“Hello to you too, hellcat.”

She froze.

It had been so long since she had heard his voice. The rich, dark, foreign flavor of it wrapping around her senses and sending a heavy, heated lethargy to settle in the depths of her sex.

Memories washed over her.

His hands, calloused and strong, so dark against her thighs as his black hair, like roughened silk falling over her flesh as his lips moved over her clit. They had surrounded it, sucked it, lit a fire to it that had exploded through her system into an ecstasy she longed to revisit every second of her life.

Abram.

Beneath his palm her lips parted to drag in a hard, heavy breath as her body began to soften, to shape to the harder, stronger contours of his masculine body.

She shouldn’t be doing this. He had avoided her for years, slipping in and out of Khalid’s home and her life, and she had seen him only briefly, and always in the company of others.

Without volition her hips relaxed, the mound of her pussy pressing against the hard upper leg shoved between her thighs as she felt her breasts harden, her nipples so sensitive they actually ached.

Pleasure skated through her system as her tongue peeked out to touch her lips, to touch his palm. Slightly salty, male, the taste of him exploded against her tongue as he jerked back from her just as suddenly.

Staring up at the darkened shadow of his face, seeing the glitter of his gaze, feeling the heat of his body, Paige found herself, probably for the first time in her life, unable to speak. She couldn’t find the words, she couldn’t fight past the emotions or the tightening of her throat as she stared back at him.

The need for his touch was a craving she couldn’t resist. She couldn’t deny it. It was like a drug and she had gone far too long without a fix.

Her lips parted, but no words came out. She couldn’t let them, because she was terribly afraid those words would be a plea. That she would beg for things she wasn’t certain how to ask for with this man. Things she knew she was probably better off without.

Her body sure as hell knew how to ask though. She was shocked, flushed with heat and had to forcibly keep her hips from rubbing against the hard flesh pressed into the mound of her pussy.

And he knew it. His leg was tense, but each time her hips shifted against the firm muscle she swore he tightened further against her.

And he wasn’t letting her go. If anything, he was holding her tighter, perhaps, if she weren’t mistaken, his leg was pressing more firmly against the suddenly heated, swollen folds between her thighs. And oh yes, it felt so damned good. That heated, slow rub against her, stroking her clit, sending bursts of incredible sensation ratcheting through her.

She had known over the years that this was coming. At the first opportunity. The moment he touched her, the very second they found themselves hidden from curious gazes. She had known this would happen. That the need and the hunger would rage out of control.

“Why?” squeaky, weak, her voice was nothing as it should have been. It didn’t sound determined or confident as it usually did. And it sure as hell didn’t sound independent and strong.

Swallowing tightly she tried again.

“Why are you here? Where’s Khalid?”

She tightened her fingers against the hold he had on her wrists, though she found herself stopping short of actually straining against his hold. After all, if she protested too loudly, or struggled too much, he might actually let her go.

“Khalid and Marty are with her parents.” Deep, dark, she swore she actually trembled as he spoke. “They are completing the plans for your protection.”

Her protection? Right now, all she needed protection from was the brilliant heat she was helpless against.

“He should be here.” Oh man, she was dying here. She could feel her blood racing, her flesh heating, her clit throbbing harder in demand with each second.

The longer she lay there beneath him, the more she wanted him. The more she wanted the sensations, the pleasure she had only had the briefest taste of eight years before.

“Should he be?” His fingers tightened, then relaxed against her hip a second before his palm cupped it, shifting her, moving her against his thigh. “I think at this moment, it’s a very good thing that he isn’t here. Wouldn’t you say?”

A flash of fire streaked through her pussy, clenched the tightened muscles and almost stole her breath. Pleasure raged through her body, but it was a painful pleasure, an achy, needing-so-much-more sensation type of pleasure that it weakened her knees and had her breathing in roughly.

“He kidnapped me,” she breathed out roughly. “I’m going to kick his ass.”

“Go right ahead,” he murmured. “When he arrives. Until then, I believe it might be time to see if your lips are as soft and as sweet as they appear to be. If they are anywhere as sweet as that hot, luscious little pussy I cannot forget the taste of.”

Her entire body clenched in excitement at the declaration.

Then his head lowered.

Paige felt her lashes drift close, lips remaining parted, breath suspended as his lips brushed against the edge of her face, sending a rush of exquisite pleasure washing through her again.

“You’re trying to distract me,” she accused him roughly. “I’m not going to let you do it. Khalid owes me explanations, Abram.”

He owed her. She owed herself. She couldn’t let him do this to her or once he was gone, there would be nothing left of her.

“He’s protecting you,” he stated, though his voice sounded rougher, more strained as his lips moved to her ear, his breath stroking across the shell as he spoke. “You’re in danger, Paige, you should have guessed that by now.”

In danger of screaming in need. Of begging for his touch. Of whimpering with the painful hunger she couldn’t control.

“Guessed what?” She hoped he didn’t actually expect her to be able to think at the moment, because it wasn’t happening. But she couldn’t imagine a single reason why she would be in danger.

Unless it was in danger of dying of arousal. As of this moment, that was definitely a consideration. In all her adult years she had never felt this way with another man, had never ached or lost her breath, or felt on fire as she did now. And never had she been so certain she may lose herself in another person.

“That you’re in danger.” There was a thread of amusement in his voice now, the knowledge of it sweeping through her with the same force the hunger had swept through her moments before.

Amusement was the last thing she could have felt as he held her, as the thrill of touching him, of being touched by him, held her captivated.

Clenching her teeth she tensed, trying to pull back, to put just a breath between their bodies as she attempted to find her control somewhere in the morass of aching hunger and need assailing her.

Wasn’t it just her luck to be so aroused by a man while his own arousal, his own needs, were so obviously distant, just as they had been before. It was the story of her life where Abram was concerned. From the time she’d realized she wanted those devilish, sexy lips of his on her, he’d been either furious or amused by her.

“In danger of killing Khalid perhaps,” she forced out. “Would you please let me go now? Get off me, Abram. I’m not in the mood for your games.”

He rubbed his cheek against her hair as though considering her request for long moments. “Perhaps, I like you fine as you are,” he finally stated. “I like how you feel against me, Paige Eleanora Galbraithe. Do you know how the memory of those very few stolen moments have tormented me?”

“And perhaps I think by now I know better,” she whispered hoarsely. “Stop playing with me.”

“Ahh, Paige, love, this is far beyond playing. This is the reason why I have fought against your touch. Because I can feel my control going straight to hell just from the simple act of holding you against me. How can I convince you how much I enjoy the feel of you against me?”

How she felt against him? Or the fact that for the barest few moments, she’d been unable to tell him what an ass he was being?

At the moment, he wasn’t being his normal, mocking self, but she could sense that beast ready to spring forth. And once it did, their confrontations could turn brutal. His mocking, hers loud. They’d been known to rip at each other for hours, like little children poking at each other to gain dominance.

“I can tell,” she said. “You’re on the verge of laughing your ass off, Abram. Let me go.”

His grip tightened on her wrists for a second as she felt tension hardening his body further. Against her lower stomach his cock felt harder, hotter, his body more insistent as he seemed closer, blanketing her like a sensual, muscular beast.

“Not at you.” His voice was suddenly lower, the feel of his heart racing at her breast as he pulled her closer against him with the hand at her hip. “At myself, hellcat. Because no matter how hard I try to pull away from you, I want nothing more than to sink inside you.”

The second the words passed his lips they were covering hers. His body shifted, his free hand pulling her farther up his thigh, working it against the swollen folds as her gown pooled around his leg. The silk of her panties saturating with her juices as she strained closer to him. Her clit heated with a fiery intensity. Her pussy clenched, tightened, the muscles ached with a desperation to be filled and every cell in her body sizzled with the need to be touched.

Pleasure rose fast and hard inside her. Heart racing, blood pounding through her system as her lips parted, her head falling back as he possessed her with his kiss.

Every thought of protest flew out the window. Past angers, conflicts, and confrontations were gone. With her wrists secured to the wall, his thigh pressed between hers, and his lips and tongue caressing and owning every pulse of sensuality, he was drowning her. Paige could feel herself weakening into the promise of the remembered ecstasy.

Dominance swirled from him. It was a wave of heat wrapping around her and sinking into her flesh as his lips rubbed and caressed hers. His tongue licked at hers, dipping in, tasting and caressing until Paige found herself arching up to him, moaning for more.

The only place his hands touched her were at her wrists, and again at her hip. The rest of his body stroked her though. His rd chest against her breasts, his thigh pressed between hers.

Each flex of his leg stroked the hard muscle against her pussy, her clit, sending incredible pleasure racing through each nerve ending as she arched to be closer.

She had to get closer to him.

The need for the heat, for the pleasure was rushing through her like a tornado. She was dying for more of him. For another taste of him. His kiss was like an aphrodisiac, spicy and addictive as his lips slanted over hers and he kissed her with a pure, sensual hunger that she couldn’t have dreamed existed.

The restraint at her wrists should have made her nervous. No man had ever restrained her. She would have never allowed it until now.

Until Abram.

Until the feel of him against her, until his hands restrained her and his kiss made her like it.

But that didn’t mean she was submitting easily. Even amidst the incredible starbursts of pleasure. On a primitive, primal level, Paige could sense the battle that could brew between them. The one that had been shaping for years now.

How dominant he could be.

How submissive she would never allow herself to be.

She nipped at his tongue as he licked over hers again, causing his head to jerk back, his gaze to narrow in the darkness.

“You’re playing with fire.” There was a growl in his voice that sent a shiver racing up her spine.

“And what are you playing with?” It was all she could do to keep the tremors from her voice, from her fingers as he held them above her head. “I didn’t start this, Abram, you did.”

“You started this eight years ago, Paige,” he rasped. “Eight years and the taste of the sweetest pussy I’ve had touched my tongue to. You torment me. And now, there is no choice but to anger you in our attempt to ensure your security.”