Burning Wild (22 page)

She nearly snorted. “Since when? No one ever bosses you, Jake.” He ran his home and the ranch in the same way he ran his business. He didn’t trust anyone enough to give them much room. Drake, Joshua and perhaps her, were the few he gave a little leeway to, but not much. He would be hell to live with. He would want complete control. Why that made her want to cry all over again, she didn’t know. But tears burned on the ends of her lashes, further humiliating her.

“I’m sorry, Jake. I honestly don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t. It isn’t you. I’m just falling apart. I wasn’t even like this when I was pregnant.”

His hand slipped over her shoulder and down her arm to nudge under the hem of her shirt and splay across her belly as if he could feel a child growing there. “I think you just need to have someone hold you while you fall asleep. Remember when you had your nightmares.” He bent his head to hers and brushed a kiss along her temple. “I held you and you went to sleep.”

That was true, but her body hadn’t been on fire. He’d been hard then too, just like he was now, and completely unashamed of it. But now was different because she was too aware of him, lying hard and thick, burning against her thigh like a brand.

“Do you want more children?”

Her gaze jumped to his face. “Why do you ask?”

“I’ve been thinking about it lately. Wondering how you felt about it. With Kyle and Andraya so close in age I thought you might feel they were more than enough.” He pulled his hand from her stomach, the pads of his fingers sliding across her ribs while his knuckles brushed the undersides of her breasts.

She was looking right into his eyes and couldn’t tell if it was an accident or if he’d meant to touch her so intimately. Before she could ask, he added in that same low tone, “I’ve asked John to prepare the adoption papers for you to adopt Kyle.”

She felt a quick burst of pleasure that he not only remembered, but that he’d already instructed his lawyer. She had no idea when he could have found the time, but that was so like Jake, making the adoption a priority when they’d barely mentioned it.

“Thank you. I feel as if I’m Kyle’s mother already. Making it legal takes a huge load off my mind.”

“You didn’t answer. Will you want more children?”

“I don’t know. With the right person.” She didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want to break up Andraya and Kyle.

He rubbed the pad of his finger back and forth over her eyebrow, in the now familiar stroke he often used to help her fall asleep. The gesture soothed her for some unknown reason, almost as if he was petting her. The palm of his hand covered her eyes as he stroked, and she lowered her lashes and let the tension drain from her body.

“What about you, Jake?”

Jake drew in a deep breath. He was going to have more children and he was going to have them with Emma. “In another year or two, before Kyle and Andraya get too much older.” Because it would keep Emma close to him.

He didn’t know much about love, but he knew how to seduce a woman. Whether or not Drake was right about Emma, she was the one he was keeping. He would tie her to him in as many ways as possible, including with more children. He could afford them, and he could hire help. If his other children were at all like Kyle and Andraya, then he could learn to care for them in his way.

“Were you an only child?” His finger traced across her closed eyelid, along her high cheekbone and down to her full lips.

“That’s another thing we have in common. I don’t have any other siblings. I lost my parents in a car accident just before I turned nineteen. I had no one else, no other relatives.”

“What happened? Were you in the car?”

He felt the small shudder that went through her. “No, but I found the car.”

He stroked her hair to soothe her. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.” He wasn’t certain which was worse—having monsters for parents or losing parents you loved right in front of you. He didn’t know that kind of loss. He couldn’t imagine losing Emma. The idea left him without air, with a blank, numb mind, and he wasn’t even in love. He didn’t know the meaning of the word. He wasn’t capable of love, but he knew she was.

“I’m sorry, honey, that was thoughtless of me to bring up your parents and the accident before you went to sleep. I had no idea.” He bent his head the scant few inches to brush a kiss over each eye and then he resumed stroking her face with the pads of his fingers.

“It was a difficult time when I lost them,” she admitted, her voice drowsy. She turned onto her side, facing him, but she didn’t open her eyes. “We always had a plan in place if we were separated and something went wrong.” She was so sleepy and warm. Jake made her feel safe, otherwise she never would have told him anything, yet she couldn’t stop the words pouring out of her. It was almost a relief. “I waited for an hour at the library for them, but they didn’t come. So I went to the rendezvous point. We weren’t supposed to call on the cell phone. I waited there for another hour and then I knew something was really wrong.”

Jake tightened his arms around her and brushed kisses along her temple. “That must have been so frightening.”

“I was terrified. My parents were my entire life. There was a cache of money and papers and I took it, but instead of going to the next spot, the final meeting place before I was supposed to disappear, I stole a bike and rode outside of town, along the road they would have been driving. The road was very winding and steep. I had to walk in places and I knew if they ever found out, they’d be furious with me, but I couldn’t help myself.”

She was silent so long he prompted her. “You found them.”

Her breath hissed out between her teeth. “Yes, I found them.” Her voice was strained and very low. He could barely catch the thread of sound even with his acute hearing. “Their car had gone off the road. My mother had died right away; at least, I think—I hope she did. But my father . . .” She trailed off and buried her tear-wet face against his chest.

“Emma?”

She shook her head.

“Honey. Just tell me.”

Emma was silent for a long time, but then her lashes lifted and she looked into his eyes, searching for something there, some reassurance. “My father had been alive, but someone had tortured him. There were small cuts all over his body. Whoever had done it had started a fire and left the bodies to burn. I could see tracks leading away from the car.”

“What kind of tracks?” He could barely breathe, knowing she’d been through such a thing, knowing how close she’d been to killers. What had her father been into?

“Big cat tracks.”

His mouth went dry at the revelation. Leopard tracks? Was Drake right about her, then? Everything pointed to it, yet how could that be? He had to gather more information on her. Now was certainly not the time to mention that he could shift into a cat.

“I’d given my word to them that if anything went wrong, I’d leave, go thousands of miles away. And I did. I made my way to California, because I promised them I would.”

If Emma gave her word, there was no question she would carry it out. If Emma married him, there would be no cheating, no leaving, no breaking of her vows.

“You met Andrew and married him.” Changing her last name, making her more difficult to trace. “I’m sorry, Emma, that must have been so difficult.” He transferred his hand to her hair, sliding over the silky strands. The action soothed him almost as much as it did her. He felt tension slipping from his body. “Did your mother always like leopards? Is that where you got your love of sketching leopards as well?” He wanted her to remember her mother that way, something beautiful they shared together.

“Yes, but she never did one like the painting I did for you, the half man and half leopard. She loved big cats. She painted amazing lifelike pictures of them, but none with a half-human, half-cat face. I just think sometimes you have a stillness about you, and the way you move, like water over sand, fluid and silent—that reminds me of a leopard.”

“Not a tiger?” he asked curiously. Emma’s insights were one of the things he admired in her. She had amazing instincts. He was beginning to think Drake might be right about Emma, and it if was true, he didn’t know if that would help his cause or make it more difficult.

“Leopards are more unpredictable.” Her lashes lifted. Fluttered. He could see amusement in her green eyes. Cat’s eyes. “And have bad tempers.”

He heard the smile in her voice and bent closer to inhale her fragrance. Sometimes he wanted to take her happiness into his lungs, to fill his body, his bloodstream, to keep for his own. He didn’t know how to be happy. He was fiercely protective, maybe too much so to be happy. He had built an empire, and he guarded it ferociously, but he was always aware his enemies were circling. Emma had gone through a terrible ordeal, yet she still had the capacity to love, to tease, to find happiness and fun.

“I don’t have a bad temper. I just like things done a certain way.”

She made a little moue with her lips and his heart lurched. His blood surged hotly and his cock jerked, hot and hard and fully awakened. Jake took a breath and let it out, sliding his palm down her arm to tangle his fingers with hers so he wouldn’t cup the temptation of her breast. He had to go slow, let her get used to the idea of a man in her life again. She hadn’t been ready, but he’d planted the seed and hopefully she’d let go of Andrew, and Jake would be there for her.

Truthfully, he’d been with her much longer than Andrew. She’d known her husband only a couple of months before they’d married, and she’d been with him five months before his death. Emma had shared Jake’s life for more than two years. Andrew had been a boy, not a man, and as sweet as he’d been to Emma, she needed a man.

Jake could tell she was fairly inexperienced when it came to sex. He’d bet his life that she’d been a virgin when she met Andrew. The things he wanted to do to her would probably shock her. He brought her hand up to his mouth and chewed on the tips of her fingers.

“You’re very oral,” she whispered, amusement in her voice.

She sounded sleepy, and he knew she was drifting or she never would have made the uncensored comment, and she sure wouldn’t have told him about the way her parents had died.

“You have no idea, honey,” he whispered, deliberately wicked, and leaned in close to tease at the soft, vulnerable spot where her shoulder met her neck. His tongue licked at her warm skin, filling him with her taste so that he couldn’t resist rubbing his lips over the spot.

She lifted her shoulder slightly, but she had already drifted too far into sleep to do more than that slight protest. Jake allowed his teeth to scrape back and forth before biting down gently. The leopard in him urged him to do more, to leave his mark on her, to proclaim ownership, but Jake lifted his head enough to give himself breathing room.

“Sleep well, honey,” he whispered. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

9

“DADDY, what’s illoment mean?” Kyle asked.

Jake frowned and looked up at Emma for an interpretation. She seemed to always know exactly what the children were saying. She was leaning in the doorway, watching him unwrap the small presents from the squealing children while he sat on Kyle’s bed with them. Andraya threw herself into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging like a monkey, while Kyle stared earnestly up at his face.

Emma looked good enough to eat, and since he’d lain awake most of the night thinking of her lying on her bed clothed in her thin pajamas with nothing else beneath them, he found himself very hungry. She stirred and looked uncomfortable, shrugging her shoulders and giving him a small shake of her head.

“Is everyone ready for breakfast?” She sounded cheerful—too cheerful.

Jake’s gaze narrowed on her face. She knew exactly what Kyle had asked. She didn’t want to answer. He turned back to Kyle. “Who said that word to you?”

“The bad lady.”

Jake jerked his head up again and glared at Emma. “The bad lady,” he echoed, looking at Emma instead of his son. “What bad lady?”

“Kyle,” Emma intervened.

Jake held up his hand, signaling Emma to silence as he slowly stood with Andraya still in his arms, his large frame dominating the room. “What bad lady, Kyle?” Jake asked, his voice deceptively gentle.

“The one that makes Mommy cry.”

There was dead silence in the room. No one moved, not even Andraya. Jake fought down the volcano that threatened to explode. He took a breath, counted to ten and let it out. “Susan?” He raised his voice, calling out into the hall, never once taking his eyes from Emma’s pale face.

The teenage girl came running, her face glowing with near worship, eager to help him. “I’m sorry, am I late for breakfast?”

“Not at all,” Jake said pleasantly. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you we’re glad you’ve come for a visit. I’d like you to take Andraya and Kyle down to the kitchen and feed them.”

Susan looked a bit flustered, opening her mouth several times to respond, but nothing came out. She held her hands out to the children. Kyle slipped his hand in hers, but Andraya clung to Jake.

Emma turned away, but Jake’s hand snaked out, fingers settling around her wrist like a bracelet. “Oh, no, you don’t. You’re not going anywhere.” With one hand he removed Andraya. “Go with Susan. There’s a good girl,” he murmured.

Andraya studied his face for a moment to determine if a temper tantrum would do any good, but when she saw the inflexible set of his jaw, she went willingly with Susan. Jake waited until the children had gone down the stairs.

“I have a standing order in this house. We don’t have visitors unless I okay them first. I said Senator Hindman and his daughter were welcome to come occasionally, I don’t recall ever giving permission for anyone else. Unless Susan is considered the ‘bad lady’ and has made you cry, that means someone else has been on my property and in my home.”

Each word was distinct, bit out between his teeth, his voice lower than normal and rumbling with menace.

Emma stepped back—she couldn’t help herself—but he followed, step for step, like a macabre dance, until her back hit the wall and she couldn’t go any farther. Jake planted his hands against the wall on either side of her head, effectively caging her in. Up close he was quite large and intimidating and he knew it, and he didn’t mind this time that she looked up at him with a touch of fear in her eyes. A good scare might do some good.