Kiss of Heat

Kiss of Heat

Lora Leigh

For Sondrea and Terry. For hours of Internet tech support and for understanding just how computer dumb I could be. And as always, thank you for the friendship.

Prologue

Sandy Hook

Sherra stood silently in the shadows of the motel, watching carefully, her eyes narrowed as the nine men parted company and went to their respective rooms. They were furious, but one was coldly dangerous. She had watched them at the airport after dropping Doc off at the safe house, then followed them to Sandy Hook and watched as they checked in.

Kane didn’t remind her of Merinus in any way. He was darker-haired, the color nearly black, with intense, cold blue eyes. His strong jaw and high cheekbones gave a hint to Native American ancestry; his hard, graceful body hinted at extensive military training. She knew the look, the way a killer moved. She had grown up among them, been raped by them more than once. But this one, she knew personally.

This man had brought her pleasure. Despite her pleas, despite her wishes to the contrary, he had taken her beneath the unfeeling eye of a camera, riding her from one climax to the next, his lust fueled by hers, and hers by his touch.

Had it only been seven years ago? Sweet heaven, that night tormented her, even now, as though it had happened only yesterday. The dark soldier who had sworn to help her, to rescue her. He had come to her, holding freedom in one hand, her heart in the other, and spent the night teaching her the pleasures of her woman’s body. When he left, he never returned. But the doctors had. They had returned to her cell with the video they had taped of the night she spent with him. They had snickered at the things Kane Tyler had done to her, that she had done to him, all in the name of science. Rape had not impregnated her. They had wondered if pleasure would.

Her hands clenched into fists of rage as Kane lingered outside his room, lazily finishing a cigarette he had lit moments earlier. She wanted to kill him now. She had sworn she would kill him if she ever found him again. Sworn she would see to it that he paid for every moment of pain she suffered all those years ago. She had sworn he would pay for lying to her, and for doing it so easily without her knowledge. He had betrayed her, just as he had betrayed his sister.

His expression hardened when the last door finally closed and he was left alone with her.

“Where’s Merinus?” His voice was savage, pulsating with a fury that sent a frisson of unease through her body. How had he known she was there, watching him, waiting? “And why the fuck weren’t we met at the airport as promised?”

“I have a better question,” she said from the safety of the shadows. “Why would a brother betray a sister he swears to love on the eve of promised help?”

He turned around slowly, casually, until he was facing her. She saw hard purpose in his face, and surprise.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“A full team of soldiers swept over Callan’s house. A dozen men. All I know for sure is that they didn’t get him or Merinus. But I know they want her. They know about her.”

“Know what, for God’s sake?” He raked his fingers through his hair, his voice quiet but rough with fury. “Why the hell would they attack now?”

“They know your sister has mated with Callan,” she told him carefully. “Just as you knew.”

Or had he? She watched his face pale alarmingly, his blue eyes widening.

“That bastard touched her?” he snarled.

“No,” she drawled mockingly. “He mated with her. Surely you remember the concept? And now the Council no longer cares if they take him alive or dead. They want the woman and any child she carries. But you already knew that, didn’t you, Mr. Tyler? Why else would they attack mere hours after talking to you?”

He shook his head slowly.

“I never betrayed my sister. I wouldn’t.” His voice sent a chill down her spine.

Sherra frowned.

“I came to kill you, Kane Tyler,” she said carefully.

He didn’t seem surprised now. His mouth was edged with mockery.

“Perhaps you could delay that little attempt long enough for me to save my sister’s ass,” he growled. “What the hell is this mating shit?”

“Later,” she snapped. “Now is not the time for explanations. Now is the time for you to tell me how the Council learned of the mating, if Merinus didn’t tell you of it.”

And Sherra was nearly certain he hadn’t known. He was a liar, but in this one instance, he was telling the truth. Her gifts had grown through the years, with maturity and desperation. She could now smell a lie as others could diseased trash.

“Who are you?” His voice sizzled. “And you’re going to have to be a little more forthcoming than you have been, woman. I can’t help Merinus or Callan with so little information.”

Taking a deep breath, Sherra stepped from the shadows. She watched his eyes widen, saw the suspicion turn to knowledge.

“You weren’t killed,” he whispered, blinking, trying to assure himself she was there.

Bitterness filled her with a wave of pain so intense, she nearly drowned beneath it.

“No, lover, I wasn’t killed. But that doesn’t mean you have much longer to live.”

Now Sherra faced her past as she never had before. Nightmares and broken hopes fragmented around her, drawing her soul into a bleak, dark void she feared she could never escape. She felt the surging lust, the need, just as Callan and Merinus knew it, thundering through her blood, through her very being. Before her stood the man who had betrayed her years before. In a bleak, cold lab, his body laboring over her, throwing her into pleasure despite every barrier she put up against it. Her mate. The father of the child she had lost. The one man she had sworn to kill.

Chapter One

Five Months Later

“Afternoon, kitty.” Kane’s deliberate drawl as Sherra entered the kitchen, prepared for the weekly meeting Callan insisted on, had the hair on the back of her neck rising in instant defense. That drawl never indicated a pleasant conversation where Kane was involved.

It wasn’t as if any conversation she had with him was ever pleasant, though, she reminded herself sarcastically. He insisted on provoking her at every opportunity and generally did his level best to see just how angry he could make her.

His blue eyes were cool, calculating, watching her with an amused mockery that made her want to scratch them out. That need was in direct conflict with the overpowering urge to fuck him silly. She was in heat. She hated it but had no choice except to admit to it. After eight long years of pain and fear, she now knew why her body turned traitor on her, beginning with an overwhelming arousal and ending with a bleak, almost agonizing pain before slowly diminishing. For one month of each year, she had been going into heat. And she had suffered because her mate had already taken her, had already programmed her body to accept no other touch but his.

If he had been a Breed, she could have understood it. Merinus and Roni had been marked by their mates, their bodies conditioned by the hormonal fluids that eased from the swollen glands just under the men’s tongues. But Sherra knew that on the single night she had spent with Kane her own hormonal glands hadn’t been active. And she sure as hell hadn’t made the mistake of kissing him since he had barged back into her life. Not since learning the signs of the mating heat and knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that Kane was her mate.

He was leaning negligently against the kitchen counter, cup in hand, his tall, leanly muscled body relaxed and tempting. His jeans bulged at the top of his thighs. She swallowed tightly as she dragged her gaze away from him. He was hard and ready to fuck. And only God knew just how badly she wanted him to come into her. Strong and thick, his cock surging up her wet pussy until she screamed. She almost shivered at the thought as she felt a rush of heat flowing over her.

“Ohh, now there’s something interesting.” His amused voice was pitched low as he obviously caught the betraying color. “What’s the blush for, kitten? Getting overheated?”

Turning from him quickly, she pretended nonchalance as she laid the files on the table in preparation for the rest of the Pride’s arrival.

“Kane, you’re starting to irritate me,” she told him coolly without turning back. “The cute little remarks are getting on my nerves. Keep it up, and I’ll show you how a Feline really fights.”

He grunted, the sound filled with sarcasm. “Be nice, Sherra, or I’ll sic our little angel on you. She’ll bite you, remember?”

Cassie had actually growled at her the day before when Sherra had snapped at Kane over something he said. The little girl was amazingly protective of him.

Sherra glanced back at Kane as she shook her head pityingly. Poor Cassie. She was learning such bad habits from him.

“We promised to keep her away from you,” she said. Kane was not a good influence on the child, it seemed. “You’re going to turn her into a little monster if you keep spoiling her the way you are.”

He smiled with smug amusement.

“Beats the little doll you and Merinus would turn her into,” he retorted. “Let the kid be a kid, dammit. It’s not like she’s had much chance in the past two years.”

That was no more than the truth. From Dash Sinclair’s reports, the little girl had lived through a nightmare of constant attacks and desperate flights as her mother fought to keep her safe. She was the first known Wolf Breed child to be conceived outside a test tube, and the price on her head because of that was astronomical. But that didn’t mean Kane had to turn a perfectly sweet child into such a little tomboy.

“She’s a little girl, not a ruffian.” Sherra turned on him with a frown. “Kane, you had her in a mud fight yesterday. There is no excuse for that this late in the year.”

He smiled. A slow deliberate curve of his lips as his blue eyes filled with glee. “I know. Damn, that girl has good aim, doesn’t she? And it wasn’t that cold, it was warm as hell and she was having a good time. That’s all that was required.”

Kane and Cassie had both been covered in mud from head to toe. The minute Sherra had stepped out the door, berating Kane for the mess, a blob of the gooey earth had spattered against the side of her head. The little angel, once known as Cassie Colder, had informed her quite ferociously that she was a wolf and Sherra was a cat and if she wasn’t very nice to Kane then she was going to get bitten.

“At the rate she’s going I’m going to have to put you both on a leash,” she told him heatedly. “Stop encouraging her. She’s just a child.”

In a second his expression went from smug laughter to intense, dark sexuality.

“A leash, huh?” His voice turned velvet rough, his gaze dropping to her breasts as they rose beneath the cotton T-shirt she wore. She could feel her nipples hardening. “Can we include handcuffs? I have some, you know.”

Heat erupted between her thighs. Damn him and his teasing. He was only stoking the progression of her heat, making it harder for her to fight. And he was going to insist on making it worse. Could the day get any better? She asked herself sarcastically.

“Only if you’re the one in them,” she snapped back, trying to ignore the image of him chained to her bed, straining beneath her as she lowered herself on the rigid length of his erection. The vision was too tempting to allow for long.

Unfortunately, her caustic words had little effect on him. Her insults rarely gained her so much as a glimmer of irritation within those dark eyes. But it did gain her the scent of hot, aroused male.

She could smell his lust now, like the rush of a sudden thunderstorm slamming into her senses. His eyes glittered, his expression darkening with arousal. If she looked lower, she knew that bulge in his jeans would more closely resemble a thick steel rod eager for release.

“That could be arranged,” he murmured agreeably as he stepped closer, his heavy body moving with fluid grace and male power. “My room or yours?”

She was going to orgasm from the sheer intensity in his voice alone. Sherra felt her pussy flood with her juices, felt the hard ache of her nipples beneath the cloth of her shirt and wanted to hiss in fury. Why couldn’t life, for just one year, be kind to her? She wondered in dejection. What had she done to deserve this?

“Only in your dreams.” She managed to drag the derisive words past her lips.

He chuckled then. The sound was low, stroking over her already inflamed nerves as he moved closer to her. She wasn’t about to retreat. If she did, he would only follow her. If he followed her he would learn just how desperate she was to keep as much distance as possible between them.

“You have no idea, baby. Want me to tell you a few of them?”

He paused before her, his broad chest no more than inches from her breasts. She fought to keep her breathing slow and even, but she was aware of the fact she was failing. As she knew he was. His head lowered as he watched her breasts rise harder before he lifted his lashes, staring back at her suggestively.

“No.” She shook her head, trying to turn from him. She didn’t need to hear about his dreams. The temptation of his touch was too great.