, but he refused to let her see it.
She pressed back into him. So hot. So needy. She never held anything back. She always wanted him. She would always want him. It would never matter the time of day, or what was going on around them, she would want his body just the way he wanted hers.
He rubbed her bottom. "So beautiful, baby. You're just so damned beautiful."
"Wyatt." Her voice was demanding now.
"I'm waitin' on you," he pointed out.
The breath hissed out of her. She turned her head and looked at him over her shoulder. "I understand and I'll talk to you, but not now."
"So demandin'." He took her hard. He took her fast, and he went so deep he might have actually made it to her throat. His hands settled around her hips and he pounded into her, telling her in no uncertain terms how much she meant to him. Telling her without words, knowing if there was one woman in the world who got it, it would be her. Still, she needed the words. His woman deserved them.
I'm in love with you, Pepper. I always will be.
She was there. In his mind. Filling him with her, just as he filled her body with him. He was damned glad he'd done a stupid thing and followed his brother into Whitney's demented program. And maybe, whether he liked it or not, he owed Whitney in a weird, roundabout way. None of it mattered to him except his woman and the fierce way she loved him back.
Cat's Lair
Keep reading for an excerpt from the next Leopard novel by Christine Feehan
Available May 2015
Catarina Benoit woke to screams. Terrible, frightening screams that echoed through her bedroom. Her heart pounded and sweat beaded on her body. Her long hair hung around her face in damp strands. She clapped a hand over her mouth to still the cries, her throat raw even as her eyes darted around the room. Searching. Always searching.
She searched the high places first - anywhere he could be crouched. Watching. Waiting to strike. She searched the windows. The glass was covered with bars, but she knew that wouldn't stop him if he found her. Nothing ever stopped him. He could get inside any house, any building. Anywhere. Rafe Cordeau, the thing of nightmares.
She was safe. She had to be. She lived completely off the grid. Underground. She only came out at night. Her one exception to her night rule was her hour of running just before sunset. She worked in a quiet part of town, in a store no one would ever consider she would work in. Rafe would never figure it out, not in a million years. He couldn't find her this time. She'd planned too carefully. She'd even stolen enough money to get herself a start. Right out of his safe. The one no one could crack. She'd done that. He wasn't going to get his hands on her again. Never again.
She fell back against the pillows, drawing her knees into her chest, making herself into a small, protected ball, rocking gently to try to calm herself, to push the terror of the nightmare away. She could taste bile in her mouth.
Drawing in great, deep breaths to try to control her wild heart, she felt something else, something inside unfurl and stretch. It terrified her too. There was something in her, biding its time, waiting for a chance to get out, and she feared it was a monster. She feared he'd put it there, he'd somehow made her like him.
She knew she wouldn't go back to sleep. Every window was covered with heavy drapes to block out the sun, but still, she would never be able to go back to sleep. She forced her legs to straighten. That hurt. Every muscle was sore from the terrible coiling in her body. She knew from experience it would be like that all day, her body feeling as if someone had beaten her up with a baseball bat.
She sat up and scooted to the side of the bed, first, as she always did, feeling for the gun hidden beneath her pillow. The solid weight of it always made her feel better. She worked out, trained hard, even when she knew she still wouldn't have a chance against him if he found her. Even so, she lived her life. Held herself still. Kept to herself. Reduced his odds.
She took a shower in the small cubicle. It was a rigged hose with a spray nozzle over the top of a tiny booth with a drain. It didn't matter. She was safe. She lived in a warehouse and not in her car. Mostly the warehouse was empty, but her martial arts instructor owned the property and he'd allowed her to rent the space when he realized she was living out of her car. He had barred the windows for her. She had put in the double locks herself.
She had done everything necessary to make herself safe, but then she'd made a vow. She would be happy every single second she was living free and alive. She wouldn't hide in the warehouse, shut away from the world; she would live. She'd be smart and careful about it, but this time she wouldn't be a mouse hiding. It hadn't done her much good the last time, and she'd wasted that little bit of freedom she'd had. The price definitely hadn't been worth it then. She was going to make certain it was this time.
Catarina pressed her fingers hard against her temples, unwilling to revisit the moment when he'd last found her and his terrible punishment. Her entire body shuddered. She'd paid dearly, but that had only made her all the more determined to escape permanently. She'd been terrified, and he thought that terror would work to his advantage. She let him think that and then she'd escaped again.
Her life had really started with her martial arts instructor. Malcom Hardy was in his late sixties, and from the moment she'd entered his class, he'd seemed to know something was wrong. He didn't exactly ask questions, but somehow he found out she was living out of her car and he casually mentioned his empty warehouse. That had been the start of their strange friendship.
Catarina had never had a friendship with anyone before, and at first she was distrustful of his motives. It had taken Malcom months to gain her trust enough that she stayed and had a few words privately with him after each class. She hadn't told him her past, only that she was looking for a job and needed a safe home. She'd used the word safe in the hope that he would understand without an explanation - and he had.
When she'd escaped, she hadn't taken tons of money from the safe because she didn't want Rafe to have more reason to come after her if by chance he'd given up on her. That meant she didn't have a lot of money. It also meant that if he had given up on her, he'd send his kill squad after her. Either way she wasn't safe and she needed to be very careful with her money.
Malcom slowly won her over with his many simple kindnesses. He casually dropped by to put the bars on the windows when she'd mentioned she was a little nervous. He'd also been the on
e to find her the job after she told him what her dream job would be.
Catarina loved her job. The coffeehouse-slash-bookstore was old, the kind where poets and writers came and read their work every Friday. It was a throwback world that suited her. Books were everywhere, and people gathered to talk and read and show off their work. She liked that the place was a tribute to a bygone era and the regulars who occupied it were loyal and definitely different.
She made certain never to stand out. She dressed in loose-fitting jeans. A loose-fitting shirt. Her hair had always grown thick and fast and got worse the more she cut it. She'd given up on short hair, so she pulled it back in a ponytail or braid and often wore hats. Since everyone who came to the coffeehouse wore berets or felt hats, she wasn't out of place. Most wore sunglasses, even at night as well, so she did that too, hiding her unusually colored cobalt eyes.
The coffeehouse stayed open nearly twenty-four hours, and she had the shift that ran from seven in the evening until three in the morning, when she closed the shop. They got a large influx of people looking to wind down from drinking, dancing and clubbing at the bars that closed at two. She wasn't fond of that particular crowd, but she'd grown used to it.
She spent an hour on working the heavy bag Malcom had hung for her and another hour doing sit-ups and crunches and push-ups. She dressed in baggy sweats and went running. That killed another hour and put her to sunset. Another shower and she headed for the coffeehouse.
She tried hard not to allow her heart to do a little stutter, wondering if the new instructor Malcom had hired would drop by again. She liked looking at him. He was a bonus at the dojo as well as the coffeehouse. She'd never found herself looking at a man before - she'd never dared to. But he was special. Everything about him was special.
He'd been at the dojo a month and she'd watched him with the same distrust she had for anyone new who came into her world. He was absolutely the most beautiful man she'd ever seen in her life. He was brutal when he fought, and yet at the same time, graceful and fluid. Sheer poetry. He was light on his feet, very fast, so smooth. He was always, always utterly calm. She couldn't imagine him ruffled over anything. He embodied the world of martial arts - he lived that way, not just in the dojo but out of it.