Noelle groaned in frustration and turned around to stare up at him. "Honestly, I don't know what to think. I mean, I hardly know you. Sure, you seem like a nice guy and you're sexy as sin, but a child is a big deal."

He crouched down so he was at eye level with her. "It is a big deal, but you're not alone. I was there, too, remember? I knew what I was doing."

"No you didn't. If you'd known I could get pregnant, you would never have touched me."

His blue eyes warmed with desire. "Wanna bet? I'd take you again right now if I had even a hint that you wouldn't try to slap me."

He wasn't joking. Something inside her went liquid and hot in response to the completely sincere look on his face.

Baby or not, the idea of getting naked with him again was a potent force, urging her to forget everything else around them and just give in. It would be so easy to just give in. Too easy.

"I'd never slap you," she whispered.

His nostrils flared and his eyes darkened to midnight blue. He slid one blunt finger over her mouth, his eyes focused intently on his touch. "Don't tempt me, Noelle. I'm about two minutes away from meltdown and we still don't have any condoms, so unless you're willing to risk it, you'd best not test my self-control."

Her lungs seemed to malfunction and her skin was too hot and tight on her frame. Her body ached to feel the callused slide of his hand over her skin, his mouth at her breasts. And lower.

She shivered remembering the way his tongue felt so hot and wet and excruciatingly gentle between her thighs.

Man, oh, man. If she lived to be a hundred, she'd never forget the way it felt to fly apart with his fingers buried inside her and his tongue dancing circles over her clitoris. And that was nothing compared to the sheer power of coming around his erection while he thrust deep and hard, giving her no way to escape the force of her orgasm.

She'd never known sex could be like that.

She doubted that it would be like that with anyone besides David.

Her body screamed at her to give in. Yeah, she mightget pregnant, but would that really be so bad? She was smart.

She'd find a way to make things work for both herself and a baby. She had no illusions that David would be in the picture, but that didn't scare her. She would learn to be a good single mother. Lots of women did.

What really scared her was knowing that every time she opened herself up to him physically, she was getting that much closer to falling for him. She wasn't a fool. Sex and love were too closely linked for her to ignore the correlation.

She knew that women fell in love with men who were wrong for them all the time.

And David was definitely wrong for her.

He was career military. She was opposed to violence of any kind. The two had no place together. Add to that the fact that he still had the death of his wife haunting him, and he was about as wrong for her as a man could get, no matter how right he felt in bed.

If she fell for him, she'd end up hurt. Her life was already such a mess that she just couldn't risk doing anything that would make it worse. Falling in love with a man she couldn't have would definitely make things much worse. Sex would just make him more appealing to her than he already was.

That, she couldn't handle.

"I'm sorry. I can't," she whispered.

"You mean you won't. You already proved beyond a doubt that you can last night. Quite well in fact."

"I don't regret what we did last night. I just don't think that's it's smart for us to be getting... distracted right now."

He jerked away, his movements harsh and angry. "You're right, of course. You don't have to explain," he said through clenched teeth. "I'll be outside."

The cabin shook with the force of the door slamming behind him. Cold air swirled through the room, chilling Noelle both inside and out. She hated to see him go like that, but she didn't blame him for wanting to put some distance between them. It was the only way she was going to be able to resist him.

Noelle swallowed and urged her breathing to return to normal. She was itchy and agitated inside. Her body felt twitchy and unstable and she knew this had to be what sexual frustration felt like. She wished now more than ever that her normal, laser-focused tunnel vision would kick in, and the world—including her frustrated body— would fall away. But it didn't happen. Her focus was held captive by thoughts of David. Thoughts of what they'd done last night.

Maybe she shouldn't have refused him. Lord knew she yearned for some companionship right now—someone she could turn to during this stressful time. Someone who would hold her and tell her it was going to be okay. She didn't even care how big a lie it was.

David was only human, no matter how formidable a human he seemed to be. What if he yearned for the same thing?

Their situation was dangerous. Men had tried to abduct her, or kill her. Noelle could tell by David's steely determination that no matter how bad things got, he'd protect her, even if it cost him his life.

In fact, sometimes, when she looked at him, she wondered whether or not part of him didn't have a death wish. He grieved for his wife; the fact that he still held on toj his wedding ring and the way he spoke about her proved that.

Maybe that was why he was fearless in the face of danger. A man who didn't mind dying would have little to fear.

But that didn't mean he didn't want companionship while he was still alive. No one wanted to die alone. Was David any different?

Something deep in her gut told her that she'd better be careful. She was falling for David. Hard.

Noelle told that something to shut the hell up and getg back to work.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Someone had breached the perimeter David had set in the forest.

David crouched low and went still, seeking out signs of where the intruder might have gone. They were good, he'd give them that. The only way he'd known they'd come this way was because they had disturbed some limbs that David had twisted together across one of the paths toward the cabin. The intruder had seen the security measure too late and tried to put the vines back the way they'd been before, but David could see the subtle differences. One of the leaves had been torn and lay on the ground, bruised where the heavy tread of a combat boot had crushed it.

David forced the rising fear down and put his senses on full alert. He had to get back to the cabin and get Noelle out of here. Fast.

As Noelle opened the door to go out and use the drafty outhouse, she saw movement in the trees in two places.

Something was wrong with this picture and her instincts were screaming at her to hurry up and figure it out. She froze in place, her work-fogged brain struggling to make sense of what she'd seen. Her breathing sped and her heart started fluttering in fear. Movements in two places. Only one David.

Panic flooded her system, making her feel heavy and sluggish, as time slowed, and her overworked mind started.

spinning in place, trying to figure out what to do.

"It's just deer," Noelle whispered to herself, but her. instincts were going off, screaming at her to run.

Through a thin patch in the woods, Noelle caught a glimpse of a shape moving through the trees. A human shape. It slid slowly over the rough ground with cautious, stealthy steps.

Oh, God. The Swarm had found her.

Shaking with terror, Noelle backed up into the cabin and grabbed the gun that was always sitting on the table for her to use in case of emergency. As much as she loathed the cold, lethal weight of the weapon, this certainly qualified as an emergency and she was relieved to feel the chill of it pressing into her palm.

She was not going to let the Swarm take her without a fight.

The uncomfortable bite of the bulletproof vest that David insisted she wear when she left the cabin was a welcome friend right now. She silently thanked David fori his constant nagging and overprotective streak.

As she stepped out of the cabin, her hands trembled so violently that she was sure she'd never hit a target smaller than the moon. But the threat the weapon innately held was better than nothing.

Her only chance of getting out of this safely was to get to David. If they cornered her in the cabin, she'd be trapped.

There wasn't even a back door to use as an escape route.

The thought of being cornered by the Swarm threatened to drive her to her knees, but she pulled in a deep breath and forced herself to focus.

The front porch of the cabin held no cover from bullets, but the pile of chopped wood a few yards to the side of the cabin had potential. A few more yards beyond that was the bulletproof Bronco. If she could make it that far, she was sure she could escape into the woods.

But first she had to make it that far.

Her mind started running through calculations to determine just how much wood had to be between her and a bullet to stop it from hitting her, but without knowing the density of the wood or the mass and muzzle velocity of the bullet, she had no clue. A lot, she guessed.

A gust of wind whipped through the trees, stirring them all into motion. She heard the pounding of heavy feet getting closer. She didn't have any more time to wait. She had to get out of here.

With speed she didn't know she had, Noelle sprinted for the pile of logs and crouched behind it, praying it would protect her. Her lungs burned from the short sprint and she was sure she was going to throw up from fear. She managed to keep holding the gun, but her palm was so sweaty the thing kept sliding around in her grip.

If running this little bit of distance left her panting and dizzy, there was no way she was going to be able to outrun the men in the woods. She wouldn't get a hundred feet before they caught up with her.

She had to think of something else or she was a goner.

Her tired brain sparked and stuttered, and she clutched the weapon in her hand so tight it made her knuckles ache.

The gun. That was it. It wasn't just a weapon used to kill, it could also call for help. She pointed it into the air and squeezed the trigger. The backfire stung her hand and jarred her wrist, and the boom was louder than she expected, even though she'd anticipated it. She just hoped it had been loud enough for David to hear, wherever he was. If he heard the shot, he'd come to help her. She was sure of it. All she had to do was survive long enough for him to get here.

In an effort to buy some time, she peeked through a hole in the pile of logs and yelled, "Stop moving, or I'll shoot!"

The movement in the brush stopped.

Noelle let out a small, shuddering breath. At least they were listening. "Throw out your weapons," she shouted.

A few tense seconds passed, then she heard the thump of steel hitting frozen ground. She peeked and could see the black outline of two handguns in the dirt few feet beyond the tree line.

This was too easy. If they'd been members of the Swarm, they wouldn't have given up so easily—not against one poorly armed, out-of-breath woman. Maybe the men were just hunters out for a few hours of fun stalking deer. Did men shoot deer with pistols? She'd always thought they used rifles or maybe shotguns.

Noelle cursed herself for her lack of knowledge on the subject. She really couldn't be sure of anything.

"Come out slowly with your hands on your head," she ordered, proud her voice wavered only a little.

One man came out from under the cover of some brush. Just as she'd asked, his hands were on his head, and he moved so slowly that it looked like a slow-motion scene in an action movie.

He wore brown camouflage that blended perfectly with the autumn forest surroundings. His face was smeared with paint, obscuring his features. Other than the fact that he was a tall, lean man, she couldn't see anything specific about him—not even hair color. He moved with that same sort of predatory grace she'd seen in David and beneath his camouflage, she could see the outline of a Kevlar vest.