He’d moved the chair back to the table this morning. He sat across from her eating and brooding. She’d been all but inside his skin when she woke up this morning, and he’d just held her close, letting her rub against his straining erection as if doing her a favor. Fucking arrogant prick. And now he had the audacity to act like it was her fault. He’d stolen the covers, leaving her no other option than to cuddle close to him. Wasn’t her fault if her robe came loose, and he chose to sleep nude.
Holy crap! He’d slept nude beside her.
“We need to talk.”
“I said I was sorry!” She all but yelled at him.
His teeth had been clenched when she finally woke up, and he’d told her to either fuck him or move off so he could go in the other room and take care of it himself. She’d jerked away as if she’d been burned. But damn, part of her had wanted to just let that hard cock fill her pussy.
And he’d gone to the bathroom and jerked off! What the hell! He had to have known she could hear him. He wasn’t exactly quiet about it. Then he came out all dressed and whistling. Whistling for God’s sake!
Oh, she’d stomped. She’d slammed the door. But she refused to take care of herself while he was out in the other room listening. So she’d reached for her clothes, only to notice her panties were missing. She’d dressed without them, only to slam the door open and find him gone. Gone! The bastard. He was only living because he came back with coffee as well as breakfast.
“You could have used me if you wanted to,” he reminded her, making her growl at him.
And he laughed. The man seriously had no sense of self-preservation.
“Did you take my panties?” She blurted the question out without meaning too.
He looked shocked as his eyes skimmed over her. Then with a lifted brow, he taunted, “Why, Abby, are you sitting across from me with no panties on?”
She blushed. She could feel her face flaming red with embarrassment. She wanted to hit him hard, and she wasn’t normally a violent person.
He shook his head at her and looked upset at her obvious discomfort. “I’m sorry, Abby. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
She nodded. It wasn’t lost on her though, that he hadn’t offered up the location of her missing panties.#p#分页标题#e#
“We do need to talk,” he said as he pushed his breakfast containers away. He ate a lot of food. “I need to know everything.” She could see him running his tongue over his teeth before he grimaced, keeping his lips closed as he glanced at her. “I really need to know.”
“I’m not sure where to start.”
“Start with Harlan. Who exactly is he? And why did he take us?”
She sighed. She remembered a time when she’d wanted nothing more than Tah’s undivided attention, so she could tell him what she felt was the truth. But not like this. Not when he already had to be questioning her involvement. Soon, he’d question her sanity as well. And there was nothing she could do, but tell him.
“Harlan Jones is my dad’s cousin.”
“So he’s family?”
She shook her head adamantly in denial. “It takes more than blood to make family,” she repeated the words she’d always heard her mom tell her dad.
Tah nodded. “True. Family are the people you choose.”
“Harlan was jealous of my parents. I heard him whine to my dad several times about how mom was just trying to stir trouble up, to turn dad against him.”
“And your dad let Harlan talk like that?”
She looked up in surprise. She’d never thought of it like that, but obviously Tah had, and he looked pissed about it.
“He loved my mom.” Why she felt the need to defend them was beyond her, but she did.
“Go on, baby,” Tah urged her.
She cleared her throat. It always threw her when he used one of those pet words on her, words most men saved for the women they were with. Baby. Honey. Sweetheart. She wanted to be all those things to him.
“That’s it. That’s who he is and how he knows me.”
“I’ll let it go for now, but I know there’s more to it than that. Now tell me about all this lion talk and why he kidnapped us. I heard him talking to you when he thought I was out. I might not have been able to control my movement yet, but my hearing was fine. He followed you to Africa? When did you go to Africa? And why?”
“Two years ago. I went with a college group for an anthropological dig.”
“You studied anthropology?”
She nodded. “I’ve always been fascinated by cultures, especially the myths and lores they keep.”