“Ammunitions shed.” Her voice was curt, distracted. “What’s up?”

Kane automatically turned toward the low, sprawling steel shed that housed weapons and ammo. It had been built and designed to Sherra’s specifications. The weapons that were due to arrive soon had been ordered based on her recommendations. The woman knew just as much, if not more, than he did about weapons. But it wasn’t handguns or rifles that he wanted to talk to her about.

“I’ll be there in a minute. We need to talk,” he answered tersely. He wasn’t about to go into it on an open channel.

He’d awakened that morning with an erection that could have driven nails into solid oak, it had been so hard. His arousal had abated little over the course of the morning. If what Doc Martin had found was true, then the physical bond between him and Sherra had been there since that first night they spent together. How it happened, he really didn’t care at this point. All he knew was the hunger for her and a need that had to be tenfold within her body.

He pulled open the door to the weapons shed and stepped into the cool, well-lit confines of the building. And there she stood.

Kane stared back at her as he closed the door, his teeth clenching at the signs of stress in her expression. Her eyes were dark with sleeplessness, her lips thin with the effort of fighting the heat that sizzled through her body.

“What the hell do you want, Kane?” she sniped instantly. “If you haven’t noticed, I have work to do.”

“Do you think you can fight this forever, Sherra?”

She flinched. If there was one thing that drove him crazy it was watching that betraying tremor of pain whenever she was forced to face something she wasn’t willing to confront.

“Dammit, Kane.” She drew herself up straight from the boxes she had been going through. “I have work to do here. I don’t have time for this.”

He strode closer, keeping his steps slow, non-threatening for now.

“Snapping and hissing as always,” he said mockingly, allowing his lips to tilt into the sarcastic grin he knew she hated. “I prefer that sweet little purr you make when I touch you.”

He needed her off balance. He had to shake that control she tried to keep between them.

“I do not purr.” She looked horrified by the thought.

“Oh, yes you do.” He watched her instinctive need to retreat, hiding his smile as she halted it, fighting to stand up to him, to best him. “You have the sweetest little purr when I touch you, Sherra. I remember it. Low and soft, resonating with pleasure.”

His cock tightened, fully erect, harder than he could ever remember it being as he got close enough to smell the woman scent of her, to see the arousal she tried to bank glittering in her green eyes.

“You’re insane,” she snorted, turning, her hands shaking as she bent to the box, sorting through the straw as she pulled another new, gleaming automatic rifle from the depths and laid it with the others on the cart beside her.

“Am I?” He pulled her around to face him, feeling the feverish heat of her skin as she tried to jerk away from him.

“I’m going to kick your ass if you don’t let go of me.” She was panting. Kane could see the fine film of perspiration gathering on her brow, the flush beneath her cheeks, the hunger raging in her gaze.

“You couldn’t kick my ass if you wanted to right now,” he retorted tightly. “Look at you, Sherra. You’re weak, exhausted from fighting the heat, and nearly shaking with lust. How long can you fight it?”

“I’ve fought it before.” She struggled as he pushed her against the low metal shelf behind her, holding her there with his body, his own carnal hunger beating at his brain with a strength he was beginning to fear.

“Not like this you haven’t,” he growled, gripping her hips as her hands braced against his chest. Her fingers flexed, nails rasping over the cotton of his shirt, caressing the mark on his chest with devastating pleasure. “Do you think you’re alone, Sherra? Do you think for one damned minute that you’re suffering without me?”

He jerked his shirt open, buttons scattering as she pulled her hands back.

“Look, damn you.” One hand tangled in her hair as he forced her gaze to the mark a bare inch from his flat, hard male nipple. “Look what you left on me, Sherra. How well you marked me. Do you think for

one fucking minute that damned hormone can make this harder on me?”

His voice was rough, enraged. He didn’t know if he could hold back, if he could fuck her now without hurting them both.

He heard the small, keening sound of agony dragged from the depths of her throat as her eyes widened in pain and horror. Her face paled, her fingers reaching out to touch the reddened mark again. Kane grimaced as pleasure, hot and destructive, raced straight to his cock. It swelled, pulsed, as he felt his pre-come seeping from the small, slitted eye in the center of the bulging head. Drawing in a hard breath, he trapped her fingers against his chest, stilling them.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, a whimper of need and denial that broke his heart.

“Sorry?” he asked her softly. “Oh no, baby. I don’t want to hear sorry. I want to hear you purring while my tongue fucks so deep and hard up your tight little pussy that you scream with it. After I’ve eaten my fill of you, then I want to feel those sharp little nails scratching down my back as I fill you with every hard, aching inch of my cock. That’s what I want to hear, Sherra.”

Her eyes widened further, shock glittering brightly in her gaze as her head raised, her tongue flickering over her lips.

“Uh-uh.” He shook his head, applying a bit of pressure to hers as he pressed her to his chest. “Don’t lick those pretty lips, baby. Lick that mark you left me. Taste me, Sherra, before I do something we’ll both regret.”

His control was at its weakest point. His body was in full, overwhelming riot. His cock ached like an open wound and the mark on his chest was burning like a flame.

“Kane.” She rested her forehead against him, her breath whispering over the sensitive brand. Her hands clenched at his waist, holding tightly to him as she struggled for breath. Her small body trembled, nearly shaking as she fought both of them and the hunger raging between them. Kane tightened his grip on the silken strands of hair at the back of her head before he flattened his palm, pressing again.

“Now,” he groaned. “You know what I fucking need, Sherra. Give it to me before I take something you’re not ready to give me.”

The thin, desperate moan that echoed from her chest had him tightening, waiting. It wasn’t a sound of protest or of fear, but of hunger. A second later his harder, male groan echoed around them when her tongue peeked over, swiping against the mark slowly, the slightly rough rasp tearing through his nerve endings and drawing every muscle to a breaking point as his head fell back, grimacing in an agony of sensation.

As delicately as a kitten, she tested the taste of his flesh, tempted the control he was exerting over the ravenous need rising inside him. She licked the hot little mark with a sensuality that destroyed him as she tasted his skin, each small caress making her move against him with more demand, the heat between them rising.

His jeans were a restriction he could no longer bear. With one hand at her head, the other moved between their bodies, his fingers struggling desperately with his belt as he fought to release his agonized flesh.

“Oh God! Kane, please…” Her hands were tight on his waist, her voice thin with denial and protest despite the hungry licks against his flesh.

“Sherra, baby.” He jerked his shirt from his pants before returning to his fight with the belt. “God, touch me. I’m burning alive.”

The belt came loose and a second later her hands were there with his, dragging open the snap to this jeans as he fought to release his cock. Her lips covered the mark she had made so many years before, suckling at it hesitantly, her tongue flickering teasingly now despite the mewls of protest vibrating against his skin.

A second later, he was free. Kane’s rough shout of pleasure shocked him as Sherra’s hand attempted to wrap around the thick stalk of flesh. The wounds to his shoulder were forgotten. Reality no longer existed. Kane could feel the blood pumping hard and heavy through his veins as pleasure became a firestorm, searing every cell in its wake.

Her hand moved on the sensitive flesh of his cock, flexing, caressing, driving him insane with sensations as he fought to hold back. He couldn’t throw her to the shelf and fuck her like the animal he could feel rising inside him. But he wanted to. God help him, he wanted to taste the sweet juice he knew flowed from her pussy and then he wanted to fuck her. So deep, so damned hard she would never deny him again.

“Yesss…” He hissed out the word as he felt her moving lower, her breath moist and hot as she sought out each sweat-dampened area of sensitivity. Across his chest, down his abdomen. His cock throbbed eagerly. Lower…if he didn’t get the bulging head of his erection in her mouth he was going to go insane. If he did get it in there he would go insane.

He groaned heavily when her tongue touched him. He could feel it, blistering hot and so damned good he barely restrained the release he could feel boiling in his balls.

“Damn you,” he panted, lost in the haze of lust filling him, one hand gripping the base of his cock, the other tightening in her hair. “Suck it, Sherra. Wrap your mouth around my dick before I lose my mind.”

But he was losing it anyway. He heard the small, strangled moan from her throat, felt it as he surged hard and heavy past her lips. His eyes opened as he stared desperately at the racks of weapons on the wall in front of him. He wouldn’t look down. He wouldn’t tempt his control…

Her hands were wrapped above his, gripping his dick, milking it as her lips, reddened and full, stretched around the engorged head. Her tongue flicked over the tight flesh, her moans rising as a small amount of pre-come ejaculated into her hot mouth.

He was close, too close, and she was pushing him to the edge. He shook in the storm surging through his body, the lust, the emotion, the need and pain that had built through the years. And he knew, no matter the demand of his body, this could never be enough. He could come in her mouth forever and he’d still be hard, furiously erect and dying for the liquid heat contained within the snug grip of her pussy.

His hands were hard, perhaps too hard, he feared as he pulled back, dragging her against him. He lifted her to the shelf that placed the honeyed entrance to her body in direct alignment with the rock-hard flesh aching to sink into her.

“Kane, no…” She whispered the words, but she was weak in his arms, her head falling back as his lips moved to her neck. “Don’t do this. Please.”

“Fuck it,” he snarled, his hands framing her head, his gaze centering on her lips. “Kiss me, Sherra. Give it to me, baby. Now.”

Her hands gripped his wrists, her lips trembled.

“I can’t,” she cried out weakly. “You know I can’t.”

Her eyes were nearly black with lust now, the hunger eating at her, destroying his control.

“Deny it’s killing us both, Sherra,” he snapped, lust and anger unfurling inside his mind until he didn’t know if he should fuck her or spank her first. “Deny my right to this—to your kiss. Deny I’m your fucking mate, damn you.”

She opened her mouth, whether to deny him or to agree he would never know. All he knew was the hunger, the rage, the need sending spikes of agonized demand through his balls and into the tormented shaft of his cock.

His lips covered hers, his tongue plunging deep. His woman. By God, his mate.

Chapter Six

The kiss destroyed her. Silent screams of protest, of fear, ricocheted through her mind, but her body, her flesh, ignored every wailing demand that she stop. His tongue swept into her mouth, a cooling relief against the fiery ache of hers, so tempting, so soothing she was lost. Pleasure exploded throughout her body as she eagerly fought for control, joining him the erotic duel of lips, teeth and tongues as she inhaled his scent, tasted his kiss, felt his hands holding her to him, forcing her to acknowledge what she would have continued to fight. Her need. Her hunger. It raged and raced through her system, slamming into her mind, stealing her will and leaving her weak and shaking in his embrace.