“Kadan.” His name came out in a breathy little moan that was half fear, half desire. She backed up at his sudden aggression, but he just followed her, stalking her across the room until the wall was against her back and she had nowhere to go. She drew in a deep, shuddering breath and held up one hand.

He ignored it and caught her up, his strength enormous, lifting her na**d body and taking her back to the bed, uncaring that they both were wet and soaking the sheets as he positioned her at the edge of the mattress, her legs over his shoulders so that she was entirely open to him.

“Don’t tell me I don’t want you.” This time he growled it, the sound rumbling in his throat. “I f**king want you all the time. Just like this. You understand me? Just like this.”

There were no kisses, no foreplay; he buried himself deep, hard, and fast, pushing through the tight folds like a battering ram taking him home. He said with his body everything he couldn’t say aloud. Every stroke was hard and deep, his h*ps frantic, plunging into her over and over, driving her up fast, taking her breath, forcing her higher and higher as he claimed her, as he made her his.

He let himself lose control, wild with primitive need, the desire to show her the truth. This was where he belonged, in her. That she could question his desire for her was shocking to him, and he took her with an animalistic pleasure, riding her with heat until it felt like flames were licking up his legs and over his bu**ocks and into his groin. She was hot and tight and felt like a silken fist gripping him, squeezing and strangling until he thought his head might explode from the sheer pleasure.

When she was gasping and thrashing beneath him, he leaned forward, applying more pressure to her hard, sensitive bud, more intense friction as he pistoned into her. He kept bending until his mouth found her nipple. He flicked his tongue twice and then bit down gently. She screamed, her body imploding around his, melting and gripping his with fierce need until he emptied himself into her, filling her with hot seed, collapsing over the top of her, a little shocked at the fury of his body taking hers when he thought of her as fragile.

He could feel the rippling of her body, the aftershocks shaking her as he moved in more gentle strokes, hating leaving the haven of her body. He waited until he could breathe again before he looked at her, half-expecting her to be angry with him, but she cradled his head, her hands in his hair, stroking caresses over him. Accepting him. Accepting his dominant nature. Just accepting him, and that was more humbling, more frightening than all the guns in the world aimed at him.

“I have to touch you.” His admission came out rough. A demand instead of the way he’d wanted it to sound. He wanted to share with her his own weakness, give her something of himself that mattered. He let his breath out and tried again. “I need to touch you.”

“I love when you touch me, Kadan.” She pushed back his hair, her touch gentle.

Kadan shook his head, straightening, stepping back. “No. I don’t mean now. I mean all the time. I need the contact with you.” He shoved his hand through his hair. “Damn it. This isn’t coming out the way I want it to.”

Tansy slowly lowered her feet to the floor and sat up. “Tell me.” She threw back the wealth of long hair over one shoulder in a sexy slide.

Her br**sts drew his immediate attention, jutting out at him invitingly. He couldn’t stop himself from leaning down to suckle for a moment. The craving was so strong it shook him. He stepped back, shaking his head, wanting her to understand.

“I need my hands on you. I can’t tell you why, only that I have to know you’re all right with me touching you anytime, anywhere. In my head, I have to know you’re going to accept me, want me touching you or to have my mouth on you or your mouth on me.” His hand slipped over his shaft, already semi-hard. “That you’re going to want me inside of you, a hundred times a day. The thought is going to be there that if I really needed to, you would find a way with me no matter what’s going on around us.”

“I’m not certain why you think that’s such a bad thing, Kadan.”

His eyes darkened more. “You think you need me more than I need you. You think I’m stronger and that I’ll grow tired of your dependence. I’m in your head. I know what you’re thinking, but you aren’t really seeing me, Tansy. I want you to see me.” He let his breath out in a little rush. “You’re home for me. You and your body. You’re home.”

“All right.” She lifted her gaze to his, to make sure he knew she meant it. “I’m absolutely all right with you touching me. I love your hands on me. I especially love your mouth on me, and if you want to be inside me, say the word and I’m there. Just try not to throw me on the kitchen table in front of everyone and we’ll be fine.”

The knotted muscles in Kadan’s stomach unraveled and he could breathe freely again. He hadn’t scared the hell out of her, but then, Tansy didn’t scare all that easy. She stood up to killers and she willingly faced hell and madness to track murderers. She wasn’t a shrinking violet, and if any woman could handle his needs, he was betting his heart it would be Tansy.

“The kitchen table is fine, but no audience. I’ve got that.”

A slow smile tugged at her mouth. “I’m glad you made that distinction.”

“I can exercise discipline when necessary.”

Tansy laughed, and the sound was music to him. Kadan pulled her up and kissed her thoroughly on her mouth, just because the sound of her laughter sent warmth careening through the ice in his veins.

“Come on, baby.” He gave her bare bottom a swat and then rubbed caresses into it when she yelped. “Let’s find you some clothes before the others get here.”

She looked at the mess in the bed and sighed. “I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”

“I’d walk through hell barefoot for you, honey, so a little shower is no problem.” His heart would never beat the same, but if that was the price of bringing her back from the brink of madness, he’d accept it.

“You said something about a cup of tea. Would you mind making me one while I clean up?” She didn’t want him in the shower while she retrieved her torn clothes; it would just be too humiliating. He might have thought his dark secret was a match for losing one’s mind, but she didn’t think so, and she needed a few minutes to pull herself back together.

His gaze slid over her, assessing her pale face. “Is your head still hurting?”

She sidestepped the question. “I’m much better. I really would love a cup of tea.”

He could feel her will pushing at him. He didn’t want to leave her. She looked very pale. There were red patches, scratches, and bruising marring her skin. Her hair was wet and dark, sliding down her back in a long tail, still dripping a little water onto the floor. He could see her thighs wet with his seed. The vise seized his heart again and he turned away, emotions too intense when he was so unfamiliar with them.

“Tea it is,” he said gruffly and yanked jeans out of his pack.

Tansy padded barefoot into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. Haunted eyes stared back at her. She was a mess. She lifted her swollen hand and stared down at the mark embedded in her skin. It was beginning to fade, but it told her volumes. She had come too close this time. She’d been lucky that Kadan had fought for her. Her mind was still healing from too many battles with violent energy, and she needed to be more careful if she was going to survive intact.

She threw her torn clothes away and took another shower, washing her hair and rinsing the abrasions on her body. She’d done that to herself, nearly taking her skin off. She couldn’t think about it too much, because the sensation of blood coating her skin crawled over her the moment she looked too hard at her body. Rubbing her familiar, soothing lotion into the scratches helped some, and she braided her long hair to get it out of the way before dressing in jeans. She didn’t bother with a bra, but just pulled on a dark-colored T-shirt before stripping the bed and throwing wet sheets into the washing machine.

She stood in the doorway of the kitchen watching him. He was an amazing specimen of a man, heavily muscled and quiet on his feet, a tapered waist and a great butt. He was too rough to be called handsome by any stretch of the imagination, but he was striking, compelling, a man one paid immediate attention to.

He knew she was there, she could tell he did. There was always something remote about him when she first came into a room, but then he gentled, the glacier thawing so that he sent her a warm smile over his shoulder.

“I’ve got your tea. I put a little honey in it. It’s good for you.”

“You’re lucky I like it with honey,” she said and sat in the chair he pulled out for her.

His gaze slid over her, clearly saying he didn’t give a damn if she liked it or not. He would have poured it down her throat if he thought she needed it. She made a face at him as she wrapped her palms around the warmth of the mug. Her hand was very sore and she flexed her fingers.

“We have to find another way to open my hand when you want me to drop whatever object I’m handling.”

He shot her another piercing look. “It’s a moot point because you’re not doing it again.”

She forced back her protest and took a sip of the tea, allowing the liquid to warm her before answering. “I know it must have been frightening for you to see me like that, but we can’t stop now. I know with what I got on Frog you should be able to find him. He has some kind of water business on the side. Fishing. Whale watching. Taking people down in a shark cage, who knows, but it’s the ocean and the business belongs to him. He loves to be underwater. I think the cylinder was a scuba tank.”

“You just won’t stop, will you?” There was warning in his voice.

Tansy met his glittering eyes, not flinching from the arctic chill in his stare. “No, absolutely I won’t, not after seeing these men. They aren’t going to stop, Kadan, and the police aren’t going to find them. They’ve had all this evidence, and yet no one can find a print, or a motive, or anything but the game pieces. You didn’t even know there were eight players before I started helping you.”

“Your sanity isn’t worth it to me.”

She held his gaze, refusing to back down. “It is to me. If I can save one life—prevent a child, a parent, anyone at all from suffering at their hands, you bet it’s worth it to me. You’re willing to trade your life for your country; well I’ve got this talent no one else seems to have, and whether it’s a gift from God or a mutation, I don’t know, and frankly, it doesn’t matter. I choose . . .” She looked him right in the eye. “I choose to use it to stop killers. For me, the sun may rise and set with you, you may rule me in the bedroom and every other place, but not in this. In this, I say when I stop, not you.”

Kadan tipped his chair back, not saying anything, regarding her through brooding, half-closed eyes. He looked frightening, his face a hard mask, his mouth tight. Her heart began to beat very fast. Kadan would never hurt her, certainly not for taking a stand, not when she was right—not ever. She forced herself to remain silent, not to appease him, although she wanted to. She lowered her eyes and sipped at the tea, holding the mug tight against her throbbing palm, hiding the knife impression from him.

“Your choice was to stop. I dragged you back into it.”

She shook her head. “You walked away. You were going to tell them you didn’t find me, or that I’d lost my abilities. I chose to come with you.”

His jaw tightened. A muscle jerked and his eyes were twin chips of blue ice. “You have no idea the lengths I’d be willing to go to keep you safe.”

There was no give in him and he didn’t sound loving. He sounded cold and hard and terrifying. She caught a glimpse of that eight-year-old boy who found a gun in a river of his family’s blood and chose to pick it up and seek his own brand of justice. He was ruthless and merciless, and he would be even more so protecting her.