"That sounds fine." She nodded. "Since I'm stuck with you at the house, I have to do some grocery shopping though. I bet you eat a lot, don't you?"

Her gaze roved over him. He knew the minute she spotted his erection and almost laughed out loud as her eyes widened in surprise.

"I have very strong appet.i.tes." He was almost choking on his laughter as heat enveloped her face.

She cleared her throat, a nervous little sound-part arousal. part amus.e.m.e.nt. "I just bet you do," she muttered heading for the entrance of the cave. "Wouldn't surprise me a bit."

d.a.m.n, she was cute. Tough as h.e.l.l, with a mouth as mockingly sarcastic as anyone he had ever met, and with more secrets than any woman should have. But she made him laugh and kept him on his toes. A major accomplishment.

"You might want to look into stocking up on plenty of proteins for yourself too." He kept his voice controlled, no sign of amus.e.m.e.nt or hidden meanings. "You'll need your strength."

She turned back to him, a retort on her lips until she met the deliberately innocent expression he kept on his face.

She narrowed her eyes as she propped her hands on her hips, drawing attention to the ripe curves that had the blood pounding furiously between his thighs.

"You're not fooling me, Arness." She arched that perfect little brow as she pursed her lips thoughtfully.

"You think you are. You want to." Then she did smile. A s.e.xy slow curve of her lips that had him gritting his teeth to hold back his groan. "Maybe you're the one who's going to need all that energy. I could be too much for you to handle, you know."

She turned then, and with a twitch of her pretty a.s.s she stepped over the ledge to the first foothold that would lead her back to the floor of the gully.

Too much for him to handle? Doubtful. Not impossible.

But very, very doubtful.

Chapter Six.

Megan doubted it as well. As they searched through the remaining caverns, she fought to keep her senses alert, using her ability to draw from Braden's shield to hold back the less desired effects of the Empathy and to use her talents to search for answers instead.

She wasn't adept at it. She had never had the opportunity to work in such a way, but she found herself intrigued by the opportunity now. And by the warmth and the subtle information she drew on the man as well. There were dark places inside him, but he kept them hidden; he didn't let them affect him. There was violence, yes. But it was tempered, softened with compa.s.sion.

There was also dominance, a dominance that edged at the shields she was borrowing-shields he was controlling.

She probed at it, feeling the amus.e.m.e.nt, the l.u.s.t, a hunger that was only growing.

She tried to ignore that, focusing instead on the remnants of emotions and actions that still lingered within the caverns. Not that there was much to latch on to. The Coyotes had come here to kill. They had followed the Breed couple from Broken b.u.t.te, but how had they known to start there?

They were there to kill the couple, then to wait on Megan. She sensed that; it had been uppermost in their minds. A clean sweep, but of what?

What were they attempting to hide?

"There's nothing here." Braden finally sighed as they went through the last cavern, standing at the ledge and staring below with narrowed eyes. He gave his head a brief, firm shake. "Let's get back to the Raider and head out. I'll see if Jonas has come up with anything further in his interrogation of the Coyote he took back with him."

He swung from the ledge to the narrow path that led back into the gully as Megan followed.

Megan pushed back the stray strands of hair that had escaped from her braid as she began trudging toward the Raider. She was ready to get the h.e.l.l out of the desert, to head into town for dinner then home to her soft, comfortable bed.

Bruises from the past week throbbed painfully, as did some new ones collected climbing the cliff faces. Her ear burned and her p.u.s.s.y had developed an erotic, sensual ache that tormented her with the knowledge that she was fighting something she knew Braden wanted just as much as she did. Well, she wanted it pretty d.a.m.ned bad; she could be in worse shape than he was.

"What did you really expect to find here, Braden?" She watched him curiously, still not certain what he was after.

"Anything. Everything. Nothing." She could hear the shrug in his lazy tone and gritted her teeth in irritation.

"Two out of three ain't bad." She mocked their dubious success with a roll of her eyes. "We found everything this gorge could have contained and nothing we needed to answer our question. You're on a roll, Braden." She jerked the driver's-side door open, sliding into the cool comfort of the vehicle with a sigh of relief.

"You do sarcasm very well, Megan." He turned to her as he slid into the pa.s.senger seat, leaning back comfortably as he smiled with a slow, too s.e.xy curve of his lips. That fuller lower curve made her nipples ache. It was bad when something as simple as a man's smile made your nipples ache, made them long for the feel of those sensual curves surrounding them.

"I try." She cleared her throat nervously, quickly turning away from the temptation of him as he emitted a completely male grunt of exasperation.

That shouldn't have turned her on. It was insulting, not in any way erotic. But the sound had her thighs tightening and her core aching. Dammit.

Maybe it was time for the Pocket Rocket, the little c.l.i.toral stimulator that came in so handy. Pocket Rockets were nice. Or her vibrator. It had been a while since the need for s.e.xual release had been so imperative. Maybe it had never been this imperative, she thought. Nor had it ever had this ability to make her want to be closer to a man; to make her need to be.

And he knew what he was doing to her. She could see it in his eyes, in the way he lifted his head, his nostrils flaring.

He could smell her, smell her heat and her arousal. And there was no way to hide it.

On the heels of that thought came another. She knew the Breeds' senses were more advanced than those without the altered DNA. But she wondered, how much more advanced were they?

She glanced at him from the comer of her eye and cleared her throat before asking, "How's your hearing?"

"My hearing?" he asked, his voice filled with lazy amus.e.m.e.nt and just a hint of curiosity.

She glanced over at him fully, widening her eyes innocently. "Your hearing. You know, your ears? Can you hear things better than other people?"

She fought the flush that threatened to build beneath the skin of her cheeks as she turned her eyes back to the track ahead.

"Better than non-Breeds, you mean?" he asked with interest.

She didn't trust that look of male innocence for a minute, but the pretense had her fighting to hide her smile.

"Yeah." She nodded shortly. "That's what I mean."

"I don't know." Cool amus.e.m.e.nt filled his voice. "How good is your hearing?"

Well, she wouldn't be able to hear him jacking off, but it wasn't like his hand buzzed either...

"Normal." She shrugged.

"What would you cla.s.sify as normal? What can you not hear that you think I could?" Was he teasing her?

She spared him a quick look, frowning at the curious expression. Was that laughter lurking in his eyes? Surely he couldn't guess why she wanted to know?

She probed at the shields he used, but could detect nothing but the amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I don't know." She gripped the steering wheel harder as she tried to appear casual and merely interested in his unique Breed abilities. "If I were in the kitchen and you were in the living room of my house, I wouldn't know it if you were to use_ oh, say_ a pair of hair clippers." That seemed like a good contrast. A small, even vibration of sound, not too harsh, not too easy to hear.

"Hair clippers?' he asked hesitantly.

"Yeah." She nodded in all seriousness. "Hair clippers."

He tensed, clearing his throat as he shifted in his seat. "Are you trying to find out if I'll hear you using a vibrator, Megan?"

She lost her breath, her face flaming with mortification as her head swung around, catching the narroweyed suspicion on his face before she jerked back to stare at the track.

"No," she exclaimed, shocked. How had he known?

"Because if you are, I will tell you now: I would know. I would smell the sweet scent of your p.u.s.s.y as you found your release, and I would hear even the quietest vibrator. And I would be very, very displeased. I might even have to spank you."

She swallowed tightly, certain her a.s.s wasn't tingling in antic.i.p.ation, but rather in trepidation. She glanced at his hand as it lay casually on his knee. It was broad, strong...

She shifted in her seat.

"That wasn't what I meant," she muttered. "And what business would it be of yours?"

He was going too far. He had pushed every s.e.xual hot b.u.t.ton she had and was now attempting to deny her a release that would allow the dissipation of the tension those b.u.t.tons were causing within her body. There were lines no man should cross, and as far as Megan was concerned, that was one of them.

"I can smell your feminine heat, Megan." His voice lowered, his words sending a flush of heat beneath her cheek.

"And I know I cause it. You need satisfaction; you can find it with me, or you can suffer with me. It's your choice."

She narrowed her eyes as her independence flared within her.

"You don't command me, Braden." She sniffed disdainfully. "Not now, not ever, and especially not in this. Don't force me to prove it."

"Don't force me to lose what little control I have to not test the barriers you are throwing between us," he responded, his voice calm, warning.

"Remember the beast you're dealing with here, Megan. I'm not a man you can tempt in the ways you would others, nor am I one you can tease in this area. For both our sakes, exercise due caution unless you want to experience the consequences."

His voice held a dark, warning rumble that sent shivers racing up her spine, and small fingers of lightning-fast sensation streaked through her nervous system.

Flattening her lips, Megan drew the Raider to a stop before engaging the parking system and turning to him slowly. He was leaning against the door, one arm lying along the armrest below, the other braced on the padded center console between them. He was relaxed but watchful, and aroused. She could feel the arousal reaching out to her.

"Being a Breed doesn't make you exempt from the normal laws of decency and privacy." She breathed in deeply as she stared back at him.

"That's my home, Braden. My bedroom. When the door is closed, it means you are not welcome to invade that room, no matter the circ.u.mstances, barring physical danger. Don't think that just because you're bigger and more primal than I am that it changes the rules."

"Unfortunately it does." He growled, the hard rumble shattering the edge of calm she tried to force around herself.

"It shouldn't, and I regret the need. But I find that my control in your presence isn't what it should be. Right or wrong doesn't come into it. Using the vibrator within my hearing would be tantamount to parading naked in front of another man, Megan. Don't make that mistake unless you're willing to carry through with the invitation."

Her chin jutted forward, anger spiking in her veins at the warning.

"No means no, Braden."

"Don't push this, Megan." She could feel it now, the edge of his control slipping. She drew back, jerking to attention at the awareness that he was more primal, possibly more dangerous than she had imagined he could be where she was concerned.

"Megan." The hand that had been braced between the two seats lifted, his fingers moving for the strands of hair that had slipped from her braid. He smoothed them back as she watched him warily, her breathing rough, ragged, as his unusual gold eyes glittered with hunger and an edge of humor. "You make me yearn for things that I'm certain I shouldn't want. Things I'm certain you don't want. I'm man enough to understand my limits here, and to make certain you understand them as well." His fingers caressed a path of fire from her cheek to her neck.

"Knowing you are hot enough, needing me enough to attempt to find your own release may be more than the animal inside me can bear. I wouldn't take what was not given willingly, but neither would I continue to straddle the line I now walk along. I would seduce you rather than allowing you the choice of coming to me. I don't want to do that, baby." His hand dropped from her, returning to the console.

"Don't push me to that. I wouldn't like myself much for it, and I'm certain you would come to regret it. So in the interest of maintaining both our boundaries, use caution."

He was serious. She stared back at him with a hint of incredulity and wariness.

"Why?'" she finally whispered. "Why do you care how you get what you want?" No other man she had ever known had cared.

His lips tilted with a hint of gentleness and a sensuality that sent flares of response racing through her.

"Because that beautiful body isn't all I want, baby," he answered cryptically. "Not by a long shot. I want everything. Think about that before you push the wrong b.u.t.tons and tempt something you have no chance of controlling."

Chapter Seven.

Megan moved down the staircase that evening after her shower. Everything felt off balance. Her emotions were in chaos, her physical responses confusing. Her reactions to Braden Arness had thrown her so off kilter that she wasn't certain what to feel at the moment.

After the Academy, and the disastrous results of training exercises, she had shut herself off, retreated to the desert and put aside the dream of making a difference within the world.

She had spent five years training to work in law enforcement, the first two in pre-Selection where candidates were put through rigorous cla.s.ses involving legal code. The last three had been spent in the Academy after the selection process, the final year in real-situation training exercises.

The last training mission had been a hostage situation. The emotions pouring from the young woman being held by her drug-dealer husband had nearly incapacitated her, and caused an officer to be wounded. Her inability to focus on the perpetrator and his victim, rather than the emotions and the pain pouring through her, had nearly been fatal.

The Empathic abilities had shown up in her late teens. Her inability to form the barriers that others began building as children had been her downfall. She had stubbornly refused to give up her dream though. Forcing herself through pre-Selection and the Academy, right to the very moment that she knew without a doubt that the dream was over.

Megan moved into the kitchen, heading for the coffeepot despite the lateness of the hour, and tried to ignore Braden as he sat at the table with his laptop. He had been working there for hours, low growls coming from his chest as his irritation seemed to build.

The arousal was only growing as well. Unfortunately, finding release on her own was something she wasn't ready to tempt. Braden had been tenser since their confrontation in the Raider earlier; edgier, more aroused. That hunger was something she wasn't quite ready to confront.

"About time you came back down," he muttered as his fingers moved over the keyboard. "It's time we get to work."

She turned away from him, lifting a cup from the cabinet before pouring the dark coffee into it.

"What do you call what we were doing all day?" Every muscle in her body was protesting the workout. She could have sworn that rock climbing and cavern investigating was work. But h.e.l.l, what did she know?

"Come here and sit down." He moved from the chair, making room for her as she moved around the table. "I pulled up the Breed database. Every Breed the Lab had information on, and some they didn't, is listed here. I have Mark and Aimee's files pulled along with their pictures. Go over them, see if you recognize them, or if you can recall any point that you may have been in contact with them."

She sat down in his chair hesitantly, her gaze flickering to the file pulled up on the screen.