He pulled at her hand, drawing her down before the danger of the movement penetrated her mind, and she jerked back.

“No. I can’t.” Her tongue was throbbing, the glands swollen and desperate now. Her breasts ached, her nipples hardening to firm peaks that rasped almost painfully against the snug fit of her top.

“Sure you can.” His eyes were hot, glittering with dark hunger as he stared at the flesh of her upper breasts as they rose above the top. “Come on, baby. Let me kiss you again. I know how bad you need it. How swollen that pretty little tongue is. I could feel it on my cock, throbbing. Come on, Sherra, nothing’s going to make me hornier than I already am.”

He drew her down. Her head was screaming no. But every cell in her body was crying out differently. She could taste the soft mix of rainfall and sweetness in her mouth as she trembled in sudden fear and jerked away from him again, unconsciously swallowing the potent taste of the hormone. She shuddered at the knowledge of how quickly the heat was progressing this time. She should have more time before the glands began to open up and spill their spice into her system. More time to prepare herself and make certain she could escape far enough away to keep him from knowing the hell she had yet to endure.

She moved back from the bed hastily. “I have to go.”

“No.” He leaned up on the bed, his gaze sharpening, his expression hardening. “Don’t run from me like this, Sherra. Let me share this with you, if nothing else.”

“You don’t understand.” She forced the words past her lips, a few more drops of the rich taste spilling from the glands. “You don’t know, Kane. You can’t understand.”

“I understand I’m dying for you, and have been for eleven years,” he said roughly. “Do you think I didn’t make sure exactly what I could be letting myself in for when I found out what Merinus had experienced?

Do you really think it’s any fucking worse than this hard-on I’m packing? I could fuck you for weeks and not get enough of you. That piddling little hormone you put out isn’t going to make it any worse.”

He had no idea just how much worse it could truly get.

“You’re crazy,” she cried out roughly, her voice low. “You think it can’t get any worse, Kane? You think arousal can’t become a torture so painful you would gladly die rather than endure it any longer?”

She looked down at him with bitter knowledge. “It can get worse. A hell of a whole lot worse. So bad your hips won’t still as you try to fuck dry air. So deep and painful you’re screaming in agony and you would fuck anything or anyone but you can’t stand the touch of another person against your flesh. So debilitating you’re useless in battle because all you want to do is fuck.”

His eyes were black now, widening in shock as she described the past episodes she had gone through. His cheeks flushed a ruddy color and she could almost see his lust rising rapidly at the thought of such arousal.

“Then bring your ass down here and fuck,” he snarled almost violently. “You know as well as I do that eases it, Sherra.”

“Nothing eases it, Kane.” She wanted to scream out her fury. “Don’t you understand? Every time Callan fucked Merinus that hormone forced her to ovulate. Her body was prepared and gave her enough time to see if conception would occur before forcing her hunger again. I can’t conceive. I won’t conceive. Remember?”

“I could do without a dissection of my sister’s sex life,” he snarled. “And you don’t know if what you’re saying is true or not. All you have is supposition.”

“And all you have is a hard-on,” she sneered. “Jack off. At least you can find some relief there, Kane. There will be no satisfaction to be found in my body.”

“I don’t think so, kitty,” he gritted out between clenched teeth as he came off the bed, stumbling for a second as his feet seemed to betray him.

Sherra watched, wide-eyed, while all six plus feet of furious, aroused male paused as though in confusion. His cock was dark and engorged, the mushroomed head damp with the pre-come that had seeped over it. He wobbled on his feet, the drugs affecting his coordination now. He stopped, stared down at them a minute, then started for her again and promptly stumbled again.

“Son of a bitch. I fucking hate drugs,” he cursed.

Instinctively, Sherra moved closer to him, seeing the frustration and determination that was likely to

cause him to end up on his ass. Not that she didn’t think he deserved to be on his ass, but if he tore those stitches Doc would rip her a new one.

That was her first mistake.

His arms went around her, a wicked chuckle sounding at her ear, and before she could stop him, they were tumbling back on the bed.

“Oh hell,” he cursed painfully as he came over her, catching his weight on his good shoulder, though he grimaced painfully with the jarring the wounded shoulder took. Sherra stared up at him with a frown. Damned stubborn man. He was determined to have his own way, no matter what, and refused to listen to common sense.

“Kane, are you insane?” She didn’t struggle against him as he moved between her thighs, his cock pressing against the mound of her pussy as her breath caught in hunger. Kane’s eyes closed for a second. Just long enough for her to watch the burning pleasure that streaked across his expression.

“Now what, big boy?” she asked him mockingly. Her clothes separated them and she knew damned good and well he was going to be out like a light before he could ever manage to get them off.

“God, you feel so good I could die right here and now and know nothing else has ever felt so good.” His voice was hoarse with drugged weariness and thickening lust.

The words slammed into her heart. Sherra’s eyes closed as she fought to block the sight of shattering bliss that crossed his face. His eyes had narrowed to pinpoints of dark heat as he pressed his hips into the cradle of her thighs. The hard length of hot, engorged flesh pressed firmly against her swollen clit, making her gasp in her own building ecstasy.

“Feel how good it is, baby,” he whispered as his head lowered, his tongue stroking over the damp flesh of her collarbone. “Do you remember, Sherra? How hot and good it was that first time? Watching my cock sink into your sweet little pussy was the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

The feel of his lips moving against her skin was heaven and hell. The pleasure was so exquisite her pussy clenched, pulsed, spilling her juices in a silky trail against the thin fabric separating her from Kane’s eager cock. Her tongue throbbed with a pounding rhythm of need, spilling the sweet spice of the hormone into her mouth and sending it speeding through her system.

Oh, this was bad, she thought as her hips jerked against him in reflex. This was very bad. Her hands gripped his bare flesh, holding onto his firm, muscular waist as he ground the heated shaft against her sensitive cleft.

“Kane.” His name was a sigh of longing that she couldn’t control. Too many years of suffering the agonizing effects of the heat and not knowing its source washed through her. So many nights spent longing just for this, aching for the feel of his strong body covering her, his arms holding her, just as he was now.

“Shh, baby.” He licked the rise of her breasts over the tank top. “Feel how good it is. Let me pet you, Sherra. All sleek and soft and hot against me. Such a pretty little kitty.”

Despite the fever of lust building in her blood, Sherra snorted in amusement. “You’re deranged,” she groaned as she felt his fingers slide beneath the strap of the snug top and pull it off her shoulder.

“Mmm. Look what I found.” He nudged the neckline lower with his chin, revealing the hard, distended nipple that rose pleadingly toward him. “A pretty little berry, all ripe and sweet just for me.”

His tongue curled around it before she could steel herself for the action. She arched involuntarily, pushing it closer to his lips, a ragged wail of hunger echoing around them as she shuddered violently in his arms. Kane groaned roughly then slowly, heavily, collapsed against her.

“Kane?” Sherra swallowed tightly as Kane’s head rested on her shoulder, his big body nearly crushing hers as all his weight lay against her. Comforting, but damned heavy.

“Kane?” She poked at his good shoulder.

His breathing was light and relaxed. He was growing heavier by the second.

“Dammit, Kane.” She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as she began to struggle against his body, pushing against the unwounded side until she finally, mercifully, managed to roll him off her.

“Deranged,” she muttered. “You’re certifiable, Kane. Completely insane. You should be locked up.”

And he still had a frigging hard-on. She growled in frustration as she rolled from the bed and flipped the blanket over him with a hiss of disgust. Saved by Doc’s drugs? She shook her head wearily. It was the first time she had ever known Doc’s painkillers to knock anyone out. He was as tight with the drugs as a miser with money. And now Kane was sleeping deep and painlessly while she paced the room, kicking herself for her own lack of control.

She threw herself in the chair beside his bed and stared over at his unconscious form. Served him right for letting himself get wounded to begin with, she snorted silently. If he had left her the hell alone he wouldn’t have passed out two seconds from a home run due to the drugs injected for the wound.

“Nut case,” she muttered. “You’re a danger to yourself.”

Pushing her fingers wearily through her hair, she moved from the chair to the couch.

“‘Don’t leave him alone, Sherra’,” she mocked the doctor hatefully. “‘He might hurt himself, Sherra.’”

She snorted. Even hurt, he managed to manipulate events to suit him before anyone else. She stretched out on the couch, stared up at the ceiling and prayed for patience. She had a feeling she was going to need it where Kane Tyler was concerned.

* * * * *

“She can’t control it. That’s the one thing about the females that I’ve noticed. Their bodies simply cannot deny the touch of their mate, no matter what, no matter when or where. Until conception occurs, or in Sherra’s case, I suspect when the heat eases, as it has before.”

Kane hadn’t forgotten that little kernel of information that Doc Martin had given him during a meeting earlier the next morning, but he was man enough to admit that he had wanted Sherra to come to him on her own, not because her body gave her no choice. It was the most virulent objection that he initially had against Callan and Merinus’ relationship. He had always felt as though his sister had no choice in the matter, even though she appeared deliriously happy.

But, as he made his way across the estate grounds, he suddenly found himself seeing it from a different perspective. His perspective, he admitted, but still, a different one. She was his woman. Forget the mating, forget the heat. The plain and simple fact of the matter was that she was his, whether she wanted to admit to it or not. Had the heat not been a factor, it would have been a cold day in hell before he would have treated her with such kid gloves.

Not touching her, confining his dealings with her to the sharp, sniping comments that often hurt him as much as they had hurt her hadn’t been easy. He had allowed her to run every time she needed to, and rather than chasing after her, he had given her freedom. Because he hadn’t wanted to force something that was as natural to Sherra’s body as breathing—the need to be with her mate. He jerked the small radio from its belt holder and brought it to his mouth.

“Sherra, where are you?”

He was damned tired of waiting on her to make the decision. The fact that she was willing to face the physical agonies she had suffered rather than come to him grated on his pride, even though something warmed in his chest at the thought of her attempting to protect him from the unknown. He smiled rakishly. The unknown could be damned exciting sometimes.