Wild Revenge: The Dangerous Jacob Wilde / The Ruthless Caleb Wilde / The Merciless Travis Wilde

Jake dropped to his belly, fast. A gun? Impossible. Where would she get a …

From the Chambers house, of course. The old man had kept a dozen guns, rifles, shotguns, automatics. He’d been the worst kind of hunter, shooting anything that moved.

Hell.

This wasn’t good.

Jake cleared his throat.

“Addison. I’m not here to hurt you.”

“I’m going to start counting, Captain. By the time I get to five, you’d better be on your feet with your hands in the air.”

“Did you hear me? You don’t want to have an accident with that thing—”

“Shooting you won’t be an accident.”

“Goddammit, woman—”

The light swept past him.

“One,” she said. “Two.”

It came to a stop, inches from his head.

“Wait. Listen to me. All I want is—”

“I know exactly what you want.”

He blinked.

There was no mistaking what she meant. The only response he could think of was “uh-oh,” but he had the feeling that wasn’t going to do it.

“You’re wrong,” he said quickly. “I don’t—”

“Three,” she said, no hesitancy in her voice at all.

Jake took a breath, shot to his feet, focused his sight to the left of the light in hopes it wouldn’t blind him and ran to where he figured she was standing.

He hit her, hard, just as he’d planned, his shoulder driving into her with enough force to take them both to the ground.

The flashlight flew from her hand.

Then she was under him, legs spread, arms raised, fingers clawing for his face. He grunted, grabbed for her wrists and struggled to immobilize her.

Her knee came up. She didn’t have a lot of leverage but she jammed it into his groin anyway, hard enough to make him gasp.

He flung himself against her, pinned her with his body, his hands clasping hers, holding them out to the sides.

“Listen to me,” he said roughly. “I’m not here to hurt—”

She struck like a snake, head coming up, teeth sharp as tiny knives sinking into his throat.

He jerked back.

“For God’s sake, woman, will you listen?”

“I’ll kill you,” she gasped. “So help me, I’ll—”

“I came to apologize.”

“You do this to me, I swear—”

“I came here to apologize, dammit!”

She grunted. Wriggled. It was like wrestling with a wildcat….

Except, this was a woman.

Warm.

Lithe.

Silken.

They were two people in deadly combat—and yet, despite that, despite everything, Jake felt his duplicitous body coming alive.

Her hair smelled of flowers. Lily of the valley. Lilacs. He didn’t know enough about flowers to be able to identify the scent, he only knew that its fragrance was delicate and surprisingly old-fashioned.

Her breath was warm. Wine-scented. Her mouth would taste rich and sweet.

Her breasts were soft. God, she was soft. Sweet and soft. He thought what it would be like to sink into her, sink deep, have her wrap her legs around him.

In a heartbeat, he was aroused and erect and hard as a rock against her.

“Crap,” he growled, and he rolled away, shot to his feet, turned his back, stood with his head bent, his hands on his hips, his breathing rough and rapid.

The names she’d called him didn’t half cover the territory.

If Addison McDowell really did have a gun, she might as well shoot him because he was worthless. A man who’d get turned while a woman fought him in terror…

He took a long breath, expelled it and swung toward her.

She’d risen to her feet. She was holding the flashlight, the beam wavering unsteadily over him, over the ground, over everything. There was no gun.

He wanted to say something, but what? Finally, he cleared his throat.

“Are you—are you okay?”