Emma shook her head. “No, Jake. Look at me.” Her voice was soft. Persuasive. Insistent.

The muscles of his stomach bunched into hard knots. He didn’t dare look at her, because if he did, right at that moment, when he was buried deep inside her and his world was magical and pleasure ripped through him, he knew he wouldn’t be able to hide the truth from either one of them. She would see. He would have to face it.

“Jake.” She whispered his name and her voice slid over his skin like warm honey. This time there was a catch in her voice. A question.

He felt that soft little sound deep inside his chest, wrapping around his heart and squeezing like a vise. There was no resisting. There was no stopping the truth from pouring out of him. It rose up like a tidal wave. He raised his gaze slowly to hers. He saw her swift intake of breath. Felt her body relax into his, felt the giving of herself pouring into him, body and soul.

Tears burned behind his eyelids. Love. So this was what it felt like. Not just emotional, but physical too. Everything wrapped together until it was all in one bundle, one tight package, one woman. Until that one woman was everything. He stared into her eyes as eternity ticked by, letting her see, knowing that for the first time in his life he was truly vulnerable to another human being. She could destroy him, and now she knew that she could. He swallowed hard and buried his face in her neck.

Emma wrapped her arms tightly around Jake, holding him close, protectively, knowing how fragile he was. She had everything she needed to stay strong, to guide them through. Jake would be difficult and he’d fight hard to keep any control from her, but he’d given her everything in that one moment.

Where Andrew had been sweet and kind and reverent with her body, Jake was just the opposite. And he was right—he needed her more than a man like Andrew did. Jake’s life was a storm of intensity. He used sex to control her, yet now, after she’d seen true reverence in his eyes, she knew the truth. He worshiped her. He looked at her with his heart in his eyes, as if she were the very air he breathed, the ground he walked on.

“You’re safe with me,” she whispered, and threw her head back as she felt the tightening of her inner muscles, felt pleasure streaking through her body like fire and heard roaring in her ears. She held him to her, giving him everything, letting him know in the only way he could understand—by her absolute surrender—that she was fully committed to him.

Jake dragged in his breath, fighting the waves of intense emotion that seemed to shake him every time he was near Emma. He couldn’t ignore the truth anymore, or at least he couldn’t hide it from himself. In trying to force her to love him, he had become tangled in his own web. She was wrapped around his heart, his soul, even his mind. She was so entangled inside of him, there was no way to get her out. He would have to find a way to live with it. Emma. She made him so vulnerable, he was terrified. Terrified she could destroy him. Terrified of losing her. Terrified of what she made him feel.

Shaken, he allowed her feet to drop to the ground, although he held her, feeling the tremors running through her, knowing she was still unsteady. The wind shifted. One moment he was surrounded by the scent of his woman, of their combined lovemaking, potent, heady, an aphrodisiac in itself, and the next he was smelling—rival. Enemy. Trouble.

Jake stiffened, lifted his head and took a long, slow look around, his arm holding her to him, his nose raised to sniff the air to get a better scent.

“What is it?” Emma turned in his arms to try to look around him, but his hands were hard on her shoulder, preventing her from getting out from under the shelter of his arms.

“Get your clothes and get into the Jeep. Close the door. You can dress inside.”

There wasn’t much left of her clothes, but Emma gathered them up and slid into the Jeep. Jake turned in a slow circle, still scenting the wind. If Emma hadn’t been with him, he would have shifted to his leopard form, but he couldn’t take the chance. He pulled on his jeans and drew the radio from where it was hooked to his belt.

“Drake, get Joshua. I’m sending my coordinates to you. I’m smelling a stray.”

The radio crackled, then came to life. “Is it Conner? He went running tonight.”

Jake tried for the elusive scent again. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’m not that familiar with him. I’m with Emma. I’ll get her back to the house and you and Joshua check things out. If there’s trouble, let me know.”

When Jake slid behind the wheel of the Jeep, Emma cleared her throat. “What was wrong?”

He knew she’d seen him radioing Drake. “I have horses running free on the range about five miles to the north of here, just a small experiment I’m conducting, but I thought I caught the glimpse of a mountain lion.”

Her eyelashes fluttered and her hand came up to her throat. He remembered the story of the tracks around her parents’ car. “Nothing to worry about, honey. Drake and Joshua will track it down if we have anything bothering the herd.”

13

“MOMMY.”

Emma snuggled deeper against the warm, hard body lying so tight around her. He smelled of sex and spice, and she opened her eyes to see a golden gaze laughing down at her.

Jake leaned in to her to kiss her upturned mouth, his chest sliding over her naked breasts beneath the covers. “I think we’ve just been caught,” he confided in a whisper, and turned his head to look at the intruders.

Emma followed his gaze to the open door of her bedroom. Kyle stood at the foot of the bed, his eyes, so like his father’s, wide with shock, his smile big. Andraya stood in the doorway, her hand in Susan’s, both looking surprised. Susan was biting her lip and trying not to blush.