Karen paced the bedroom floor, her stomach fluttering with a combination of worry and just plain sickness. She hadn’t slept. Hadn’t eaten. Hadn’t stopped worrying since she’d gotten that telegram from Eva saying Mike was dead.

A rush of nausea came over her and Karen paused, pressing her palm to her forehead. God. She didn’t have time to feel sick but her body wasn’t cooperating. It wanted rest. If only she’d slept on the plane instead of worrying and working on her article.

Why wouldn’t they let her see Eva?

She shouldn’t have come here. She didn’t even know if this healer treating Eva was a real doctor. She had to get her sister to another hospital. Besides, something wasn’t right here. What exactly had she walked into? How could the man from the airport be here?

They were acting like they couldn’t trust her and her sister. She’d seen all those big, burly men. It seemed like she should be the scared one, not them. So what was going on? Why treat them like this? Clearly, her sister was injured. It wasn’t like she was lying.

And what harm could two women, without weapons – which they had searched her for when they locked her in the room - do to a bunch of macho men like these guys?

Her mind went back to the leader. To the man from the airport. Karen couldn’t quite get her mind around his presence. Of course, her body had grasped the concept quite easily. Even tired, he’d drawn a sizzling reaction. A reaction she felt guilty as heck for. The man had her locked in a room, captive for all practical purposes, forbidding her from seeing her sister, and Karen had managed to get all lusty over him. How sick was that?

Karen sank onto the bed. She’d reacted to him at the airport, too. That funny familiarity from her dream niggled inside a bit stronger. Her mind played with some distant image, trying to make it vivid and understandable, trying to grasp it. The clouds were thick and hard to clear. She was just so tired. Maybe rest would make her remember how she knew this man. Because to dream of him, she had to know him.

As her lashes fluttered, Karen told herself to stand back up. To get her blood pumping again. Her body just felt so horrible achy and heavy. Yet, the very thought of falling asleep while terrible things could be happening to her sister brought panic. What if this healer did more damage than good?

She had to stay awake. There wasn’t another option.

Karen balled her fists in the dark brown comforter on top of the mattress. Everything in the room was brown. Brown curtains. Brown blankets. Brown carpet. Brown. Brown. Brown. So incredibly dreary and dark. And so was the future right now. Somehow, Karen realized, she’d taken a bad situation and made it worse. Somehow, once again, she had failed Eva.

Karen looked skyward. “Mom. Dad.” Her chest tightened painfully and she gave into the need to rest, easing back to lay on the mattress. “I don’t know how to fix this.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I have to save my sister…I…”

A knocked sounded and Karen jerked up to a sitting position. Before she could find her way to her feet, the door flew open. In strode the man who seemed to hold her destiny in his hands. As he had on their prior two meetings, his powerful presence overwhelmed her, his masculine beauty registering even when she wanted to deny its presence.

But as he slammed the door behind him, locking the door and turning to face her, the contempt and anger in his deep, dark eyes were what took her breath away. Whatever brought this man here now, it wasn’t an apology.

From the look in his eye, it appeared he wanted more than a word with her…he wanted blood.

* * *

Jag entered the bedroom, shutting the door behind him, and locking it. Turning to face the woman he now knew as ‘Karen’, anger coursing through his veins. How dare she come in here, taunting him with his wife’s name, with her sacred memory?

It was bad enough she’d haunted his dreams. Now she dared to taint the name of his only love.

Unexplainably, as angry as he was, as full of fury, he managed to bite back his imminent explosion. He studied her, this woman, who might well be his enemy disguised as an innocent, exploring her features. Searching for some unnamed something.

What he found was a look of concern and uncertainty so raw, so real, the power of his emotions shifted. Softened. Began to evolve them into something just as powerful, but far more hungry. This woman did things to him he had yet to understand. Perhaps it was magic, certainly black magic if that were the case.

In her eyes, in her expression, he saw the same kind of honestly he sensed in Marisol. The same pureness. Surely, if it were an act, the animal in him would sense as much.

But it was too late to retreat, to rethink his actions. The beast still roared inside, needing an outlet for the anger of only seconds before. The beast he’d always controlled…until this woman. If she was so innocent, so honest, why did she bring it to the surface?

That outlet he sought came without his consent. It pulsed to life in the heat of desire. He watched her movements, the animal inside him purring with life, his body reacting to the vision she made. To the unintentional, yet, oh so, seductive sway of her hips in the snug black jeans.

Her eyes narrowed on his face, and it was clear she searched for his intentions just as he did hers. Slowly, she took several steps backwards, putting distance between them. “How is my sister?”

“Who sent you here?” Jag demanded, ignoring her question, while refusing to let his reactions to this woman drown out his agenda.

“Where’s my sister?” Karen demanded in turn, ignoring his question as he had hers. She crossed her arms in front of her chest. Over the top of those lush, full breasts that fit into his hands like they were made for him. He knew because he’d seen and touched them so many times before. Even knew that her nipples were a perfect rosy pink and that they were so sensitive, he could practically bring her to orgasm just by tasting them.

His eyes dropped, tracing each line of her body through the clingy material of her shirt, confirming she was the woman he knew. Fire burned in his veins, pushing him to claim her as he had so many times before this moment. In the dreams so ripe with reality.

He’d never met a woman who could do this do him. It went beyond reason, this need, this reaction. He couldn’t be near her, or talk to her, without wanting her. “You didn’t answer my question,” he countered, wanting to know how this woman found him. Wanting to know a lot of things, actually. Questions flew through his mind.

She spoke through clenched teeth. “Where is my sister?”

Her fearlessness should have surprised him, but it didn’t. In his dreams, she’d been brazenly direct. He expected nothing less of her in flesh and blood.

“You already know your sister’s with our healer,” he said in a low voice. “But what do you know of me before this night?” That was the real question. One he wasn’t going to find out on his current path.

“I want to see Eva,” Karen declared as if it would make him oblige her wishes.

Jag noted the command in her voice, but he also sensed her fear. “You’ll see her soon,” he replied. Silently he added, once I decide if I can trust you.

“Not soon,” she said, pointing at the ground and taking a step forward. “Now.” Her lips thinned. “I want to see her now. We came here for help, not to be locked up like criminals.”

His nostrils flared with the scent of woman, sultry and sexual and drawing a response from his body. Damn this woman. The one he knew far too well for a stranger. The one he’d lost himself in until he couldn’t see straight. The one who had driven him to complete ecstasy and then, by doing so, delivered him to his darker side. She’d shown him his beast and taken him to the edge of the cliff, one step from the pits of hell.

His cock thickened in demand, screaming for him to take her as he had in those dreams. To rip her clothes off and bury himself deep in the hot, wet recesses of her core. He could feel his heart pounding against his chest in anticipation thrumming through his veins like a flare headed for explosion.

A mere hair from snapping, Jag crossed his arms in front of his chest, mimicking her prior position. Trying to keep from claiming her. Knowing his physical surrender could be exactly what she wanted. Maybe she was a part of some master plan to destroy him. In his dreams, she’d certainly pushed him to the worst of places, using pleasure as her tool.

The thought brought a welcome jolt of reality. “And how do I know you aren’t a criminal?” he asked. “You were trespassing.”

Her eyes went wide. “I came for help and you locked me up. I call that kidnapping.”

The fear and desperation in Karen’s voice rang with sincerity. He wanted to believe she was a victim. He really did. But not once in his dreams had she come off as innocent. Not once. To trust her would be a grave mistake, and too many depended on him being cautious. His men. Their cause against evil, their fight for good. And evil, he’d long ago learned, could easily come off as pure as newly fallen snow.

The name Caron meant ‘pure’ in Italian. He wondered if this woman knew that.

New anger formed at the thought of being manipulated and before Jag could stop himself, he closed the distance between them. He didn’t give Karen time to protest, pulling her into his arms and staring down at her. Instantly, he knew it was a mistake. He’d only meant to rattle her. To grab hold of the situation and make her tell the truth. He just wanted the truth. But everything inside him called to her. He wanted to take her. To taste her. To claim her right here and now.

His own inability to resist her hardened his voice, frustration at his lack of control burning inside him. Even her stiffness in his arms upset him. He was a wreck, and she was to blame.

“How did you even know about this place?” he asked, determined to find answers.

“I…”

“How?” His voice was rough. Harsh. He stepped backwards with her, towards the wall.

Her hands were by her side, her chin tilted up to study his face. As if she gauged his next move from his expression. “I…heard there was a doctor here.”

“From who?”

Another step backwards, his thighs against hers. And damn it, the friction shot through him like rocket fuel. His cock thickened, pressing against his jeans. Reminding him of her power and adding to his frustration and her lack of response.

“From who?” he repeated, his tone more forceful.

“A nurse.” She sounded breathless. “At the hospital.”

Her full bottom lip trembled as if in invitation for his mouth. He wondered if she tasted as sweet as he thought she did. Like honey with a hint of cinnamon. That is how he remembered her. Unique but familiar. So damn familiar. He’d wanted to know at the airport but hadn’t dared taste her fully.

She stared up at him with fury in her eyes as he flattened her against the wall, his knees caging hers. Ah, but there was more. There was lust in the depths of those perfect blue eyes. Knowing she wanted him, knowing that could not be faked, only served to fire his desire. It took every ounce of willpower he had not to grind his hips against hers. Not to palm those lush breasts.

His gaze dropped, and he could see her nipples pebbled against her thin t-shirt. He didn’t have to see them to know they were rosy red and plump. Or to know how she would whimper if he pulled them between his lips and suckled.

Her hands went to his arms as if silently begging him to stop. To look at her again. His gaze lifted, contempt in his voice as he broke the sex laden silence. “You expect me to believe the hospital told you to come?”

She stared up at him, and her deep blue eyes pulled him in, drawing him under her spell. Further into his sensual haze. But as seconds passed, he was amazed at what he saw in Karen’s gaze. Beyond the lust, the exhaustion, the fear for her sister. Not of him.

In her eyes, he again, found that pureness, more subtle than in Marisol’s but there. Or was it? Perhaps he just wanted it to be. Perhaps it was a trick. He couldn’t let himself believe in her. He couldn’t. His dreams had warned him of what she would do to him. Of where she would take him.

“Answer me,” he ordered. “Why would the hospital tell you to come here?”

“The nurse told me. I shouldn’t have listened. I shouldn’t be here. I know that now. It was stupid. I just thought…” Her words trailed off as her gaze dropped to his chest.

She squeezed her eyes shut. “I thought you could help. I…needed help.”

The pure desperation lacing her words reached out to Jag and made him snap. One minute he was absorbing them, the next kissing her. He slid his tongue past her teeth, tasting her like a starving man would food. She was stiff, hands pressing against his chest.

But Jag took with a ruthlessness that allowed no room for resistance. Taking. Taking. Demanding. Her resistance lasted all of a few seconds. Slowly, she eased into the kiss, her arms sliding upward, over his chest and around his neck.

In his lust-laden mind, he justified his actions. She wasn’t an innocent victim. Not at all. This woman had manipulated his dreams for what felt a lifetime, controlling him with some unknown agenda. She’d used sex as a weapon. Sex to consume and devour his very will.

He’d come to her to talk, but to hell with it. She wanted to use sex against him. Well, no more. He’d use it against her. He’d make her need him. Make her beg to have him buried deep in her body. Make her beg. Yes. He liked that. And with each passing moment, she softened more, her body melting into his and she made a soft, whimpering sound. A sound that told of his success. Of his conquest.

Abruptly, a knock sounded on the door. A knock that jolted Jag back to his senses. He pushed away from her, putting distance between them even as the knock sounded again. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, desperate to get the sweetness of her out of his system.

She collapsed against the wall, her chest rising and falling with heaviness. Her expression one of shock. Her lips parted and swollen from his kisses. The taste of her still lingering with him, driving him wild with the need to pull her close again.

“Jag.” It was Des.

“Yeah,” Jag called.

“We got a problem, man.”

“Be right there.”

He stared at Karen, lowering his voice for only her ears. “Why do I know that problem has something to do with you?”

“You’re crazy,” she whispered. “I only wanted help. Just let us go.”

A smile touched his lips, but not one of pleasure or invitation. He didn’t like being played with. She might or might not have started this game, but she was a part of it. And he intended to end it. No matter how good she was at playing the sweet, innocent, good girl, he’d seen another side of her in his dreams. He’d lived the temptation she offered in them. Even felt her press him to seize his dark side.

“Let me go,” she whispered again.

“Not a chance in heaven or hell.”

And without another word, he turned and walked away, knowing she wouldn’t follow. Wouldn’t beg. And she didn’t. She watched him leave in silence, not moving. Proof that he knew this woman. Knew her well. Which meant he couldn’t dismiss what the dreams had told him no matter how much he felt drawn to her. No matter how innocent she looked and even felt in his arms.

She wanted the beast in him. The dreams were proof.

The thought twisted his gut. Deep inside, Jag needed Karen to be innocent. She felt so perfect in his arms and he sensed a connection with her. But then, maybe that was the plan. The dreams, her presence, might well be a part of confusing him.

Still, he went back to one thing. She felt so damn pure and innocent. He saw it in her eyes. Felt it in her touch. But he knew her actions. He’d known she wouldn’t follow him or beg. He could predict how she would respond. His dreams were the only way he could know her. And those dreams spoke of something dark and evil. Of his beast rising to the surface.

A beast he could never let have life. He didn’t dare trust Karen. There was till too much unknown. Not yet, at least.

Maybe not ever.