Captive but Forbidden by Lynn Raye Harris

to confuse her. Frighten her. Deliberately, she shoved them away.
    “Make love to me,” she said.
    He began to move so slowly once more, until she was a mass of tight nerve endings and shuddering tension. Until she was begging him to take her faster. He took his time obliging her, but when she didn’t shrink from him, when she didn’t cry out or flinch in pain, he turned up the intensity.
    Again and again, he took her higher, their bodies straining together, sweating, skin sliding on skin. Exquisite. Torturous.
    The pain was still there, but so slight she hardly noticed. The pleasure was far, far stronger.
    And then it crested until she cried out, her entire body shuddering beneath him, wanting still more but unable to last a moment longer. His control was so exquisite, so perfect, that she knew when he gave himself permission to follow her into the abyss. He lifted her tohim, his body pumping into hers one last time before he was still.
    He propped himself up, careful not to crush her. In the darkness, she could still make out his features. Could see the troubled expression he couldn’t mask.
    “Thank you,” she said, because it was all she could think to say.
    “Are you all right? Did I hurt you?”
    “I’m fine.”
    Physically, that was true. Emotionally was another story. So many emotions crashing in on her. She’d made love with him, and though she didn’t regret it at all, the weight of the feelings she’d been carrying for so many months—wondering if she were damaged somehow, if she would ever feel as if she were whole again, if she would ever be able to be with a man without dissembling—was immense.
    “You don’t sound fine,” he said. And then he rolled over and took her with him until she sprawled half on his body and half off.
    “It’s a bit overwhelming,” she admitted.
    “I get that a lot,” he said smugly, and she knew he was trying to make her laugh.
    It worked, damn him. “Arrogant bastard.”
    His fingers stroked along her spine. “Seriously,” he said after a few moments. “Are you okay?”
    “Yes,” she said on a sigh. “I am.”
    It was not his finest moment. Raj lay awake long after Veronica had dozed off and contemplated the mess he’d made. What the hell had he done?
    He’d never, ever slept with someone he was guarding. It had been wrong to do so, and yet he’d been powerless to resist her request.
    Hell, he hadn’t wanted to resist. Since the moment he’d seen her from the bar of the hotel, he’d wanted this woman with the kind of craving that abhorred him. The kind of craving that drug addicts used to justify their excesses.
    That thought did not cheer him in the least.
    But she’d been all gorgeous, sexy femininity, with an alluring laugh and a come-hither look that fooled every man she bestowed it upon. He’d known better than to fall for it, yet he had.
    Beneath the facade, she was amazing. Serious, smart, funny and sad. Sadder than any woman he’d ever known, with the exception of his mother. He hated that sadness, wanted to take it away from her forever.
    He pressed a hand to his chest. There was a dull ache there, the kind of ache he’d gotten whenever he’d come home from school to find his mother high again.
    Whenever he’d been able to go to school, that is. He’d missed most of his middle school years with all the moving they’d done. How he’d ever gotten into—and graduated from—high school was as much a mystery to him as anyone.
    That he was even thinking of those days right now was not a good sign.
    He considered slipping from the bed and returning to the living area, where he’d been on the computer when she’d opened the window and triggered the silent alarm he’d set, but the bed was warm and she was soft and sleeping. Her head lay on his chest, her silky platinum hair a shiny tangle that he itched to shove his fingers into.
    He would not move, would not risk waking her when she was sleeping so soundly—especially when she’d told