She breathed in slowly, her nostrils flaring as she watched him closely.
“Which brings me to another point,” he continued. “Whether you want to do it or not, you’re going to at least have to fake it. Until I catch that bastard who attacked you, I’ll let him think it’s going on. I’ll torture him with the knowledge of it. Because I’ll be damned if I’ll let him threaten you any longer. So you might want to think about at least enjoying some of the pretense.”
As he spoke, he watched her pale, then flush as fury contorted her features with lightning swiftness. A spark was all it took, and he had known he was taking that risk.
“You think you’re going to play with me?” she threw back at him, her voice rising in fury. “That I’m going to let you play head games with that sick bastard until he comes after me again?”
Betrayal flashed in her eyes, in her voice.
“Think again, damn you.” She stalked over to the chair, yanking her pants from the seat and jerking them over her legs as she cast him a heated glare. “You’re a son of a bitch, Rowdy. I can’t believe you’d do this.” Emotion clogged her throat, the pain in her voice tearing at his chest.
“Hell yes, I’ll do it,” he snarled, stalking to her as she struggled to snap and zip her jeans. He gripped her arms, staring down at her, rage eating him alive at the thought of that perverted bastard holding her down, cutting her with that knife. “I’ll do whatever it takes, Kelly, do you understand me? He’s a threat to you. A danger. And that I will not tolerate. If we don’t catch him, he’s going to rape again, and the next woman might not live to regret it. Is that what you want?”
“You want to use me.” She slapped at his arms, breaking away from him as she screamed the accusation in his face, her gray eyes swimming with tears. “You want to pervert what I feel for you, what I’ve needed for years, and turn it into some kind of damned war game.”
“I want you until I can’t breathe, dammit,” he growled back at her. “I haven’t taken a comfortable breath since you developed br**sts. But he’s going to come after you again, sooner or later. You know it and I know it. What happens if he catches me off guard? If he gets to you again?”
“You can’t know that. And I’m careful now.”
“I snuck up on you yesterday morning,” he snapped. “Do you have any idea how easy it is to get past even Dad’s security system? Do you think you could have stopped him even if that window had been closed and locked?” He saw the truth in her eyes. “Forget that, Kelly. The other girls he raped couldn’t stop him. He raped one of them while her parents slept only rooms away from her. You can’t hide from him, and you can’t run.”
“Stop yelling at me!” She pushed him back furiously, her hands cracking against his stomach as she slapped against it to forcibly put distance between them.
“You aren’t listening to me,” he snarled.
“And I won’t listen to you,” she screamed, the tears falling from her eyes, her face pale, her eyes raging with fury and the sense of betrayal he could see tearing through her. “You call this love? Setting me up? Oh God, Rowdy, how could you do this to me?”
A sob tore through her body as she stared up at him, her fists clenched at her side, tears wetting her cheeks and breaking his heart.
“Do what, Kelly?” he finally asked wearily, shaking his head. “Want you safe? Well? I’m telling you who and what I am, and what I am endangers you with this bastard anyway if he’s even heard of me. Dawg, Natches, and I have been sharing our women since we were old enough to understand what our dicks were made for. You know that as well as anyone else does. Loving me doesn’t mean you have to do shit about it. Loving you doesn’t mean it’s something I have to have. But we’re talking about more than that now. We’re talking about your life, and I’ll do whatever the hell it takes to keep that bastard from ever touching you again. Ever, Kelly.”
“And how do you know it wasn’t one of them?” she threw in his face. “It could have been either of them. He tried to rape me anally, Rowdy. And the three of you are considered the ass-fucking kings, so tell me how you know it’s not one of them.”
“Because they know me,” he snapped back. “And they’ve watched you twitch that little ass at me since you were a teenager. Trust me, baby, if it was one of them, they would have never made the mistake of believing that good girl persona you project to every other man close enough to watch you. You’re a good girl to the world, but you, baby, are bad to the bone when it comes to me. I know it, and you know it. You just have to accept it.”
“Get f**ked!” she screamed back, enraged, her face flushed red, her eyes glittering now with a fury he’d rarely seen in her.
He smiled. A slow, teasing, wicked grin that only fueled her rage as his gaze dropped down her body then back up.
“But, darlin’, ain’t that what we were talking about?”
Before she could do more than gasp he had her in his arms again, his lips covering hers, his tongue slipping past her lips to taste the wild anger and arousal pumping through her.
She didn’t think. She didn’t fear. He felt her hands grip his shoulders, her little nails pricking against his flesh as his hand moved beneath her shirt, to her thighs.
“Damn you,” he growled, lifting his head to stare into her dazed, stormy eyes as his palm cupped the hot flesh between her thighs, the heat of his flesh searing her even through her jeans. “I bet you’re wet, Kelly. So f**king wet it’s seeping through your panties.”
He pressed closer, feeling her h*ps buck at the pressure against her clit.
God, he wanted to strip her. He wanted to tear those clothes off her and lay her down on the closest available surface and devour her. He wanted to bury his lips between those perfect thighs, send his tongue searching through the silken folds of her pu**y.
And she wanted it, too. She was pressing against his hand, her h*ps bucking into it as the heat of her filled his palm.
“Feel good?”
“I hate you,” she snapped, her breathing rough as a low whimper left her throat.
“No, you don’t.” He rotated his hand, watching her eyes flare, feeling the heat intensify against his palm. “You love me, Kelly, just like you love this. And you want more. Admit it, baby.”