“Darling Eve, if I thought there’d been anything, on your part, going on here, he wouldn’t have left breathing.” There was no change in his expression as his hand snaked out and knocked the weapon from hers. “Yet you stood between us.”
“To try to avoid this.” She threw out her arms. “This testosterone explosion. Damn it, you wrecked my place and assaulted an officer, and over nothing. Over my having a professional disagreement with a colleague.”
“A colleague who was once a lover, and what I walked in on was personal.”
“Okay, all right, maybe. But that’s no excuse. If I jumped every one of your old lovers, I’d be bashing every female face in New York and the known universe.”
“That’s entirely different.”
“Why?” She had him now, she thought with satisfaction. “Why is it different for you?”
“Because I don’t invite those former lovers into my home and let them put their hands on me.”
“It wasn’t like that. It was—”
“And because.” He fisted a hand at the front of her shirt, hauling her up until she was forced to her toes. “You’re mine.”
Her eyes all but bulged out of her head. “What? What? Like property? Like one of your damn hotels?”
“Aye. If you like.”
“I don’t like. Not one damn bit.” She shoved at his hand, twisted, and only succeeded in ripping
the shoulder seam of her shirt. Alarm bells went off in her head even as she tried to break his hold with another counter maneuver. She ended up with her back pressed into him and her arms pinned.
“You’ve crossed a number of lines in a short time, Lieutenant.” His voice was warm against her ear. Warm and dangerous. Erotic. “Do you think I’m a man who’ll go meekly about your bidding? Do you think loving you has taken my teeth?”
As if to prove otherwise, he sank them lightly in her throat.
She couldn’t think, not with the red haze covering her brain. She quite simply couldn’t get her breath. “Let go of me. I’m too mad to deal with you tonight.”
“No, you’re not mad.” He whipped her around again, slammed her back to the wall, and yanked her arms over her head. And his face, the face of a condemned angel, was close to hers. “Intrigued is what you are, and reluctantly aroused. Your pulse is pounding, and you tremble. Some of it’s fear, just a touch of it to add an edge.”
He was right. She could have damned him for it, but need was crawling through her like savage little ants.
“You’re hurting me. Let go of my hands.”
“No, I’m not, but perhaps I’ve been too careful, too often, not to hurt you. Have you forgotten what you took on with me, Eve?”
“No.” Her eyes skimmed down to his mouth. God help her, she wanted it on her.
“You’re mine, and you’ll say it before we’re done tonight.” He reached out with his free hand and ripped her shirt down the center. “And now I’ll have what’s mine.”
She resisted, but that was pride, and pride was weaker than lust. She twisted her body, hooking a foot behind his in an attempt to overbalance him. He merely shifted his weight into the move and took her down with him.
The shock of the fall knocked the breath out of her, but her knee came up, an automatic jerk of defense. He rolled away from it, still gripping her hands. Pinned her. She bucked, swore at him, whipping her head to the side as his mouth came down.
He settled for her throat. Savaged it, and sent the pulse beneath his teeth and lips bounding.
He might have stopped himself. The civilized veneer he’d coated over himself was hard set and hard won. But the beast inside him had been teased to raging. He wanted it loose. And the scent of her, of his mate, was humming in his blood.
She was strong. He’d pit his strength and his will against hers before, but always with a sense of fair play underneath. Not this time, was all he could think.
Not this time.
He clamped a hand over her breast, found the skin hot and damp. She made some sound between a snarl and a moan, and when he crushed his mouth to hers, she bit.
The quick flash of pain only appealed to the primal lust surging inside him. When he lifted his head, his eyes were wild and fierce. “Liomsa.”