He was leaning negligently against the kitchen counter, cup in hand, his tall, leanly muscled body relaxed and tempting. His jeans bulged between his thighs. She swallowed, dragging her gaze away from him. He was hard and ready to fuck. And only God knew just how badly she wanted him to come into her. Strong and thick, his cock surging up her wet pussy until she screamed. She almost shivered at the thought as heat rushed over her, through her.

“Ohh, now there’s something interesting.” His amused voice was pitched low as he obviously caught the betraying color. “What’s the blush for, kitten? Getting overheated?”

Turning from him, she pretended nonchalance as she laid the files on the table in preparation for the rest of the Pride’s arrival.

“Kane, you’re starting to irritate me,” she told him coolly without turning back. “The cute little remarks are getting on my nerves. Keep it up, and I’ll show you how a Feline really fights.”

He grunted, the sound filled with sarcasm. “Be nice, Sherra, or I’ll sic our little angel on you. She’ll bite you, remember?”

Cassie had actually growled at her the day before when Sherra had snapped at Kane over something he said. The little girl was amazingly protective of him.

Sherra glanced back at Kane as she shook her head in pity. Poor Cassie. She was learning such bad

habits from him.

“We promised to keep her away from you,” she said. Kane was not a good influence on the child.

“You’re going to turn her into a little monster if you keep spoiling her the way you are.”

He smiled with smug amusement.

“Beats the little doll you and Merinus would turn her into,” he retorted. “Let the kid be a kid, dammit. It’s not like she’s had much chance in the past two years.”

That was no more than the truth. From Dash Sinclair’s reports, the little girl had lived through a nightmare of constant attacks and desperate flights as her mother fought to keep her safe. She was the first known Wolf Breed child to be conceived outside a test tube, and the price on her head was astronomical. But that didn’t mean Kane had to turn a perfectly sweet child into such a little tomboy.

“She’s a little girl, not a ruffian.” Sherra turned on him with a frown. “Kane, you had her in a mud fight yesterday. There is no excuse for that this late in the year.”

He smiled. A slow deliberate curve of his lips as his blue eyes filled with glee. “I know. Damn, that girl has good aim, doesn’t she? And it wasn’t that cold, it was warm as hell and she was having a good time. That’s all that was required.”

Kane and Cassie had both been covered in mud from head to toe. The minute Sherra had stepped out the door, berating Kane for the mess, a blob of the gooey earth had spattered against the side of her head. The little angel, once known as Cassie Colder, had informed her quite ferociously that she was a wolf and Sherra was a cat and if she wasn’t very nice to Kane then she was going to get bitten.

“At the rate she’s going I’m going to have to put you both on a leash,” she told him heatedly. “Stop encouraging her. She’s just a child.”

In a second his expression went from smug laughter to intense, dark sexuality.

“A leash, huh?” His voice turned velvet rough, his gaze dropping to her breasts as they rose beneath the cotton T-shirt she wore. She could feel her nipples hardening. “Can we include handcuffs? I have some, you know.”

Heat erupted between her thighs. Damn him and his teasing. He was only stoking the progression of her heat, making it harder for her to fight. And he was going to insist on making it worse. Could the day get any worse? she asked herself sarcastically.

“Only if you’re the one in them,” she snapped back, trying to ignore the image of him chained to her bed, straining beneath her as she lowered herself on the rigid length of his erection. The vision was too tempting to allow for long.

Unfortunately, her caustic words had little effect on him. Her insults rarely gained her so much as a glimmer of irritation within those dark eyes. But it did gain her the scent of hot, aroused male. She could smell his lust now, like the rush of a sudden thunderstorm slamming into her senses. His eyes glittered, his expression darkening with hunger. If she looked lower, she knew that bulge in his jeans would more closely resemble a thick steel rod eager for release.

“That could be arranged,” he murmured agreeably as he stepped closer, his heavy body moving with fluid grace and male power. “My room or yours?”

She was going to orgasm from the sheer intensity in his voice alone. Sherra felt her pussy flood with her juices, felt the hard ache of her nipples beneath the cloth of her shirt and wanted to hiss in fury. Why couldn’t life, for just one year, be kind to her? she wondered in dejection. What had she done to deserve this?

“Only in your dreams.” She managed to drag the derisive words past her lips. He chuckled then. The sound was low, stroking over her already inflamed nerves as he moved closer to her. She wasn’t about to retreat. If she did, he would only follow her. If he followed her he would learn just how desperate she was to keep as much distance as possible between them.

“You have no idea, baby. Want me to tell you a few of them?”

He paused before her, his broad chest no more than inches from her breasts. She fought to keep her breathing slow and even, but she was aware of the fact she was failing. As she knew he was. His head lowered as he watched her breasts rise harder before he lifted his lashes, staring back at her suggestively.

“No.” She shook her head, trying to turn from him. She didn’t need to hear about his dreams. The temptation of his touch was too great.

“My favorite one…” He ignored her denial as his hand moved, his knuckles running lightly up her arm.

“…is the one where I have you stretched over my lap, turning your ass a bright pretty red for teasing me for so long. You squirming and begging for my cock each time I spank one of those rounded little cheeks. I would be more than happy to reenact it for you,” he offered, with all appearances of polite consideration.

She should be outraged. Instead, Sherra stared back at him with shock and fought the clench of her buttocks at the thought of his hands descending on them in such a manner. Oh yeah, she could envision that one as well. Too well.

“That’s quite all right, Kane,” she sniffed with as much dignity as she could muster amid the overwhelming hunger rippling inside her. “You can just enjoy your little perversions alone. God gave men a hand and five fingers for a reason, you know.”

“Hmm. I know. And I know for a fact just how well I can make those fingers fit my favorite little kitty, too. Come here, purr-baby, let me show you.” Dangerous. Warning. His voice was like an addictive narcotic flooding her system despite the edge of fury she could see lingering in his gaze. Cream flooded her cunt. She could feel it seeping from her vagina and slickening her labial folds with its thick essence. Keeping control wasn’t easy to accomplish. Not when her tongue literally throbbed to share her pain with him and her vagina clenched in agreement. Damn him. She didn’t need this right now. It would serve him right if she gave him what he kept tempting her to. The rich potency of the hormone would be a fitting punishment for the months of arousal he had put her through.

“Kane. Sherra. No fighting today.” Callan saved her from having to drag a scathing retort from her suddenly vacant mind when he walked into the kitchen, followed by his wife and the rest of the main Pride. “Let’s get down to business and see if we can get something accomplished this time.”

The last several meetings had been so unproductive as to make a mockery of his determination to ensure the Breeds a place in society. Not as a separate species, but as human beings deserving of life. That seemed to be the current debate waging among the inner circles of more than one government body.

“Okay, what do we have?” Callan asked as they all sat down. “Sherra, did you get those estimates?”

“Everything.” She pushed one of the files to her Pride brother. “Farside does excellent construction work, Callan. I’ve researched every angle and they look like our best bet.”

“I disagree.” Kane did no more than she expected as he took his seat as well. He disagreed with everything she said lately. “It would require too many unknowns on the property at once and create a risk we don’t need. That makes them more than untrustworthy, it makes them a hazard.”

Sherra gritted her teeth for long seconds before she turned to him with a snarl.

“Farside Construction is one of the most respected construction firms in the nation. Their buildings have very high ratings for workmanship, they don’t hire subcontractors and they make certain the work is of excellent quality from start to finish. Saying they are untrustworthy could be considered libelous, Kane,”

Sherra snapped.

He was once again being difficult. For some reason he thought it his job in life to make living an even greater hell for her than it already was.

Adrenaline pumped through her veins, making her insides tremble, her womb flex in need. Anger always made it worse. Made the heat spread through her body like a conflagration she had no hope of controlling.

“Settle down, Sherra. He said he didn’t trust them,” Callan reminded her as her gaze locked with Kane’s.

“We have to be certain who we’re dealing with before we let them in on the property. Especially with Cassie here.”

As though she didn’t know that. She felt like hissing in sheer frustration.

“It’s a meeting,” she argued, turning to Callan. “I’ve busted my ass to get these files together and come up with the best choices for the work that needs to be completed. If he keeps shooting them down, we’ll be building the damned houses ourselves.”

“Which makes more sense, purr-baby,” Kane sniped, his ever-present knowing smirk tilting his lips.

“We have enough hands here and it’s not like they weren’t trained at damned near everything. What’s the point in wasting money as well as manpower when we would be out no more than materials to do it ourselves?”

Irritation was beginning to thicken Kane’s voice, as though he was growing tired of the ever-present battle between them. Which was too bad. He started it, his sniping and mocking comments continually battered away at her and she was growing sick of it.

“Because it takes away from the defense of the compound itself,” she snapped back.

“Bullshit.” He was frowning now, his dark blue eyes blazing. “You forget who head of security is here, kitten. Me. I know exactly what it takes to defend this compound and it doesn’t nearly take two hundred

Breeds at any given time to do so. Let your people do the work. It will build a sense of responsibility as well as pride in the home they’ve taken.”

“You seem to forget the fact that most of those men and women you’re talking about need a chance to rest and recuperate, not work their asses off all day.” She planted her hands on the table, snarling back at him as she thought of the dull-eyed men and women who had been rescued from various labs over the past months.

“You can’t coddle them like this, Sherra.” He was nearly in her face now as the others watched in interest. “You’re not going to help them by babying them as though everything was going to be just hunky-dory from now on. It’s not. What they face isn’t going to be a hell of a lot safer than those damned labs they were in if they’re not careful. You can’t let them think it will be.”

Sherra could feel the blood suddenly pumping through her veins, her loins heating, her breasts tingling in response to the confrontation between them now. A sharp kick of arousal tightened her womb, nearly taking her breath as adrenaline surged through her bloodstream. There was nothing so arousing as a fight with this man. She normally avoided it at all costs, but today…