He followed her to the airboat, took the duffel bag from her and tossed it aboard while she untied the rope. The “stupid little things” weren’t really stupid at all-they were important to her. It meant going out to the swamp and retrieving the bike any way he looked at it, because she was getting her things back. He caught the rope she threw and held out his hand to help her aboard.

She hesitated before taking his hand. A slow grin came over his face and crept into his eyes. “You like me.” He pulled her up against him until her soft br**sts were crushed tight against his chest. “You don’ want to admit it, cher, but you like me. You think I’m charmin’. And handsome. And sexy.” He drawled the words in her ear, his breath warm and his lips soft against the little shell of a lobe.

She sucked her breath in and her br**sts shifted, rubbed right through the thin barrier of their clothing until his jeans were suddenly uncomfortably tight and he wanted to groan with need. He wanted her with every fiber of his being. His arms slid around her, aligning their bodies more closely, so she could feel the painful hard-on stretching the front of his jeans. His mouth found her neck, her throat, his lips trailing kisses, his teeth taking tiny nips.

“I could devour you.”

“Well don’t.” Her voice wasn’t as controlled as she would have liked it to be. “Show some restraint.”

“Someday, I swear to you, Flame, you’ll be begging me not to show restraint.”

“Well it isn’t this morning.”

“If I can’t have coffee, maybe sex would do the trick.” She hadn’t pulled away from him. In fact, her body moved restlessly against his. He bent forward just a bit, enough to use his weight to bend her body backward away from his. His fingers slipped beneath the material of the old plaid shirt, settling on her narrow rib cage. Her skin was definitely as soft as it looked.

“I’m sure we have plenty of time. Don’t you think we have time?” He meant to tease her, swore to himself it started out that way, but Dieu, he wanted her. Maybe he even needed her. His body was so damned hard he was afraid of taking a step, afraid of moving. He couldn’t ever remember having such a raging hard-on or such a painful need to relieve it.

The sun was coming up, spilling light through the cypress trees and over the water’s surface. Her face was bathed in the early-morning light as it scattered through the trees, highlighting the confusion in her eyes. She still hadn’t pulled away from him and he allowed his knuckles to brush the underside of her br**sts. “You’re so beautiful, Flame.”

His hands cupped the soft weight of her br**sts, thumbs sliding over her taut ni**les. A small sound escaped her throat and he felt the sound vibrate through him. He bent his head very slowly to the sheer temptation of her body, giving her time to protest. He felt her first reaction, stiffening, her hands pushing at his shoulders as if she might thrust him away, but the lower half of her body moved against him, rubbing subtly, sending small electrical charges flashing through him. His jeans were already stretched to the maximum without bursting, but impossibly he felt his body tighten more, harden more.

Her breath escaped in a little rush as his lips touched her bare throat, moved lower to nuzzle along the swell of her br**sts where the button was open. His hands held her possessively as his mouth found her right through the material of her shirt, teeth scraping gently, sending sensations shooting through her bloodstream. Her womb clenched and welcoming liquid heat rushed to bathe her entrance. His mouth settled over her breast, suckling strongly, his hands sliding down her bare skin, tracing her waist to her h*ps until he found the curve of her bottom. Without stopping his assault on her breast, he lifted her so that the throbbing heat of her mound met the thick bulge at his groin.

“Raoul.” His name came out somewhere between a plea and an invitation. Her arms went around his neck to cradle his head. “I thought you weren’t going to seduce me.” She arched her back to thrust her breast deeper into his mouth.

“Unbutton your shirt.” He murmured the command around her breast, the material of her shirt wet from his ministrations, her nipple aching and tight from the combined sensations of his mouth and the rough material.

Her hands slid the button loose, then a second one before bunching in his hair. His hair was silky soft, as black as night and curled around her fingers as if holding to her as tightly as she was holding to him. She closed her eyes as his warm breath teased her bare skin. When his mouth closed around her breast she cried out, pulling him closer, her fist bunched in his hair. Her knees went weak and heat rushed through her body like a fireball, pooling low and wicked so that she sought relief by rubbing harder against him.

“You have too many clothes on,” he whispered. “We both do.”

“Kiss me again.” She needed his kiss, craved it with the same terrible ferocity as his touch. She wrenched at his hair in an effort to pull his head up, in an effort to retain reality. Teeth tugged her nipple, his tongue laved, easing the sharp bite of pain that only seemed to add to the fire building in her.

“I want your clothes off.” His teeth nibbled and scraped around the mound of her breast, underneath, tormenting her until she was desperate for him, her leg wrapping around his waist in an effort to ride him.

The things he could do to her body with his mouth and his hands were incredible, unbelievable things she had never experienced or thought would heighten her pleasure. He was by turns rough and then tender, his hands hard then soothing, his mouth biting, then hot silk. She would lose herself in him, lose her sanity, need him. She would need him. Flame stiffened, jerked back, stumbling, nearly falling off the airboat.

“What am I doing?”

There was terror on her face. In her eyes. Gator drew in a ragged breath and attempted to force his body under control. She was trembling, shaking her head, looking at him as if he had suddenly become her enemy. Her hair was disheveled, spilling in wild abandonment around her face, her lips were swollen from his kisses, and her br**sts gleamed at him from her gaping shirt, faint red marks of his possession on them. It was impossible to control his body when everything in him urged him to take her right there in the bottom of the boat.

“Nothing happened, cher,” he assured, keeping his voice low.

“What do you mean nothing happened? Something happened here and we can’t take it back.” Her voice shook.

She was right. He knew she was. He would never, ever, as long as he lived, stop craving the feel and taste of her. He wouldn’t walk away satisfied from another woman. He wanted Flame. Only Flame. All of Flame. Her heart, her body, maybe even her soul, whatever he could take for himself and hold on to. The same knowledge was in her eyes and she looked so scared he couldn’t stop the step toward her.

“It’s addiction. Obsession. Everything but what it should be.” She couldn’t back away from him but she shrank against the seat.

His fingertips deliberately caressed her br**sts. “What should it be if not this?”

“Simple physical attraction. Normal physical attraction.”

“I’d rather have this. I’d rather have you.” His hands cupped her br**sts possessively, his thumbs stimulating her ni**les. “Normal is never going to be enough for you, Flame, any more than it will be for me.” He leaned in to her to claim her mouth.

The moment his lips feathered over hers, his tongue teased the seam of her mouth, she felt an electrical charge running from her mouth to her br**sts and to her groin. His fist was suddenly in her hair, holding her in place as his teeth tugged at her lower lip, demanding entrance. Her brain went into meltdown as she allowed his tongue to sweep inside her mouth, to tangle with hers. They seemed fused together, so hot and so addicting she couldn’t stop kissing him. Her bare br**sts mashed into his chest and she could hear their combined heartbeats, smell the musky scent of their combined need.

His mouth became rougher, more demanding, his hand tightening in her hair, but it only added to the intensity of her desire for him. Fire raced up her belly to her br**sts, spread through her body until she wanted to cry with need. He tasted hot and wild and it was almost more than she could bear. To want him. To be made to want him. It should be her choice. Hers.

Flame pushed at his shoulders until he allowed her to escape. Dragging the edges of her shirt together she wiped at her mouth. It didn’t help. She could still taste him there. Her body felt swollen and achy and unfulfilled.

“Why?” Gator could barely breathe. Barely think. It took every ounce of willpower, of discipline and control to keep from taking what she wouldn’t give him. He knew she wouldn’t be able to resist him if he persisted.

“Whitney.” She whispered the name.

She may as well have shouted it. Dead or alive, the man haunted them. Gator fought to drag air into his lungs as he stared at her, fighting back the need to just overrule her decision. Her shirt was pulled together over her br**sts, but had slipped off her shoulders. He could see a hint of darker smudges marring her skin. He stepped closer to her, a small frown on his face. “Flame?”

She glanced at her shoulders and jerked the shirt over her skin. “It’s nothing.”

“It isn’t nothing. How did you get those bruises?”

“I told you, I bruise easily. I got a little beat up driving the Jeep over rough terrain.” Flame buttoned up her shirt, wincing as the material brushed against her tight, sensitive ni**les. His gaze dropped to her br**sts, clearly seeing the outline. He licked his lips and turned away from her to start the airboat.

Wrapping her arms around her waist, Flame refused to look at him as the boat skimmed over the water toward Burrell’s island. She would not be used as an experiment, not ever again. Certainly not for some perverted sexual experiment. She’d never responded to anyone like she had Raoul. She’d never wanted or needed anyone the way she did him, The ache in her body refused to subside and she simply didn’t trust the intensity of her craving for him.

Raoul didn’t believe Whitney was alive. He certainly didn’t believe he’d somehow found a way to make them addicted to one another. But she knew what the doctor was capable of doing.

She stared at the passing landscapes. The bayou was a beautiful place. She didn’t even mind the humidity so much. She loved the wildlife and the way it sat there, right out among the midst of civilization as all around it the city built up. Normally she didn’t care to be in cities, people crowding in where she couldn’t stop the continual assault of noise, but she liked New Orleans and the French Quarter. She thought the aboveground cemeteries looked like miniature cities, beautiful and different and perfect for New Orleans. Mostly, she liked the people with their smiling faces and their various accents and ready laughter. She didn’t want to leave any of it, and she especially didn’t want to leave Raoul.

As if reading her mind, Gator’s fingers brushed her arm, slid down to tangle with hers until he was holding her hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You had all this. How could you think whatever Whitney did was worth the trade?” She nearly choked on the question. She wanted his life. His grandmother and brothers and his wonderful home.

“At the time, I didn’t think I was trading it away. I had some psychic talent and a huge sense of responsibility. I thought by getting more training I could save more lives. I’d already had so much special training in so many areas, Flame, it just felt like one more. Then it all went to hell.” He shrugged his broad shoulders, his gaze watching the waterway.

With his foot standing on the gas and one hand on the stick controlling the rudder he had to be alert. The trail was narrow and the plants slick as they skimmed the surface of the marsh. He didn’t dare let up on the gas going over the mud because he didn’t want to get stuck. When navigating an airboat, he looked out for everything from other boats, to alligators and the knees of cypress trees, anything that could damage the bottom of the boat. The airboats were top heavy and could flip rather easily and he was very aware Flame was riding with him. He didn’t want anything to happen to her.