Christine Feehan - Dark Possession

«You are lucky I did not kill you.»

Luiz nodded. «Yeah, I got that.» He looked past Manolito to MaryAnn. «Are you all right?»

A soft warning rumbled in Manolito's throat. «It is not necessary for you to inquire after her state of being when I am here.»

«I think it is,» Luiz said.

«That's because he has manners,» MaryAnn snapped. «Thank you so much for your help, Luiz. Especially for saving my life.» She turned and walked away. The cave man could keep up or not, but she was close enough to the house that she recognized the Jeep trail. She could just follow that.

Manolito shrugged when Luiz's eyebrow shot up. «She's very good at reprimanding me.» For a moment, amusement flickered in his eyes.

«I have a feeling she'll need to be,» Luiz said, rubbing his jaw. «She's amazing.»

Manolito's face darkened, the brief flash of humor fading away. «You do not need to find her amazing. And keep your clothes on, jaguar.»

Luiz's grin widened. «Women can't help but be impressed.»

«I doubt it feels good to have one's heart ripped out of one's chest, but if you like I can arrange for you to find out.»

Luiz laughed at him. «She may just rip your heart out, Carpathian. Take care.»

Manolito looked down at the blurred shadow of his hand. He was still in both worlds, but he was seeing much more clearly and his form was more substantial than it had ever been. Luiz hadn't noticed, and jaguar people were not only observant, but they could read things in the forest few others could. And they'd spot another of their kind instantly…

He caught up with MaryAnn. «He did not call you jaguar and if you had even a small trace of blood, he would know.»

Her dark eyes went stormy. So she still hadn't forgiven him. Deep inside, lust uncurled claws and raked him sharply.

«I'm not jaguar. I told you that.»

He dropped behind her to take a good look at her bottom encased so snugly in denim. His heart nearly stopped. The woman was built like a woman should be, all curves and temptation.

«Stop it,» she hissed and sent him another smoldering look over her shoulder. «I'm so mad at you right now, nothing you do is charming.» Because she knew it wasn't about his lack of manners or his arrogant, ridiculous behavior, it was about her behavior. Whether she liked it or not, she was different inside. Whether she liked it or not-whether she even admitted it or not-she was burning and aching for this man, only this man, to touch her, to be inside of her. His obnoxious dominating ways should have repelled her, but instead she found him fascinating, mesmerizing even. And that shouldn't have been acceptable.

«I cannot help it if I find you attractive,» Manolito protested. «Looking at you puts ideas in my head. I am more than happy to share them with you.»

«Well don't. Sex isn't the same thing as love, Manolito, and couples, husband and wife and lifemates, are supposed to be in love. That's how it works.»

«You will learn to love me,» he said, confidence stamped on his too-handsome face. «It will come with time.»

«Don't count on it,» she muttered, stomping up the walkway on her wobbly heel. Yeah. Because it was all about him. She was supposed to learn to love him. That's how things worked in his world, but not so much in hers. When she had raw, passionate sex with this man, she wanted him to love her.

She was halfway to the door when she really looked at the towering palace he and his brothers called a vacation home. A retreat. Yeah. Who retreated to a place the size of an apartment building? She stopped abruptly at the door. It was a freaking palace. She sighed and rubbed her temples. Man, she needed to be home, back in the real world.

Manolito reached past her to open the solid double doors and gesture for her to go in. «Please enter my home.»

MaryAnn drew a deep breath and took a step back, shaking her head. Nobody, but nobody, lived this way. She stood in the middle of the huge double doorway, staring at the gleaming marble entryway. She had forgotten what the house was like, or maybe she hadn't noticed when she'd first arrived because she'd been too grief stricken. Set in the middle of nowhere, it was like a palace of days gone by.

«I'm so not setting a foot on that floor,» she said, backing away from the door. And she had great shoes, too, shoes meant for walking on a floor like that. Great shoes-well, she used to. Her beautiful boots were ruined and muddy, the left heel loose and wobbly. She wasn't going to take a chance on scratching the gleaming marble floor that stretched for miles. Her entire house in Seattle could fit into the entryway.

Behind her, Manolito pressed a hand into the small of her back and gave her a little push forward. «Get inside.»

Okay, the shoving thing was not working for her any more than his penchant for issuing orders. Besides underscoring the fact that he was the biggest jerk on the planet, every time his fingers brushed her body, every nerve in her system simply went haywire. Her body refused to listen to her brain screeching macho jerk alert.

Even though she couldn't stop the shiver of excitement and the slow burn that spread through her veins like a drug each time he touched her, he wasn't getting away with ordering her around the way he obviously thought he could.

«I know you didn't just shove me,» she snapped, tossing her long, thick braid as she glared at him over her shoulder.

It was a mistake to look at him. His gaze burned over her-into her. No one had eyes like that or such a sinfully sensual mouth-or a house like this. She wasn't into opulence and decadence. She wasn't impressed by it or comfortable with it. And she certainly wasn't into hot, arrogant men who gave orders as naturally as other people breathed.

«It was a gentle aid to assist you into my home, as you seemed to be having trouble entering.»

His voice slid under her skin and filled up every empty place inside of her. The deep-timbered rasp was wrapped in velvet and seemed to stroke over her skin. She set her teeth against the dark lure of pure sex.

«I'm not going in there. You must have another house. A little one. Anything else.» Because he was planning on leaving her-again. He got her all hot and bothered, ordered her around, acted like a jerk, brought her to this-this-palace-and he was going to dump her. She could read it on his face. So screw him. She wasn't going in. Being alone in the middle of the rain forest on an island, palace or no palace, was not happening again.

She pushed back against Manolito's hand. Maybe if she found Luiz again, he could help her find the airstrip and she could sweet-talk the pilot into flying her back to civilization. Provided there was a pilot. And a plane. She didn't even know that, but Luiz might.

A flicker of fury bloomed in Manolito's black eyes, and he caught her up and tossed her over his shoulder, striding into the cool of the house, right past the entryway and double sweeping staircases and into an enormous room of marble and glass.

Shock stunned her into silence, and then pure anger blasted through her veins. MaryAnn, who never resorted to violence, who didn't believe in violence, who actually counseled against violence, wanted to beat the man into a bloody spot on the floor.

It was utterly humiliating to be carried over his shoulder, her arms and legs dangling like spaghetti. She pounded on his broad back only to be further infuriated when he didn't even flinch. «Put me down, right now,» she hissed, clutching the back of his shirt. «I mean it, Manolito. If someone saw me like this, I'd be so upset.» The thought was completely mortifying.

«No one is in the house,» he assured her, not liking the distress in her voice. Anger was one thing, but not distress. «Riordan and Juliette must be with her sister and cousin in the rain forest. And since you asked so politely.» Manolito set her on her feet and stepped back, a smooth, fluid glide, just in case she took a swipe at him.