Valiant(7)

“You’re huge and you have sharp teeth and…you took me from outside. I want to leave.”

“I don’t want you to go. As you pointed out, I’m bigger.”

Her mouth opened and closed as she stared up at him. “They will come in here to get me.”

He nodded. “They will.”

Huh? She frowned at him. “Why are we here if you knew that already?”

“Time.” He actually grinned at her. “It’s going to take them a lot of it to get enough of my people together to brave my home. Not many would be so foolish to attempt it. They fear me.”

She started to feel nervous as she studied him. “Could you please stop hovering over me?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“You’re frightening me again.”

The smile faded. “I don’t want you to be afraid.”

“What do you want?”

His gaze lowered down her body slowly before he met hers again. “I want you.”

Her heart missed a beat. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Ummm.” He didn’t look convinced. He suddenly pushed up with his hands and straightened off the bed back onto his feet. He kept his sole focus on her. “Are you sure?”

“You promised you wouldn’t hurt me.”

Tammy watched as he gripped his T-shirt, his fingers hooked on the lower edges of it and he tore the material up his body. He threw it on to the floor behind him. She couldn’t help but stare. The man’s skin was a golden brown all over and he had a perfect chest. She imagined he’d be hairy but he wasn’t. He was muscular and really cut with smooth, nearly hairless skin. She couldn’t miss the six-pack abs clearly displayed over a flat belly.

His arms were massive, thickly defined with muscles, and he had a broad chest. The disks of his nipples were a light reddish color that nearly matched his eyelashes and his hair. Her gaze ran lower and saw that a thin line of reddish-blond hair lightly trailed from his bellybutton down to the top button of his jeans.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” He reached for the snap of his pants. “Of all the things I want to do to you, pain isn’t involved.”

He opened the top button of his jeans, which revealed more of his flat stomach. Tammy’s mouth fell open as he gripped the zipper. Her gaze jerked up to his face and couldn’t miss how amused he appeared to be. His golden eyes shone with it.

“Don’t you dare take those off.”

The sound of the zipper going down was loud inside the bedroom. It had an icy-cold-water effect on Tammy, as if she’d been splashed with it. It startled her out of her dazed shock when it sank in that he really planned to have sex with her. She gasped in air, rolled over on the mattress, and frantically clawed at the bedding, trying to crawl away from him.

Big, strong hands gripped her hips and tossed her carefully onto her back and left her staring up at him again. Three things became instantly clear as her gaze jerked down to his waist. The man’s jeans were open, she saw skin, and Valiant wasn’t wearing underwear. She also couldn’t miss that the guy didn’t tuck upward judging by the large bulge she couldn’t miss running down his inner thigh inside the jeans.

“Where are you going? You’d miss the really great parts if you run now.”

“Stop it.”

He grinned at her, showing fangs. “You have beautiful blue eyes.”

She blinked. “You have beautiful eyes too. That doesn’t mean you can…” She pointed at his waist. “That’s not happening.”

He chuckled. “Really?”

Tammy nodded. “Really. No way, no how. Do the math, huge guy.”

“I’m glad you’ve gotten your voice back and my name is Valiant. You may use it.”

“You stopped growling and roaring at me.”

“So if I don’t want you to talk or tell me ‘no’ anymore, I just need to roar and growl at you?” One of his eyebrows arched. “Thanks for sharing how to silence you. It’s helpful information to know.”

Tammy inched back on the bed, trying to reach the other side. “As I said, do the math. There’s no way we’re, uh, doing what people do inside bedrooms.”

“Math has nothing to do with what I have in mind.”

“Really?” Tammy was extremely grateful not to be mute anymore. She felt calmer now that she wasn’t frozen with terror. She was adjusting to how the guy looked and since he’d brought her inside his house, he seemed more human than animal. He talked to her instead of just growling. “I disagree. You’re huge and I’m small in comparison. The two don’t add up.”