Just long enough to convince herself he was doing this, keeping her with him, just to be protective, not because, maybe, he could love her.
"Well, isn't that just too damned bad."
Before she could avoid him he swung her into his arms and he was striding through the open area of the converted warehouse to the bedroom in the back. He stepped into the room, kicked the door closed behind him, and dropped her on the bed.
"That is just so juvenile," she snapped, pushing her hair back from her eyes as she stared up at him.
"Look, dammit, I don't have to f**k you just because you're in my bed," he half snarled. "I know how to sleep with you without it."
"I'm still surprised you know how to sleep with me," she snapped back, her voice rising as she glared up at him. "You're like a damned yo-yo, Chase. How the hell am I supposed to keep up with you?"
He shot her a hard glare as he unbuttoned his shirt. Oh God, she really didn't want him to unbutton his shirt. Didn't want to see his wide chest with that dusting of dark hair across it and arrowing down past the band of his pants. She didn't want to want him tonight. Not while she was feeling like this. While the fear was driving her to hold on to him.
"I'm easy to keep up with." He sat down on the side of the bed and removed his boots. "Are you going to sleep in that stuff or get ready for bed?"
"I don't want to sleep with you," she muttered, blinking back her tears.
It was crashing in on her. She could feel it. She could still see her apartment in her mind's eye, all her possessions destroyed, the spray of red. DIE BITCH, WHORE.
She had already broken down once today, she told herself. Sitting in the hallway of her apartment building crying like a little twit.
She glared at Chase.
"Yeah, you do want to sleep with me." He shucked his pants, and she nearly lost her breath. All that dark skin rippling over tight, hard muscles. It was more than any woman should be expected to deny. "But even more, Kia, I need to sleep with you."
Kia wanted to fight the overwhelming need to have his arms around her, to feel him curled against her, or coming over her. To share one more pleasure-filled night in his arms.
He was her weakness. No woman should have to fight against such a man's need to be with her. Just with her. And Kia fought herself, shuddering as the fight went out of her.
"Ah, Kia, sweetheart." He moved on to the bed, pulling the blankets back and sliding between the sheets.
A small sob caught in her throat as he pulled her into his arms, surrounded her with the warmth of his body and sent a shaft of need spearing into her womb.
"Why now?" There was a hint of a sob in her voice that she couldn't control. "Why, Chase? You couldn't bear to sleep with me before."
His eyes were vivid, mesmerizing. Thick, dark lashes surrounded them, giving him an intense, sexual look.
"I had to force myself not to stay with you before," he finally said softly. "Kia, sweetheart. Letting you sleep alone was the hardest thing I've ever done."
She rolled to the side of the bed, with every intention of getting out of it and stalking from the room.
Chase caught her before she reached the edge. His arm went around her waist, pulling her back as he dragged the blankets and sheet along, chuckling at her determined struggles as he pressed her into the pillow and braced his body over hers.
"I don't like this," she snapped, pushing against his chest, refusing to let her fingers curl into the silky crispness of chest hairs.
"I won't be able to sleep without you, Kia," he whispered against her ear. "If you go to the guest room, I'll just follow you. I have to have you with me."
"Are we going to sleep, Kia, or are you going to keep turning me on with that defiant little expression?" He pressed his c**k more firmly against her thigh, and Kia swore she felt the sensitive flesh between her legs melt.
Damn him. He made her want, even when she didn't want to want him.
"I want you, Kia." His teeth raked her neck. "I need you."
Her lips parted to protest, but it was a moan that filtered through them as his lips covered hers, slanting against them, his tongue stroking until she let him in.
Oh God, she needed this. She needed him.
She wrapped her arms around his bare shoulders, her nails raked across them as that something so wild and desperately hungry rose inside her.
Her lips moved beneath his, drawing in his taste, his heat and his warmth as she felt his hands move beneath her shirt.
The material bunched up beneath her arms, the tips of her br**sts grazed his chest, drawing a gasp from her lips as his head jerked up.
His eyes, that light wild green, blazed into hers. Dark hair fell over his brow. His brooding eyes bore into hers.
"Can you walk away from me, Kia?" He dragged the shirt over her head, pulling it from her and tossing it aside as his powerful thighs straddled hers. "Answer me, damn you!"
"It's pretty damned obvious I can't," she cried out, the arousal and fear mixing inside her. "Do you think I would be here if I could walk away?"
He paused. "Would you walk away if you could?"
She wasn't certain what flashed in his eyes, or why it burned in her chest.
"Would you?" she asked him rather than answering.
And he didn't answer. No more than she could he answer that question right then. If she did, she would reveal everything. The heart and the soul she could barely keep contained.
She loved him. She loved him until everything inside her reminded her how empty, how lonely, her life had been for far longer than the two years she had suffered for her one mistake.
But she couldn't bear to suffer longer. Soon, soon, this would have to be resolved.
"No answer, Chase?" she whispered back.
"I'm not letting you go tonight," he said, his hands cupping the mounds of her br**sts. "I'm not letting you go, Kia."
"For how long?" Her lips trembled on the question.
"I won't let anyone hurt you." He watched her, his gaze intent, his expression hard. "I swear it, Kia."
She licked her dry lips slowly and fought to suppress the disappointment.
"I knew that." No one but him.
He took her lips again, and suddenly the battle wasn't just emotional. It was physical. It was hunger burning into hunger and an explosion of defiance and anger flowing from Kia. Determination and arrogance aroused in him.