But the real conversation she and Natches were having was beneath the actual words, thrumming with tension.

Chaya couldn’t forget. Anytime she was near Natches, every time she was within touching distance, the memories and the pain returned. And the need. The same need that had his erection buried between her lips earlier. The need to touch and be touched was stronger than the pain.

It had been five years. Losing Beth had nearly driven her crazy, but the years had helped her to sew closed the ragged wound that loss had left. She still cried sometimes; she still ached most of the time. But she had learned to go on. Beth was gone; there was no way to bring her back.

But Chaya had always known that Natches was still alive. And the guilt she felt at the thought of going to him had always held her back.

While Natches had been teasing her in that hospital, seducing her, making her laugh, her daughter had been in danger. While she had made plans for a future that didn’t include her traitorous husband, her daughter had perhaps been crying for her mother. And while she had been laughing with Natches, someone had been planning to bomb the building Craig had taken their child to.

Hunger, guilt, anger, and need vied inside her now just as they had for the past five years. They twisted inside her, making it impossible to see past what she had lost long enough to decide what she was running away from. And now she had no choice but to face it.

Whoever that faceless organization was that had managed to authenticate a strike code on that hotel in Iraq, it had to be stopped. It was too dangerous, its influence becoming too corrupt. There were moles in Army Intelligence, and Cranston had traced them to the op here.

“I’m going to kill Cranston when this is over.” Natches set the beer bottle down on the bar, his heavy-lidded gaze moving over her again.

That look made her sizzle. Chaya could feel all the nerve endings in her body coming alive. That look could make women across the world weak in the knees. He could bottle it and make billions.

“Good luck.” She shoved her hands in the pockets of her jeans to keep them from shaking. To keep herself from shaking.

“Take your clothes off.”

Chaya blinked back at him, certain she hadn’t heard what she knew she had heard.

“Do you think it’s just that easy?” She shook her head and wished it was. “Sorry, Natches, I’m not here to be your toy. I’m here to do a job.”

“So you can do both now.” He grabbed his beer and finished it before tossing it in the trash can in the corner. “You can be Agent Greta Dane during the day and my toy at night. I promise you won’t be in the least neglected, Chaya.”

Oh, she just bet she wouldn’t be. And when the time came that Timothy decided to let them all in on the little game he was playing, what then? Would she be cast aside as all his other playthings had been?

“You have plenty of other toys, Natches; you don’t need me.” She wanted to sound flippant, uncaring, but she could feel the ache building inside her.

Five years. It had been five years since he had taken her. She had been so filled with pain then that she hadn’t been able to appreciate the pleasure that had torn through her.

But she remembered it. She remembered his tears mixing with hers as he kissed her, just as she remembered how easily he had coaxed more than one explosive orgasm from her.

She watched him uneasily. He wasn’t just going to take no for an answer, and she didn’t know if she had the strength to hold back if he touched her again.

And he was going to touch her. She pulled her hands slowly from her jeans pockets as he advanced on her, his expression predatory.

“Natches.” She whispered his name in warning.

“There’s the door; run, little rabbit,” he suggested, his voice wicked as he nodded to the door that led to escape. “Go ahead. Or do you have the courage to actually take me on without excuses?”

Her fingers curled against her palm as he challenged her. The chance to touch him again, to feel whatever it was she had felt that night that she hadn’t been able to forget. She hadn’t been able to touch another man after that.

“That so isn’t going to work,” she retorted and wished her voice sounded stronger, wished it had more conviction.

She could feel herself preparing for him despite the protest. Her breasts were sensitive and swollen, the nipples throbbing. And between her thighs, she could feel herself dampening, her clit engorging.

She wanted. She ached. She had been aching this past week with a strength that had forced her to masturbate several times. And it hadn’t been enough. It was never enough when she thought of Natches.

“You want me.” He was too close now, standing in front of her, forcing her to look up at him.

He was so wicked. A rogue. She had called him that once, and he had laughed and winked as he agreed with her.

“Does just wanting make it all right?” she whispered, catching his wrists as his hands settled on her hips. “Wanting isn’t always enough, Natches.”

“It’ll be enough for tonight.” There was no plea in his words, just pure demand. “I’m not asking for forever, Chaya. I wouldn’t dare.”

And before she could question the angry tone of those last words, he was kissing her. His lips covered hers, his tongue pushed between them, and he was taking what he wanted. There was no question of giving it to him, because he didn’t ask for a damned thing.

This wasn’t the teasing seducer she had known five years before. This was a conqueror. This was a man who refused to ask. He knew what he wanted, and God help her, he seemed to know exactly what she needed, too.

Chaya felt the world tilt around her; she could have sworn the ground shook. Whatever it was, it was Natches holding her, his lips on hers, his muttered, hungry moan vibrating against her lips as his mouth slanted across them and his tongue tempted and teased hers into an excited, erotic duel.

It was fire and lightning, this kiss. It was being awakened from a lifetime of nightmares and finally given light. It was like being reborn.

Chaya heard herself cry out, felt her arms latching around his neck, her body arching to him, needing more. More contact. More touch. Oh God, she couldn’t get enough of him, and the need would destroy her. This need rocked her to her very core, to the center of that lonely, almost broken, spirit that had sent her running before. Because she couldn’t face losing anyone else. She couldn’t face losing Natches, too.

She trembled as she felt his hands caressing her, running along her back, pushing beneath her top and touching bare flesh. He moved against her, pressing his thigh between hers, rocking her against him.

She felt the delicate, sensitive flesh between her thighs flame. Wicked, greedy wildfire swept through her, and nothing mattered but more. More of his kiss. If she didn’t get more of his kiss, she would lose her mind from the need. More of his touch. She wanted to be naked in his arms. Naked and shuddering and surrounded by Natches. Surrounding him. Burning as she only burned in her dreams.

“There, Chay.” He pulled her closer, one hand on her butt, forcing her to ride the hard muscle of his thigh as she ground herself against him. “See how good it is, baby? Remember how hot it is?”

Oh yes, she remembered. She remembered begging him for more, screaming for more. The memories were hazy because the pain had been overwhelming that night. But she remembered enough to know why she had ached in the darkness of the night after she’d left Iraq. She remembered enough to know that, once he took her, she was never going to be the same again.

No more sleepwalking. She had existed the past five years, forcing herself through each day, refusing to acknowledge that a part of her, that hidden, feminine core of her, was right here. In Natches’s arms.

“Natches, let me breathe. Let me think,” she gasped as his lips slid from hers—lazy, confident—and nibbled at her jawline. Her nerve endings rose up in a crescendo of pleasure.

“No thinking allowed.” The rasp of his day-old beard sent shards of the most incredible pleasure washing through her body. “Now, let’s get these damned clothes off.”

It was sexy. It was erotic. It was the most gentle act of sexual intensity that she could have imagined. He pulled her arms from around his neck, then, staring down at her, his forest green eyes darkening to moss, his palms touching her flesh along the way, he slid her blazer from her shoulders and over her arms.

Chaya stared up at him, unable to break the contact, the connection. He had done that before, she remembered. Stared at her, watched her eyes as he undressed her.

“This isn’t a good idea.” She tried to protest, but it sounded more like an invitation. It was an invitation. Everyone knew Natches did anything anyone else considered a bad idea. And the more erotic, the more wicked, that bad idea was, the faster he was there.

“Who needs good ideas? Come here, baby. Let me see those pretty breasts just one more time. Lift your arms for me.” He pulled the hem of her shirt up and over her head, off her arms. It dropped to the floor as a hungry growl left his lips and long, thick lashes feathered over his eyes.

When he looked at her like that, she melted. Then she felt his hands at the belt of her jeans.

She was naked from the waist up, or practically naked, because the bra she wore didn’t hide much from view.

“Natches, I don’t think I can stand through this.”

And she didn’t. Her knees were weakening. She could feel her legs turning to mush, right along with her objections. This was Natches. Wicked, erotic Natches. His kisses were a flame that burned to the icy core of her. His touch was an inferno, warming her from the inside out.

And she needed to be warm. Just for a little while. She needed to be warmed by him, just one more time.

As his lips moved over her neck, her arms found strength. As his hands pushed beneath the waist of her jeans, she struggled against him, pushing at his arms.

“Easy, Chay.”

“Not easy.” She nipped at his neck, clearly surprising him as she tugged at his T-shirt. She wanted him bare as well. She wanted to feel him against her, bare flesh to bare flesh. She needed it.

He whipped the shirt from his body and tossed it aside as her hands went to his belt. Shaking, uncertain, her fingers pulled and tugged at it.

“There you go, Chay. Get naughty for me.”

She tore at the metal button, then eased the zipper over the hard, throbbing length of his cock. She moved it down slowly, working it over the stiff ridge as a hard growl passed his lips.

He wanted her naughty? She wasn’t naughty; she was starving for him. Five years of pent-up hunger blazed through her, erupting from a well of need that she’d had no idea existed within her.

Those distant memories from five years before didn’t compare to this. The feel of his body, so large and broad, hard and muscular, bending to her, almost protectively. His lips on her neck, teeth rasping. His hands working her jeans over her hips as hunger seemed to permeate the air.

Chaya could feel perspiration gathering on her body, the heat building inside them, flowing around them, as she pushed at his jeans, frantic to get to the heated flesh of his cock.

“There you go, sweetheart; burn for me,” he growled as his hands slid around to her rear, clenched, then lifted.

He raised her along his body, dragging her from her goal as a protesting cry fell from her lips. A second later, she felt the cool top of the low counter, heard a chair falling to the floor as he kicked it out of the way, and then Natches was kissing her again.

She couldn’t get enough of his kisses, or his touches. She couldn’t kiss back enough, couldn’t touch enough. She was consumed, inside and out, by a need so fiery she didn’t have a hope of controlling it.

“Here, get these off.” He pulled away from her, despite her attempts to draw him back and the mewling sound that fell from her lips.

His hair was tangled, mussed from her fingers and framing his roguish face. Dark eroticism sharpened his features, his eyes. His bare chest was sheened with sweat, the hair prickling her fingers as she ran her hands down it.