Tall, Dark & Heartless

"Behave," he warned on a growl as he rubbed her ass.

The scent of the woman's arousal and several other's registered in her mind and if she hadn't already decided that enough was enough that would have done it for her. She was leaving, but first she was going to finally have it out with Caine. Once that was done she was out of here and she was never looking back. If they crossed paths somewhere down the line he'd better move his ass out of her way or she was going to-

"I love the way you squeal," he said, chuckling as he moved her until the lower half of her body was completely submerged in the surprisingly warm water.

"It's a hot spring," Caine explained as if she asked or cared as he settled her on a smooth flat rock in the water and stood up.

She moved to climb out only to stop short when he sent her a glare of warning. With a glare of her own she crossed her arms over her chest as she watched with disinterest as he pulled off his soaked blue jeans and tossed them off to the side next to a large duffle bag that he must have been carrying and decided to toss before he scared the hell out of her.

"Take off your shirt," he said casually as he reached for the bag and pulled out a bottle of shampoo, conditioner and body wash. He placed them on the grassy edge of the small pool as he watched her expectantly.

"The shirt, lose it," he said, picking up the bottle of shampoo and squeezing a descent amount into his palm.

"Go to hell," she snapped, having had more than enough of this nonsense and moved to climb out of the warm water that actually felt incredible on her skin only to come to a sudden halt as Caine ripped the shirt clean from her body.

"I've already been there, thanks," he said as he gently grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back. Before she could ask what he was talking about he dunked her, he actually dunked her.

She came out of the water sputtering about a hundred things she was going to do to his balls, but he simply ignored her as he planted her ass right back on the rock and began to massage shampoo into her hair. Neither one of them spoke for several minutes as he continued to lather her hair. Honestly, she was afraid that if she opened her mouth that she'd say something that she'd regret.

Not that she actually cared whether or not she hurt his feelings or said something that she couldn't take back, she didn't. She just didn't want to let him know how much she cared about him or how much it hurt to see another woman in his arms. Instead, she'd just settle for kicking him in the balls the first chance she had.

"Rinse," he said and she was smart enough to do it herself, since she knew damn well that he'd have no problems with doing it for her.

When she was done, he started working the conditioner through her hair, taking his time to massage her head and if she wasn't so pissed at him she'd probably be in heaven right now. The man had incredible hands after all and if she didn't currently hate him she'd probably be begging for his hands to move elsewhere.

"Leave it in," he ordered as he stepped back and dunked himself. Before she could do something like hold him under he was back up and reaching for the shampoo.

With a bored sigh she sat back and looked around the rather pretty glen that under normal circumstances she would probably find extremely romantic. There were wild flowers surrounding them, a babbling brook somewhere close by and beautiful oak trees enclosing the area. It was really was quite beautiful, she thought with a sigh.

"I found it yesterday while I was patrolling the area," Caine said, cutting into her thoughts and drawing her attention to the fact that the man was practically scouring his skin off.

"What the hell are you doing?" she demanded as he continued to scrub every inch of his skin raw.

"Trying to get that woman's scent off of me," he said, surprising her.

Well, at least he wasn't going to pretend that he hadn't been holding another woman in his arms not even thirty minutes ago. It earned him a few points, but not enough for her to ever give him another chance.

"If it bothers you so much then maybe you shouldn't have touched her," she said in an offhand tone when all she really wanted to do was scream at the jerk for breaking her heart, because that's exactly what he did she realized with a start.

She was in love with Caine.

But he didn't love her, or apparently care enough about her to wait until she was out of the picture to screw another woman. That was just great. Thanks to him she'd be nursing a broken heart for eternity. Well, that really sucked.

"Didn't have much of a choice, baby. I had to overfeed so that my blood was strong enough to make you better," he said, confusing her.

"What are you talking about?" she asked, reaching out and covering his hand with hers to stop him from scouring his skin raw. With a sigh he stopped and even allowed her to push his hands away.

She grabbed the bottle of body wash to have something to do while she thought over what he said. The last day or two was kind of fuzzy. Had she been hurt? Which of course made her wonder if Greg and his Master managed to catch up to them.

"What do you remember?" Caine asked, cupping her face in his large warm hands.

"Not much," she admitted with a shrug as she squirted some body wash into her hand and tossed the bottle to the side. "What happened?" And why were you touching another woman, she wanted to scream, but she kept her cool as she lathered her hands with the body wash.

"Baby, you died."

Chapter 42

"What the hell are you talking about?" Danni asked, trying to sound like she didn't care, but he didn't miss the way her hands trembled as they slid over his shoulders, leaving a trail of suds in their wake.

After his little announcement she decided to keep herself busy by taking over washing him, which he appreciated since it would wipe the female shifter's aroused scent off him. He was actually surprised that having the woman's scent on him both annoyed and sickened him. She was a sneaky little shifter trying to entice him to f**k her and when that didn't work she thought she'd put a temporary claim on him to warn off the other females.

He would have preferred to feed off a male this morning, but none of them wanted to help him out. They were more interested in f**king than giving up a few pints to him so that he could help his mate. Not that he could blame them, but that left him to settle for the females fresh from a shift and more than ready to be bent over and f**ked within an inch of their lives. A funny thing occurred to him as he pulled the first of many into his arms this morning, he didn't want them.

As he sank his teeth into a hot little blonde and drank her intoxicating blood he realized that he truly didn't want any other woman. The thought of taking another woman actually bored him. There was only one woman that he wanted and at the moment she was still giving off the scent of anger.

It was actually nice to know that she was jealous. That meant that she wanted him and maybe cared about him. Of course, there was no denying that she didn't care as much for him as he did for her, because if he had seen a na**d man in her arms he would have torn the bastard apart. The fact that Danni managed to walk away, and probably would have kept on walking, told him that they had a lot to work on.

First, he had to feed her while his blood was still potent and test her blood, again. The last time he tested her blood was twelve hours ago and her blood still had a sour taste to it. It was a huge improvement, but it meant that the cancer was still hanging around. He needed to kill it and keep it out of her system because he'd be damned if he was going to be denied another minute with her.