The time in the control room had allowed him to settle down, though.

"Ms. Sorenson is sending out email at the moment," the tech noted absently. "To Sheriff Tobias. Should I intercept it?"

"Let it go." Crowe shook his head. "Anna's still getting email through Archer, just in case Wayne gets stupid enough to email her. It'll make it easier to track from his official address."

"f.u.c.k yeah," Cameron answered, his voice distracted now as he keyed commands on the holographic keyboard in front of him.

Crowe almost grinned at the sight of the hard-core marine with his tattooed biceps, savage expression, and intent, odd-as-h.e.l.l eyes playing that holo-board like a master pianist.

"Give me a call if the audio notification on this program sounds," he told the other man as he rose to his feet, his gaze moving to the foyer camera, which picked up Amelia leaving the room, entering the foyer, then heading up the stairs.

"Will do." Cameron's voice was still absent, distracted, but Crowe knew he'd heard every word.

Leaving the control room and moving through the hall, he reached the main wing of the house as Amelia entered the bedroom.

He paused for a moment to draw in a hard breath, still seeing the shattered guilt in her eyes as she talked about the Carter brothers.

He'd read their file. He hadn't wanted to think about it as she spoke, nor while he'd been in the control room. Wayne's vendetta against the Carters hadn't run as deep as it had against the Callahans, but for some reason he'd been determined to destroy them in other ways.

As he continued to Amelia's bedroom, he made a mental note to ask Ivan if he'd run across their names in Wayne's journals, which Amory Wyatt had ensured they received. He needed more information and he was going to need it before Amelia took matters into her own hands and made certain no charges were filed against the little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

Entering the bedroom, he wasn't happy to see she was just changing from the jeans and sweater she had worn into a pair of girlie pajamas. The white leggings and long shirt all but hid her figure and a.s.sured him that his little sugar elf didn't have s.e.x on her mind.

She usually came to bed in one of those silky, s.e.xy-as-h.e.l.l nightgowns he loved rather than this nons.e.xual body armor, he thought in amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Am I in the doghouse?" he asked, unable to hold back the hint of a smile that tugged at his lips.

"Do I have a doghouse?" she asked, her expression far too somber.

G.o.d, he hated seeing the hurt in her eyes.

"Yeah, you do." He nodded. "The word no."

Her shoulders lifted as though uncertain before she turned away from him and moved to the bed to turn it down.

"I haven't said no," she finally said. "But I am tired tonight, Crowe."

Oh, he just bet she was.

Intercepting her, Crowe tucked his fingers beneath her chin and silently urged her to look up at him.

He wanted to see whatever emotion it was that baffled him.

"I can't help needing to protect you, Amelia." He addressed the problem the only way he knew how. "I might go about it in a way that offends you sometimes, and sometimes we're going to go head-to-head over it. But I'm not trying to hurt you, or anyone else."

Her lips tightened as emotions raged in her darkened eyes. He could see, and he could feel, something building inside her, between them, but he was d.a.m.ned if he could figure out what it was.

"Don't worry about it," she finally gritted out.

"Amelia," he whispered gently. "You have to talk to me."

"About what, Crowe?" Pulling from his grip she paced across the room before turning back to him, her hands lifting to rub at her arms as though some chill had settled on them. "What do you think we need to talk about? How you can make me come around to your way of doing things?" Mockery filled the tight little smile she gave him. "See, I'm not real good at that. I tend to get myself in more trouble than necessary because I can't seem to understand the concept of protection that everyone else seems to believe I need or deserve."

"I didn't ask you not to voice your opinion, Amelia," he objected, realizing the power she had to strip aside his control over emotions he didn't even know he possessed.

The frustration, hunger, and fears for her that roiled inside him never failed to create a combustible mix that took less than nothing to set off.

"That's exactly what you want," she scoffed in disgust, those pouty lips he was dying to feel again tightening in anger. "You want me to just put my head down and accept whatever dictates you deem necessary."

"Bulls.h.i.t," he growled. "The only time I want you to put your head down to accept anything is when I when I'm shoving my d.i.c.k between your lips."

Her eyes widened, then narrowed as anger suffused her face.

It was more than anger, though. h.e.l.l, he realized in that second, it was always more than anger. In the fierce gleam of those exceptional turquoise eyes there was far more than anger. There was the pain he'd put there seven years ago. A wound that had never healed, just as the wound he'd inflicted on his own heart when he was forced to walk away from her hadn't healed. A wound that had deepened with her marriage and the knowledge of her abuse.

He had been the one to strip the innocence from his fairy-girl's eyes, no one else. He had been the reason she had stayed beneath Wayne's thumb, the reason she had remained in this house with his abuse rather than finding a way to escape it.

"Why don't you just say what's on your mind, Amelia?" he suggested, the raging emotions filling her eyes reaching out to smack him with every look.

"I don't have the time," she lashed out, her tone caustic. "I don't think I'll even live long enough to give you a full list."

"Yet I'd bet my entire fortune on the fact that you're wet right now. Wet and willing and just waiting for me to touch that hungry little body of yours."

Something snapped in her eyes then. The pain that seared her emotions exploded in bright, rich color for the briefest second.

"You just walk in here as though it's your right." Her fingers plowed through shoulder-length strands of hair as her teeth gritted furiously. "As though you didn't walk out of my life with no more than some f.u.c.king letter filled with lies," she cried out. "Leaving me didn't have a d.a.m.ned thing to do with whether my father loved or hated you. It had to do with your own f.u.c.king cowardice."

"My cowardice?" Just because she was right didn't mean he wanted, or intended, to accept it, he thought with bitter humor.

"You were too d.a.m.ned scared of loving anyone-"

"I was too d.a.m.ned scared of losing another lover, you mean?" he reminded her, watching each pain-filled flash that filled her eyes, despite his own building emotions.

What he felt was full-fledged torment at the realization, then and now, of what he had lost.

"No one knew about us. I didn't tell a soul until after you left. No, Crowe, it wasn't losing another lover you were so d.a.m.ned scared of, it was having that block of ice around your heart melt and desert you. And we both know it." Tears glittered in her eyes. "How many women did you have after me? How little did I even matter..."

He couldn't listen to more. G.o.d help him, if he let her keep pushing him he might end up revealing far more than he could risk her knowing.

He'd only meant to stop the pain-filled, tear-thickened words with a quick kiss. What it turned into was anything but quick. The second his lips settled on hers, they parted, accepting him, taking more of him. The essence of her filled his senses, immediately overwhelming him with need as he shoved his tongue past her lips and took total possession of her kiss.

This was what she did to him. She overwhelmed him with his own hungers, with a s.e.xual intensity he had no desire to control.

She was a switch and every time he touched her, the need to f.u.c.k her surged through his body with tidal force.

He'd believed he could handle one simple kiss.

He'd been so d.a.m.ned wrong.

Jerking his head back-he was amazed at his ability to break the contact-Crowe stared down at her, his breath dragging in his throat. They were both panting for air as he watched arousal darken her eyes and flush her dazed expression.

"How the h.e.l.l did I stay away from you for seven f.u.c.king years?" he growled, realizing he was still holding her neck, keeping her in place as he stared down at her. "By fooling myself into believing there wasn't a chance in h.e.l.l that a kiss could do this to me."

He grabbed her hand, dragging it to the desperately stiff erection beneath his jeans.

"I missed you, Crowe." The whisper of sound sent piercing l.u.s.t arrowing straight to his d.i.c.k. And it sent pain exploding in his chest as her voice hitched in a whispered sound of agony. "I needed you."

Leaning forward again, he brushed his lips over hers rather than saying anything more. Feeling them part for him, he caught the lower curve between his teeth in a sensual little bite. Unable to help himself, unable to control the need for it, Crowe returned to her lips, parted them with his own, then took another slow, lip-rubbing, tongue-tasting kiss from her.

As he kissed her, his hands pushed beneath the loose top she wore. There he found silken, heated flesh. Swollen, hard-tipped b.r.e.a.s.t.s filled his hands once he released the front catch of her bra. They fit his hands perfectly, just the right size to cup and caress.

Slowly, he drew her closer to him, the need to feel her body against his overwhelming any objections or common sense.

So overwhelming.

The s.e.xual, sensual hunger that tormented him grew, becoming hotter, brighter than ever before. It was like this with her-only with her-each time. Always better than the time before. Always the greatest pleasure he'd ever known.

And it always made him hungrier for more of her.

"d.a.m.n you!" He was furious with himself.

Furious with her.

And so f.u.c.king h.o.r.n.y as he sat down in the chair next to the balcony doors that he forgot about the program running downstairs, shadows on the cameras, or anything else that could have possibly delayed his possession of her.

He was going to f.u.c.k her.

Just as soon as he could.

"d.a.m.n me?" Dazed, but more than eager, she straddled his thighs as he pulled her down to him, feeling the feminine softness and heat of her p.u.s.s.y, even through their clothes.

"Oh my G.o.d, Crowe. Yes," she cried out as he held her to him, holding her hips in place while he flexed his own, the steel wedge of his c.o.c.k rubbing against that soft pad of her p.u.s.s.y.

Gripping the hem of her shirt and quickly drawing it up, Crowe had to stifle a groan as her arms lifted languidly, sensually. Before the material cleared her upraised arms his head was lowering. Before it could fall to the floor his lips covered one hard, flushed peak, sucking it into his mouth.

Amelia felt her head tip back weakly, exquisite pleasure singing through the almost painfully swollen nipple he was sucking at.

Damp heat surrounded the throbbing tip as he pulled it tight and hard into his mouth. His tongue rasped against it, rubbing it and throwing her into such a firestorm of sensation she couldn't have fought it, even if she wanted to.

She didn't want to.

Drawing on the tormented bead as his hands roved to her hips, Crowe pushed the soft, elastic waistband of her leggings over her rear.

Spearing her hands into the thick, course warmth of his hair, Amelia held on tight as her hips moved, grinding her p.u.s.s.y against the bulge beneath his jeans.

Each hard draw of his mouth around her nipple built a hunger inside her that she couldn't-didn't want to-combat.

Pressing her feet flat against the floor, her fingers kneading his scalp as his mouth devoured her nipple, Amelia worked her hips against him. The mewling whimpers falling from her lips echoed with need. She could feel the hunger rising hard and fast-always there, always rising.

It was beating at her senses, ravaging her body, and creating a hunger that was rapidly-no, not rapidly-the hunger for him had already ravaged her heart.

Because she had always loved him.

Panting, gasping for air, Amelia cried out as Crowe lifted his lips from the nipple he was tormenting only to move to the other and draw it inside his mouth instead.

Sucking at the matching little bud, flicking his tongue, then capturing it between his teeth, he tugged at the ripe tip, devouring it. Each fiery draw increased her hunger and had it building, escalating, creating a tension deep inside her p.u.s.s.y that seared her senses.

Riding the denim-covered bulge of his c.o.c.k, Amelia felt the grinding pressure against her swollen c.l.i.t in hard pulses of sensation that lanced her with exquisite pleasure. A sizzling and intense hunger clenched her v.a.g.i.n.a with such need she felt poised on a sharp, aching edge of intensity.

Each draw of his lips pierced her nipple with static, electric pleasure. It surged forcefully to the depths of her womb, clenched it, stealing her breath with its power.

"Crowe. Oh G.o.d. I swear you're killing me."

"We'll die together then," he muttered as his lips freed her swollen nipple. "d.a.m.n. It looks like a ripe little berry."

He drew her attention to the peaks of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

The once light-pink tips were tightly swollen and blushing a rich raspberry red.

Amelia caught her breath as his hands, pushing into her sleep pants, curved around the cheeks of her a.s.s and squeezed the flesh erotically.

"Stand up," he rasped, the order issued in a tone so rough and filled with l.u.s.t that she shuddered.

Even if she wanted to, she couldn't have disobeyed him. And G.o.d knew, she didn't want to.

But standing up meant no more grinding against his c.o.c.k. No more of the incredible pleasure- "Now!"

Her eyes widened in shock as she instantly straightened then stepped back from him. His fingers clenched in the band of her pants then in one smooth move had the material at her ankles as he fell to one knee in front of her.

Amelia stepped out of the leggings as Crowe dropped them carelessly to the floor before rising in front of her.

Between one breath and the next they were tearing at his clothes. Desperate, crying out in frustration, she felt the need to get him naked tear through her. She finally managed to release his belt as he tossed his shirt aside.

"Your boots," she gasped as his zipper rasped open, the material parting as he pulled the length of his c.o.c.k free.

"No time," he groaned. "Come here, elf."

Lifting her against him, Crowe took the few steps to the dark dresser before she even realized they were moving. The cool wood brought a gasp from her lips as it met the flushed warmth of her rear.

"I can't wait," he groaned, moving instantly between her thighs.

"Then don't wait. Don't wait. And don't let me think," she cried out, the ragged emotions, the guilt, and the price of her silence easing as their hunger rose, met, and exploded out of control.

She gripped his shoulders with desperate fingers as he lifted her legs, pushing them apart and watching as the broad head of his c.o.c.k pressed between the swollen lips of her p.u.s.s.y.

"Now. Now." Her knees pressed against his hold as he began working the wide, throbbing flesh inside her.