Burning Wild (31 page)

He smashed his fist into the door and stalked out, heading for the bathroom in his suite. He knew Emma, and he had to outthink her, had to figure out her next move and be one step ahead of her. She’d think about running. He saw the humiliation and self-loathing in her eyes. It hadn’t been directed at him; she’d already excused his behavior. It was her own she took responsibility for. She wouldn’t want to face him. She’d want to run.

He turned on the water as hot as he could stand it and stood under the scorching heat, wishing it would melt his skin off and burn the leopard, would let him feel what it was to hurt someone it—He caught himself abruptly. He didn’t know how to love. Love wasn’t even real. It was a word people used to trap one another. Emma thought love was important, but he knew better. Loyalty—that was what counted. He cared for Emma in his way. His body wanted hers, even needed hers. Sex was raw and elemental; sex was real. That was an emotion. He could give her loyalty and he could keep her body sated and happy. He had to find a way to convince her that the things that really mattered, like protection and devotion, he could do better than other men.

She didn’t trust him. A part of him was furious that she didn’t and the other part understood. She couldn’t know that, thanks to his leopard, his body hurt every minute of the day, hard and desperate for relief. She couldn’t know how so many women threw themselves at him. He’d never gone after a woman. Not ever, not before Emma. And he’d never taken an innocent. The women he’d been with had all wanted something other than his body—his money. They had no interest in his world or his children, only in the money and the pleasure his body could provide.

“Emma.” He whispered her name aloud, craving her, the way she smiled, her scent, the sound of her voice, the laughter that always included him.

She had come to be his home. He actually looked forward to opening the kitchen door and finding his food carefully prepared. She paid attention to what his favorite dishes were. She arranged the house to suit him and helped him relate better to the children, and she did it all quietly, smoothly.

He hadn’t even noticed the differences at first, but he remembered the moment it struck him, the total silence when he’d come home to a vacant house. The house was enormous, a mansion, a showpiece, as cold as hell and just as empty. He had never bothered to hire a cook because he didn’t trust anyone. And then along came Emma, with her laughter and joy, and the house with filled with music and scents and the patter of feet.

The babies hugged him, their faces lighting up when he returned home—because of her. Emma. She taught them by her example. Where he was taking care of her, she was caring for him and teaching the children to do the same. Her face lit up when she saw him. There was that soft, welcoming note in her voice he’d come to rely on. When he was moody and edgy and being a complete bastard, instead of getting angry with him, she would smile at him and tell him she’d take the children upstairs so he could have some peace. Or she’d tease him, or rub his shoulders. But she never blamed him. Sometimes she’d even tease him and order him out, and he loved those times best. They made him feel part of something—loved.

Her bedroom was his favorite place. Her scent was all over it, and when he lay on her bed and buried his face in her pillow, he could take her deep into his lungs. Before she had come, he’d spent most nights pacing off excess energy, both sexual and emotional. He had too many memories and he couldn’t seem to shut them out in the night. But now he could lie in the dark with her body warm and soft beside him, talking for long hours into the night, and feel at peace. He’d never had that before, and if she left him, he would never have it again. He’d risked everything by being too primitive and forgetting her inexperience.

Jake pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and went to her room, padding on bare feet down the hall, careful to maintain silence, not wanting to alert her to his presence. Her door was ajar and he slipped inside. He knew instantly the room was empty. The faint scent of her lingered behind, but there was only silence and the white sheet of paper in the center of her still-made bed. He picked it up, eyes scanning it briefly, feeling the blow like a punch to his gut.

Damn her. She wasn’t leaving the ranch. Not tonight. Not when she was upset with him and he hadn’t had a chance to make his case. He was a businessman. He’d been in a thousand boardrooms. He could close a deal, but not if she got off the ranch. He picked up the phone, his jaw set, his expression savage.

EMMA stuck her head out the window and forced a smile at Jerico. “Open the gates.”

To her astonishment, Jerico shook his head, a small grimace on his face. “I can’t do that, Emma. Where would you be going this time of night?”

She scowled at him. “It isn’t your business.”

“I’m responsible,” Jerico said. “I don’t want to lose my job.”

Emma let her breath out slowly, forcing her temper under control. It wasn’t Jerico’s fault. He had to follow rules just like everyone. “I’m going for a drive.” It wasn’t his fault that she was so upset. It was her own fault.
Hers.
She loathed herself, but she managed a small smile, hoping to charm him. “Please open the gate.”

“I can’t do that. I’m sorry. The boss said not to let you leave.”

Emma’s eyebrow went up. “Contrary to popular belief, Jerico, I don’t work for Jake. He can’t boss me around. Open the gate.”

Jerico shook his head, although he did look remorseful. “You don’t even have a bodyguard with you. He said you weren’t to leave under any circumstances unless he specifically okayed it. If you’re having trouble with the boss . . .”

Emma slid out of the Jeep and slammed the door. “Jake actually ordered you to keep me here, on the ranch? Like a prisoner? Open the gate now, Jerico. I want to leave. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a grown woman, not a child.”

“Emma . . .”

“Is there a problem, Emma?” Drake came up behind her in his silent way.

Emma whirled to face him, caught in the headlights of her vehicle. His gaze dwelled on the marks on her neck—bright red and obvious—the bite mark on her shoulder. He inhaled and stiffened, his gaze shifting to Jerico and then looking warily around him. He even stepped back a few paces, putting distance between them as his sharp gaze studied the obvious signs of possession. He took another wary look around, scanning the night for something dangerous.

Emma felt herself blushing, but she stuck her chin in the air. “Jerico won’t open the gates and I want to go for a drive.” There was demand in her voice.

“You don’t want Jerico to lose his job, Emma. If the boss says no, what’s the big deal? You have over a thousand square miles to drive on. Stay on the ranch.”

Emma’s hands closed into two tight fists. “I have the right to leave whenever I want to leave, Drake. I’m not arguing with you about this. Open the gate.” She didn’t want to be near anything Jake owned.

He shook his head, very calm. “Take it up with Jake, Emma. You and I both know how protective he can be. He’s worried something may happen to you—”

“He’s a control freak,” she snapped, interrupting him. “And he’s not controlling me.”

She heard the truck but there were no lights as Jake drove up. Her heart began to pound and she tasted fear in her throat. He unhurriedly stepped out of the truck and tossed the keys to Drake before closing the door with a certain firmness that made her mouth go dry. She tried not to be intimidated by the width of his shoulders, the confident, fluid way he walked, or the roped muscles playing under his shirt with suggestive power. Was she afraid of him after all?

Her body betrayed her, going liquid, hot, melting, telling her she was more afraid of her own reactions than his. She had no will around him. No backbone. She hated that she wanted to wipe the pain from his eyes, the scars from his soul. She hated that she wanted him with every cell in her body. She couldn’t put herself into the hands of a man capable of the kind of cruelty she knew Jake was capable of. He destroyed his enemies. She’d heard of his ruthless business tactics. He used and threw away women. He trusted no one. How could she ever respect herself again if she gave in to him?

“I’ll take it from here. Thanks, Jerico, Drake,” Jake said, his voice calm as he approached Emma with his long, confident strides. Everything about him was self-assured. He moved into her space as if he belonged there, moved close until she was under his shoulder and one hand casually rested on the small of her back.

Emma wanted to pull away, but there was something so compelling and assured about Jake, she found it impossible to move.

He bent his head to hers. “Come on, honey, I’ll take you home.” His hand pressed into the small of her back, down low, his fingers brushing her butt as if he had every right, guiding her around the hood of the Jeep to the passenger side. He gently handed her in and waited in silence until she’d snapped her seat belt in place.

Jake slid behind the wheel, lifted his hand in recognition to the two men and turned the Jeep around.

“I don’t want to go back,” Emma said in a low, mutinous tone. She glanced at his set jaw and then looked down at her hands. “I need time to think. You’re everywhere in that house.” His personality was too powerful, too overwhelming and dominating. She had decisions to make and she needed a clear head to make them.

He abruptly turned the wheel, spinning the Jeep in another direction, taking them away from the main ranch house and deeper into the property. “I know you’re frightened of everything changing, Emma, but it isn’t going to be changing that much.”

“I couldn’t get out through the gates, Jake. I’d say that things are already changing a lot.”

His gaze swept over her, taking in the defiant set to her chin and her trembling mouth. “You shouldn’t have been able to get through the gates without my knowing before, Emma. That was a mistake on Jerico’s and Drake’s part. They know better now. I have enemies and I’ll be damned if something happens to you because of their carelessness.”

She swept her hair up and started to clip it, more from nerves and the need to do something with her hands than anything else.

“Leave it down.”

Her eyes widened. “See. Right there. You’re already telling me what to do. I can’t have you ordering me around all the time, controlling my every move. I can’t breathe right now, Jake. I need space. I need to know what’s happening to me. You just take people over. I’ve seen you do it, and now you’re doing it with me. You humiliated me. Deliberately humiliated me.” There was a catch in her voice and she turned her face away from him to stare out the window into the darkness.

“How? Why would I want to humiliate you?”

Emma glanced at him again, trying not to hear that hypnotic note in his voice that always had such an effect on her. “You know very well how. You could have come in my mouth.” She blushed when she said it, avoiding his eyes, but he heard the hurt in her voice as if he’d rejected her. “Instead you came all over me. That was not making love. That was not respect. That was like some porn film and I was the receptacle.”

“That was me making love, Emma. That was me showing more than respect. That was me claiming you for my own.” He slammed on the brakes and brought the Jeep skidding to a halt. “Did you think you weren’t pleasing me somehow? Fuck, Emma. I’ve never had a night like tonight in my life. I’ve never felt that way with anyone. Not anyone. I don’t tell you lies.”

She didn’t know what to say to that, so she remained silent, hugging herself, rocking a little, trying not to feel so inexperienced and awkward. Something had possessed her when she’d been with Jake. She hadn’t known how to do all those things. He’d taught her in minutes, and she’d wanted to please him so much she’d followed his every instruction.

“I know that with you I’m a demanding lover. I’d like to say it won’t happen again, but it will. I’m primal, I have certain needs, and sex is intense with you. That’s such an insipid word for what sex is with you.”

The way he said it, with such stark honesty, would have sounded ridiculous with anyone else, but he was telling her the truth and she shivered, her body reacting to the sensual undertone.

“I won’t be able to keep my hands off you, and I have every confidence that I can make you want me.” He refused to look away from her, refused to let her look away. “I can be rough and animalistic and I know I’ll be demanding things from you that may scare you, but, Emma, I would never harm you, or humiliate you or treat you without respect. If there is one person on the face of the earth that I respect above all others, it’s you.”

Her heart pounded so hard it hurt. He was no longer discussing what had happened between them; he was talking about a future together. She could see it in the lines of his face, the intensity only Jake had, the iron will and determination that made him relentless. He was in pursuit and she was his prey.

“I’m not comfortable with the kind of sex we had.”

His hand slid over her hair, sweeping down the heavy, silken fall. “I know you’re not, honey, but I also know you enjoyed it. I’ll always make certain you’ll enjoy it.”

She couldn’t deny she’d enjoyed sex with him. Jake made her feel as if he had to have her, that he couldn’t wait another moment. He’d given her more pleasure than she’d ever experienced in her life.

“I don’t do one-night stands or flings. Do you have any idea what’s going to happen when we break up? We have children. This is my home. It’s your home.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. His eyes went diamond-hard. “I have no intention of allowing us to break up.”

“Women don’t keep you satisfied for very long, Jake, and then you move on to the next one. Rough, exciting sex only goes so far, but what happens when the newness wears off and I’m old hat to you? Then what do we do? I’m not the type of woman you’re used to. I don’t share.”

His hands tightened around the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. “Then we find ways to spice things up between us, although I can’t imagine we’d ever run into that problem. What the hell do other couples do? I don’t want another woman in my life. I don’t want you to have another man in yours.”