Itching to touch him, she nonetheless remained on the other side of the room. "A way to get your attention."

"You got it."

"It's time." She walked to stand at the foot of the bed. "You need to go into my mind."

A single brutal word. "I told you, that's not happening."

"Why?" She stepped closer. "Because it'll make you feel like a monster?"

He jerked as if he'd been shot. "Yes."

"Tough," she said, refusing to buckle under the urge to just give in, to let him have his way. If she did, they'd never move beyond this point. And every time she looked into his eyes, no matter how much he wanted her, she would see distrust. It hurt. So much more than she could have ever imagined. "If I can bear it, you can do it."

He closed the space between them to glare down at her. "But here's the thing, Katya. You can't force me to invade your mind."

She fisted her hands, squeezing so tight her bones ground together in pain. "If I drop my shields and you don't come in, allowing me to close them around your entry point, my mind will be wide open to anyone with psychic ability."

"You think that matters to me?" So hard, so angry.

"Yes, it matters," she forced out through a throat raw with emotion. "Because you've taken responsibility for me. You might have to kill me, but until then, you'll protect me."

"Nice and manipulative of you."

It took everything she had to keep her tone level. "A woman's got to do what a woman's got to do."

"Even if it destroys the other party?" A soft question that cut through her defenses with razor sharpness.

Bleeding, she looked up. "Will it truly be that bad for you?"

A harsh bark of laughter. "Haven't you been able to access the files you have on me?"

"I don't have those memories." She held his gaze, suddenly dead certain that if she forced him to do this, it would kill the last fragments of that indefinable "something" between them. There would be no coming back from it. It wouldn't have mattered to a true Psy, to a person who saw everything as part of a cost-benefit ratio.

But it mattered to her, mattered beyond bearing.

"Okay," she said, dropping her head even as the pragmatic side of her screamed in rebellion. "Okay."

Dev felt Katya's acquiescence like a blow. "Why?"

"Because sometimes the price is too high."

He caught her hand when she would have turned away, tugging her to his chest and taking her mouth in a furious kind of possession before she could do more than gasp. She'd backed away because it would hurt him.

It shattered him - he had always been the protector, the one who looked after others. Never had he expected that the enemy would try to protect his heart.

Echoes of sensation, too-soft whispers in his head.

He bit at her lower lip. "Shh. Tag will hear."

Her lips curved into a startled "Oh."

Taking advantage, he swept into her mouth, stroking his tongue against hers, drawing the intoxicating taste of her into his lungs. The whispers ceased, and he was unaccountably annoyed. "I'll have to learn," he said, kissing his way across her jaw, "how to shield your projecting from other telepaths." Because that was an intimacy he'd allow no one to invade.

Katya's hand clenched in his hair as he nipped at the slender line of her throat, only just restraining the savage need to bite hard enough to mark. "That assumes," she said, her voice breathy, "you'll have a lot of chances to practice."

"And your point is?"

Her gaze was dark with arousal when she blinked them open. "Dev."

He waited for her to tell him they shouldn't keep doing this, damn sure he wasn't capable of letting her go. Instead, she stood on tiptoe, put her hands on his shoulders, and stole a kiss that was as delicate as it was passionate, as feminine as it was powerful. It just about broke him, driving him to the edge of surrender. All he wanted to do was tumble her into bed and strip her inch by slow inch.

But she had the reins . . . and she took her own sweet time. When she finally stepped back, his entire body was vibrating with pure, undiluted hunger.

"I don't understand," she murmured, lifting her fingertips to touch kiss-swollen lips, "how my race could've ever given up such exquisite sensation."

His cock pushed against the zipper of his pants, the metal threatening to turn him into a eunuch. "Katya."

As a warning, it had no effect. Dropping her hand from her lips, she clenched it over her navel, as if soothing some inward ache. "I feel so . . . hungry, so hot, as if my skin is about to burst."

He shuddered, voice lost.

"Is it always like this?" she asked, stroking her hand over her abdomen and back down. Over and over. Until he strode across and replaced her hand with his. She sucked in a breath. "Dev - you're making it worse." But she pressed closer to him, sliding her own hand into the collar of his shirt, seeking skin.

"The things I want to do to you," he said, barely resisting the urge to pull up her top and slip his hand underneath . . . dip below. He already knew she'd be soft and wet for him, a silken fist he could almost feel.

Her lips trailed up his neck. "You didn't answer my question."

It took him several seconds to remember what she was talking about. "No, it's not always like this."

"So if I kiss another man - "

"I'll kill him." It came out with ice-cold precision, though his body was burning from the inside out. Tangling his hand in her hair once more, he pulled back her head. "We clear on that?"

A slow blink. "If my anthropological knowledge is correct, it's only changelings who're meant to be so possessive." Scientific words, husky voice, a sweet feminine body cradling the painful jut of his arousal.

"Come on then," he said, shifting his hand to cup her bottom. "Push me and see what happens." Changing position slightly, he tilted her up . . . and settled the heat between her thighs right where he wanted it. She gasped and gripped his shoulders. He smiled.

"D-Dev."

Her stutter was adorable, he decided. Sexy as hell, too. That mouth, those lips, he could look at them for hours, imagine exactly what he wanted to do. "Give me a second," he said, and broke the delicious contact long enough to walk her backward - distracting her with nibbling little kisses that had her nails digging into his shoulders.

She made a startled sound when her back met the wall.

Stroking his hands down to her hips, he ran his fingers to the button at the top of her jeans. Her eyes went huge, but she didn't stop him. Thanking the gods, he undid the closure and tugged down her zipper.

Katya knew she should pull away but she had no willpower where Devraj Santos and his wicked hands were concerned. When he tugged at the sides of her jeans, she shifted back, let him push the garment down. He made her lift her legs one at a time as he pulled it completely off her body.

Then, still crouching in front of her, he ran his hands up the backs of her legs.

The sensation sent waves of blackness rolling through her mind, but this black fire was as hot, as wild, and as masculine as the man who looked up at her with such sensual possession in his eyes. "Give in," he whispered. "Let me make you feel good."

It was an incredible leap for her to make, for a woman who'd never known intimacy, but she had to do this . . . because there would be no second chance.

Chapter 30

Quickly stifling that thought lest it escape, she watched as he rose to his feet and pulled off his T-shirt. Her throat dried up. "I guess all that kickboxing has its benefits." She didn't know where the words came from when her brain was stunned by the raw male beauty of him.

He chuckled. "I'm glad you approve." There was an almost arrogant confidence in him, but she liked it. Better that in Dev's eyes than the terrible pain she'd glimpsed for an instant when she'd spoken of forcing him to invade her mind.

Hands on her hips. Warm. A little rough. Perfect. She sucked in a breath, and when he lifted her, it was instinct to wrap her legs around his waist. He moved her until she - "Dev!" she screamed into his mouth as his still-covered cock pushed into her softness, parting her with possessive heat, the thin cotton of her panties no barrier.

His thumb smoothed over the crease of her thigh, inciting her to move impatiently . . . but that only rubbed her clitoris against him, further tightening the fist that was her body. Breaking the kiss, she pushed at his shoulders. "It's too much."

"You can take it," he cajoled, kissing her neck, sucking on the beat of her pulse. At the same time, his fingers slid smoothly inside her panties, parting her with even more intimacy. Gasping in a breath, she buried her face in his neck. He smelled of heat and desire and a scent that was pure, aroused male. No, not just any male. Dev. She'd asked him if it would be like this with any other man, but she'd already known the answer - no. It would never be like this again. From the start, he was the only man she'd truly seen.

His fingers pinched her clitoris, that tiny nub of flesh she'd always known about scientifically but never really understood until this moment. Pleasure arced through her in an almost violent wave, and she could feel that fist within her tightening, tightening.

"Do you like that?" he whispered against her ear, releasing the pressure to circle the flesh he'd tortured so sensually the instant before.

"Yes." She pushed into him, wanting to rub, but held in place by the delicious heat of his body. The weight, the pressure, it ratcheted up her hunger until she could hardly breathe. "Touch me."

His lips curved. "Demanding, aren't you?"

That smile made her breasts ache, it was so full of promise, of desire. "You're teasing me."

"It's part of the fun." One finger flicked over the bundle of nerve endings she so desperately wanted him to touch much more firmly.