There was Wyatt. A man who knew how to love. A man of family. A man who could take command of a situation, lethal one moment and gentle and loving toward a child the next. That man. Her man. She knew him better than he knew himself. He wanted her giving herself to him, but he was holding a part of himself in reserve. That was okay too. She recognized that this one time might be the only time, but she was going to let herself enjoy every single second with him. And she was going to make certain he was going to enjoy it too, that he’d never regret being with her.

She wanted to touch him. To feel his skin beneath her fingers. She was very tactile, and needed touch. Craved it. But only from him. Wyatt. She had no idea if the nightly erotic dreams had fed her hunger for him, and she didn’t know if they were her dreams or his, only that she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

“There’s no one else on this road, Pepper. We’re headin’ to the camp. Got a huntin’ cabin there.” His dark eyes moved over her, hooded, sensual, desire intense. “Keep opening the buttons, sugar. You’re makin’ me crazy goin’ so slow like that.”

Wyatt was lean, all compact, very defined muscle with just enough bulk to him to look as if he could handle himself with ease. He was all man and she wanted him so badly it actually terrified her. Her hands trembled as she slid the last button out of its closure. His voice was nearly a growl, but a sultry, sexy one. She found herself shivering in anticipation.

Wyatt pulled the Jeep onto a narrow bumpy trail. He couldn’t exactly call it a road, but he knew it like the back of his hand. Since he’d been a child, once he’d been somewhere, the twists and turns could never throw him off. He remembered everything.

Plants grew over the faint tire treads left behind in the mud. Great sweeping fans of moss fluttered around the Jeep as he drove through the cypress grove toward the hunting cabin. He glanced at Pepper again. Her blouse was open, but she hadn’t parted the edges – and her hands trembled. She twisted her fingers together in agitation. His little seductress was actually nervous.

“Baby,” he said gently. There was no way to keep the growl from his voice. He wasn’t going to lie to her. He wanted her with a vengeance, and he damned well was going to have her. They’d programmed her to need sex on purpose, mostly, he was certain, to gain her cooperation, but they hadn’t counted on her strength to defy them. She was still shielding him, still afraid to allow him to see the real her.

“Look at me, Pepper.” He reached over and pried her fingers loose so he could curl her palm around the broad width of his cock. “You put that there and you weren’t even tryin’. You did that. Not an enhancement. Not some fleeting physical attraction. I’m hard as a rock and I need you. You. Not some other woman.”

She shook her head, a low moan slipping out of her throat. He had the urge to stop the Jeep and lick her throat, to take her moan in his mouth.

“This could ruin everything. You don’t understand what my life is like,” she whispered, refusing to give him her eyes.

“Why? Because you want me too? You may wake up every morning needin’ sex, babe, but here’s a newsflash: so do I.”

“It isn’t the same. You have no idea.”

She sounded a little desperate. He didn’t care anymore. He’d had enough of seeing her suffer. He’d had enough of suffering himself. She was his woman whether she knew it or not. Her fear was that she would tie him to her with sex and that’s what they’d have and only that. He knew better. Their bond was complicated, and intensely sexual, but it wasn’t all about sex.

He pulled the Jeep into the small overgrown pad for parking on the right side of the cabin and yanked on the brake. He was ending this right now. She was afraid to move, one way or the other. She was holding herself very still because she didn’t know what to do.

Wyatt leapt out of the Jeep, went around to her door and jerked it open, reaching over her lap, his shoulder brushing soft skin, over her soft breasts as he unsnapped her seat belt. The small little touch sent electrical shocks through his body, straight to his groin.

“I can’ bring two more men into the house until we’re settled, Pepper. Until you belong to me all the way. Until you know for certain that you do.” His fingers curled around her arm and he pulled her out of the Jeep, up tight against his body. “I’m not killin’ a friend because you can’ make up your mind.”

“I don’t want this. I don’t want to be like this.” Pepper shook her head again, desperation filling her. He was too close. Too hot. His body so tight against hers she felt like she was melting into him. But if she let go, if they had sex together, for the rest of her life, that’s all she’d ever be to him.

Despair mixed with her rising temper. He didn’t know the first thing about what he was getting himself into. “I don’t want you killing a friend or anyone else over me. That’s what I’m trying to protect you from. You’re so arrogant, Wyatt. You don’t think I know what’s going to happen? Having sex with me isn’t going to make it better. It’s going to make it worse. That craving will never stop. Never. You’ll wake up with it. You’ll go to bed with it. You’ll be at work with it. You’ll make yourself crazy wondering who I’m with, what I’m doing. Worse, you’ll be suspicious of your friends and the males in your family. The women won’t accept me around their husbands.”

“You can tone it down.”