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“I clean up fine?” She rolled her eyes, fighting the arousal as she watched the slow amusement dawn in his eyes. “You are a nutcase. Has anyone mentioned that to you?”
He shrugged powerful muscles. “I think that wa
s Simon’s line the night I caught him trying to break into the bar I worked as bouncer for. He wanted to blow the place up. It was my bread-and-butter at the time so I took exception. ”
“A bouncer?” Oh, her father was going to love this one, but suddenly, it made him seem more real, less of a puppet.
“Yep. Bouncer in a rough-assed brothel/bar called the Raging Lilly just inside this dirty little French town. Filled with terrorists, low-lifes and pond scum. He was itching to blow it to hell and back. Took me a few minutes to convince him of the error of his ways. ”
“Simon is the guy who drove the jeep?” She fought to concentrate as he handed her a glass of chilled water.
“Drink that. Dehydration is a problem sometimes with these damned matings I was told. And yes, Simon was driving the jeep. ”
She drank the water, but it did nothing to stem the fever running rampant through her body.
“So, how did you become friends of the Feline Breeds? The last reports I heard, Coyotes were the most feared Breed. ”
“Not the most feared, the most hated. ” He shrugged. “Somehow, Simon must have figured out what I was. My best guess is he got a glimpse of that birthmark low on my back. It’s a genetic marker of some sort. He was friends with Sinclair, and when he learned the significance of it, he and Sinclair dragged me out of my life of disuse and into this. I’ll have to thank him for that. Again. ”
There was a wry amusement in his gaze. He had a way of making her want to laugh, even when she wanted to hit him with something.
“Kiowa. ” She licked her dry lips nervously, shaking in the grip of a need so powerful, she knew she was lost to it as he watched her closely. “Please. ”
He sat his glass then hers on the coffee table, before he moved behind her, his body heat surrounding her.
“Please what, Manda?” he whispered at her ear, his breath wafting over the wound at her neck. “What do you need?”
“You. ” Stark, blinding, she didn’t bother to lie or to deny it to herself any longer. “I need you. ”
Not conversation, not explanations. His kiss, his touch, the blinding release she knew she was going to find no place but in his arms.
Chapter Sixteen
Before she could do more than gasp, Kiowa lifted her in his arms, his lips coming down on hers, his tongue pushing demandingly into her mouth as he carried her to the bedroom. She wasn’t certain how he got the gown off, and she didn’t really care. All she cared about was the touch of him, the heat of his body, and the need coursing through her blood. His lips were on hers, his tongue sharing the intriguing, addictive taste of honey and spice, as he laid her on the bed and came down over her. He was as naked as she. She promised herself that next time, she would figure out how he managed to undress both of them so quickly.
“Don’t rush this,” he growled as she rubbed against him, stroking her nipples across his chest and gasping at the pleasure of it.
“Me?” she groaned in response. “I’m not the one who has some kind of freaky aphrodisiac pouring out of me. That’s your fault. ”
He grunted at that, a distinctly male sound of frustration that had a smile tugging at her lips. But his eyes crinkled with hidden laughter as he levered himself up to stare down at her, the black centers, despite their heat, soft with tenderness.
“I watched you a week before the kidnapping attempt,” he whispered as his hand cupped her cheek. “I followed you to school every morning, I followed you home every evening. If you went out, I was on your ass until you arrived at your destination and back on it until you got home. For a week, I listened to you laugh with your neighbors and coo over their children. And each time I saw you, the need for you grew inside me. No aphrodisiac. Not mating complications. Just a man slowly falling in love with a woman he had no right to. ”
Her hands tightened on his shoulders as she stared back at him in shock.
“Last night, watching you give those treats out to the kids that came to your door, I was so hard I was about to bust my jeans. I could see so much life in you, so much wonder and joy, that I wanted to snatch you away myself and relish every drop of it. Mating you is no hardship for me, Amanda. But I would have never done this to you, had I known what that kiss would do. ”
And there was the man. No anger, no regret, simply stating no more than the truth as he saw it. It shouldn’t make her heart ache. It shouldn’t make her wish for things she knew couldn’t be real. She swallowed the lump that came to her throat and pushed back the tears that would have filled her eyes as her hand moved from his shoulder, her fingers smoothing over his rough velvet lips.
“I’m supposed to be resisting you,” she whispered huskily. “You aren’t supposed to be the answer to all my sexual fantasies and make my heart ache at the same time, Kiowa. ”
His brow arched slowly. “The answer to all your sexual fantasies?” he asked, the forced playfulness in his voice rending her soul.
He was so strong. Too strong. There were no regrets for who or what he was, no apologies or condemnations for the past. And she couldn’t love him, she told herself. She wanted to be a teacher, she wanted her freedom, her independence, didn’t she?
“All my sexual fantasies,” she finally answered, her voice tight with unshed tears as her body responded to the touch of his.
Her hand slid into his hair, her fingertips luxuriating in the cool black silk as his head lowered to hers once again. His tongue painted her lips with a whisper stroke, causing a broken sigh of hunger to escape them.
