He felt a surge beneath the ice, the one that told him his volcano was still present, would always be present and hidden beneath the glacier inside him. Fuckers, he whispered softly. You’re free now. And I’ve got tons of plants up here, he enticed her. Because he wanted to see her. Even needed to see her. Even though he could acknowledge that to himself, it still bothered him, because to need any woman made him vulnerable.

It isn’t the same thing as being outside.

That was true, but he didn’t want her outside – especially at night. He wanted her there with him. Close. In his bedroom if at all possible. He made a mental note to add an abundance of plants throughout the building. With them came an automatic watering system so they wouldn’t die. He’d forget to water. He was like that. He forgot a lot of things when he was working.

What are you wearing? He dropped his voice even lower. He had always been good with women because he had a voice that could seduce or compel as well. Tell me, baby. I’ve been working night and day, but I thought of you. So many times. Wondering what you were up to. What you were wearing. Do you wear clothes to bed?

He could feel her moving in his mind. This time there was no hint of the spider, only the woman. The seductress – that beautiful woman who was just as drawn to him as he was to her. He smiled as he placed his duffel bag on the floor and made his way to the kitchen. He had a few more treasures in store for her.

No. I don’t like clothes when I’m sleeping. They twist around my body and wake me up.

His mouth went dry at her declaration. He didn’t like wearing clothes at night either, but just the thought of her naked… All that silken skin. So close. Out of reach. Are you wearing clothes right now?

She’d better be, because if she wasn’t, there was no way he was going to get any sleep. He’d spent the last few days and nights working on building a vaccine. He wanted his own body to build antibodies against the neurotoxin. He’d worked nonstop, no food, no rest, making certain he was right. The research he’d been conducting on trying to find a vaccine for the venomous poisons in Wyatt’s little girls had actually given him a boost toward his goal, but it had taken much longer than he’d anticipated. He’d left her alone and clearly she felt abandoned.

I don’t wear clothes when I’m alone. Too cumbersome. In any case, I don’t have that many clothes and I don’t want to ruin them. There’s no need for clothes when I’m here in the house.

His heart nearly stopped. It definitely stuttered, another physical reaction he would have said was impossible. His mouth went dry. He’d just taken the cap off the milk carton and was raising it toward his face to take a drink. His hand seemed to lose its ability to grip and he nearly dropped the carton. The woman knew how to put images in a man’s head. It wasn’t just her voice that drew a man, it was the entire package.

For some reason that opened up a small crack in the glacier, just enough to allow a vein of bubbling magna to escape. Fear burst through him. He didn’t understand why, but it was brutal. He wasn’t a man who ever felt fear, because he had nothing at all to lose. Suddenly she was there. He couldn’t allow fear so he covered it, reaching for something else. Something dark and ugly. Something he hadn’t known was a part of him.

They put you through seduction training? Did you take off your clothes in front of men so you learned how to strip slow and show off your body? Is that what you do, Cayenne? You seduce them before you kill them?

Pepper, Wyatt’s wife had been trained to seduce a man and then assassinate him with one venomous bite. She hadn’t cooperated, and she’d landed in the swamp, in the very building he resided in, when there was a crematory set up to get rid of the bodies scheduled for termination.

The idea of Cayenne being taught to use her looks, her voice, her body to please a man, to entice him so she could bite him, paralyze him or kill him, sickened him. Sickened him. He shoved the carton of milk back in the refrigerator and slammed the door shut. She would have been taught by male instructors how to please a man, the best way to seduce him. She’d pressed her body close to his. Kissed him. She was a dynamite kisser. Fourth of July. Fireworks exploding. A taking-a-man-to-heaven kind of kisser. He could still taste her in his mouth. He still had the scent of her in his lungs. He knew neither would ever go away. He pushed away the conversation they’d had about her training. About her being in a cell. She was beautiful. Sexy. Deadly.

Why would you ask me that?

There was hurt in her voice. One small note. He almost missed it. You kissed me, Cayenne. You kissed me, and I lost a part of myself to you. He had lost much more than he thought when he kissed her. He’d never felt so exposed before in his life. Need moved through him. Hunger. There was no way to stop it, and the idea of being out of control when he controlled his entire world hit him hard. I thought you were as into me as I was into you, but then you bit me. Paralyzed me. Left me out in the swamp as alligator bait. All along, while you were kissing me and I was lost in you, you were planning to paralyze me and leave me there in the mud.

Okay, maybe she hadn’t done that. She’d asked him and he’d told her Wyatt was close. But he wasn’t anything special to her. She watched over the Comeaux brothers as well. Maybe before he’d arrived she’d been pressing her body up against one of them. He could hear himself ranting like a jealous idiot, but that pressure inside his chest wouldn’t let him stop.

You know I didn’t do that, she protested, the hurt increasing in her voice. I was into you. I lost a part of myself there as well.

That small stream of orange-red lava continued to slip through the ice. I’ll just bet you did, right before you paralyzed me. You’re talking about sleeping nude and sitting downstairs right within my reach without a stitch on, putting that image in my head. Seriously? That’s not seduction?

No! She sounded adamant. And maybe close to tears. The hurt was definitely there. You asked me questions. I have no reason to be deceptive. I just answered you. Was that wrong? Should I have lied? What difference does it make if I wear clothes to bed or sleep without them? Or lounge around in my own space without them? How is that seduction?

He nearly groaned. How was it not? Her voice rang with truth, but along with that honesty was the soft velvet note that brushed a man’s skin and wrapped around his cock like a tight fist. Squeezing. Stroking. Caressing. His cock responded to that. It was impossible to maintain control.