Her shirt fell beneath his hands, just as her jeans parted seconds later. Gasping, panting for air, they groped and ripped at clothing, socks, shoes, until Lance was tumbling her to the bed, his large, harder body coming over her as his lips tore from hers.

"Mine!" He reasserted his claim as he parted her thighs, his cock pressing into the slick, heated depths of her vagina. "Tell me, damn you! Tell me you're mine."

"Yours." She could barely breathe, but she couldn't stop the word being torn from her lips as she stared back at him, shocked by the intensity of his eyes. They blazed in his dark face, deep blue flames of determination, dominance and powerful male force, glowing with an otherworldly light.

"No one will take you from me," he snapped, one hand tangling in her hair as his cock surged inside her, fierce, hot, stretching her to her limits as she arched into the thrust. She would have closed her eyes, but she couldn't break his gaze. He held her trapped, staring into her eyes, breaching her soul even as his erection breached the aching depths of her pussy.

She would have closed herself from him if she could. The distracting pleasure washing through her broke her concen-tration, fractured her ability to hold that inner part of herself aloof.

"Don't…" She begged him to release her, not with his body, but with that inner link she could feel forging inside her soul.

He rose above her, the width of his shoulders gleaming, damp with sweat. She could feel the power flowing through him, the strength that was so much a part of him wrapping around her, sheltering her. Protecting her.

"I won't let you run." His voice throbbed with furious determination. "I won't lose you. Or this."

He moved then, his hips drawing back, stroking exposed nerve endings, sending her senses reeling with pleasure as she arched against him to hold him inside her.

"Can you run from this, Harmony?" His hips twisted as he penetrated her again, a fierce, hard thrust that sent him tunneling to the depths of her as she gasped at the heat exploding through her. "Tell me, baby. Tell me you can walk away from this." If it had just been the pleasure, she could have walked away. But it was more. As he fucked her with hard gliding strokes, he infused her soul as well. Heat moved from his body to hers, chasing away the cold determination she had fought to rebuild inside her heart.

One hand gripped her hair, kneading, pulling at the strands and adding another level of sensation. The other hand cupped her breast, lifting it, until his mouth covered her nipple, his tongue flaying it with whiplashing pleasure.

He broke through every defense she could muster and left it lying, crumpled at her feet, as her hands gripped his hair and held him to her breast.

His hips pumped against hers, churning, thrusting, stroking inside her as his pelvis rasped against her swollen clit. The sensual stroke and slide, retreat and entrance were driving her insane. The pleasure built, layer upon layer, until nothing existed inside her but the need, the hunger clawing at her womb and in her soul.

"Feel it!" He lifted his head, staring down at her, his expression strained as the spiraling intensity of pleasure began to build. "You won't run. Do you hear me?" She shook her head, fighting to breathe, to think.

"Say it, Harmony." His voice was a dominant, commanding baritone that rippled through her senses.

He wanted surrender. She shook her head, fighting against it, fighting the need to give it.

"Say it, damn you!" One hand gripped her hip to hold her still as he slammed inside her, his legs widening, pushing her thighs apart as he shifted and touched her deeper.

"Don't do this." Baring her teeth, Harmony fought to hold on to herself. "No."

"Say it. You're mine, damn you. Fucking mine. You will follow me. Say it." His hand gripped her wrist as her nails dug into his shoulder and he slammed her hands to the bed. Her punishment came in a slow, torturous withdrawal of his cock from her inner grip. A sensual, heated slide of powerful flesh over desperate nerve endings. Transferring her wrists to one hand, he clamped her firmly to the bed as he gripped her hip once again and held her still beneath him. With the strength of his body he controlled her, just as he was fighting to control her with his will as well.

"I won't," she moaned, fighting against fear and hunger and the overriding need to do as he demanded.

"You will, Harmony."

Before she could struggle, he moved, sliding free of her before turning her to her stomach and trapping her against the bed.

"Damn you, Lance." She fought as he lifted her hips, shoving a pillow beneath them before thrusting inside her aching pussy again.

"Stay still." His hand tapped the side of her ass in a warning little slap. "Give me what I want, baby, and you'll get what you want."

"I can't do this." Her fingers clenched in the blankets. "I won't…"

"You will, Harmony. Say the words. Tell me you'll follow me. I won't let you run." Pressing her forehead into the blankets, she shook her head furiously.

"Oh, I think you will, sweetheart." The soft, warning croon should have prepared her, but it didn't.

She jerked as she felt him lean back, felt his cock throb inside her with a hard pulse before his hands separated the smooth cheeks of her rear.

"You're so wet." His fingers moved to where her pussy stretched around him. "So sweet and slick, all over." He smoothed the rush of liquid from where it seeped past her vagina, back, back.

"Oh God!" Her eyes flew open as she stared into the room with dazed shock. His finger pressed against the small, hidden entrance of her rear. His thumb massaged, pressed. It wasn't the touch so much as it was the impression of dominant control, of her own submission, that threw her mind into a frenzy or confusion.

She felt him leaning over her then, his arm reaching to the night table where his shaving kit rested. As he moved, his cock stroked into her, taking her breath, leaving her little oxygen to gasp as she watched him remove the small tube of lubrication he carried. Harmony shuddered beneath him then.

"There, sweetheart." His hand caressed over her rear as he straightened behind her again, the movement causing her to shudder in pleasure beneath him.

"Lance…"

"It's okay, baby." She felt the cooling lubrication against her rear entrance. "It's all okay."

"Oh God… Damn you, Lance."

His finger slid inside that back entrance, sending thrilling flames across nerve endings never stroked in such a way before.

"Never had this before, baby?" His finger shuttled in and out for several strokes. "What about this?"

A second joined the first, stretching her as tremors of ecstasy wracked her body and perspiration began to dampen her flesh.

"Do you know, little cat…" His voice was a soft croon. "My strong little kitten. You haven't had this because you refuse to submit to any man. To anyone's dominance over you. You didn't belong, Harmony. Let's see if you belong now." Another finger pierced her.

She was crying, whimpering little sounds of pleasure and pain that stoked the hunger higher and left her mindless with the need for release.

"Give me what I want, Harmony." His voice was strained as his fingers fucked her with the same slow rhythm he was setting with his cock. The dual penetration was mind numbing, dragging her sensibilities beneath the wake of the pleasure.

"Lance…"

"That's not what I want to hear." He wasn't heeding her whimpering pleas. "Tell me, Harmony. Tell me who you belong to. Who you follow."

The fierce need, the raging lust echoed in his voice with the demand for surrender. Total surrender.

She shook her head again, unable to voice the denial when everything inside her screamed that she give in to him.

"No. Lance, please…" She found the strength to whisper, to beg as she felt the thick length of his erection leaving her empty, unsatisfied.

"Easy, sweetheart."

Her breath caught in her throat as the head of his cock tucked at her rear instead.

"Lance?" The feminine thrill of sensual fear that echoed in her voice might shock her later, but for now, the fear of the unknown held her in its grip.

Emotions clashed inside her, the press of his cock against her ultra-tight entrance sending more than the thrill of the forbidden racing through her. This was the ultimate dominance, the impression of sensual, wicked control gripping her mind as he began to stretch her.

She couldn't take him. She had never before been able to take such a touch.

"Trust," he whispered then. "See how well you trust me, baby." His voice was a guttural growl as she tried to scream against the heavy invasion.

He was taking her, slowly; inch by inch her body was accepting him, the anal penetration scouring her mind as her body relaxed, even against her will, and she felt the length of him invade her in a slow, measured thrust.

"Mine." His voice was primal now, throbbing with the demand. "Mine." He rose over her, his body covering hers as he began to move, thrusting inside her with a diabolical rhythm as one hand moved beneath the front of her hips and his fingers speared inside her pussy.

"Tell me. Now!"

"Yes." With her hoarse scream she felt the last of her in-hibitions, the final shield of her defenses, collapse. "Yours. I'm yours."

Sobs of need fell from her lips as tears washed from her eyes. The pleasure was overwhelming; the strength and purpose of the man filling her, stimulating her, stealing her mind and her soul, rocked her with a shocking sense of belonging.

"Will you follow me?" He was gasping at her ear, his body heaving against hers, his fingers and his cock fucking her with a ruthless determination to secure every part of her.

"I'll follow…" She shuddered as something inside her clawed for release. "I'll follow…" And she knew she had no other choice, she never had.

As the final submission, the final vow to give someone else control filtered through her mind, she felt her body dissolve.

The orgasm that exploded inside her was a white-hot cataclysm that burned through her soul. The past was obliterated beneath the pleasure; the future contained nothing but Lance—his touch, his heavy moans, his teeth at her shoulder as he bit her with shocking strength seconds before she felt his explosion.

The furious blast of his semen filling her rear as his fingers filled her spasming pussy was too much. Another blinding release tore through her, ripping over nerve endings, throwing her higher and leaving her to trust Lance to catch her.

Trust. As the final shudders rippled through her body and she collapsed beneath him, exhaustion pulling her beneath its black velvet surface, that thought flitted across her mind. Yes, she trusted Lance, but did she trust herself?

CHAPTER 23

Harmony had lived within these mountains for months at a time throughout the past ten years. She had camped there, used it as a base and made herself known to the elements of the land that possessed it. She knew each tree, each stone outcropping and the denizens of the forest that moved within a rhythm of time unchanged. The owls that watched them didn't hoot in curiosity at their passage, the opossum that watched from beneath a boulder didn't send out a warning and the raccoon searching for food beneath a fallen log took no notice of them.

Lance shared her scent, therefore he was accepted, and Harmony was one of their own—neither predator nor prey, a part of the land that they had been born within, the scent of the mountain infused into her being.

Crouching next to a fallen, centuries-old log, Harmony used the special night-vision goggles Lance had brought with him to survey the forest. Her night vision wasn't nearly as good as it should have been, but her hearing had always made up for it. She could hear nothing unusual as they approached the cougar's den, she could smell nothing unusual, but her neck itched.