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“You didn’t want me to go,” she snapped back. “You were ready to tie me up and drag me back here. ”
He infuriated her as he nodded slowly. “Yes, I was. Until I remembered this is who you are. You couldn’t walk away now even if I demanded it. No more than I could. I don’t want to change that part of you, Chay. ”
She pushed her fingers through her hair and turned her back on him.
“Why aren’t you angry with me?” She turned back to him a second later. “I could be carrying your child and I went out there anyway. I finished those interviews knowing someone wanted me dead. ”
“And I made sure you did what you had to do, while I watched your back,” he said simply. “Chay, I don’t want a lapdog. If I wanted a woman willing to say yes to everything I wanted I could have had it two hundred times over by now. I want you. ”
“Why?” She clenched her fists at her side as that anger poured through her. “Why do you want me?”
“Hell, do I have to have a damned reason?” he fired back. “For God’s sake, Chay, because you know how to stand up to me? Because you know how to live? You know how to love. ”
“I don’t. ”
He stopped. “You don’t what?”
“I don’t know how to love, Natches. ” She felt the tremors shaking through her body then. Deep, hard shudders, the ice building, tightening inside her until she wondered if she could ever be warm again.
He smiled then. That slow, wicked smile that sent a flame shooting through the ice and a ragged tremor of response ripping through her senses.
“Well, I guess that’s why you need me then. ”
“Why?” She did need him. She needed him until she couldn’t breathe without the thought of him. And she still couldn’t fathom how to deal with it.
“To show you how to recognize all that love burning within you,” he answered.
He moved to her, stalking across the room until she had to look up to hold his gaze, to stay connected to the only security she had found in all the years she had lived.
“Where?” She needed to know where it was, how to open it, and how to set it free.
“Ah, Chay,” he whispered, framing her face, his lips brushing against hers. “It’s all just right here, baby. Burning inside you. All you’ve got to do is let it burn. ”
FOURTEEN
Natches wanted to kill. As God was his witness, the moment those shattered honey gold eyes locked with his after they entered the houseboat, he wanted to kill.
He wanted to make her dead husband, Craig, die again. He wanted to make Nassar Mallah suffer. He wanted to beat Cranston to a bloody pulp and he wanted to rip whoever had dared to kill Denton, limb from limb.
He wanted their blood to wash over his hands, but even more, he wanted to ease the haunting pain from Chaya’s eyes.
“Look at you,” he said, keeping his voice low and gentle. “Running on nothing but coffee and a few donuts. Shaking in my arms and staring at me so fiercely. I bet if your eyes hadn’t been swollen shut when I rescued you, I would have seen that same will to fight in them then. ”
“Don’t do this. ” She shook her head. “I’m not what you see. I’m not that strong. ”
He flashed her a wicked smile, because he knew better. A smile as smug and confident as any self-appointed sensualist had ever given a woman. And it succeeded in bringing a flush to her face, a glitter of anger to her eyes.
“You think you know everything. ” She pushed at his chest, as though he was actually going to let her go now. “Let me go. ”
He laughed at that. “Baby, I watched your back and let you fight. I took you into the baddest honky-tonk in three counties and sat at the bar like the good little boy I was told to be. This is my territory now. I don’t have to be a good boy here. ”
“As if you’ve ever been a good boy,” she snorted and tried to twist in his arms.
Natches chuckled at that. “I’ve always been a good boy with you, Chay. I let you run every time you wanted to run, remember?”
“You’re not letting me run now,” she snapped. “And all I want to run to is the damned shower. ”
He held her easily, letting her twist, letting that sleek little body stroke and rub against his. His cock was rock hard, it had been ever since he had watched her in that damned bar.
