He’d never felt truly sated in his life. He could take a woman all night and still be semihard. In his mind the act had never been enough to satisfy him. It relieved the terrible ache, but it didn’t satisfy. Until now. Until Cayenne, and he couldn’t even touch her hair falling around his hips and thighs with his fingertips.

You have no way of knowing just what you’ve given me. He whispered the admission in his mind. Intimate. It was all he could give her, and he knew it made him vulnerable. Maybe too vulnerable. She had to see what her gift meant to him, she’d shared his mind. Shared that amazing, beautiful experience.

Cayenne sat up slowly, licked her lips, her gaze somewhat dazed. Her lips swollen. She looked almost as sated as he felt. “The silk will loosen in a few minutes, Trap. Don’t come down to my lair. I have to think about things.”

“Baby.” His voice was hoarse. It broke on a groan. “I need to hold you. To touch you. You just gave me something beautiful. I’m not so selfish that I don’t want to give you something back.”

“You already did.”

“More, I want to give you more. At least take off the wraps and let me hold you.”

She shook her head slowly and backed away from him. “I can’t. Not yet.”

He could see she was afraid. Afraid that she’d gotten in over her head. The gift she’d given him had meant something to her as well. It had tied them closer together. He took a breath, let it out and nodded.

He forced air through his lungs, afraid he’d never have enough again to breathe right. “Get food and something to drink out of the kitchen. Money’s there. Tomorrow we’ll put your prints into the security system. I wrote the code for you. More than anything right now, Cayenne, I want to hold you. I want you in my bed sleeping next to me. I’ve never slept in the same bed with a woman. I’ve fucked them, but I didn’t trust any more than you do. I want that for us. That intimacy. You. In my bed.”

“I want that too, Trap, but I really have to think about this. You have the house and the money and all the knowledge. I’ve got nothing at all to give to you. I don’t know how to walk into a store and buy groceries for us, let alone how to cook them. I need to know I’m bringing you something as well. Something valuable.”

“We talked about this. I want it all with you, Cayenne. A home. A wife. Children. I want a partner in the lab. You calculated the amount of peanut shells on the floor of the bar…”

“I was bored out of my mind,” she said. “Not every man going into a bar is a rat. I wasn’t going to rob just anyone. I had to do something. Not only was I bored, but I was terrified – and hungry. Some days I only had those peanuts to eat. Most of the time, I gave the money to the families I took clothes from.”

He detested that. “Those days are over. Just the fact that you could calculate the number of husks means intellectually we’re a good fit. I need that. I can’t be bored by my partner. You like knowledge.”

“It’s more than liking,” she confessed in a rush. “I have to keep my mind occupied or I go a little crazy. I have to keep learning.”

He smiled at her, wanting to touch her. Needing it. “Come here, baby. Free my hands so I can at least touch you. And before you leave this room, I need you to kiss me again. I promise you, you’re safe. I won’t take anything from you but a kiss.”

“You’re very tempting right now and I’m…” She broke off.

Clearly the things she’d done to him had aroused her again, and this time, there’d been no relief. None. Her nipples were hard little points, and between her legs he could see the evidence of her desire. She still had a flush to her skin and her eyes were a little dazed. Her breath came in rapid little pants.

“Give me my hands or let me use my mouth again if you don’t want my cock right now, Cayenne. You know I can take care of you. Taking me like that made you needy all over again. Let me help you with that.” He was thrilled that the act of giving him so much pleasure had made her burn for him.

She stepped away from the bed. Not stepped. There was movement but no noise. She walked in absolute silence. Like a spider. He couldn’t help but be amazed as she glanced upward toward the ceiling, one hand going up. Immediately there was a silken cord hanging and she was already making her way upward. When she stirred, her movements were very spider-like, and yet at the same time, she was a beautiful, sensuous woman.

Trap stayed very still, watching her as she scurried to the corner across the ceiling to the vent. She turned her head, looking over her shoulder, long dark hair falling in clouds around her. “You promised me that you wouldn’t come downstairs, Trap. I’m holding you to that promise. I have to think about this. I hope I can get where you want me to be, but I’m not there yet. You have to let me do this my way.”

Then she was gone.

CHAPTER 9

Trap woke up to the sound of a fire alarm going off and the scent of burned bacon permeating his room. He leapt out of bed and ran toward the sound. The master suite was a distance from the kitchen and he cursed living in such a huge space as he sprinted, naked and barefoot, through the old factory and then skidded to a halt just inside the door.

Cayenne stood beneath the fire alarm, glaring at it, hands on her hips, her hair and clothes covered in flour, or what could possibly be egg and batter. White clouds of powder floated in the air and lay strewn across the floor in sweeping patterns like sand.

Trap pressed his lips together to keep from laughing, stalked through the gray-white room, and stepped behind her, close, his body touching hers, to reach up and turn off the blaring alarm. She froze. He was significantly taller than she was, and with his arms around her, she was mostly caged in. He completed the circle, his arms becoming steel bonds as he leaned his chin down and nuzzled her neck.

“Good morning, Cayenne. I see you’re busy.” There was no possible way to keep the humor out of his voice.

She turned in his arms to face him because he didn’t give her much choice, annoyance on her flour-smeared face. “Don’t you dare laugh.”

He took her mouth, flour and all. That beautiful, adorable mouth, with her full red lips that had stretched around his cock and brought him a piece of heaven only the night before. She kissed like an angel and used her mouth like a sinful temptress. The moment he kissed her, she melted into him. Flour and all. Her arms slid around his neck, fingers curling into his hair. That felt good. It felt better than the time he became one of the youngest doctors to win the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his leading research in adaptive immunity in subset B&T memory cells. He didn’t give a damn about prizes, only the research, but he did give a damn about the woman in his arms.