She flinched as her door opened, her breath hitching, another tear falling as she felt him enter the room.

"Megan." His voice was soft, regretful. "I know what you felt at the office. It wasn't you. It wasn't a denial of you. You have to understand that."

She hated the fact that she had given away her pain, revealed how much that single impression had affected her. How much she had hoped the feelings building between them were more than just lust. For her they were, and that hurt the most, knowing they hadn't been for him.

"It doesn't matter, Braden." She fought to swallow past the emotion blocking her throat and kept her back to him, her tears hidden. "I understand."

His life was a battle, day to day. Why would he want or need someone

who couldn't fight her own battles, let alone stand beside him in his?

"Do you, Megan? I don't think you do, but you will. Very soon."

"Stop." Her voice broke as she shook her head.

She could feel him moving closer, could glimpse the image of him in the glass of the window. "Please Braden, I need time_" Her shoulders shook as she fought the sobs that built in her chest. "I'm sorry. Please_"

"So you can continue to hide?’ His tone grated at her already shredded nerves.

"Yes!" She whirled around, staring back at him with a look that mingled fury and pain. "So I can hide. So it doesn't have to hurt so fucking bad."

Anything else she would have said locked in her throat the second she saw his eyes. They glowed. Amber lights flickered in the deep gold color as his tight, hungry expression gave his face a savage cast. He looked like a conquering warrior. A man intent on possession.

She stepped back quickly.

"Now there's a fine idea," he drawled as he stepped closer. "Keep a bit of distance between us, darlin', because the closer you get, the sweeter that soft little pussy smells and the harder my dick gets. You really don't want to make it harder. Any harder and I'm going to have to do away with these jeans and see just how deep I can push between those pretty thighs and how loud I can make you scream as you come around me."

The explicit words sent heat flaming through her body as invisible fingers of lightning began to course from nerve ending to nerve ending, sensitizing her, stoking the fires inside her hotter. She felt the wet heat dampening her panties further.

"Why?’ she cried out then. "You don't want me. You don't want this_" She waved her hand between them to indicate the Mating Heat. "Why do you care?"

"You like fooling yourself, don't you, baby." He stepped closer. Megan retreated. Now was not a good time to get within touching distance.

"Now see, that's where you are entirely wrong. I wasn't rejecting you, Megan. I was rejecting what nature had done, not you. There is no reason for your anger."

She lifted her chin defensively. "I have a right to be angry with you. You were using me in those cliffs, using my Empathy to find the answers you needed just as you let Jonas use me to try to trap my cousin. Just as you used what I_" Felt. She wouldn't say the words, wouldn't address the pain of his rejection.

His gaze flickered with regret; the emotion washed over her, clenching her chest as another tear slipped free.

He shook his head slowly, his hand reaching out to touch her cheek, his fingertips rasping over her flesh with heated pleasure.

"I would never use you." His voice throbbed with the vow. "I have been alone so long, Megan. Alone within myself, knowing, feeling that nothing in this world was ever meant to be mine. Then suddenly something was mine. You were mine." The possessive tone had her blinking back at him in surprise. Both his hands framed her face, holding her still as his thumbs smoothed over her damp cheeks. "Mine. Everything inside me locked down in fear because suddenly I had something to lose. And so did you. And the thought of that was unbearable. I've lost too much already."

Her lips parted as her heart began to race, not in lust or excitement or adventure, but in hope. She had found someone who matched her, a warrior and a shield. A man she could respect; one she could argue with and enjoy. She hadn't wanted to lose that. Hadn't wanted to be alone again.

"No"

"Yes." He snarled, emotion thickening his voice. "Do you not understand yet, Megan? This Mating is not just a physical phenomenon. It is not merely chemicals gone haywire. Look inside yourself. If you could love any type of man, lean on any other person, who would this person be?

Who is the lover that haunts your dreams? What fight boils in your blood? We would have been two parts of a whole, no matter who we were or where we met. You know this. Just as I know this."

She clenched her teeth, fighting the surging emotion of the realization he was right, but also recalling the denial she knew he had felt earlier. She had something to lose.

"See?’ He latched onto the emotion she couldn't hide, his fingers pressing against her scalp as his taut features became more primitive, more exotic for the emotions he was fighting to contain. "Feel it, Megan. Feel what I knew. My soul would die without yours to fill it. Without you to hold me close in the darkness of night; without your laughter to bring the light into the darkness that has filled every fucking day of my life for as long as I have drawn breath. For the first time in thirty-four years I am alive. I live because of you, and the thought of going back to the desolation of being alone scares me to death."

His emotions slammed into her, filling her, heating her.

"Feel me." He groaned, his voice rough, tormented. "I know your gifts, for mine are their companions. When we battle, I feel you reaching out, connecting to me as nothing else ever has, feeding me what you know

even as you draw on my strength to brace yourself against the pain. You are the Empath, I am the shield. Two parts of the whole, Megan."

He released her then, stepping back to stare at her with such an excess of emotion that she could barely breathe, let alone speak. "This was what I tried to deny, to reject, even knowing that if I lost you, no matter how, my soul would be as dead as the Coyotes who search only for blood and for death."

He released her, only to pull out of his shirt pocket a small plastic pack that held several pills. His gaze probed her expression as she lifted her eyes questioningly.

"And that is?'

"This," he glanced to his palm then to her before his lips twisted with an edge of bitterness, "is a nifty little drug designed to ease the worst of the symptoms of the Mating Heat. The pain if you don't get fucked often enough, as well as the forced conception caused by the hormones secreted from my body, can become_ harmful. Unfortunately, mating a Breed isn't always pleasant. Unless you want to get knocked up, you take the little contraceptive."

"A birth control pill?’ How insane.

"After a fashion." He shrugged, inhaling deeply in a gesture that reinforced the excess of emotions that were filling them both. "Though the hormones in it are radically different than those once used on the drug market. These are more to block the hormone released from me, rather than those of your body."

"So why aren't you taking it?’ She glared at him furiously.

"Because, darling, I'm not the one who will suffer if you don't conceive. You are. The Mating Heat builds until conception occurs. The hormone continues to grow within your body, overriding everything else but the need to have sex and to procreate. This will ease the symptoms as well prevent ovulation. So make your choice."

"Will it make it go away?' She continued to stare at the innocuous little pill. Was it the cure she had so rashly demanded?

"Nothing will make it go away." He didn't sound displeased. "Ever. But it will give us a chance to figure the rest out, Megan. We were well on the road to where this is going anyway."

She raised her gaze, staring back at him for long, silent moments.

"You would have rode off into the sunset the moment your job here was finished."

He gripped her hand and laid the small container in her palm. "No Megan, I would not have left you. For even a day. Now take the little pill, baby, and then we'll talk more. Eventually."

He was going to take her to bed first. She knew it. Just as she knew her next breath would be filled with the scent of him, she knew that the moment that pill passed her lips he would make his move.

"Braden." She licked her lips trying to still her nerves. "It's been a very, very long time for me."

To be honest, she hadn't attempted sex in years.

"Take the fucking pill," he growled then. "I've tortured myself with the thought of touching you, of feeling you hot and tight around me. It's all I've thought about since the moment I saw your courage in that damned cavern. I don't know if I can wait much longer."

Evidently, she wasn't the only one the Mating Heat was driving insane.

She snapped open the container, her breathing becoming harsh, rough.

"I still don't like this,'' she informed him as she lifted the small blue pill. Though she knew different. She hated the situation, hated the confusion filling her, but she knew her feelings for Braden were something that went much deeper, flowed much stronger than anything even resembling "liking" him.

He growled in response.

"This is not the smartest thing I've ever done." She opened her lips as she lifted her hand closer to her mouth.

His eyes flared with sensual promise as she laid the small pill on her tongue, closed her mouth, and swallowed.

It went down easy, without the aid of liquid, no doubt helped along by the intense watering of her mouth.

The growl rumbled in his chest again. Feline. Dangerous. It was a sound that had her pussy clenching in spasmodic convulsions. She gasped at the intensity.

"How long does it take to help?" She watched him, knowing there was no fighting the hunger as he stepped closer. She retreated again. And again. Until her back came flush to the wall, his broad chest trapping her against it.

"Hell if I know," he muttered. "Hell if I care, as long as I can do this."

She expected a kiss. What she didn't expect was the abrupt lowering of

his head until his lips were at her neck, his teeth scraping over the flesh as his tongue stroked it in a sensual caress. She went to her tiptoes; the sensations were so intense, so filled with pleasure.

Shudders raced down her spine, spread between her thighs and seared her to the very core. She felt the syrupy dampness wetting her further, felt her clit pulse and throb with the need for his touch as her nipples tightened beneath her blouse. God, how she needed his touch. Everywhere, all over. She craved it. Ached for it.

Her head fell back against the wall; her hands gripped his forearms as his fingers curved at her hips, arching her against him as he bent to press the hard wedge of his cock against the soft pad of her pussy.

She jerked at the friction, a whimpering moan escaping her lips as her nerve endings seemed to sear with the flames of building passion. She couldn't get enough air. Hell, she didn't need to breathe. If he would just kiss her, touch her, still the ache growing in every cell of her body, then she might have a chance of surviving.

"Damn, you taste good." His voice was filled with wonder as he caught the lobe of her ear between his lips for a brief nip. "Sweet and hot. You make me wonder if I'll keep my sanity once I push inside you."

Her sanity wasn't going to last that long.

Chapter Eleven

"You're so soft, Megan." The sound of his voice, the rough growl that whispered over her senses made her lose control. His hand moved from her hip to rest just beneath the swell of her breast. The subtle stroking of his fingers there had her breathing faster, her nerve endings sensitizing, reaching out for his heat. Sensations whipped through her body, tendrils of electricity flickered over her, holding her entranced as his fingers curled in the fabric of her shirt and began dragging it upward.