Tall, Dark & Heartless (Pyte/Sentinel #3)(44)

"Stop!" Caine snapped and she knew he was right. This was wrong for so many reasons, not to mention that she never behaved this way with men. Usually when she was involved with a man she kept it simple and straightforward. She'd been with a few men over the years, but none of them ever made her feel out of control. Not like she'd die if he didn't take her.

It was time to stop, she realized, forcing herself to drop her head back on the bare mattress and away from that neck and the tattoo that she wanted to trace with her tongue. After a slight hesitation she was able to drop her hands completely away from him and force them to remain at her sides.

What in the hell was wrong with her? She didn't act this way and she sure as hell shouldn't be acting like this towards Caine, but that didn't stop the need to reach up and run her hands all over him. She looked away from his neck, knowing instinctively that if she didn't she would attack him again and met his eyes, the same grey eyes that used to give her comfort as a child.

In an instant her lust was gone and replaced by disgust. This was the same man who used to kiss her scraped knees better and tuck her in at night. He was also the man who turned his back on her and a little blood had her forgetting all of that and practically raping him. Her stomach clenched painfully at the thought as she moved to get away from him, but he wouldn't let her go.

He dropped down on her, forcing her to take his weight. When she tried to shove him away he moved his arms beneath her and wrapped his arms around her so that she couldn't move. When pushing him away didn't work she resorted to squirming which was just as ineffective.

"Get off, Caine!" she snapped, wondering why the hell he wasn't getting off her. He should be able to smell the change in her body and know that she needed some space, but he wasn't giving her any.

"Not until you calm down, Danni. All it's going to take right now is one look at you to know that I've changed you and then you're going to have to deal with something a hell of a lot worse than your response to me," he said evenly as he held her tightly against him.

She gritted her teeth against the lust that was determined to come back at the feel of his large warm muscular body pressing down on hers. The fact that his erection was pressed against her, wasn't exactly helping her calm down. If anything, it was making it worse for her.

"I can't calm down with you on top of me," she admitted through clenched teeth, hating any type of weakness and there was no doubt in her mind that the way her body was reacting to him was a weakness. She needed to be in control, always. She hated herself for reacting to his scent and that damn erection poking at her that he couldn't seem to control.

"Close your eyes and pretend that I'm not here, Danni," he ordered as his grip around her tightened.

"That won't help," she bit out, hating herself as she felt more moisture pool between her legs.

"Try," he snapped, sounding irritated as he tried to adjust himself on top of her. There was no way that he could hide that large erection that was pressing against her stomach.

"I can't!"

"You can!" he said, glaring at her through gray eyes, letting her know just how easily it was for him and how weak she was.

She let out a humorous chuckle that had him frowning down at her. How pathetic was she? Even as a Pyte, one of the strongest creatures on earth and she was still weak, pathetic. He might be hard and unable to hide the scent of his lust, but he was still in control of his body. She didn't need to run her tongue over her teeth to know that she was not.

Just in case her teeth hadn't clued her into the fact that she wasn't in control, her vision did. Everything was in tints of red and as hard as she tried, she couldn't get her vision to shift back to normal. It pissed her off like nothing else. She hated not having control almost as much as she hated being weak. She closed her eyes, squeezing them shut as she willed her body to get back under control. After about a minute she opened her eyes and let out a frustrated groan and did it again to no avail. She couldn't do it, she couldn't shift her eyes back to normal and couldn't retract her fangs and she hated it.

Her eyes welled up with frustrated tears as she gripped his shoulders and shoved him away. She wasn't sure if she was stronger than she thought or if he let her do it and she really didn't care. The only thing that mattered was getting some space. She was off the mattress and across the room before she took her next shaky breath.

"Danni,-"

"Just leave me alone, Caine!" she snapped as she went over to the still running shower and switched it to cold before stepping under it. She sat down beneath the spray of water, hugged her knees to her chest and closed her eyes, praying that this was all a dream.

It didn't matter that she'd been dying and he'd just saved her from an agonizing death. She didn't want this. She didn't want to fight for control of her own body and she sure as hell wasn't happy that he'd given Greg and whatever Master he worked for exactly what they wanted.

She never thought of herself as a coward, but as she sat there freezing beneath the ice cold water she couldn't help but tremble at the thought of what would happen to her once they realized that she wouldn't cooperate. From what little Caine had told her years ago and what she now knew Greg was capable of, she had a pretty good idea about what she could expect if they discovered what she was now.

Over the past couple of months the knowledge that she'd suffer at the end of her life had damn near set off a few panic attacks, but she knew that there would eventually be an escape even if it was by death. Now that Caine made her into a Pyte there was no escape for her or him, when they realized that they didn't need him anymore. They could try to force him to make them an army, but she didn't think they'd bother now that they had her and it wasn't too hard to guess why.