She went on her tiptoes then, her hands holding his head, pressing him closer, harder to her.

“More,” she gasped as he licked again. She wanted to feel his lips closing over her, drawing on her, sucking the tight point into his mouth.

“I was going to stay away,” he muttered gutturally. “I wasn’t going to taste. To touch…”

He lifted her against him, moving her to the bed, laying her back against the comforter as he moved quickly to her side. His lips covered hers again and the storm inside her body fed on the growing hunger of his kiss.

Kimberly was only distantly aware of his fingers at her blouse, tearing the buttons from their holes; his calloused hands were sensually rough, demanding as he pushed the material aside and quickly loosened the catch of her bra.

She couldn’t fight them both. She was starved for this. This something that his touch held that no others ever had. As though a stroke of his finger alone was a narcotic to her senses.

“Son of a bitch, I’ll go to hell for this for sure.” There was no pausing between her lips and her pierced nipples.

Kimberly’s back bowed, arching tightly to him as a cry tore from her throat. His lips covered one aching tip as his fingers went to the other. Nimble and hot, his tongue rasped over it as his mouth drew on her, tugging at the little gold ring that pierced the center of the elongated tip.

His fingers plucked at the other. Pulling at the gold ring, sending shards of desperate, fiery heat flowing through her body as her fingers gripped the fabric of his shirt, pulling at it, eager to feel his skin against her.

This was the stuff of her dreams. Jared overtaking her, forcing the pleasure from her body, giving her no time to think, to fear.

“I want to touch you,” she moaned, shuddering from the exquisite sensations ripping through her body. “Let me touch you, Jared.”

He growled back at her. She didn’t know if it was a yes or a no.

“Now.” She bucked against him, pulling harder at the shirt.

“Fuck no.” His head rose from her reddened nipple as his hands gripped her wrists, jerking them above her head and holding them with one hand as he stared down at her, his gaze dark, sexual. “Don’t touch me, Kimber. Not now. Not like this. I’ll end up doing something we’ll both regret.”

Kimberly fought for breath.

“You can have me,” she whispered. “Like Sax…”

She couldn’t deny him, not any longer. She was too hungry, too wild for his touch. She had thought she could hold herself aloof. Thought she could deny her need and his lusts, but she knew now it wasn’t going to happen. This wasn’t just a need. It was a craving, an addiction.

He stared down at her, his chest rising and falling as quickly as hers, his face flushed with his arousal, with his lusts. She could see the battle waging in his eyes, the desperate need for anything she would offer, the knowledge it would never be enough.

“It’s all I have, Jared,” she whispered painfully. “All I can offer.” But it wasn’t. Not really. She had the heart she was terrified he already held.

His head lowered, his forehead meeting hers as he stared into her eyes.

“Such a pretty little rear you have,” he whispered, his voice suggestive, dark with lust. “Do you know how many nights I’ve dreamed of you, Kimberly? How often I’ve lain awake hungry for you?”

She licked her lips, weakening desire washing through her body.

“I’m here,” she whispered.

His hand rose to her face, his fingers smoothing over her cheek with a touch as soft as a whisper.

“Here you are,” he agreed. “And yet you’re further away than you ever were.”

Kimberly watched in confusion as he loosened her wrists and forced himself from her. And he did force himself. She could see it in every line of his body, in the tight, angry grimace of his mouth.

“What do you mean?” She shook her head, pulling the edges of her shirt together as he rose from the bed and stood staring at her from beside it.

It broke her heart, needing him as she did and knowing she could never have him and keep the vow she had made to herself and to her mother. A vow that was weighing down her soul more and more by the day.

He shook his head shortly. “I have to get the hell out of here before I take something you don’t want to give. And that would only hurt both of us.”

Before she could speak, he stalked through the connecting doorway, closing the door firmly between them.

“But I do want to give it to you, Jared,” she whispered bleakly. “More than you know. More than you will ever know.”

Chapter Six

He should have stayed the fuck away from her, just as he had intended. He shouldn’t have gone into her room and he sure as hell shouldn’t have touched her. But he had. Helpless against the need to taste her, to touch her. She was like a narcotic to his senses, wrapping around him, a siren’s call of lust and heat that he was helpless to deny. He craved her.

Jared couldn’t remember a time in his life when need had struck him so hard, so imperatively. No other woman had ever affected him this way; no other had ever tested the control he had fought to preserve over the years.

A good woman is worth any sacrifice, son. The memory of his father’s words washed over him as he stared into the darkened forest from the back porch. She’ll soothe your soul even as she makes you burn inside and out. That kind of woman is worth dying for, but even more, she’s worth living for.

He knew his parents hadn’t had an easy time of it together. Their relationship had been hampered by her parents, and by Victor Raddington’s extreme sexuality.

Jared still remembered coming home that first time when the knowledge hit him. He had been in college, nearly a grown man and had returned home unexpectedly. He had walked in on something that even now, simply because it was his parents, he wished he never had walked in on.

He hunched his shoulders against the uncomfortable memory. But the thought of it was enough that it brought Kimberly to mind. How erotic it would be, holding her, watching as another man touched her, fulfilling all her most sensual fantasies.

She was a highly sexual creature. He had seen that at The Club, and the information he had learned later had only reinforced that impression.

Her requests when it came to sexual conduct with the club members were simple. She didn’t want foreplay, she didn’t want to be kissed or held; she had only wanted to be fucked. And she had enforced those demands herself. Because they made her weak. They made her want. And Jared knew he made her want those things she could never have more than others.

And now she was here. A part of his home, of his life. He had no choice but to stay close to her, to protect her, and to shield her from the plant Madison had placed within his home to watch Kimberly and to report any sexual misconduct.

He shifted uncomfortably as he leaned against the wide post, wishing he could ease the pressure in his jeans just a bit. His erection was killing him. Walking away from Kimberly was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life, but God help him, he was dying for her.

“You can have me…like Sax…” The words whispered through his mind as his eyes closed in tormented desire.

Like Sax. He could have her anally.

Fury pulsed inside him as he clenched his teeth against the need to have all of her. He wanted everything, and the fact that he couldn’t fight the shield placed between them enraged him.

He could fight another man, or any danger that raised its head to threaten her. He could seduce her, if it was only her stubbornness, out-argue her if it was her anger holding them apart. But it was something out of their control. Something that would destroy her if he forced her to choose.

So he had to choose. Because he couldn’t bear the pain he saw in her eyes, and the need he felt shuddering through her body. He couldn’t still the need to hold her, to show her, if only with his touch, the love he had for her. A love he knew would destroy him eventually, because he couldn’t fully have her. Not now. Not ever.

“You’re not here to advise me on this one, Dad,” he whispered as he stared into the mountains his father so loved.

He missed the man whose advice he had so come to rely on throughout his adult years. His death, five years before, had left a hollow spot in his soul that echoed with regret in times like this.

His father had raised him with solid values, with a sense of family and honor, one he refused to break now. Fact was fact. He couldn’t fully possess the woman he loved with every beat of his heart, but he could give her a time without pressure, without demands. A time to hold to their hearts in the long, lonely years that would come.

He lowered his head, his hands gripping his forearms as he crossed them over his chest and nudged at the side of the support post with the toe of his boot. There was nothing else he could do.

“You know, it’s not real bright to stand in full view like that when you could possibly have a terrorist or other unknown assailant waiting to pop your ass.”

He grinned as Kimberly spoke from the back door, her voice irritated and still shadowed with arousal. He wondered if she knew how that husky little sound made him crazy to fuck her.

He turned, glancing back as she stepped outside, watching him warily.

“Sorry, some days my control is not what I would want it to be,” he grunted with an edge of self-mockery. “So much for my Trojan status, huh?”

“The Trojans.” She shook her head at the title that had been given to the eight men that Stanton’s wife had identified as being part of the exclusive men’s club. “I imagine you’re more like them than either of us wants to admit to right now. But it doesn’t change the fact that you aren’t indestructible. You shouldn’t be out in the open like this.”

“My neck’s not itching. I’m not worried,” he told her, wondering at the pleasure that just the sight of her brought him.

He wanted to see her clothed in nothing but moonlight, reaching for him, her body shimmering with moisture, her eyes glazed with need. His hunger for just that rocked him to the very core of his being.

“Oh Lord, another man whose neck itches,” she grumped. “I’ll tell you the same thing I tell my boss—they make salves for that sort of thing.”

A surprised chuckle escaped his lips. She was daring and sharp as hell. He loved that about her. He had missed her blistering little retorts, her teasing laughter. He hadn’t realized how much until now.

She moved closer to him, the scent of her, clean and fresh, with just a hint of peaches enveloped him, making him hunger to taste her again. He wanted to spread her legs wide and lick up all the sweet cream her body had to give. To gorge himself on her passion, her cries and her sweet release.

“Come here.” He pulled her into his arms, ignoring her slight, indrawn breath at the intimacy of the act.

It was one of her taboos, he knew. No cuddling, no foreplay. Those rules he could and would break.

He was surprised though, when after a second’s stiffness, she relaxed against him, her hands settling cautiously at his waist as he rested his cheek against the top of her head. His hands smoothed down her back, fingers working at the muscles there, a smile tipping his lips as they slowly eased.

“I’m sorry,” she finally whispered. “I don’t want to make this harder for either of us than it already is.”

He smiled against her hair. If he got any harder he would burst right out of his jeans.

“Just let me hold you,” he finally whispered deeply, responding to the need to feel her against him, the ache to shelter her like a knife through his soul. “Just for a minute, Kimber. Let me hold you.”

The night wrapped around them, quiet, soothing. The sound of the frogs in the pasture pond, the hoot of a faraway owl, a whippoorwill in a tree in the backyard. The night enveloped them, hid their fears, their hungers, and for those few precious minutes, brought a measure of peace to them both.