She moved away from the door--away from him, a delicate retreat from his predatory nature. His gaze tracked her, much like a wild animal following prey. He knew his stillness made her nervous, but he remained locked in place, forcing himself not to leap on her when every cell in his body demanded it. His gaze never left her, completely focused, automatically calculating the distance between them each time she changed it.
"Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to be here with me?" He kept his tone low, but the menace was there.
Her gaze flicked over him, filled with contempt, filled with revulsion. "Do you have any idea how dirty I feel standing here in this room with you?" she countered. "What am I supposed to call you this time? Do you have a name?"
He shouldn't tell her, but what the hell difference did it make now? She belonged to him and she was in the jungle. She'd brought him to her--sent for him. "Conner Vega," he answered, his gaze locked on hers, daring her to accuse him of lying. His voice wasn't quite normal, but at least he hadn't killed her companion. He'd held on long enough to get control and had allowed Rio to get the man out of harm's way. Death was in his eyes. He knew that, just as pure loathing was in hers.
Her eyebrow shot up. She made a little moue with her lips. She radiated heat mixed with fury. His heart jumped. His cock reacted, engorged and hot. Need punched, hard and mean. His crime was unforgivable. He understood that intellectually, but the animal in him refused to accept it. She was his--that's what the animal understood. She was alive, in the same world and she belonged to him. And right now, her body was throwing off enough pheromones to draw every male within a hundred miles. He drew a deep, shuddering breath of air into his lungs and held on grimly to his control.
"Is that your real name?"
"Yes. Why did you bring me here, Isabeau?"
Breath hissed out between her teeth. She had small white teeth. Her leopard was different--rare. A clouded leopard perhaps. There were so few of them. She was curvy, yet streamlined, muscles fluid beneath her skin, the mark of their species, her hair thick and long, nearly impossible to keep short. She didn't know her own power; he recognized that as well. She didn't know she was safe from him and her fear beat at him. Ugly. Like a sin. A man's woman should never be afraid of him or his strength.
"I left Borneo because I didn't want to take a chance of running into you. I can do my work here, the plants and species I'm looking for are in this rain forest. I needed a guide and the Embera tribe was kind enough to provide one for me."
And her guide would have been a man. A growl rumbled in his throat and he turned away from her, unable to keep his leopard from leaping at the scent of her, at the idea of her in close proximity with a man. He closed his eyes, trying not to allow the vision of her body wrapped around someone other than him.
She shot him a look as he began to pace, trying to rid himself of the ferocious need building in his body. He could barely breathe with the intensity of the demand. He'd never experienced anything like it. Sweat poured off of him. Desire was wicked. Sharp--hammering at his skull, until even his teeth ached. His body painful. He was acutely aware of the leopard prowling beneath his skin, so close to the surface, waiting for one moment when he wasn't on guard so the cat could take what was his.
"I'm so sorry I'm boring you, but I paid a good amount of money for your time."
He knew she was misinterpreting his uneasy pacing as disinterest, but he shrugged, not bothering to explain the danger she was in. "Get on with it."
"I became friends with Adan Carpio . . ."
This time he couldn't stop the leopard's reaction, the terrible fury, the jealous rage consuming him. He whirled on her, flames feeding the heat in his eyes. She gasped and stumbled back, flinging one hand out to catch at the back of a chair for support.
"And his family. His wife. And children," she added hastily. "Stop it. You're scaring me. I don't like feeling threatened. You wronged me, in case you've forgotten."
His gaze moved over her face broodingly. Dwelled on her soft, trembling mouth. On her throat--so vulnerable. He could sink his teeth there in seconds. His gaze moved down--touched her breasts. Her lush, full breasts--he remembered the soft feel of their fullness. She was a little smaller than most of their women, probably the clouded leopard in her, but he liked her that way. He liked every single thing about her. Even her temper.
"I haven't forgotten anything." The growl rumbled in his voice.
He was acutely aware of the incessant cicadas. Loud. He could hear the sentries of the forest playing their music. His people were in place, and yet uneasiness crept in. He studied her expression. She was hiding something from him. Color flagged her neck, crept into her face. She veiled her eyes with her long lashes. He knew she didn't realize the danger wasn't to her life, but to her virtue--and his honor. But still, she was definitely hiding something from him. Not her loathing. Not pure unadulterated hatred. Those emotions were plain enough for him to see. No, something else, something beneath the surface, and if he didn't find out what it was, all of them could die here.
"I was there when Cortez's men swept into the village. They killed several people, including a woman who was visiting Adan and Marianna, his wife. Their grandson, Artureo, hid me before he went to try to help the others. He's seventeen, but very adultlike. He ran back to help his grandfather and they beat him down with the butt of their weapons and dragged him away. Everywhere I looked there were people dead or dying or screaming for the loss of their loved ones." She wiped her hand over her face as if she could wipe away the memory.
Conner poured her a glass of water and thrust it into her hands. His fingers brushed hers and the air fairly crackled with electricity. She jerked her hand away as if he'd burned her, spilling droplets of water across the floor. Sweat trickled down his chest. Desire clawed at him. Her close proximity in the confines of the small cabin shredded his nerves of steel, leaving his body shuddering with a dark need so intense he had to grit his teeth and turn away from her just to draw a breath.
"I heard their demands and knew I had to try to help. When we'd buried the dead, we tried to figure out how to get them back. No one had ever seen the inside of the Cortez estate and lived to tell about it, at least not anyone we knew. We couldn't rescue the children ourselves. I remembered what you did and when Adan's request for help from Special Forces was turned down for political reasons," there was contempt in her voice, "I thought of you, and how you'd infiltrated the enemy camp using seduction." She shot him a look of disgust before she continued. "I knew if anyone could get inside that camp, it would be you. You're certainly more than capable of seducing Imelda Cortez."
His heart squeezed down so hard, so tight, for a moment he thought he was having a heart attack. He nearly staggered under the unexpected pain of it. His breath hissed out between his teeth and he didn't even try to prevent the snarl of rage from escaping. He took a step closer to her. "You want me to seduce another woman? Touch her? Kiss her? Be inside of her?" His voice was deadly quiet.
Her gaze flicked away from him. "Isn't that what you do? Isn't that your specialty? Seducing women?"
He jerked the glass from her hand and threw it against the wall with a leopard's force. It shattered, the sound loud in the confines of the room; glass rained down like tears onto the floor and mingled with the water. "You want me to fuck another woman?"
Each word was enunciated. Distinct. Punctuated by a threatening growl. Deliberately he was as crude as he could be.
The arrow struck. Isabeau winced, but she lifted her chin. "You obviously were very successful fucking me, but then I was an easy target, wasn't I?" Bitterness fed her fury.
"Hell yeah, you were," he retorted, his gut twisting into knots beyond anything he'd ever known. His own mate wanted to pimp him out. If that wasn't the best revenge a woman could think of for a male of his species, driven to be with their woman for nine life cycles, he didn't know what else would be. He wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled.
She gasped
, took a step toward him, her fingers curling into fists, but she stopped herself from attacking him, holding her hurt and pain in check, although she couldn't stop it from showing on her face. "I figured I wasn't the first. And I wasn't, was I?"
Mates didn't lie to one another and he'd done that enough. "Hell no, you weren't the first," he snapped. "But you're damn well going to be the last. Get yourself another man to do your dirty work for you."
He spun around, desperate to breathe air that was free of her scent. His cat had gone crazy, roaring with rage, raking at his insides until he was on fire.
"I don't need another man to do it," she taunted. "You were plan B. I told Adan I could get in by seducing one of the guards and I know I can. Did you really think I wanted to see you again for any reason? Adan refused, but I learned from the master. I guess I should thank you for that."
Fury rushed like fire through his veins. The animal rose to the surface in a heated rush of fur and teeth and claws, nearly exploding through his pores. He moved, a blur of speed, his hand palming the knife lying along his thigh, even as his body aggressively slammed into hers, driving her back against the wall, one hand pinning both her wrists above her head. He held her absolutely still, vulnerable, a leopard's strength running like steel through his body, his heart thundering in his ears as his gaze locked on to hers.
Her eyes were cat's eyes, although different in that the pupils were vertically oblong rather than linear like his, or round as some of the other cats showed. Right now, her eyes showed exactly what she was thinking, a fierce hatred, a hint of heat she couldn't stop that only made her loathe him more. Wholly amber, her eyes had gone just as focused as his, refusing to bend to him.
"I didn't make you a whore. You're doing that yourself."
"Fuck you, Vega. And get your hands off of me."
Instead he stepped even closer, shoving his knee between her legs, nearly lifting her off the floor. As it was, she had no choice but to go up on her toes. "You want me dead. I can see it in your eyes. You came here thinking you were going to kill me."
Air burned through her lungs so that she gasped for breath, the effort pushing her breasts against his chest. He felt the heat waves sliding over him like a tsunami, swamping him with need. Not just his need. Hers. She was so close to her heat and his close proximity was triggering her leopard. He could feel the burn of her body, and the unwanted desire in her eyes--desire she'd been hiding all along.
Her eyes stared directly into his, spitting flames. "Yes," she hissed. "As long as I know you're alive somewhere I think about you and I hate that you still have the ability to hurt me. Yes, I want you dead."
He slammed the knife into her hands, forced her fingers to close around the hilt. "Then fucking do the job right. Do it clean. Here's your chance, baby." He dragged her arms down until the razor-sharp point of the blade was against his chest, directly over his heart, his hands covering hers, preventing her from dropping the knife. "You kill me right here, right now, fast and clean, because I'll be damned if you do it inch by slow inch."
Her body shuddered. He felt her fingers flex. "You think I wouldn't?" She whispered the words even as her fingers moved under his.
"This is your only chance. Do it and walk away clean. If you don't, you won't be getting another chance, but you'll never seduce another man." His teeth snapped together and he deliberately jerked the point of the knife into his skin. Blood ran down his shirt.
Isabeau gasped and tried to pull back, but he was too strong, his hands clamped around hers, forcing her to push the knife into his body. She shook her head. Tears swam in her eyes. He went still, leaving the tip where it was.
"Look at me, Isabeau, not at the blood. Look me in the eye."
Isabeau swallowed hard and tilted her head to once again meet his compelling gaze. She had wanted him dead, prayed for him to be dead, dreamt of killing him, but she'd never imagined feeling like this. She was terrified by the look in his eyes. He would do it, force the knife into his heart. She'd never imagined him so strong, but she couldn't move away from him and she felt every muscle in his body coiled--ready.
"Shove the knife into my chest. You're no coward. You want me dead--just get the job done, don't play games. You seduce another man you'll get him killed too. This is between us. Don't drag anyone else into our mess."
Isabeau couldn't breathe and her vision had gone blurry. Tears burned in her eyes. In her throat. In her lungs. She'd thought she was all cried out, but just seeing him tore her apart again. The betrayal had been so devastating, the cut so deep, the wound as raw as ever. The idea of him with another woman made her physically ill, but rage was strong, strong enough, she'd thought, to carry this through.
His body was trembling, this man who had cut her heart into little pieces and left her without a father, with nothing, absolutely nothing, her life in ruins. She couldn't sleep at night with wanting him, with loathing him. He thought she'd sent for him for revenge, but the truth was worse than that--she'd sent for him because she couldn't bear not to see him again. She couldn't wash enough times to get him off her skin, the taste of him out of her mouth. Her heart was so shattered she didn't think she could ever feel its rhythmic beat again.
It had been hell, sheer torment without him, but now, seeing him, breathing him into her body, feeling him so close, the burning started all over again, like a wildfire out of control. He made her his puppet, his slave, a woman with such need no other could ever fill her or satisfy her. She hated him with every fiber of her being, yet the idea of him touching another woman sickened her.
And the way he looked at her. That focused stare, filled with possession, as if he knew she wanted him in spite of every sick thing he had ever done. So damned smug, knowing it would take one move on his part, crushing her mouth under his, knowing she longed to go up on her toes and fasten her mouth to his and she would melt into him, give herself away all over again. She hated herself with the same fiery passion she hated him. He'd destroyed her heart and he'd stolen her soul. She was left with nothing but ashes and pain.
For one horrible moment her fingers tightened on the hilt of the knife, but she could no more have shoved it into him than she could have done it to herself. He was a part of her. She hated herself, but he was a part of her and she knew she couldn't live with the knowledge that she'd killed him.
Her mouth trembled. Her hands. And then her body. She ducked her head and tears fell on the backs of his hands where he gripped hers so hard. "Tell me what you want," her voice barely a thread of sound as she capitulated, her shoulders slumping in defeat. She was lost and she knew it. "To get those children back. Tell me what you want, how to do it."
His grip eased on her hands until she could slide them away. She rubbed her palms up and down her jean-clad thighs as if she could rid herself of the urge to rip and tear at him--or touch him.
"Keep doing that, as if it's going to help you," he said. "It isn't going to stop the itch, little cat, and we both know it. You need scratching, you have one place to come. One, do you understand me?"
"I'd rather die."
"I don't care. You want me to get those children out, I'll do it, but you don't go near any other man."
"You can't dictate that to me."
"You persist in thinking in human terms, Isabeau," he said. He stepped close again, inhaling her scent, forcing her to inhale his. "I have news for you. I'm not human and neither are you. You're in the rain forest, and here, we have a whole different set of laws. Higher laws. You're close to heat, close to the Han Vol Dan, the first emergence of your cat. Her first need is your first need. No one touches you but your mate. And whether you like it or not, that would be me."
"You're crazy." She jerked back away from him. "I'm human."
He touched his face, drawing her attention to the scars there. Her brand. "You did this with your claws, little cat."
She closed her eyes tight for a brief moment but not before he caught a glimpse of pain, of confusion and guilt. She shook her
head in denial, her breath coming in ragged gasps. "How could I possibly do that to you?"
Conner knew she'd been so shocked by all the revelations that night. Her father dead on the floor--the evidence of his guilt all around them. One dead prisoner and two others weeping. The discovery that the man she'd trusted, the one she loved, used her to get to her father--that she didn't even know his real name--the betrayal of that moment--the shock. She'd stepped toward him in spite of the restraining hands holding her back--more evidence of the power of her leopard--and she'd slapped him. Only in that split second, before her palm connected with his face, the pain had been so acute her cat had leapt to shield her, her hand shifting to a claw. She'd gone white, her eyes too large for her face, her knees nearly giving out so that he'd caught at her to keep her from falling, even with his face torn and ravaged, blood dripping steadily.
Isabeau had shrunk away from him and he could see clearly that over time, she'd convinced herself the entire thing hadn't happened. It couldn't have happened. How could it be possible for a woman to shift even partially into a leopard?
She shook her head again. "My father was Dr. Arnold Chandler. He may have lost his way and done some things he shouldn't have, but he was human. People don't just change and grow claws."
He heard the honest confusion and guilt in her voice and reached out to curl his fingers around the nape of her neck. "There are a lot of unexplained things in the world, Isabeau. You have dreams, don't you?" His voice thickened, turned husky. "Of you. Me. The two of us in another time, another place."
She looked more horrified than ever. Isabeau shook her head frantically, as if the stronger her denial the more she could make it real. "Never. No way. I would never dream about you. You're a monster, someone who takes pleasure in preying on women."