“And risked having it changed? Risked something going wrong or the timetable moving up?” She yelled back, frowning as arousal began to pound inside her with the same force as her anger. “I couldn’t risk his life or anyone else’s because of my stupid need to be touched by you.”

She snapped her teeth shut with those last words, whirling around as she held the sheet close to her body and strained to hear something in the silence behind her.

“I made that mistake once,” she finally whispered. “I needed. Needed to be held. Needed to be loved. I needed—and because I needed, my child died. I wasn’t about to risk someone else’s child because of that need.”

She turned back to him slowly, meeting the predatory gaze that seemed sharper, more savage than before as she continued. “I was going to tell you before you left earlier, but you didn’t want to listen. You didn’t want to hear any more than you wanted to admit that I belonged to you. You gave me to another man.”

And that sliced deep. It hurt in ways she was still reeling from.

“I came back,” he bit out harshly.

“You were willing to give me to another man.”

“To save your damned life I would give my own soul away.” The fury was free once again.

Tanner stalked across the room, jerking her to him before she could avoid him, pulling her against his chest, the erection beneath his jeans pressing hard into her abdomen as he glowered down at her.

“I risked everything to bring you here. To hold you. To find a way to save your life, and you were working with Jonas all along,” he snarled.

“I tried to tell you I would be safe,” she protested against the anger she could see glittering in his eyes. “I tried to do what was right, Tanner. Just what was right. That was all I was trying to do.”

“What was right, Scheme, was trusting me,” he retorted. “But trust wasn’t something you could give me, was it? Just this. This is all you were willing to give.”

On the heels of those words, one hand tangled in her hair to pull her head back, and a second later, the taste of spicy passion and dark lust filled her senses.

His kiss.

Her senses ignited instantly.

Tanner’s lips were on hers as he backed her against the wall, soft, stroking, his tongue caressing over the parted seam of her lips as she fought the whimper of need building in her throat.

This had defeated her. This need, whatever it was, shook her to the core and left her desperate for more. She should protest, but she couldn’t risk losing it, not yet, not until the hunger had been fulfilled, until the need eased.

Her arms stole around his neck, crossing, holding him close as his tongue parted her lips and slid against her own. She had to hold him to her.

Spicy heat exploded in her mouth; sweet temptation swept through her senses.

She needed him.

“You are mine,” he snarled against her lips as she whimpered into the kiss, desperate to get closer. “Damn you for not trusting me. Damn you!”

She could feel his anger, but she could also feel his need. The same need that tormented her, burned her, that kept her in his arms despite her need to explain.

He lifted her against him as he moved to the couch, holding her steady as he shrugged his shirt from his shoulders, then struggled with his jeans. All the while he made love to her with his lips and tongue, his groan vibrating into her mouth as she felt him, suddenly naked, his cock hard and hot against her stomach as his hands removed the sheet.

She had waited on this, she realized. All her life, growing more cynical by the day, harder, more disillusioned, certain it didn’t exist. Only to find it where she had expected to only find death.

“Don’t let me go,” she moaned against his kiss, feeling him sit on the couch, pulling her over him, her legs straddling his lap, the feel of his cock pressing against the tender folds of her sex.

“I’ll never let you go,” he promised, his teeth catching her lower lip as he stared into her eyes. “Now take me. Suck my tongue like your tight pussy sucks at my cock. Now.”

His tongue slid into her mouth as his cock slid deep inside her vagina. Her cry was lost in the wild, wicked taste of him. His tongue fucked into her mouth with the same hunger that he worked his cock inside her. Slow, deep, filling her, feeding the hunger ravaging her as she began to move above him.

Her arms tightened around his neck as his hand gripped her rear, parting the smooth cheeks, his fingers massaging the sensitive inner flesh. The calloused tips slid in the juices easing from where his erection filled her. He used it to ease the path of his fingers, working them slowly around the tight entrance to her rear.

With any other man, she would have been shrieking. She hadn’t allowed a man’s touch there since Chaz had brought another man to their bed. It was an act she had sworn she would never allow again. Now she craved it.

This was Tanner, just Tanner. His touch spread fire; his kiss was wicked sex; the movement of his hips between her thighs disintegrated control and thought.

He brought her nothing but pleasure. No man had ever brought her nothing but pleasure. None had ever stood between her and danger or had so much as thought to protect her.

Her breath hitched in her throat on a ragged cry as she sucked at his shuttling tongue, drawing more of the wild taste into her mouth.

Cabal had forced her to admit her love for Tanner, but Tanner had forced her to feel it. Despite all logic. Despite fear and suspicion.

Had she loved him even before she met him?

His lips slanted deeper over hers as his movements became harder, his thrusts driving his cock to the hilt, sending rapid, burning flares of pleasure to attack nerve endings never touched before.

“Don’t stop.” Her weak cry came as his lips lifted from hers, reminding her to breathe, to survive. She had to survive for this.

Her head tipped back on her shoulders as she felt his finger enter her ass. She shuddered, trembled. Sensations attacked her with near violent intensity as a long, low wail left her lips.

He was fucking her harder now, deeper, as though that small surrender had spurred his own lusts. She could hear his growls—he growled a lot—and feel the sweat gathering on the hard shoulders beneath her hands, and she gave herself to the orgasm suddenly exploding through her.

Tanner’s hoarse shout was barely recognizable, but the feel of that thickening beneath the head of his cock, the thick extension reaching out, locking inside her, spilling a heated warmth as his seed spurted inside her—that she understood.

She understood the sudden, secondary orgasm tearing through her, riding hard on the back of the first. She knew the blinding heat, the shaking, writhing motions of her own body, the need to milk every drop of semen from his cock, to cool the need raging inside her womb.

She even understood the tears this time as Tanner pulled her against his chest. She understood the emotions he had ripped free of her, the frightening realization that for the first time in years, she felt. Love. Hate. Hunger and need. They weren’t buried any longer. They were free, and they had the potential to destroy her.

“I love you,” Tanner whispered at her ear. “I loved you before I touched you, before I knew you. Know that, Scheme. Before I ever suspected your true worth, I still knew you were worthy.”

She shook her head wearily against his chest. He couldn’t have known. He couldn’t know now.

Scheme swallowed tightly, aware that he hadn’t shifted, hadn’t moved. His cock, still half-hard, was buried inside her.

“Father sedated me,” she whispered, forcing the words past her lips. “They drugged my drink. When I woke up, I was in a private clinic and he had taken my baby.”

The dark place inside her opened, the pain tearing through her, splitting through her soul. “They took my baby.”

His arms tightened around her as he held her head to his shoulder, his head bent over her, sheltering her.

“I was six weeks pregnant.” The tears fell then. “It was Chaz’s baby. But Father didn’t care, and neither did Chaz. At the time, he couldn’t afford having Chaz singled out in public. A known assassin marrying his daughter?” She nearly strangled on the bitter laughter. “And there wasn’t a chance his child was going to be a single mother.” Her fists clenched at his shoulders. “I didn’t know what they were doing.”

“Stop. God, Scheme. Please.” His voice was rough, ragged. “Do you think I don’t know that, sweetheart?”

She shook her head, the movements jerky. “I was going to leave when I found out about the baby. I begged Chaz to take us away. I didn’t know what he was. Who he was…”

“Scheme…”

“It was my fault.” She pulled back, staring up at him, years of regret and loss burning her soul to ashes. “Don’t you understand, it was my fault. If I had run when I saw how angry Cyrus was over the baby. If I hadn’t told Chaz…”

“Then he would have killed you both,” he sighed against her hair. “You’re alive. And when this is all over, you’ll have a chance at living. Hang on to that, Scheme. You’ll make him pay.”

Her head lifted as she stared into his eyes then. She would be free, but would she still have Tanner? That hard core of ice still glittered in his eyes; anger still sparked in the muted green flecks within the brilliant amber. She hadn’t trusted him and she should have. Would she now lose him? And if she did, would freedom really matter?

CHAPTER 23

CYRUS TALLANT’S ESTATE

PENNSYLVANIA

Cyrus stared out the windows of his office, his gaze roving over the well-manicured lawn, perfectly symmetrical trees and lush flower gardens. A soft dew had settled on the land overnight. Soon, it would be frost. Fall was moving in; the leaves were already turning, spreading their blazing color across the forests surrounding the estate and flashing their warning of the winter to come.

“Have you found her yet?” He clasped his hands behind his back, standing military erect as he watched the Coyote Breed who entered the office.

Dog. That was what he called him. Cyrus didn’t allow his Breeds to have identifying names; he had warned the Council of that decades before. Giving them even a small measure of humanity had resulted in the mess they were in now.

Breeds were breeding with pure-blooded humans, diluting God’s creations. Not that he was a particularly religious man, but he believed in pure blood. Blood would tell, he always said. Look at the world. The result of mixing pure blood and that tainted by poverty, criminal minds and diseased psyches.

“You haven’t answered me,” he reminded the Coyote softly, feeling a surge of disgust well inside him.

“We haven’t found her yet,” Dog answered. “She has to come to ground soon though. We’ll get her then.”

“What of the soldiers in Sandy Hook—have they learned anything there?”

“Nothing.” Dog shook his head. “The heli-jet flew into the area several hours ago though. There’s no report of why they were there.”

“I want her dead, Dog,” he reminded his pet calmly. “She can’t be allowed to talk. God only knows what the bitch would tell if she had the chance. Are you certain there are no files missing? No information accessed by her?”

“Nothing, sir,” Dog answered. “The files haven’t been accessed and nothing left with her. Mr. Bollen believes her escape was unplanned.”

John Bollen, Cyrus’s heir and second in command, was out in the field when he should be on the estate overseeing the various functions they funded with Council money. This had to get cleared up soon. John was needed here. There were too many plans to destroy the Breeds being left unattended.

Cyrus turned slowly, watching as Dog’s bearing became stiffer, more military than ever as Cyrus stared back at him.

“Breeds?” he sneered.