Her hand slashed up, the flat of her palm held out to him so decisively that he simply shut up. Hell, his mother used that signal for complete silence. It was almost impossible to disobey.

“This has nothing to do with the attack and everything to do with something you wouldn’t know if it slapped you right upside the face,” she informed him, the haughtiness in her voice having what he imagined was the completely opposite effect of what she was going for.

Because he wasn’t in the least chided. Hell now, his dick was straight up, as hard as iron, and throbbing with a force he’d never experienced before.

The need to possess her, to have her, to stoke that wild, brilliant light in those dark gray eyes was suddenly almost impossible to resist.

This effect she had on him was only growing stronger with no peak in sight. Each day, each hour, each moment he was with her, and he only wanted her more.

“I’d know a lot of things without being slapped upside the face with it, lollipop.”

Sierra caught the rakish sound of his voice, the carnal glimmer of hunger in those wild violet-blue eyes, and felt the defiance brewing inside her rising.

It had something to do with his complete arrogance. Never had John shown this side of himself so clearly. It was normally subtle, normally less blatant. Normally less challenging.

Now, it seemed to fill the entire room, making it hard to breathe, hard to think of anything but the man, the hunger, and the need to claim him.

She was sure he thought he was claiming her. There was a male superiority about him that had the potential to set her teeth on edge.

“And what do you think you know?” she snapped back. “Trust me, John, when it comes to me, there’s so little you know that it’s not even funny.”

“I know you love me. I know you’ve loved me most of your life and you’ll always love me. That I know for a fact.”

Sierra froze. She could feel something crashing inside her, cracking through her heart. He knew that, and yet, he’d left her?

“How long have you known?” Her breath stilled in her chest. There didn’t seem to be enough oxygen left in the room to fill her lungs.

“Hell.” He breathed out roughly as he stared back at her, his fingers plowing through the overly long strands of his hair. “This isn’t where I meant this to go, Sierra. This is my fucking fault, and I’m sorry as hell.”

She shook her head. “I don’t want your apology. You didn’t tell Marlena to make that decision and you didn’t ask her to screw around on you. I want to know how long you’ve known that I’m in love with you.”

She had loved him all her life; that was no less than the truth. He was her first love, and no matter how this worked out, no doubt John would be her only love. He would be an incredibly hard act to follow for any man.

His gaze seemed to sharpen before he shook his head again. “I knew the first night you were here and you gave yourself to me, despite the bruises, despite being attacked. I know you, Sierra, you wouldn’t have done that without a trust that goes with love.”

“According to you, I’ll fuck anything in pants anyway,” she burst out. “How did that tell you any damned thing?”

Fury flashed through John. Stalking to her, he caught her upper arms, jerked her to him, and glared into the challenge of her furious gray eyes.

“I’ve never said that,” he gritted out between teeth clenched in fury. “I never suggested anything so vile of you, Sierra.”

“You may as well,” she cried back. “You believed every man who ever claimed to have been in my bed. As far as I’m concerned, you may as well call me a whore outright.”

“Sierra, you all but lived with those three men.” He was going to pull his own hair out as soon as he fucked the defiance out of her tempting little body. “And what the hell does it matter if you did? Do you think I hold it against you?”

She tried to jerk out of his grip. Not fucking happening. He’d been damned if he was going to let her roll right over him this time. Her temper had always infuriated him even as it fascinated him, but this time, she wasn’t even coming close to winning this argument.

“Do I think you what?” She was incensed and completely gorgeous. “You really think I’d give a damn if you did? No, jack-ass, my problem is the fact that I didn’t sleep with them.”

The words were out of her mouth before Sierra could stop them or call them back, causing her to follow up with a quick, “I had better taste in men.”

His brows lifted. That look on his face was completely irritating.

“Baby, I really don’t care who you slept with before me.” Pulling her closer, he glared down at her in determination. “Who you sleep with now is all that matters to me.”

How the hell had she managed to turn this around? Where had it gone so impossibly crazy?

Sierra, John admitted. She made him crazy. So crazy that rather than arguing with her further, he decided that the best way to convince her exactly how possessive he could be was to show her.

His lips covered hers as his head bent, his arms surrounding her and pulling her closer against his harder, broader form. God, she felt like living silk and satin against him. Like the most perfect bit of passion he had ever had in his arms.

Sweetly curved lips parted beneath his, a temptress’s tongue licked at his, drawing him inside the heat of her mouth, daring him to possess her.

She made him feel alive. Even more than the mountains around him, she filled him with that extra something his soul hungered for. That sense of peace he had never truly known until he had her in his arms.

Just as he had never known the true measure of his own sexual and emotional hunger for her until now. She was a perfect fit for his life, against his body, in his bed.

She wasn’t timid. He would run right over a timid woman. She was fiery, passionate, and she was his. She could say what she wanted, she could think what she wanted, she belonged to him, and John intended to claim each and every ounce of the hunger he could feel inside her.

“Feel this,” he snarled as his head lifted. “What I’ve fought for as long as you’ve been an adult, Sierra. Feel what I fought without knowing what the hunger inside my own fucking soul actually was. Do you think I’d ever, for so much as a second, question anything or any man that came before me?”

Her fingers clenched in his hair as some ragged emotion tore through her gaze. “Feel me, John, and see if I give a damn.”

She jerked his head down, her tongue licked over his lips, and the challenge coupled with the lust, the emotion, and the pure fiery heat consumed him.

It consumed them both.

TEN

She definitely gave a damn.

Anger, hurt, and determination rose inside her like a chaotic storm she had no chance of holding back.

A part of her wondered if she could blame him for his perceptions, while another part yelled, “Hell, yes,” she could blame him. He had taken her virginity. He had been the first and he had been too damned drunk to remember it.

He remembered everything but that, and perhaps that was what pissed her off. That anger only seemed to feed the hunger, though. There was something about being touched by John that was unlike any other sensation she knew, any sensation she had ever imagined before him.

She’d experimented before, but no kiss had ever been like this. Long and devouring, lips and tongues meeting, mating, starving for more touch, for more taste.

She should have more pride, she told herself.

Another part argued, what did pride have to do with this pleasure?

Arching into his arms, her arms twined around his neck, her fingers pushing into his hair to hold on tight as he swept her from her feet and moved quickly to the bed with her.

Her back met the mattress as he came over her, his fingers hooking in the band of her light pants and pulling them from her hips, pushing them down her legs as she pushed her sandals from her feet.

Her own hands were busy. Pushing his T-shirt to his shoulders, he jerked back from their kiss long enough to strip it and her own shirt from their bodies before he was kissing her once again.

His kisses were wild.

She loved them.

Running her hands along his upper back, the feel of his muscles flexing beneath her palms sent a shaft of pure heat racing to her womb, to her pussy.

Her thighs tightened on the heavy leg insinuated between hers, her hips lifting, falling, pressing into the hard muscle as it caressed the flaming bud of her clit through the silk of her panties.

“You always make me feel as though I’m burning alive.” She couldn’t hold the words back as his lips parted from hers, moving along her jawline with stinging little kisses as she writhed in pleasure, rubbing her nipples against his harder chest.

“God, Sierra.” He paused above her, his gaze locking with hers. “You’re like a flame yourself. So fucking hot and sweet.”

Her neck arched for his lips before her head turned, her lips moving to his shoulder, nipping at the hard flesh as she fought to taste just as much of him as he touched of her.

She could feel the complete hunger brewing inside him, feel the tension tightening his muscles as it burned through her.

Before she could do more than gasp, he was rising, coming to his knees as he straddled her waist, his cock sliding between her breasts as he pushed them together to create a snug enclosure for the raging, burning flesh.

Sierra’s head lowered. Tucking her chin against her chest, she covered the very tip with her lips, licking at it with her tongue.

She hadn’t expected this. She knew he was wild sexually; if he had heard lies about her, then she had heard nothing less than blow-by-blow dissections of his sexual exploits from the lovers he had left behind. As though they thought by telling her, they could somehow make themselves feel better that they had lost him.

“Damn, your pretty lips.” He pressed her breasts farther together, slid the head of his cock deeper between her lips, and groaned as she sucked it firmly.

The taste of him was like cinnamon and a mountain breeze. The slight salty male taste of pre-come met her lips. The essence of him exploded against her tongue, filled her senses, and amped the raging hunger higher than before.

“How fucking pretty,” he groaned. “Do you know what it does to me, Sierra, to see those pretty lips wrapped around my dick?”

She knew what the feel of it was doing to her. Sensuality, sexuality steamed around her, through her, until she felt as though she were burning alive.

His hips moved, the feel of his cock tunneling between her breasts, the head fucking into her mouth, and she could feel her juices flowing freely between her thighs.

The turn-on value was out the roof. Sierra’s stomach clenched tight as her tongue stroked over the tip of his cock, her lips parting over the wide head. She was starving for the taste of him, dying for the touch of him.

“Sierra, sweet baby.” He pulled back before she could stop him, her back rising from the bed as she fought to taste him once again.

Moving down her body again, his lips went to her nipples, sucking them into his mouth, tonguing them, drawing at the tight, hardened buds and exciting the already sensitive nerve endings.

She needed this. She needed him.

His lips moved lower, calloused palms pushing her thighs apart as his tongue swiped through the narrow slit of her pussy. Electricity sizzled through her body. Pleasure raced through every nerve ending until she arched against his mouth, fighting for more sensation, for more touch.

“I want your tongue,” she moaned. “Inside me, John. I want your tongue inside me.”

She wanted it all. She wanted every touch.

“John!” She cried out his name, her fists clenching in the sheets beneath her body as his tongue drove inside her.

Once buried in the sensitive channel of her pussy, he licked, slowly. His tongue flickered against tissue so sensitive it was nearly painful as she arched her hips, trying to drive his tongue deeper.