Free Cowboy & the Captive by Lora Leigh

control.
    She looked more like a scared woman-child than a seductress, though, as she rounded on him, her eyes wide, her face pale as her fists clenched at her side. So innocent. Damn her. She had sucked his dick like a pro and now acted like a virgin wronged.
    “No. It’s not,” he agreed coldly as he wrestled the sacked cat from her and released the tormented little feline.
    For his efforts, the little black demon took a swipe at him a second before disappearing under his bed. He would have chased it out if Catarina hadn’t decided then to make a run for the door. The woman deserved a medal for sheer stubbornness.
    He grabbed her arm, pulling her quickly to a stop before shoving her to the bed. If he had his hands on her for more than a second he feared he would lose any semblance of control. He was dying to take those lush, sweet pink lips in a kiss and see if her mouth tasted as hot and arousing as he knew it would.
    “Since I can’t trust you to stay put, you’ll stay where I can keep an eye on you,” he snapped as he jerked the blankets off the four-poster bed, fighting the hunger. “Now strip.”
    He turned back to her as her eyes widened in shocked outrage. “I will not.”
    She should be on stage, he thought furiously. She pulled off the innocent virgin too damned good. That was no virgin sucking his cock two years before. That was a well-trained, experienced woman who had swallowed every drop of semen spewing into her mouth.
    “Stop with the damned act,” he snarled back at her. “I’m tired and not in the mood for your snipey little protests of innocence. Strip your damned clothes off and get into the bed before I tear them off you.”
    His fingers clenched with the need to do just that, then to tear his own off and plunge his cock as hard and deep inside her pussy as he could. He could feel the blood surging through his veins at the thought of it. Of holding her beneath him, hearing her scream his name, her hips pumping beneath him as he fucked her past defiance.
    “Adding rape to your crimes now?” she sneered, surprising him. “Luc, surely there’s enough dumb women around here to take care of the stupid cowboys in rut. Or do you have to wait for a season, like the other animals do?”
    Luc held onto his control carefully. He couldn’t blame her for being angry, for striking out at him with fury. But he’d be damned if he would allow her to push him much further. Further than he felt his own temper would allow. And that surprised him. No woman had ever touched that dark core inside him. The restless, hungry desire he had always been careful to keep hidden. She was doing more than tempting that pulsing, aching core, though; she was making it hunger, seethe. She was rousing a side of him that even he was wary of.
    “You have one minute to strip and crawl into that bed,” he growled softly. Even Lobo, who had followed them into the room, looked at him worriedly when he used that tone of voice. “Starting now.”

* * * * *
    Melina felt trepidation suddenly wrap around her senses. His tone of voice was dark, dangerous, but the sudden shifting of the color of his eyes was even more so. They darkened, became almost feral in intensity, and caused her to suddenly second guess the belief she had formed that Luc Jardin was in any way safe.
    He hadn’t hurt her yet, she reminded herself. He wouldn’t hurt her now. But, damn if it wasn’t hard to fight back the fear.
    She felt perspiration dot her forehead as he stared at her, felt the aroused hunger leaping from him to wrap around her. Twisted, nightmare images of pain and cruel hands touching her body attacked her mind then. She fought the instinctive need to trust him. To believe in the fantasy visions she had of him since their first meeting.
    “Please…” She backed away from him. “I won’t do it again. I’ll be good.” She almost winced at the hasty words that suddenly flew from her lips. Dammit, she wasn’t a child anymore. She