He reached out and covered her hand. She hadn't realized she'd been rubbing her palm up and down her thigh. At his touch the burning between her legs grew hotter and she snatched her hand away. The Jeep's interior didn't allow her to shrink away from Wyatt's warmth. He was everywhere, surrounding her with his scent, his masculine hunger beating at her every bit as strong as her own.
"I think you should drop those shields right now, Pepper. It's just the two of us. You and me. You know where this is goin'. So do I. I want to be inside you. I dream of bein' inside you and I know you dream of havin' me there. I want to feel your body wrapped around mine. I want to taste every inch of you. It's goin' to happen and both of us know it. There's no need to hide from me. Be as sexy as you like. Seduce me. I'm a grown-up, babe, and I can handle a woman. I can give you whatever you need."
He was killing her. He didn't understand what they'd done to her. The heat and fire inside that burned and burned until she thought she'd go insane. If she dropped her guard, as connected as they were, and he saw the erotic images in her head, saw her cravings and her terrible need for him - for him - she would be lost. He would always be able to control and manipulate her. She wouldn't be the weapon, he would be.
Desperate, she actually touched the door handle, thinking she might try to escape. There was no escape from her body's demands. None. She couldn't quiet the terrible hunger crawling through her veins, centering between her legs like a torch. Her mouth craved to wrap itself around his heavy erection every single time she saw it - which was hourly. He always seemed to be as hard as a rock.
She couldn't think with wanting him. She couldn't sleep. Her skin was hot and her breasts ached. She needed him... She just plain needed.
Wyatt swore in Cajun French, a bastardized version of the French she knew. "That's it, Pepper. That's all the time you've got. I was goin' to do this the right way, courtin' you like you deserve, showin' you we could be a normal couple, but I underestimated what they did to you. The hell they gave to you. Needin' sex is damned uncomfortable, and no woman of mine is goin' to suffer when I can do somethin' about it."
Pepper just looked at him, feeling despair. She was fairly certain other men didn't contend with the mother of their children needing sex the way she needed it. She was suffering. It was agony. She'd had a handle on it until she met Wyatt; now she couldn't think of anything else.
Wyatt turned off the main road onto an adjacent road, much narrower, one that ran along the river for a distance and then veered away from it for a while.
"Pepper, take it down. The shield. Let it go. Give yourself to me."
Her gaze dropped to the front of his jeans. His fierce, thick bulge. She licked her lips. Her mouth watered. The fire grew between her legs. It hurt to have her clothes on. Did she dare do what he asked? Reveal the dark side of herself to him? What would he think of her then?
"Damn it, babe. Open your blouse for me. Unbutton all those cute buttons. The moment you put the damn thing on, all I wanted to do was unwrap you."
His eyes cut sideways toward her, his gaze so hot she felt her stomach somersault. Hot liquid spilled between her legs. Fine. There was no saving either of them and right then she didn't care. The Jeep was hurtling through the swamp now on some old dirt road. He knew where he was going and he wanted to get them there fast. She hoped it would be fast enough.
Very slowly her hands went to the top button of the blouse Nonny had found for her. She might never get this chance again. She'd never been with a man who mattered, one she wanted, one who wasn't training her. Aside from whatever made her outwardly tempting to men when she walked into a place, she was skilled and knew how to please a man, how to bind him to her. Never once had she ever wanted to use her craft. She hated it. Despised it. Until that moment. Her one chance.
There was Wyatt. A man who knew how to love. A man of family. A man who could take command of a situation, lethal one moment and gentle and loving toward a child the next. That man. Her man. She knew him better than he knew himself. He wanted her giving herself to him, but he was holding a part of himself in reserve. That was okay too. She recognized that this one time might be the only time, but she was going to let herself enjoy every single second with him. And she was going to make certain he was going to enjoy it too, that he'd never regret being with her.
She wanted to touch him. To feel his skin beneath her fingers. She was very tactile, and needed touch. Craved it. But only from him. Wyatt. She had no idea if the nightly erotic dreams had fed her hunger for him, and she didn't know if they were her dreams or his, only that she couldn't stop thinking about him.
"There's no one else on this road, Pepper. We're headin' to the camp. Got a huntin' cabin there." His dark eyes moved over her, hooded, sensual, desire intense. "Keep opening the buttons, sugar. You're makin' me crazy goin' so slow like that."
Wyatt was lean, all compact, very defined muscle with just enough bulk to him to look as if he could handle himself with ease. He was all man and she wanted him so badly it actually terrified her. Her hands trembled as she slid the last button out of its closure. His voice was nearly a growl, but a sultry, sexy one. She found herself shivering in anticipation.
Wyatt pulled the Jeep onto a narrow bumpy trail. He couldn't exactly call it a road, but he knew it like the back of his hand. Since he'd been a child, once he'd been somewhere, the twists and turns could never throw him off. He remembered everything.
Plants grew over the faint tire treads left behind in the mud. Great sweeping fans of moss fluttered around the Jeep as he drove through the cypress grove toward the hunting cabin. He glanced at Pepper again. Her blouse was open, but she hadn't parted the edges - and her hands trembled. She twisted her fingers together in agitation. His little seductress was actually nervous.
"Baby," he said gently. There was no way to keep the growl from his voice. He wasn't going to lie to her. He wanted her with a vengeance, and he damned well was going to have her. They'd programmed her to need sex on purpose, mostly, he was certain, to gain her cooperation, but they hadn't counted on her strength to defy them. She was still shielding him, still afraid to allow him to see the real her.
"Look at me, Pepper." He reached over and pried her fingers loose so he could curl her palm around the broad width of his cock. "You put that there and you weren't even tryin'. You did that. Not an enhancement. Not some fleeting physical attraction. I'm hard as a rock and I need you. You. Not some other woman."
She shook her head, a low moan slipping out of her throat. He had the urge to stop the Jeep and lick her throat, to take her moan in his mouth.
"This could ruin everything. You don't understand what my life is like," she whispered, refusing to give him her eyes.
"Why? Because you want me too? You may wake up every morning needin' sex, babe, but here's a newsflash: so do I."
"It isn't the same. You have no idea."
She sounded a little desperate. He didn't care anymore. He'd had enough of seeing her suffer. He'd had enough of suffering himself. She was his woman whether she knew it or not. Her fear was that she would tie him to her with sex and that's what they'd have and only that. He knew better. Their bond was complicated, and intensely sexual, but it wasn't all about sex.
He pulled the Jeep into the small overgrown pad for parking on the right side of the cabin and yanked on the brake. He was ending this right now. She was afraid to move, one way or the other. She was holding herself very still because she didn't know what to do.
Wyatt leapt out of the Jeep, went around to her door and jerked it open, reaching over her lap, his shoulder brushing soft skin, over her soft breasts as he unsnapped her seat belt. The small little touch sent electrical shocks through his body, straight to his groin.
"I can' bring two more men into the house until we're settled, Pepper. Until you belong to me all the way. Until you know for certain that you do." His fingers curled around her arm and he pulled her out of the Jeep, up tight against his body. "I'm not killin' a friend bec
ause you can' make up your mind."
"I don't want this. I don't want to be like this." Pepper shook her head again, desperation filling her. He was too close. Too hot. His body so tight against hers she felt like she was melting into him. But if she let go, if they had sex together, for the rest of her life, that's all she'd ever be to him.
Despair mixed with her rising temper. He didn't know the first thing about what he was getting himself into. "I don't want you killing a friend or anyone else over me. That's what I'm trying to protect you from. You're so arrogant, Wyatt. You don't think I know what's going to happen? Having sex with me isn't going to make it better. It's going to make it worse. That craving will never stop. Never. You'll wake up with it. You'll go to bed with it. You'll be at work with it. You'll make yourself crazy wondering who I'm with, what I'm doing. Worse, you'll be suspicious of your friends and the males in your family. The women won't accept me around their husbands."
"You can tone it down."
"I can't," she burst out, hating the tears filling her eyes. She didn't even have the painkillers to blame this time. She tried again to step away from him, but his strength defeated her. She looked up at him, desperate to save him, willing him to understand. "I can't." That came out in a whisper, and God help them both, her control was already slipping away.
Wyatt stared down into her eyes. More purple than blue or black, with tears shimmering, with the strange starburst moving through the dark color, he saw far more than she would ever want him to. She needed him. She wanted him. There was paradise waiting. There was also hell. She was showing that to him. Both.