She tried to look away. She did. But her eyes had a mind of their own.

“You are so big,” she breathed.

He recoiled. As if that was the last thing in the world he’d expected her to say. And when he spoke next, his voice had changed.

Now, he begged. “Layla . . . Chosen Layla . . . you need to leave.”

As Xcor stood all but completely naked in front of the female, he couldn’t move. And not just because his combats had wedged themselves above his knees and turned into a hobble.

Layla’s green eyes were impossibly wide as they focused on his sex—and stayed there.

Could this evening go any farther off the rails, he wondered.

Wait—mayhap he should not offer that kind of opening to the Fates.

Meanwhile, his cock was loving the attention. The damn thing kicked as if to suggest she should shake and make friends.

He covered the rigid length up with both his palms, stretching it flat over his lower abdomen. “Layla.”

Instead of doing the reasonable thing and backing away from him in horror and disgust, she bent and grasped the waistband of his combats. Before he could shove her off, his pants were down his thighs and pooling around his ankles.

“Come, let’s get you under the spray.”

She didn’t give him a chance to protest. And a second later, his battered and bruised body was under the warm falling water, aching bones and healing scars both screaming and sighing at the impact. With a snap of the curtain, she gave him the privacy he wanted—except the klonk over by the toilet suggested she hadn’t departed, but rather had shut the lid and sat down.

There was no reason not to follow through with the soap and the shampoo, and he tried to be quick about it. Unfortunately, the bullet that had narrowly missed his lung was stinging sure as if there were battery acid upon his flesh. And the soap did not help that.

The other reason to be fast was that he was acutely aware of both his nakedness and his arousal. The more efficient he was, the sooner he could get dressed.

No clothes, though. He had no clean clothes.

Closing his eyes in defeat, he rinsed the suds out of his hair, tilting his head back. Which was a mistake. The water’s rush hit his cock, and damned if it didn’t feel like hands, her hands.

Or maybe her mouth—

The release was not unexpected. It was, however, unwanted. As his erection kicked and his orgasm rolled through him, he gritted his teeth—

“You don’t have to hide it,” she said in a husky voice. “I can see the shadow of you.”

“So look away,” he groaned as his hips rolled into his ejaculations.

“I can’t.”

Sagging against the tile, he knew he had lost whatever upper hand he had believed he had in the situation. That female had guessed the terrible truth about him. She knew his aims had changed. And she seemed unwilling to keep whatever relationship this was on terms that gave both of them some honor and dignity.

But at least she didn’t know it was all based on her.

That his life . . . pathetic as it was . . . was based on her now.

If that came to light, it would be his ruination.

Xcor twisted the faucet off with a crank, determined to put an end to all of this and send her away just so he could get his defenses properly back in place. Just as he was going to rip the curtain down and put it around himself, the heavy weight of towel was tossed over the pole.

“For your modesty,” she said.

Was she laughing at him?

Not bothering to dry himself off, he covered his lower body and pushed the curtain fall back. She was indeed on the loo, the fleece she wore camouflaging her changed shape from the pregnancy.

Without a word, she pulled her sleeve back again and put out her arm.

There was a challenge in her eyes.

“Fine,” he snapped, angry at himself. At her. At this new territory they had entered.

Lowering himself to his knees—because she was right, he was awfully dizzy—he put his fangs to her flesh.

Starved. He was starved for her.

And yet he struck as gently as he could.

At the first taste, he moaned, his body swaying, its weight knocking into the cabinet into which the sink had been mounted. Her blood was a dark wine that made him thirsty instead of satiating his dry throat, and between his legs, his cock kicked again and again.

He was orgasming into the towel, the pleasure coursing through his veins, his bones, his flesh—

Mine.

From out of the depths of him, the urge to take her rose so violently, that he started to act on it, his body on the verge of leaping up and dragging her to the floor so he could mount her.

Pregnancy or not, he was going to get at her sex and leave his mark inside of her—

Breaking off the contact, he pushed himself away from her, bracing his feet against that cabinet, the cold porcelain of the tub behind him biting into his shoulders as he went rigid in an attempt to control himself.

“What’s wrong—”

“Go!” he shouted.

Within him, his sexual beast was prowling and ready to have her—and coupled with his blood lust, he knew he could not handle the pair of instincts together. He was liable to chew her wrist off at same time he fucked her raw.

“Xcor, you have not had much at all—”

Gritting his teeth, he closed his eyes and strained. “Get the fuck out of here! If you want your young to live—leave! I will attack you! Go!”

That got her attention.

As, no doubt, did the fact that he was still orgasming all over himself, the towel now lost, the jets kicking out and marking his own thighs and belly as his leg muscles trembled at the force he was exerting—to make sure he didn’t jump on her.

“Go!”

A split second later, she was out of the bathroom; one moment after that she was out of the cottage. And she was in such a hurry, she left both of the doors open, so he saw the headlights of her car come on and watched them circle the scruffy lawn in front before streaking off down the lane.

It wasn’t until he could neither see her red taillights nor hear the crackle of her tires that he eased up even a little on the bracing.

Gripping his cock, he began to stroke his shaft as he pictured her eyes on him, and heard anew the strange tone she’d used as she had pronounced him sizable.

He had no interest in masturbating.

But what he really didn’t want was his rational side to completely desert him—such that he went after her through the night, stopping her somewhere unsafe just so he could do what he did not want to do to her.

No, this way he would stay put.

Oh, God . . . the way she had looked at him, he thought as he started to come again.

FORTY-FOUR

“He said I needed a parka.”

The following evening, as darkness settled over the compound and the shutters rose for the night, Selena looked back and forth between the two coats Fritz was holding up to her. One was red, the other black; both were wool and relatively long.

“Oh, I’m sorry, mistress.” He turned back to the closet in the mud room by the garage. “How about either of these?”

This time, he offered her a choice between a puffy waist-length jacket that looked like it was made of dinner rolls, and one that was much longer. Both were black and had little tags that read, PATAGONIA.

“It’s a relatively mild night,” Fritz pointed out. “Perhaps the shorter of the two?”

“Yes, I think you’re right.”

Slipping the thing on, she was amazed at how light it was, and after zipping it up, she tested out the two pockets.

“This is fantastic.”

The butler beamed. “My pleasure. Gloves?”

“I think I’ll just keep my hands in here.”

“As you wish, mistress.”

Heading out into the kitchen, she felt as buoyant as a bubble. Trez had refused to tell her anything about where they were going, and the unknown was like a heady wine, making her head buzz and her body float.