"And when it's no longer enough?" he asked sharply.
"Then I'll take it up with Jonas." She shrugged again. "But I do have to leave now. I don't want to give him reason to order more tests on her, with another scientist. It's best that he never learn of my deception here."
"Braden will take you back to his place." He nodded rather than questioning her further.
"Jonas is having the heli-jet dispatched there."
"Lance, I couldn't strengthen the hormone as I could have if she were at the labs. She needs a more precise adjustment that can't be accomplished as long as Jonas is playing his game. What I gave her will help; she won't be completely helpless against the arousal, but it will still be severe. I'm sorry about that."
"You took care of the most pressing problem." He sighed. "She won't conceive. I won't have that choice taken away from her."
"And I agree with you, obviously." She shook her head wearily. "I'll be leaving now. Make certain she gets plenty of fluids, but no caffeine. And rest. Right now, she needs that more than anything."
God, could he handle another of those deep sleeps? She had cried as she dreamed. Streams of tears as she begged Alpha One, Jonas, to help her. To save her. Pleaded with him for forgiveness.
Twenty-four hours she had slept. Torn between silent tears and nightmare battles, Harmony had faced demons that Lance had been unable to fight for her. He had only been able to hold her, to croon to her. At times, it had seemed to ease her a bit; at others it had seemed to only frighten her further.
As Ely left the house, Lance moved to his bedroom and strode quickly to the small safe hidden in the back of his closet. There, he removed the small electronic bug detector Braden had brought in that morning.
Twenty minutes later he found two of the listening devices in his bedroom and three more throughout the house. As he stared at the small devices, he shook his head in resignation. For all her help, Ely had obviously been there for her own reasons as well, perhaps even Jonas's. He stored them in the safe along with the detector, snapped it closed and moved for the bathroom.
"Harmony?" He knocked on the door before easing it open.
She was sprawled back in the large tub, hair wrapped in a towel, a blissful expression on her face as the water frothed around her.
"Comfortable?" He smiled as her eyes peeked open.
"Go away and I might let you live," she retorted drowsily.
"I have some homemade soup on the stove. It will be ready when you're done." He paused. "When will you be done?"
She rolled her eyes. "When you see me coming into the kitchen. Now go away. I need to recuperate." She closed her eyes again and settled back into the tub.
"And here I thought cats didn't like water," he commented, failing to hold back his amusement.
"This cat does. Now go away." She didn't bother even to glance at him. Lance chuckled before moving from the bathroom and heading back to the kitchen. When she managed to recuperate, he was certain he'd have the wildcat back. For now though, while she was weak, he'd press his own advantage.
He had very little time left in which to make Harmony Lancaster, aka Death, fall in love. _______
What had she done?
Harmony sat up in the water after Lance left, lifting her knees until she could rest her forehead against them, and fought for control.
She had slept for twenty-four hours, so deep that she hadn't even known she had been examined. There was no doubt in her mind that she had dreamed. But what had she dreamed?
She closed her eyes and swallowed back the bile threatening to rise in her throat. She knew what she did when she slept so deeply, when the exhaustion finally overtook her and her body overrode her control. She cried and she begged. Fear filled her voice and horror whispered past her lips. She knew, because before she had always awakened to the sound of it, to the memory of the nightmares that haunted her.
She only prayed that she hadn't given her secrets away.
God, she was going to have to find a way out of this. There had to be a way to defeat this need, to still the hunger that ate at her and escape this situation. Nothing good could come of it. Only death could result. Her death.
But to leave, she had to walk away from Lance. She lifted her head then, her eyes still closed, and breathed in the scent of him. His home was infused with the smell of him. Strong and male, filled with a powerful sense of warmth she hadn't known she needed. But as she sat there in his bathtub, the heated water swirling around her, she realized that was what had drawn her to him that first night. That sense of warmth, of his body heat flowing from his hand into hers, swirling inside her soul and creating a bond that made no sense.
She couldn't do this. She blinked back her tears, realizing that the shields she had used to keep herself hard, to keep her emotions cold and unfeeling, were gone. She was vulnerable now, and she had no idea how to fix it. Hell, she didn't even know how it had happened.
The man had no idea what she was. He couldn't. If he did, he would have reviled her, just as Jonas so obviously did.
Six months. She sighed wearily as she leaned back and stared up at the ceiling, a frown pulling at her brow. She just had to make it six months, that was all. By then, this heat stuff, whatever it was, would surely dissipate. She could find a way to control it, to walk away as she needed to.
Ely said she had given her the hormonal treatment to prevent conception, and she hadn't been lying about that. Harmony could smell a lie a mile away. She could read it, even in Jonas; the doctor hadn't been deceiving her.
Okay. She straightened her shoulders. Six months. She could do this. She would be free then. Free of Jonas and of Lance.
She ignored the prick of regret at the thought of ever being free of Lance. It wasn't emotion, she assured herself; it was the thought of losing something she had never had and always wondered about. The warmth. The pleasure in touch. That was what she would miss.
Not the man. Never the man.
She flipped off the jets, pulled the plug to drain the water from the tub and stood carefully. She was still weak, but it would go away soon. The inactivity and lack of food had caused it, not anything serious.
Pulling the towel from her head, she shook her hair out, then moved to the counter and the overnight bag sitting there. Ely's voice had held some disdain when she spoke of the lotions inside. Lotion, hair products, makeup, oils and the tools needed to keep every inch of her body clean, soft and gently scented.
Not like it had been that first year of her escape. Her skin dry and flaky, the filth of the labs lingering on her, drawing in every Coyote sent to look for her. Tracking her had been easy then. Hungry, living on raw nerves and what scraps of food she could steal, Death had been close to succumbing to her own curse.
Not anymore.
An hour later, she shook her dry hair around her shoulders, feeling the thick, silken strands caress her satin-soft skin. It shimmered with life as the subtle morning dew scent of her lotions blended with the scent Lance had left on her body. She was no longer the scrawny, dirty animal who had been yanked from the gutters and dragged into the world of the living. She was Death when she killed. A dark shadow of vengeance, unstoppable in its resolve. As a woman, she was Harmony. Serene. Calm. And she would survive this.
Maybe.
CHAPTER 7
The only advantage of the hormonal therapy was prevention of conception, Harmony thought as night fully descended over Lance's home. Because it sure as hell wasn't helping with the arousal.
Well, the pain wasn't there. She could feel the building hunger growing inside her without the white-hot flames exploding in painful awareness of the need. But she ached. She was wet. And she wanted nothing more than to lick Lance from head to toe. Sitting in the open living room, Harmony tried to keep her attention on the news program showing on the widescreen television hanging on the wall across from them. Sitting cross-legged in one of the broad, comfortable chairs as she worked on her nails, she could see Lance from the corner of her eye.
He was slouched back in the corner of the couch. A large pillow rested behind his back and he held the remote with firm possession at his side.
The position gave Harmony the advantage of tracking every hard muscular line of his body. Long, powerful legs were encased in denim that did nothing to hide the absolutely luscious muscle beneath. He shifted a bit, stretching out more comfortably, drawing her attention to his thighs as they flexed. And she had no business letting her eyes wander to that area, because keeping her gaze from the hard bulge between them was damned impossible.
He was hard. His erection was like a thick wedge beneath his jeans, reaching toward his lower stomach. She jerked her gaze back to the television, but the pretty-boy charm of the newsman had nothing on the rough-around-the-edges, earthy draw Lance projected.
Within seconds her eyes shifted again, moving back to the temptation of the body stretched out in abandon on the couch.
He looked half-asleep. Drowsy-eyed, relaxed. Unthreatening. It was hard to believe this was the man she had allowed to cuff her, to gag her. The man who had kept her belt on, her pants around her thighs and fucked her to dizzying heights.
Her vagina clenched at the memory. She could feel the dampness growing between her thighs as her nipples began to press tighter against the loose tan cotton sleeveless shirt she wore with the wide-legged matching pajama bottoms.
If she sat there much longer, she was going to end up crawling up his body like the cat he called her. And God, wouldn't that feel good. Stroking along his body, licking at every delectable inch of male flesh as she went.
"Is it working?"
His voice jerked her out of the daydream, causing her eyes to widen as she jerked her head around to stare at him more fully.
"What?" Had he known how she was watching him? Hungering for him?
"The hormone therapy." He lifted his hand, still gripping the remote, and waved it toward her. "Is it working?"
The need to taste him was killing her.
"It's working fine." She nodded before ducking her head and pulling her gaze from him. She lowered her head and concentrated on buffing her nails.
"Hmm." The low, dark murmur had her eyes lifting as they narrowed on him.
"What does that mean?"
She expected another of those wicked smiles, or at least a heated look. He was watching her with a slight frown instead, his expression much too serious.
"You're a strong woman," he finally said softly. "Megan said the heat is impossible to ignore, even with the hormones."
"What do you want me to say, Lance?" She swallowed tightly. "This isn't a comfortable situation for me."
"Why? You were comfortable enough that night in the bar to come home with me. What's changed, Harmony?"
"A one-night stand…"
"Have a lot of those, do you?" he asked mildly.
"No." She shook her head, confusion tearing through her. Where the hell was her selfcontrol, her ability to smack a man in place with no more than a look?
She stared back at him, his scent wrapping around her, affecting her senses in a way that threw her system into chaos. Nervous awareness sizzled along her nerve endings as her breathing began to roughen and the arousal began to grow.
"So why should it be different now?" he asked her.
"You weren't a weakness then," she snapped, jumping to her feet as she wrapped her arms over her breasts and paced to the doorway. "You're a weakness now." He didn't move; he just lay there.
"Running away, Harmony?" he asked as though she intended to do just that.
"This conversation is pointless."
"You can't run away from yourself forever. Aren't you tired of running by now?" Harmony turned back to him, knowing she wasn't hiding the effect his accusation had on her.
"Hiding is the only way to survive," she whispered. "Do you believe Jonas was the only person searching for me the last ten years, Lance? Or the only one to get close?