The breath slammed out of him. His jaw tightened. Every muscle in his body contracted. He fought for control. One touch and she was destroying him. He tugged on her hair, tried to drag her up, but even as he did, his h*ps surged forward, forcing his c**k against her soft, satin lips. He groaned again as her warm breath blew over him, as her mouth opened and slid over the broad head, tongue curling and teeth finding the most sensitive spot right beneath the ridge, the one his enemies had tried so hard to destroy. She bit down experimentally and fire shot through him, pulsed in waves, until he couldn’t breathe, fighting for air, fighting for sanity.

The pleasure was so intense he was certain he wouldn’t live through it. She was effectively destroying his belief in his own control. He couldn’t allow her to take that from him—it was far too dangerous. Her teeth scraped again, right over that sweet spot, and he writhed under her, forgetting all about danger. Her nails joined in, scraping back and forth over the ridged lines on his tight sac, and he wasn’t certain he knew his own name. She was killing him, stars exploding behind his eyelids, lashes of a white-hot lightning whip streaking through his bloodstream.

“More, Mari. Hard and hot.” He bit the command out through clenched teeth.

Her mouth closed over the head of his shaft, tight and hot and so exquisite, adding suction to the combination of teeth and tongue, and he nearly came off the bed. There was no preparation for what she was doing to him. Sweet hell, she was burning him alive with her mouth. Her teeth found every nerve ending he was certain had been severed, and they were doing a fast repair.

She moaned deep in the back of her throat, and the vibration traveled straight through his c**k to his balls and spread down his thighs and up into his belly. He couldn’t stop the hard thrust of his hips. He tried, straining for control, but it was impossible with the roaring in his head and his heart beating like thunder in his ears.

A soft curse tore from him as he slipped deeper, as her throat constricted tightly around him, milking at him until his seed boiled up hot and vicious. He caught her head, holding her to him as fiery heat washed over him, flames crackling at the base of his spine and washing over his body. Her teeth found that one spot right under the lip of the broad head, scraping as she took him deep again, her throat once more constricting.

He came apart, a violent explosion of body and senses, his life no longer his own, the pleasure consuming him, eating him alive. He shuddered with the release, his h*ps almost wild, thrusting deep helplessly, and each time her teeth or tongue added to the hot, tight suction, he gripped her harder, anchoring himself in the silk of her hair.

She owned him, body and soul. He might think he could make her dependent on him sexually, tie her to him with the way he could control her body, but she would never need him the way he needed her. He knew it as surely as he knew his heart and soul were forever in her hands.

She gave one last curling rasp with her tongue and released him. He drove her back, catching her wrists, yanking her arms above her head and slamming them to the mattress, his body still hard and aggressive and vibrating with need. His thighs pushed hers apart and he thrust into her, driving through tight velvet folds, forcing his entrance as deep as possible, needing her to take every inch of his thick, scarred cock.

There was resistance, her body slick and welcoming but far too tight, and in spite of her breathy little pants and pleading moans, her muscles tried to lock out his invasion. The reaction only added to his excitement and need to possess her, heightening his pleasure as he forced his shaft deeper, the muscles reluctantly, and barely, parting for him, squeezing hard against the scars, dragging across the damaged nerve endings until he felt fire sizzling up and down his spine.

“Wrap your legs around my waist.” He loved looking at her, feasting on the sight of her body spread out before him like a never-ending buffet. Her eyes were glazed with need, her hair wild and spilling like strands of silk across the pillow. A sheen made her br**sts seem to glow, creamy flesh with tight ni**les begging attention and his cross glittering on her skin. He loved her tucked-in waist and the flare of her hips, but mostly he loved the soft little sounds of desperation that came from her throat as her body turned to liquid fire around his. “You’re so f**king beautiful, Mari.”

He bent forward to kiss her neck, the action deliberately producing an electrifying friction over her most sensitive spot. He sucked on the little pulse beating in her throat, dipped lower to find her breast, and did the same thing, feeling the answering wash of her hot cream make his next thrust easier. His teeth and tongue spent time worshiping there, while he waited for her tight body to accept the invasion of his.

“Please,” she whispered urgently, her body thrusting up toward his, as he sank once again into her and held still, savoring the feel of her body surrounding his.

“Shh, I’ll make it good for you, sweetheart. You need a little time to catch up.”

“I am caught up,” she protested, her voice breathy. Her body was already edgy with need. She didn’t want to wait. She needed the feel of him filling her, crushing her, driving into her so high she would never come down.

Every squirm of her body sent shock waves washing over him. She was too tight, too small for his size, but that only served to increase his pleasure. He needed the feeling of a tight fist gripping and squeezing, raking at his scarred shaft with fiery heat, in order to get release. “You make me so damned hard, Mari.” She did. One touch. One look. She was everything he could ever want in a woman. She wasn’t afraid of his unusual needs—she met fire with fire. Even when he held her down, her body responded to his with a wild, almost desperate need.

His thigh muscles cramped with the effort to hold back. Every cell in his body screamed at him to take her fast and hard and as rough as possible, giving him maximum pleasure. His breath came in harsh, bursting gasps. He wanted this different. He wanted to be gentle. Gentle didn’t work with his body, but she deserved so much more—a slow, tender lover, one coaxing her body into submission, not driving into her and taking by force what she was already willing to give.

He moved slow, testing his body, a long push through the hot, wet folds. The sensation was pleasant, but there was no real fire, no blaze of passion beyond his imagination. A groan escaped, a soft hiss of need he couldn’t stop.

She locked her legs around his waist and pushed against him with frantic need. “Ken. Please.”

That ragged little plea was his undoing, shattering his control and stealing his heart. He brought his hand down hard on her bottom, feeling the flare of heat rush through her, the wash of rich cream bathing his shaft in response. “You don’t mind so well, Mari. We need to work on that.”

“You’re too slow.”

“And I said I was going to make it good for you. Behave yourself.” He wasn’t certain he could do slow another stroke, teasing her body into compliance, but just to show her things would be done his way, he managed one more.

She cried out beneath him, locking her fingers on his shoulders, nails digging into him so that his nerve endings responded with a shock of electricity. He caught her h*ps and jerked her forward and up into him, angling her body to take more, take his full length. He wanted to bury every inch of himself in her, merge them so close together no one would ever be able to untangle them.

The moment he slammed his body into hers, driving deep, driving home, he forgot every good intention. His h*ps pis-toned, his fingers dug into her firm bu**ocks to bring her body up to his. It was heaven to be in her narrow sheath, seemingly made just to rub over his scars and bring his c**k to virile life. He could live here for hours, pushing her beyond every sexual limit she had ever conceived of, bringing her again and again to the peak of release, only to back off to hear her soft little pleas for mercy and see the lust building and building in her dark eyes.

She moaned his name, yanked at his hair, writhed under him, her legs locked in a tight grip as if she’d never let him go. She rose up to meet each stroke, crying out, driving him crazy with the way her small, hot muscles gripped him and her body was so eager for his. She had invaded every cell in his body, every bone, and his every organ, until he knew, no matter how long he lived, she would be the only woman he would ever crave.

The knowledge was alarming, terrifying, definitely dangerous, but there was no changing how he felt. His emotions were wrapped up every bit as tight and strong as his lust for her. The heat kept building, until he swore his se**n was boiling in his balls, until lights flashed behind his eyelids and his mind roared with the fury of his desire. His c**k swelled to bursting, pushing at the tight walls of her channel confining and constricting him, forcing the velvet heat over his scars until currents of pleasure swamped his nerve endings and ripped through his body.

Mari screamed and buried her face in his chest to muffle the cries as her body rippled and pulsed and shuddered with her orgasm, the muscles clamping down, convulsing around him, drawing out jet after jet of his hot release. Her orgasm seemed endless, her body rippling around his, at first hard and strong and then with more gentle aftershocks.

They lay together, locked in each other’s arms, trying to find a way to breathe when their lungs were starved for air and their bodies were covered with a fine sheen of sweat. He kept his hand in her hair, fingers lazily massaging her scalp while his heart quieted and he felt strangely at peace.

“I could lie with you forever, Mari, just like this.”

She smiled, her hands sliding possessively over his back. “I was thinking the same thing.”

He shifted to take his weight from her, reluctantly leaving the haven of her body but wrapping an arm around her to bring her onto her side facing him. He loved the way her ni**les were so erect and hard, an invitation lying against the sweet, swelling flesh.

“You deserve gentle, Mari,” he said softly, kissing her as tenderly as he knew how. “I can’t feel when I do gentle. God help me, I want to feel you when I’m deep inside you. I try to pull back, in my mind I try, but the need to feel you around me, to be that close to you, wins out and I can’t do gentle.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“There are marks all over you. I can’t touch you without leaving behind bruises and little bite marks.” He stroked a caress across her breast, tugged at her nipple, and was rewarded with her sharply drawn breath.

“I left a few scratches and bite marks on you,” she reminded him, weaving her fingers together behind his neck, offering her br**sts to his attention. “I’ll tell you if you get too rough.”

He couldn’t resist the invitation and licked at one pert nipple, stroking his tongue over it and then tugging gently with his teeth. “I came here to comfort you, to hold you, not take you like this, in this horrible place. I want to take you home, baby, somewhere safe, far away from here. Come home with me. I swear, I had no intentions of doing anything but holding you in my arms.”

A moan escaped when his mouth closed over her breast and he suckled, his mouth pulling strongly while his teeth teased and his tongued laved. “I want to go home with you.” The words sounded strangled. His hand had slipped down her belly to rest at the junction between her legs.

“I could sneak you out of here,” he tempted, his tongue flicking wickedly. Two fingers stroked along her pulsing entrance.

“All of the girls have to go.” Her body jumped under the contact, his fingers pushing into her and finding her cl*t with lazy strokes. Each touch sent a vibration through her br**sts to her ni**les, where his teeth and tongue played. “And we have to make sure that Violet and her husband are safe.”

He kissed her left breast and moved on to the right, this time pushing deep with his hand until she was riding him. They didn’t have much time left together, and he would have to walk away and leave her locked up at Whitney’s mercy. It was a terrifying thought, one that tied his belly in tight, hard knots. “After, will you come to Montana with me and see our home?” He stilled his hand, his mouth, his breath—waiting.