"Baby..." He whispered the endearment against her ear as he struggled up another step.

Each move pulled his c.o.c.k back, pushed it in, and stroked her no more than inches inside the gripping muscles of her c.u.n.t, sending shudders wracking through her body at the exquisite pleasure.

He was killing her.

"I'm sorry." He stopped, bending, placing her rear at the edge of the step as he knelt in front of her. "G.o.d, Lyra. I'm sorry."

She had no more than a second's warning before his hips flexed and then pushed forward, driving his thick, hot erection to the very depths of her hungry, gripping p.u.s.s.y.

Shocking, blistering. The sudden penetration had her arching as the pleasure/pain of his abrupt entrance sizzled across her nerve endings. Overfilled, stretched tight, she could feel his c.o.c.k throbbing inside her, setting flames to her ultra-sensitive depths.

Lyra's head fell back against an upper step, her legs lifting, clasping his back tightly as he began to drive inside her.

It was unlike anything she could have imagined. She could feel him pushing the tender muscles apart, stroking delicate tissue, and sending almost unbearable pleasure whipping through her system.

She held on to him, feeling his lips at her neck, his incisors sc.r.a.ping over her flesh as the pressure began to build inside her womb, the pleasure coalescing, tightening with each desperate lunge of his c.o.c.k inside the snug depths of her c.u.n.t.

She could barely feel the hard wood of the step beneath her.

All she felt was Tarek, heavy, hot, wide, overfilling her, making her take more, thrusting inside in an ever-increasing tempo until she felt the world dissolve around her.

Then she felt more.

Her eyes widened, staring in dazed shock at the ceiling above her as, simultaneously, his teeth bit into her shoulder, holding her still for something so incredibly unreal, she was certain she had to be imagining it.

He slammed in deep, his body tightening as she felt an additional erection, an extension swelling from beneath the hood of his c.o.c.k, locking him inside her, caressing a bundle of nerves high inside her p.u.s.s.y, and sending her rushing past ecstasy into rapture. The heat of his s.e.m.e.n filled her, pulse after violent pulse echoing in the flexing depths as he growled harshly at her neck.

He was locked inside her. The extension holding him in place sent cataclysms of sensation exploding through her over and over again.

When it finally eased, when the hard pulsing jets of his release and the violent shudders of her own eased, her eyes closed in exhaustion.

She had thought no arousal could be worse than what she had known before his kiss. She was rapidly learning just how wrong she was.

Chapter Eight.

You are not human...You may look in the mirror and declare your humanity. You may tell yourself that looks are all that matter. They do not. You are animals. Created in a lab, a man-made creation, and you will serve the men who made you. You are animal. Our tools. Nothing more...

Tarek stared at the ceiling as he held Lyra in his arms, her head on his chest, her body draped over his. She was like a kitten, determined to get as close as possible in her sleep, curling around him with a sigh before she had relaxed into exhaustion several hours before.

He wasn't human. That had been driven irrevocably home on the stairs, his body covering hers, as it betrayed his sense of humanity. His belief in himself as a man, not an animal.

A barb.

He closed his eyes as bitterness swamped him.

He pushed back the shudder of pure l.u.s.t at the memory of the sensations.

Dear G.o.d, the pleasure. It had been unlike anything he could have antic.i.p.ated. The extension had been highly sensitive, pulsing, throbbing in o.r.g.a.s.mic delight as he poured his s.e.m.e.n into her.

He breathed in roughly, grimacing at the erection he still sported. He had a feeling he would never get enough of the feel of her silken c.u.n.t, with or without the Mating Heat.

His hand smoothed over her hair, his fingers tangling in the soft strands as he relished the feel of her lying against him.

She was warm. Precious. She was a gift he had never imagined lie would ever have.

And she liked him. He knew she felt at least some affection for him, though perhaps not as much as he felt for her. h.e.l.l, he had fallen in love with her during the first few months he had known her. He had known it was love. Known the possessiveness, the joy, i he sheer delight he found in her could be nothing else.

He wanted to clutch her to him, tighten his arms around her and hold the world at bay forever. But he knew, realistically, it wasn't possible. He could only hold her for now and see how she reacted when she awakened.

And that part terrified him.

Would she be disgusted?

h.e.l.l, of course she would. What sane, reasonable woman could so easily accept something so animalistic? So outside the bounds of what she knew was human?

He felt her shift against him and restrained his growl of impatient l.u.s.t as her leg slid over his thigh, her knee nearly touching the taut flesh of his s.c.r.o.t.u.m.

Sweet Lord, she made him hot. And he wasn't blaming it on the Mating Heat. He had known what she would do to him from his first confrontation with her.

She sighed against his chest, a soft little sound that clenched his heart as her hand smoothed over his chest and then back again.

He stilled, his breath nearly suspending as she repeated the action, her body tensing.

"What happened to you?" Her fingers picked up the nearly invisible line of scars that criss-crossed his chest.

"Training." He hoped she would leave it alone. Prayed she would let it go.

"What kind of training?" She leaned up enough to open drowsy eyes, though her gaze was as sharp as ever.

He was willing to bet she drove her father insane. She was too curious, too independent, and too set on having the answers she demanded.

"Simply training, Lyra," he finally answered her. "At times, I was not the perfect little soldier I should have been."

He heard the bitterness that laced his voice, wincing at the sound of it.

Her fingers moved over the abrasive scars once again as her gaze tuckered to his. A gaze filling with anger. Making her angry had not been his intention. He wanted only to shelter her from what he had known during those years. There was no reason for her to know the brutality, the mercilessness of those who created him.

"I hope they're dead." Her snarl surprised him, as did the bloodthirsty fury in those beautiful eyes as she stared back at him. "Whoever did this, I hope you killed him."

He had. But it wasn't something he was proud of.

He was proud of this small sign of protectiveness from her, though. She was angry on his behalf, not with him.

"It's over. That's all that matters." He touched her cheek, amazed at her, just as he had been from the first moment he had seen her.

She snorted at that, a completely unladylike sound that didn't really surprise him as her expression conveyed her disagreement with him.

"I need a shower." She finally shifted from him, her moves hesitant.

"I'll show you the shower and get you one of my shirts to wear." He moved from the bed before turning back and lifting her into his arms.

She gripped his shoulders, staring up at him in surprise.

"You're tender." And she was as light as a feather. "Perhaps try a bath to relieve the soreness. I have some Epsom Salts in the cabinet that will make you feel better."

Jonas had suggested hot baths rather than showers to help ease the soreness as well as the building heat for a small respite.

He knew the scent of her and could detect the change as she moved farther through the ovulation process. The pill she had taken would do nothing to stop the heat, only the end result of the ovulation process. There would be no egg, no conception.

He ignored the small flare of regret at the thought of it.

"I'm hungry, too," she informed him. "And I don't want any of those nasty biscuits, either. I want some real food."

He set her down in the bathroom, staring down at her in confusion. "Such as?"

"I'll call Liu's. She'll have one of her boys deliver." She stared around the large bathroom before looking back at him pointedly.

An invitation to leave. That one was hard not to miss. But not yet.

"Let me know what you want, I'll have a friend pick it up for us," he suggested instead. "For the time being, I would prefer not to let anyone I don't know into the house."

A small tremor raced through her body as she glanced away from him for a moment and breathed in heavily.

"Fine. I can understand that. As long as I get my Chinese fix."

He listened carefully to the dishes she wanted ordered, restraining his smile. It was enough to feed an army. It was a d.a.m.ned good thing he had a near-perfect memory.

"Bathe. I'll call Jonas and have the food picked up. By the time you're finished, it should be here."

He could smell the heat building in her and wanted her to have the time to enjoy the food.

"Thanks. Now go away." She waved him away with a delicate gesture of her fingers. "I don't need you in here right now."

His lips quirked at her irritated expression, but he did as she asked. And he prayed. Prayed she had forgiven him for the animal he was, rather than the man he knew she needed.

"I need to go to the house for some clothes and stuff." Lyra found her gown and robe in the washroom, folded neatly on the top of the dryer after they had consumed the delivered Chinese food.

Her hunger was sated, but that was all. The steadily rising l.u.s.t building in her body was about to make her crazy.

It tingled in her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and spasmed in her v.a.g.i.n.a. And she ached for his kiss-literally. She was certain no drug could be as addictive as his kiss was.

"You can't leave the house yet, Lyra." His voice brooked no refusal.

Okay, a man could be really s.e.xy when he was being dominant, especially this man. But she just wasn't in the mood for it. She wanted to be f.u.c.ked, but she would be d.a.m.ned if she was going to ask him for it. And because she knew he could smell her arousal, she knew he was very well aware of the hunger building within her.

She turned carefully, clutching the folded material to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"Too bad. I need clean clothes and time to think..."

A bitter smile twisted his lips as a raging pain reflected in his gaze.

"The time for thinking was before you decided to take my kiss."

She shook her head against the anger in his voice.

"Not about this," she informed him fiercely. "I have to decide things, Tarek. This has changed my life, you know it and I know it. There are other things involved than just you and I and this Mating Heat, or whatever you call it."

Heat? Try inferno. It was killing her.

"Then take care of it on the phone." There was no give in him.

Good Lord, why hadn't she heeded the warnings of his complete male stubbornness that she had glimpsed over the months? He looked about as immovable as a boulder.

"I need clothes. My laptop..."

"You won't have time to wear clothes, or to work..." He advanced on her, his eyes lowering over the l.u.s.t gleaming in his gaze. "You'll be lucky to have time to eat."

Her stomach clenched at the growl in his voice as he reached out, taking the gown and robe from her before setting them back on the washer.

"I want to take you in the bed this time." His fingers tangled in her hair as he dragged her head back, his head lowering as though for a kiss.

As though she were that easy.

She didn't care how hot she was or how much the arousal was becoming painful. She was not just going to bow down and accept whatever. She might not be a Breed with a clear appreciation of this Mating Heat stuff, but she still had a mind of her own.

Before he could stop her, she twisted away from him, moving through the doorway and stalking through the kitchen to the foyer. She wasn't going to attempt the back door. But she might have a chance of getting to her own house before he stopped her through the front yard. Icy rain and all.

"Lyra. Where the h.e.l.l do you think you're going?"

He moved ahead of her before she could reach the door, staring back at her broodingly as she restrained the urge to kick him.

"To my own house," she reminded him. "Remember?

Clothes? Laptop?"

"No." The rough growl sent shivers up her spine and spasms attacking her v.a.g.i.n.a. d.a.m.n him. A man should never have a voice so inherently s.e.xy.

"Tarek, you are under the impression this Mating Heat of yours somehow gives you rights you do not have." She pointed her finger into his chest, pushing back at the stubborn male muscle that wouldn't budge an inch.

Savage intensity tightened his expression, giving him a dangerous, predatory look.