She was wrong.

Exploding fingers of sensation began to tear through her nerve endings. Her womb clenched, knotted. The already aching flesh between her thighs began to burn with a spasming, violent need.

She screamed into his kiss, rising on her tiptoes for more, pressing against him, trying to sink into the heat emanating from beneath his clothing.

He tore his lips from hers, his breathing rough, harsh as she tried to claw up his body and capture his lips again.

"That fucking pill." His voice was animalistic, rough, hungry.

"No. Kiss me again." She pulled his hair, dragging his head back down until his lips covered hers again, a groan tearing from his throat as her tongue pushed between his lips. It was wildfire. It was destructive. She could feel the flames licking over her body, pinpoints of electricity sensitizing her flesh. And pleasure—the pleasure was overwhelming.

She felt him pick her up. Lifting her from her feet as she lifted her legs, bending them to clasp his hips as the fiery hot length of his erection suddenly seared the folds of her cunt. He was moving. Walking. Sweet heaven, how was he

walking?

He pulled his lips back again, his movements jerky as he braced her rear on the kitchen island and jerked open the small plastic container.

He pushed the pill between her lips.

"Swallow it," he growled. "Now, Lyra." He was moving against her, his cock sliding in the juices of her sex as he stared down at her fiercely, raking the tender bud of her clit, sending spasms of sensation ripping through her belly.

She swallowed the pill before her gaze dropped to her thighs.

She whimpered.

"Do it," she whispered, watching the bloated head of his cock part her and then slide up, raking against her clit.

"Damn," his voice was filled with lust, with a strengthening demand as his fingers caught in her hair, pulling her head back to force her gaze to his. "I told you. I'm eating that sweet pussy first."

"I can't wait, Tarek," she whimpered, her hands pulling at his shirt, amazed as the buttons tore free, revealing his golden chest. "Now. I need it now."

"You can wait."

But he wasn't about to.

Her eyes widened as he pushed her back, spreading her thighs as he lifted her legs and buried his head between them. The first swipe of his tongue through the sensitive slit of her cunt had her screaming. He licked at her, lapping at the juices spilling from her vagina as he groaned against her flesh. She had never imagined such agonizing pleasure. She writhed beneath him, twisting, bucking against his mouth as he circled her clit, only to move lower to lap at her again. He nibbled at the sensitive lips, parted her, and then suddenly, astonishingly, drove his tongue inside her. She exploded in a firestorm of blazing pleasure as his tongue fucked inside her with hard, blistering strokes. Her muscles clenched, shuddered, and more heated liquid spilled to his greedy lips. And still, it wasn't enough.

She was gasping, tears dampening her face as she shuddered a final time, staring up at him as he straightened between her thighs.

"Tarek?" She sobbed his name beseechingly. "I need more." She was exhausted, but the fire burning in her womb was never-ending.

"Shh, baby." He lifted her quickly in his arms. "I refuse to take you on the kitchen counter, Lyra. I won't do it." He stumbled as her legs wrapped around him, clasping his hips tight, her clit rubbing against the shaft of his cock as he began to carry her to the stairs.

"I won't make it upstairs." She was riding the thick wedge, the agonizing pleasure ripping through her mind.

If she could just get the right position. Just a little higher…

She felt the thickly crested head part her, lodge against the tender opening before his first step onto the stairs forced it inside her.

He stumbled, growling, one arm locked around her as he braced his hand to the wall, breathing harshly.

"Not like this," he breathed roughly. "Oh God, Lyra. Not like this. Not your first time…"

Regret, remorse. She saw it in his expression, heard it in his voice. But stretching her entrance wide, teasing her, tempting her, was the head of the instrument she needed to relieve the agonizing lust clawing at her pussy.

She shifted in his embrace, feeling him slip farther inside her before coming to a halt against the proof of her virginity.

"Baby…" He whispered the endearment against her ear as he struggled up another step.

Each move pulled his cock back, pushed it in, and stroked her no more than inches inside the gripping muscles of her cunt, sending shudders wracking through her body at the exquisite pleasure.

He was killing her.

"I'm sorry." He stopped, bending, placing her rear at the edge of the step as he knelt in front of her. "God, Lyra. I'm sorry."

She had no more than a second's warning before his hips flexed and then pushed forward, driving his thick, hot erection to the very depths of her hungry, gripping pussy.

Shocking, blistering. The sudden penetration had her arching as the pleasure/pain of his abrupt entrance sizzled across her nerve endings. Overfilled, stretched tight, she could feel his cock throbbing inside her, setting flames to her ultrasensitive depths. Lyra's head fell back against an upper step, her legs lifting, clasping his back tightly as he began to drive inside her. It was unlike anything she could have imagined. She could feel him pushing the tender muscles apart, stroking delicate tissue, and sending almost unbearable pleasure whipping through her system.

She held on to him, feeling his lips at her neck, his incisors scraping over her flesh as the pressure began to build inside her womb, the pleasure coalescing, tightening with each desperate lunge of his cock inside the snug depths of her cunt. She could barely feel the hard wood of the step beneath her. All she felt was Tarek, heavy, hot, wide, overfilling her, making her take more, thrusting inside in an ever-increasing tempo until she felt the world dissolve around her.

Then she felt more.

Her eyes widened, staring in dazed shock at the ceiling above her as, simultaneously, his teeth bit into her shoulder, holding her still for something so incredibly unreal, she was certain she had to be imagining it.

He slammed in deep, his body tightening as she felt an additional erection, an extension swelling from beneath the hood of his cock, locking him inside her, caressing a bundle of nerves high inside her pussy, and sending her rushing past ecstasy into rapture. The heat of his semen filled her, pulse after violent pulse echoing in the flexing depths as he growled harshly at her neck.

He was locked inside her. The extension holding him in place sent cataclysms of sensation exploding through her over and over again.

When it finally eased, when the hard pulsing jets of his release and the violent shudders of her own eased, her eyes closed in exhaustion.

She had thought no arousal could be worse than what she had known before his kiss. She was rapidly learning just how wrong she was.

Chapter Eight

You are not human…You may look in the mirror and declare your humanity. You may tell yourself that looks are all that matter. They do not. You are animals. Created in a lab, a manmade creation, and you will serve the men who made you. You are animal. Our tools. Nothing more…

Tarek stared at the ceiling as he held Lyra in his arms, her head on his chest, her body draped over his. She was like a kitten, determined to get as close as possible in her sleep, curling around him with a sigh before she had relaxed into exhaustion several hours before.

He wasn't human. That had been driven irrevocably home on the stairs, his body covering hers, as it betrayed his sense of humanity. His belief in himself as a man, not an animal. A barb.

He closed his eyes as bitterness swamped him.

He pushed back the shudder of pure lust at the memory of the sensations.

Dear God, the pleasure. It had been unlike anything he could have anticipated. The extension had been highly sensitive, pulsing, throbbing in orgasmic delight as he poured his semen into her.

He breathed in roughly, grimacing at the erection he still sported. He had a feeling he would never get enough of the feel of her silken cunt, with or without the Mating Heat. His hand smoothed over her hair, his fingers tangling in the soft strands as he relished the feel of her lying against him. She was warm. Precious. She was a gift he had never imagined lie would ever have.

And she liked him. He knew she felt at least some affection for him, though perhaps not as much as he felt for her. Hell, he had fallen in love with her during the first few months he had known her. He had known it was love. Known the

possessiveness, the joy, i he sheer delight he found in her could be nothing else.

He wanted to clutch her to him, tighten his arms around her and hold the world at bay forever. But he knew, realistically, it wasn't possible. He could only hold her for now and see how she reacted when she awakened.

And that part terrified him.

Would she be disgusted?

Hell, of course she would. What sane, reasonable woman could so easily accept something so animalistic? So outside the bounds of what she knew was human?

He felt her shift against him and restrained his growl of impatient lust as her leg slid over his thigh, her knee nearly touching the taut flesh of his scrotum.

Sweet Lord, she made him hot. And he wasn't blaming it on the Mating Heat. He had known what she would do to him from his first confrontation with her.

She sighed against his chest, a soft little sound that clenched his heart as her hand smoothed over his chest and then back again.

He stilled, his breath nearly suspending as she repeated the action, her body tensing.

"What happened to you?" Her fingers picked up the nearly invisible line of scars that criss-crossed his chest.

"Training." He hoped she would leave it alone. Prayed she would let it go.

"What kind of training?" She leaned up enough to open drowsy eyes, though her gaze was as sharp as ever.

He was willing to bet she drove her father insane. She was too curious, too independent, and too set on having the answers she demanded.

"Simply training, Lyra," he finally answered her. "At times, I was not the perfect little soldier I should have been." He heard the bitterness that laced his voice, wincing at the sound of it.

Her fingers moved over the abrasive scars once again as her gaze tuckered to his. A gaze filling with anger. Making her angry had not been his intention. He wanted only to shelter her from what he had known during those years. There was no reason for her to know the brutality, the mercilessness of those who created him.

"I hope they're dead." Her snarl surprised him, as did the bloodthirsty fury in those beautiful eyes as she stared back at him. "Whoever did this, I hope you killed him." He had. But it wasn't something he was proud of.

He was proud of this small sign of protectiveness from her, though. She was angry on his behalf, not with him.

"It's over. That's all that matters." He touched her cheek, amazed at her, just as he had been from the first moment he had seen her.

She snorted at that, a completely unladylike sound that didn't really surprise him as her expression conveyed her disagreement with him.

"I need a shower." She finally shifted from him, her moves hesitant.

"I'll show you the shower and get you one of my shirts to wear." He moved from the bed before turning back and lifting her into his arms.

She gripped his shoulders, staring up at him in surprise.

"You're tender." And she was as light as a feather. "Perhaps try a bath to relieve the soreness. I have some Epsom Salts in the cabinet that will make you feel better."

Jonas had suggested hot baths rather than showers to help ease the soreness as well as the building heat for a small respite. He knew the scent of her and could detect the change as she moved farther through the ovulation process. The pill she had taken would do nothing to stop the heat, only the end result of the ovulation process. There would be no egg, no conception. He ignored the small flare of regret at the thought of it.