The Man Within (10 page)

“Like hell I am.” Roni jumped to her feet, paying little attention to the chair that flew out behind her, turning over on the carpeted floor.

This was not good. She stared at Merinus’ calm expression, feeling panic well inside her as the other woman watched her almost pityingly.

“Roni, you need to understand…”

“No,
you
need to understand,” she retorted furiously as she pushed her fingers desperately though her hair. “I did not ask for this. I didn’t ask him to leave this stupid mark on me and I sure as hell didn’t ask him to kiss me. I won’t accept this.”

A child? She had to get pregnant first? Bring a baby into the world that would have every mercenary and low life criminal looking to steal it. To take it from her arms and turn it over to a group of monsters who would do only God knew what to it.

Horror welled up within her as her hands pressed against her stomach and her mind fought to reject any such conclusion. She couldn’t do it. God help her, she wouldn’t survive it.

“Roni, denying it won’t help.” Merinus came slowly to her feet. “I’ve been where you are. I know how confused you are and how pissed you are. But they didn’t ask for this, either. Not in any way. You can work this out with Taber.”

Roni stared up at her unblinking. She could feel hysteria building inside her mind as she fought to accept what she considered the unacceptable.

“Work what out with him?” she finally snarled furiously. “Spread my legs so he can knock me up and leave again? Oh yeah, let’s talk about that one. His track record sucks, Merinus, and I’m not willing to face the consequences of this alone. And sure as hell not with a child whose very existence will be in danger from the moment it’s conceived.”

Merinus frowned. “Taber would never leave you, Roni.”

She laughed. She couldn’t help it. Merinus looked so sincere, so very certain of Taber’s honor, that it was all she could do. “So tell me, Merinus, how did I get this mark? Where the hell has he been the last year or so?”

“Taber didn’t know about the mark…”

“So they can mark whoever they want to and then like any old tomcat just jump and run to the next.” Roni clenched her fists as her fury nearly overwhelmed her.

“Roni, you have to understand…” Merinus tried again.

“Wrong.” Roni’s hand slashed through the air as she rejected Merinus’ plea. “I don’t have to understand shit, Merinus. This is my life. Any child conceived will be mine. I won’t let him do this to me. And I sure as hell won’t let him get me pregnant and then decide he needs someone who is more woman than I am again.”

The thought of Taber touching another woman made her insane with grief.

“Roni, Taber wouldn’t do that,” Merinus protested. “You will be protected and your child even more so.”

Roni snorted in disbelief.

“Callan might be more of a man than that, Merinus, but I’ve seen Taber’s work first hand. No thanks. No babies. No Taber. Where the hell am I and how do I get home?”

“What home?” Taber’s voice, pitched low and furious, growled from the doorway. “It was burned to the ground before we ever landed here at the estate. Looks like you’re stuck with the tomcat, baby.”

Chapter Twelve

“Taber!” Merinus’ voice was distant, though the thread of shock was readily apparent. “That was uncalled for.”

Roni didn’t give him time to apologize, though. She stomped over to him, fury and rage blending with a pain so resounding she felt as though it would destroy her.

“Did I ask you to bring me here?” she screamed at him furiously as she shoved at his broad, immoveable shoulders. “Look what you’ve done, Taber. You made my own body turn against me. Now some bastard has burned my house down because I wasn’t there. You let them burn my house down.” She couldn’t believe it, couldn’t process the fact that she would never see her home again.

Conception was something she couldn’t consider. Her home was real. Her home was all she had left when Taber decided he no longer wanted her. That he needed someone older, or more experienced, or whatever else she wasn’t that someone else would be.

The pain building inside her would kill her. Not just the physical, womb-ripping pain of the agonizing arousal tearing through her, but the soul deep pain of losing her last link to her own peace of mind.

“Look what you’ve done,” she screamed again, her fist flying for his face, violence surging inside her like a tidal wave of overwhelming emotion.

“God, Roni…” He jerked her into his arms, tightening them around her, holding her still as she struggled against him, fighting him, because God help her, there was nothing or no one left to fight. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”

Silence filled the room. Roni fought to stay on her feet. He held her against his body, a steady weight, as he had always been. A comfort she knew could be taken away from her all too soon.

“Let me go.” But she didn’t fight for release.

One hand held her head to his chest, the other wrapped around her waist, cushioning her from the violence raging through her system.

“I just bought a new chair,” she whispered. She trembled and fought the reaction. God, it was all gone?

“Roni, I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair. “I shouldn’t have told you like that, baby. I’m sorry.”

She flinched as she pushed back, moving away from him, desperate to escape the pain echoing through her soul. There was nothing else they could destroy now, nothing left for anyone to take away from her. Nothing except the child, if she allowed its conception.

“Well,” she breathed out roughly. “Hell.” She didn’t know what to say, what to do. She felt fragmented, dazed by the events that were happening too fast to allow her to catch her breath, to make sense of what was happening.

She breathed in roughly, pushing her fingers into the pockets of her robe, fighting the panic blooming inside her. Okay, she couldn’t kill him. She was sure the others in his family would consider that a no-no. No matter how damned bad she needed to shed his blood now. She was okay. It was just a house. She was going to have to leave it behind anyway. She should have expected this.

The little pep talk wasn’t helping. She could feel something inside her chest thickening with pain at the thought of the home she had slowly been creating. With her own hands, blisters and blood she had made it worth living in, made it something worth having rather than the eyesore it had been when she was younger.

“Roni, you have a home here now…” Taber’s voice only fed her fury. It was soft, remorseful. As though her pain was breaking something inside him. The loss of her home had been nothing compared to the agony she had faced when she had lost him before.

“Do I?” She fought the surge of adrenaline that cried out for a fight as she turned back to him, watching him with brooding fury. “With you, I presume?”

“With me.” His expression hardened as he said the words.

“Poor Taber.” She sneered. “Stuck with me after all. Not exactly what you envisioned for a future mate, am I?”

He watched her with a slight frown and no small amount of heat in his eyes.

“I actually never imagined anyone else.” He finally shrugged, confusing her further. “Though I can tell you aren’t exactly pleased.” And why did it seem to bother him so much, that she wasn’t pleased?

So where was the man who decided he needed more of a woman than she was? His attitude wasn’t making sense to her. Unless it was just the hormone or whatever the hell it was driving her insane. The thought that a drug, no matter how natural, was their only bond broke her heart.

“Not exactly pleased would be a little mild for my reaction.” She made certain her smile was all teeth and no warmth. Her pussy was hot enough to make up for it, though she had no intention of letting him know that any time soon. The adrenaline thundering through her system seemed intent on building the arousal that much higher. “Where are my clothes?” She ignored the cramps building in her womb as she turned away from him.

She didn’t even have a home now, and she couldn’t allow herself to believe that anything she could have with Taber would last longer than it took for her to become pregnant. Where would she be then? She had to leave, had to run, or she would never be free of him.

Taber sighed heavily behind her. “I know you’re scared, Roni.”

“I’m not scared.” She fought back a shudder of pure sensation as heat sizzled between her thighs. Then made sure the look she gave him glittered with her need for retribution. “I’m mad. So get the hell away from me before I take your head off like I should have done when you put this damned mark on me. Where the hell are my clothes?”

She re-entered the bedroom, determined to ignore the man stalking behind her. She could feel him and he wasn’t even touching her.

“Your clothes are being washed,” he told her, his voice too soft, too carefully controlled as he came up behind her. “Roni, you’re in pain. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

Roni stopped at the bottom of the bed, gripping the footboard with desperate fingers as her stomach clenched almost violently. She closed her eyes, fighting the man, fighting the knowledge of what was happening to her with everything inside her. God, she was so weak, because she knew that despite the unnatural height of the arousal, she would have still found it hard to resist him, to maintain her fury. His voice was soft, regretful, reminding her of the years he had always been there for her. Reminding her how much she had loved him, how much it had hurt when he suddenly wasn’t in her life any longer.

Even the fear of conception couldn’t dim the needs rising in her body like a flashflood of sensations. How was she supposed to deny him? How could she fight her body, its needs and her heart as well?

“I’m fine.” She forced the words between clenched teeth. “Find me some clothes. I want out of here.”

If she could just get away from him, she thought desperately. It hadn’t been this bad, this intense, until he showed up in her life again. If she could leave, maybe it would ease; settle back to the mild irritation it had been before.

“It won’t go away, Roni.” His hands settled heavily on her shoulders, his thumbs smoothing over the taut muscles as she fought the shivers of pleasure his touch evoked.

The calloused pads of his thumbs rasped over her skin, heating her flesh, making her moan with the pleasure that streaked through her body. It was exquisite, his touch, the scent of him wrapping around her with a warmth that seared her to her soul.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered, fighting the tears that thickened in her throat. She had needed so much more from him. “Everything’s happening too fast.”

“You don’t have to do anything, baby,” he promised her gently, his lips whispering over the mark he had made so long ago. Making her shiver in longing. “I’ll take care of everything, Roni. I promise.”

Every cell in her body screamed out in pleasure when his tongue stroked over the small wound. She would have denied him, she assured herself, if she could have fought past the web of arousal and need that tightened about her, leaving her breathless beneath his touch. How could he do this? How could nature have been so cruel as to give him this advantage over her?

“I can smell your heat,” he whispered at her ear. “Like warm, sweet cream. It draws me, Roni. I want nothing more than to go to my knees, draw the gown to your hips and bury my tongue in your hot pussy.”

She shuddered violently at his words, a whimper of longing escaping her throat as he drew the robe from her shoulders. She felt weak, dazed, unable to fight him when she wanted him with every breath in her body.

“You’re so warm, so soft and tempting, you make me lose any semblance of control. You make me desperate, Roni, so hungry for you I can barely think of anything except tasting you.”

His tongue licked over her shoulder, raspy, slightly roughened, drawing a gasp of pleasure from her lips at the sensation. His hands drew the thin straps of the gown over her shoulders as his lips trailed hot kisses down the slope of her arm.

“I lost control before.” The gown slipped over her hardened nipples, but she had no chance to miss its dubious warmth.

Taber’s hands covered the swollen mounds, his palms cushioning the elongated points, rasping them gently as she moaned in rising pleasure. That was good. Too good. Too hot.

She stared down at his hands, amazed at the contrast between his dark skin and her paler flesh. It was so erotic, watching him touch her, seeing the differences between his hard, muscular body and her softer one.

“I won’t lose control now. I’ll show you how good it can be, baby.”

His voice was rough, a sensual caress to her senses as the gown slid to her hips, caressing her as it slipped lower and finally pooled at her feet.

“See, all you have to do is relax,” he assured her, his voice at once soothing, stroking her senses as carefully as his hands stroked her breasts. “Let me show you what we missed out on all those months ago.”

“You left me.” She fought to breathe, to find the strength she needed to refuse him. But it wasn’t there. Her body was overruling her mind, stealing her objections, her fears.

“You left me no choice, Roni.” His hands cupped her breasts, his finger and thumb gripping her nipple, making it hard for her to think, to speak.

She left him no choice? She had loved him, needed him, until the sheer intensity of those needs had nearly destroyed her. And yet he claimed that she had left him no choice? She wanted to rage, to scream at him, but it was all she could do to breathe beneath his demanding touch.

The pads of his thumbs rasped over the tops of the swollen peaks, then with the help of his index fingers, gripped them with firm, exact pressure as he tugged at them slowly.

“Taber.” She cried out at the sharp, streaking pleasure that arrowed from her nipples to her vagina, causing her to arch against him, her hands to reach back and tighten on the outside of his hard, muscled thighs.

“Do you like that, baby?” He did it again, and Roni thought she would explode from the building heat. “I’ll use my teeth next,” he whispered at her ear. “As I grip and pull, I’ll stroke them with my tongue, suckle with my mouth and make you come from that sensation alone.”