"Megan, you can't live like this." When he touched her, she flinched.

Despite the gentleness of his hands, the soft rumble of his voice, she could feel the sense of failure inside her. She had failed herself, and she was failing him. "I don't have a choice." She shook her head, attempting to pull away from him, to put some distance between them.

Didn't he know what his touch did to her? What it made her ache for? He could touch her and she wasn't seeing the deaths he had been part of, she wasn't feeling the brutality of his past or the violent anger she knew he felt toward the Coyotes. She felt the heat of his body, the calloused

warmth of his hands; she felt a hunger that she knew was her own and it terrified her. Because she knew, once he was gone, she would never have it again.

"We all have choices." The dark baritone was a caress itself as his other hand landed on her hip, holding her in place each time she attempted to move away from him."Stay still, Megan. You said you're calm when I'm near. That my emotions don't batter you; they don't bring you pain. Why?"

"I don't know." Her hands lay against his chest, and she knew she should be pushing him away. But she couldn't.

He warmed her, took away the cold and replaced it with heat. "And I don't need to be babied by you. Do you think I want to get used to it, Braden? That I want to let myself use someone else's defenses for my own?" Her fists clenched at the thought as she forced herself to push away from him, to leave the shelter he provided.

"God. I don't need you to protect me any more than I need my family doing it."

"What you need is your ass paddled for attempting to fight this alone." He growled, his frustration apparent in his voice.

"Keep threatening to paddle me, Braden, and I'm going to make you

regret it." Her eyes narrowed on him. This was the second threat.

"Or I'll make you enjoy it," he snapped back. "There are natural barriers to protect you from this, Megan. Why haven't you found them?"

"Do you think I haven't looked?’ Why did men always think it was just a matter of finding something?

"I've got a library of self-help books, Braden. I've watched every documentary and tried every fucking yin and yang psychological trick I can come up with. They don't work."

He was too calm now, too calculating.

"Did you suspect?" She felt tension fanning inside her as the suspicion began to grow in her mind.

"Of course I suspected." His eyes were narrowed on her as he crossed his arms over his chest. "I didn't realize how debilitating it was, but I suspected you possessed the gift. I watched you in that canyon, Megan. You knew before the Coyotes fired. You sensed the danger and the death before you ever stepped foot from that Raider. It was only logical to assume you were Empathic."

She blinked back at him in shock. "And you never said anything?"

"What was there to say?' He shrugged negligently, his eyes still

narrowed on her, his gaze considering. "All the signs were there."

"Is that why we've spent the day going over the murder scenes?" She kept her voice low, her fury contained. "You did it deliberately?"

His brow arched in challenge. "Of course. You have the ability to find the answers. I don't."

She breathed in roughly. "And now?"

"And now, we'll go back." His voice hardened. "We'll work on your shields when this is over. When you're safe. But now, you need the edge to stay alive. We'll go back and you will work at figuring it out."

"No." The snarl was one of fury, betrayal. He was fucking using her. "I'll be damned if I will. I can't figure it out, Braden. Do you think I haven't tried?"

"That's exactly what I think." His voice hardened. "I think you've grown so used to hiding that it's become automatic. That the trauma of the gift coming so late, the inability to produce an adequate barrier against it, has resulted in an ineffective barrier. The pain gets in, the emotions and the shock of the intensity of the violence throw up just enough of a shield to keep the truth out, while allowing the pain to build. We'll work on that, too."

She stared back at him in horror. "You're serious."

"Of course I'm serious." His expression was completely confident. "You can't afford to hide, Megan. These gifts_"

"It's a curse. At least call it what it is," she snapped out furiously. "And I'll be damned if I'll go back to the murder scene. There's nothing there. I tried."

"You didn't try. You hid. No more hiding."

Incredulity filled her.

"Fuck you!" She snarled.

"We'll get around to that, too." His answer had her gasping for breath, grasping for control. If she had had a gun in her hand she would have shot him.

"You used me," she threw back at him, becoming more enraged by the second. "The trips to the crime scenes, the tender little touches, the flirting. You've been using me. Nothing more."

"Don't kid yourself, cupcake." He snorted, a derisive little smile curling his lips as his gaze raked over her heaving breasts. "My dick's so hard

and ready to show you otherwise that I wouldn't advise pushing this little boundary if I were you." The growl in his voice impaled her and sent lightning whipping over her nerve endings, tightening her clit. Arousal and lust, pulsing, red-hot and destructive, seared her womb.

Her juices gathered, flowed, moistening the outer lips, preparing her as the rage and lust seemed to feed from one to the other until every cell in her body and overly sensitive mind began to sizzle.

"You'll show me nothing," she cried out raggedly, betrayal slicing at her chest at the realization that while she was fighting to survive, he was determined to destroy her by making her experience the nightmares awaiting her in that gully. "You will pack up now and get the hell out of my house." She drew herself upright sharply. "I'd rather face the Coyotes than deal with your lies."

"My lies?' He stepped closer, stalking her, his head lowered. His leonine mane flowed around the savage features of his face as the golden eyes glittered warningly. "I told no lies, Megan. I held nothing back. I've asked you for the truth for days, and you have lied."

"I didn't know anything. I don't know anything."

"And you don't want to know." Before she could stop him, before she could run, his arm snaked around her back, jerking her to him as his head lowered farther, his gaze locking with hers. "Well, baby, you might

be able to hide from the rest but I'll be damned if I'll let you hide from this any longer."

His intent was instantly apparent. Megan's eyes widened, her fingers forming fists as she pressed against his wide shoulders, her feet fighting to find traction to jerk away from him. To escape the inescapable as his lips covered hers.

Time stood still. Nothing existed; nothing moved or breathed except Braden. His parted lips stole her breath.

His tongue pushed past hers, sinking into the surprised depths of her mouth as a sudden taste of spice and heat exploded against her taste buds. The dark, rich taste had her lips moving, clasping the intruder as he licked, stroked. She met his tongue with her own, dancing around it as she attempted to draw more of the blistering taste into her mouth.

She had to fill herself with it, sate her senses with its unique heat as she fought to define the exact taste whipping through her mouth. There was no description. It was lightning and a summer storm. It was cinnamon and saffron, honey and sugar. And it was accompanied by the most incredibly pleasurable kiss she could have imagined.

As usual, Braden asked for nothing. He swept in and conquered. Claimed. She could feel the claiming in the hard hands that pulled her closer to his body, in the length of the erection pressing against her lower stomach, and gloried in it.

She was doing some claiming of her own. Her hands sank into his hair, her fingertips glorying in the feel of the thick, coarse strands that fell well below his wide shoulders. Her hips arched as his hands moved to the rounded curves of her rear, lifting her, notching her thighs into his as his cock pressed against her swollen sex.

She needed to breathe, to scream out in pleasure, but the need for his kiss was stronger. The taste that filled her captivated her, just as he had captivated her since the moment she first saw him.

His tongue nudged against hers imperiously. She tangled with it, stroked it as a warning growl sounded in his chest. She could feel the hard, swollen glands beneath his tongue, knew the taste was spilling from them, and craved more. She needed more.

"Now." He growled as he drew back, nipping at her lips as she tilted her head, slanting against her mouth and fighting to pull his tongue back.

"Suck it. Ease me, Megan.''

His tongue speared into her mouth and her lips closed on it, drawing him in deeper as she began a hesitant suckling motion. He began to thrust in and out of her lips. The erotic action had them both moaning as the blood began to boil in Megan's body, burning along her nerve endings, searing her mind.

White-hot pleasure was whipping through her now. She shook in his grip, trembling as the ache in her pussy became deeper, sharper. God, she needed him. Hungered for him. A hot, dark moan echoed in his chest as her whimpers grew in volume and the kiss became rapacious, his tongue thrusting in and out of her hot grip as she writhed against him. She had known it would be like this. Lightning hot, destructive. The pleasure was so intense, so deep, she wondered how she would survive when he left.

"Come here." She moaned as he lifted his head then dipped again for another kiss.

He pulled back again, ignoring her needy little moan, the demand that he return to the kiss. That he return the unique flavor to her mouth, to allow her to relish it, to sate herself on it.

Her head fell back as his lips traveled over her neck, his tongue licking at her flesh, sending riotous impulses zigzagging through her nervous system at the faintest hint of the roughness of his tongue. It was perfect. Not sandpapery; not smooth.

"Braden, God, I can't think." She gasped as his head lifted, the incredible taste of him still lingering on her lips, the feel of his tongue echoing on her flesh.

"Don't think." He growled, his lips at the swell of her breast, his tongue stroking the flesh there in long, slow licks. "Damn, you taste good, Megan. Sweet and hot, like sin itself."

"Enough!" She struggled against him, her fists pressing against his chest as his hand moved to her thigh, his fingers coming too close to the blazing center of her body. God, she needed his touch. Had needed it for days. And now it was so close, satisfaction so near that she could taste it. It tasted of cinnamon and brown sugar. Of nutmeg and male heat. Pure male heat.

"Enough?" He grunted the word, the rough growl in his voice sending shudders quaking through her body as the animalistic sound seemed to echo around her.

"This won't solve anything." She tore from his grip, very well aware that he had let her go, and that it had nothing to do with her own strength, which had completely deserted her now. Even her damned knees were still shaking.

"It will solve many things." His gaze was heavy-lidded, his expression possessive, lustful. "You're mine, Megan. You know it as well as I do. You've sensed it from the very beginning. You know it."

Her head lifted as she fought the need pulsing heavily through her veins.

It was mixed with fury. She hadn't asked him to do this to her. She hadn't asked him to interfere in her life, to attempt to use her. And he was trying to use her.

The curse he was so insistent that she court was one that would destroy her. She had seen the destruction years ago in her nightmares.

"Stop. I can't do this."