Wild Fire by Christine Feehan Read Free Book Online Page A

dead, prayed for him to be dead, dreamt of killing him, but she’d never imagined feeling like this. She was terrified by the look in his eyes. He would do it, force the knife into his heart. She’d never imagined him so strong, but she couldn’t move away from him and she felt every muscle in his body coiled—ready.
    “Shove the knife into my chest. You’re no coward. You want me dead—just get the job done, don’t play games. You seduce another man you’ll get him killed too. This is between us. Don’t drag anyone else into our mess.”
    Isabeau couldn’t breathe and her vision had gone blurry. Tears burned in her eyes. In her throat. In her lungs. She’d thought she was all cried out, but just seeing him tore her apart again. The betrayal had been so devastating, the cut so deep, the wound as raw as ever. The idea of him with another woman made her physically ill, but rage was strong, strong enough, she’d thought, to carry this through.
    His body was trembling, this man who had cut her heart into little pieces and left her without a father, with nothing, absolutely nothing, her life in ruins. She couldn’t sleep at night with wanting him, with loathing him. He thought she’d sent for him for revenge, but the truth was worse than that—she’d sent for him because she couldn’t bear not to see him again. She couldn’t wash enough times to get him off her skin, the taste of him out of her mouth. Her heart was so shattered she didn’t think she could ever feel its rhythmic beat again.
    It had been hell, sheer torment without him, but now, seeing him, breathing him into her body, feeling him so close, the burning started all over again, like a wildfire out of control. He made her his puppet, his slave, a woman with such need no other could ever fill her or satisfy her. She hated him with every fiber of her being, yet the idea of him touching another woman sickened her.
    And the way he looked at her. That focused stare, filled with possession, as if he knew she wanted him in spite of every sick thing he had ever done. So damned smug, knowing it would take one move on his part, crushing her mouth under his, knowing she longed to go up on her toes and fasten her mouth to his and she would melt into him, give herself away all over again. She hated herself with the same fiery passion she hated him. He’d destroyed her heart and he’d stolen her soul. She was left with nothing but ashes and pain.
    For one horrible moment her fingers tightened on the hilt of the knife, but she could no more have shoved it into him than she could have done it to herself. He was a part of her. She hated herself, but he was a part of her and she knew she couldn’t live with the knowledge that she’d killed him.
    Her mouth trembled. Her hands. And then her body. She ducked her head and tears fell on the backs of his hands where he gripped hers so hard. “Tell me what you want,” her voice barely a thread of sound as she capitulated, her shoulders slumping in defeat. She was lost and she knew it. “To get those children back. Tell me what you want, how to do it.”
    His grip eased on her hands until she could slide them away. She rubbed her palms up and down her jean-clad thighs as if she could rid herself of the urge to rip and tear at him—or touch him.
    “Keep doing that, as if it’s going to help you,” he said. “It isn’t going to stop the itch, little cat, and we both know it. You need scratching, you have one place to come. One , do you understand me?”
    “I’d rather die.”
    “I don’t care. You want me to get those children out, I’ll do it, but you don’t go near any other man.”
    “You can’t dictate that to me.”
    “You persist in thinking in human terms, Isabeau,” he said. He stepped close again, inhaling her scent, forcing her to inhale his. “I have news for you. I’m not human and neither are you. You’re in the rain forest, and here, we have a whole different set of laws. Higher laws.