"I've always needed you," he told her softly. "I've dreamed of you. Heard your cries whispering to me and felt a hint of your touch in the breeze that caressed me. I always knew, baby."
A tear fell from her eye. "I know how to take life, Lance. I don't know how to create life." She was going to rip the heart from his chest. Lance lowered his hand to her abdomen, feeling the warmth of her flesh, the tremor of response to his touch.
''You've already created life," he whispered as he lowered his lips to her. "Beautiful sweet life, baby."
Her lips opened for his as a little whimper escaped her throat. A sound filled with vulnerable need and aching hunger. A hunger he knew she felt solely for him. This was his woman, his mate. And by God, he would keep her safe.
But he had to taste her now. Her lips opened for him, taking his kiss as he felt her melt against him. Melt into him.
__________
She was lost in Lance's touch. Her hands pressed against his chest, once again drawing in his warmth, feeling the heated passion of his body and more. She could feel his protectiveness, the dominant inclination to shelter her, to ease her as his arms wrapped around her and pleasure began to build inside her.
One of his large, calloused palms slid into her hair, tugging at the strands as heated arcs of electric sensation began to whip through her nerve endings.
Oh, she liked this. This was pleasure. This was more pleasure than any one person should have to fear for, a pleasure she knew she would never again be able to live without.
"I want to take you home," he whispered against her lips again. "I want to be inside you, Harmony. I want to feel you hot and wet, gripping me as you scream beneath me." Harmony felt her pu**y clench in response.
"We could lock the office door." She tried to capture his lips once again, to submerge herself in the pleasure and emotions that she only felt with Lance.
He chuckled as he pulled back farther. "No more office sex," he growled. "I won't be able to walk when we're finished, let alone drive if that wicked little pu**y of yours clamps down on me again like it did last night. You left me a wasted shell of a man, baby."
She ran her hands over his chest, then to the powerful muscles of his arms.
"You don't feel like a shell," she whispered. "You feel hard and ready for me. But if you insist, I'll drive for you."
She almost laughed at the indecision on his face for a fleeting second. Then his expression creased into a smile as he shook his head slowly.
"We go home." He gave his head a quick, hard shake as he stepped back from her.
"Dave is qualified to replace me on a temporary basis. I completed the paperwork while you were staring at the ceiling growling."
"I was not growling." She frowned back at him fiercely.
"Sorry, baby, you were growling." He pointed his finger back at her as he moved to his desk. "Cutest little sounds I think I've ever heard in my life, but they were definitely little growls."
She did not remember any little growls.
"You're hearing things." She propped her hands on her hips, her frown turning to a glare as he collected a sheaf of papers from his desk and headed back toward her.
"Dream on, kitten." He patted her butt as he moved past her. "Let's go home. We have plans to make."
___________
Henry Richard Alonzo watched from the safety of a storefront as the Raider pulled from the back parking lot of the Sheriff's Department and headed up the street. They were both in there. The sheriff and his harlot Breed female. The bitch flaunted her Breed status with that uniform she usually wore and with her sneer toward the world. She was a killer, just as all the females of those species were; he just had to prove it. He had hoped the two killings he had sanctioned would throw enough suspicion on her to have her targeted by her own laws. She was young enough; similar enough to the Breed suspected in several vigilante killings. He had even received reports from his spy within Sanctuary that Death had been there, beneath Jonas's supervision. Had she been Death, he wouldn't have had to have his man make the killings though. She would have struck quickly, without mercy.
He rubbed at his jaw and ground his teeth as the Raider disappeared from sight. That stupid sheriff was ruining everything. No doubt he was sleeping with her. Men could not resist the sexuality of the Feline females.
"Reverend." Acker McQuire stepped up to him slowly, his tall, lanky frame moving into the doorway of the storefront. "What now, sir?"
Tall. Blond. A killer as merciless as the one called Death. He had been a Trainer in the labs; he had even spent several months at the French lab, though it had been after Death's escape.
"We watch them," he growled. "Jonas is up to something."
"There was a report from Sanctuary. She could be Death. The heli-jet was tracked from Sanctuary to Carlsbad the night she left. The next day, Harmony Lancaster showed up here and within the Breed database."
Could she be Death?
Henry Richard tucked his hands into the loose pockets of his slacks and stared in the direction the Raider had taken. She was about the right age and build. And there was a resemblance to the photos he had attained, though it was so slight he couldn't countenance that she was Death.
But it was possible.
"Is there any information on how Jonas captured her, or why he has allowed her to live?"
Even the Breeds had placed a price on Death's head.
"Just that she has something he wants." Acker shook his head, the white-blond strands of his hair lifting in the breeze.
"Then it must be her," he mused. "He would want the information she stole when she escaped."
Jonas Wyatt wasn't the only one who wanted that information. His men had managed to track her to a certain area, but no further. The information she had stolen from the labs the day she had killed the scientists working there had been so sensitive, so important, that millions had been spent trying to locate it.
"We could take her."
Henry shook his head slowly. "We follow her. Jonas will overlook the murders he believes she committed in exchange for the information she has. It could explain why he left without her."
"I duplicated her killings exactly." Acker's assurances didn't matter. All that mattered was the results.
Henry nodded again. "Yes. This would explain everything. They definitely suspect her of the killings, so she may well be Death. Watch her. If they head out of town, then we know we have Death."