she hated the fear and the pain and the fist-sized lump that tore at her chest every time she remembered. by god, if he was going to blackmail her into his bed and sneer at her attempts to protect her heart from him, then he could hear the truth.

"don't worry, dawg," she spoke in ragged bursts now, just trying to find the breath to sustain her through the rage. "you don't have to worry about the one that got away. because she never got away from anything but the foursome you seemed determined to force her into."

she stepped back, fear and panic raging through her body with the same force, as eight years of pent-up anger finally flowed free.

escape. she needed to get away from him. she needed to run, just as she had before, just as far away from him as she could get.

"touch that fucking door, and i'll have you arrested in an hour flat." his gaze smoldered with anger now.

oh, this wasn't the dawg she knew. the dawg she knew was unaffected, playful, cynical. he didn't become enraged, and he sure as hell wasn't tormented. which was exactly how he seemed now.

he paced into the kitchen, jerking another beer from the fridge before uncapping it and tilting it to his lips. in two long draws, he emptied it. a second later it shattered as it hit the wall.

crista flinched violently, staring at the dark paneling across the kitchen, bits of glass clinging to the dampness a small amount of the liquid had left. dawg rubbed his hands roughly over his face before pushing them through his hair and dislodging the leather thong that held the loose ponytail at the nape of his neck.

"did i rape you?" his voice was unemotional, but his eyes weren't. they seethed, darkening in spots, lightening in others as he stared at her from across the room.

"you didn't rape me," she gritted out, there were times when she wished she didn't have such an aversion to lying.

"what happened?" his lips were a thin, furious line, his expression rigid.

crista shook her head wearily. "dawg-"

"what. happened," he bit out again, his voice harsher, icier.

"you were drunk. i brought you home. we had sex. end of story."

"how?"

"what?" she watched him warily now, her stomach knotting in tension at the tone of his voice. it was hoarse, brutal.

"how did we have sex?" he repeated, his chest moving harshly, nostrils flaring as his expression seemed to grow colder.

"the usual way?" she retreated an additional foot.

his gaze sharpened at her movement as his lips twisted in contempt. "i didn't rape you then; i won

't do it now," he rasped. "now answer me. how?"

"i answered you." her fingers tugged nervously at the bottom of her shirt as the air filled with dangerous tension.

"you were a virgin." it didn't sound like a question.

crista nodded slowly.

"i took you." he swallowed tightly at that point. "i took you hard."

did he remember? he didn't appear to, yet he was right. he had taken her hard, and she had loved it.

crista nodded again. she began to shake.

"i fucked your ass!" his lips curled back in an enraged snarl as his hands curled into fists and the muscles beneath his t-shirt rippled and bunched tensely.

she didn't shake her head, she didn't answer him. she stared at the phenomenon that she was certain no one else had ever seen.

dawg enraged. she had only rarely heard of him appearing truly angry, let alone enraged. even drunk, he had been playful, mocking, a little silly, but never angry.

"answer me!" he shouted, causing her to jerk violently.

"why should i answer you?" she snapped back. "it's obvious you've remembered it. why pursue a piece of ass you've already had? and why the hell would you be stupid enough to blackmail me into giving you more? you didn't think much of it the first time, or you wouldn't have wanted to give it away."

she watched him cautiously, rather like watching a rabid bulldog straining at a chain.

dawg saw the wariness in her dark eyes. he dreamed of those eyes. dreamed of being mesmerized by the chocolatey color, drowning in them, burning in them.

and her face, a flush of arousal burning across her cheekbones, her lips swollen from his kiss, and her voice whispering across his mind. begging for more.

it hadn't been a dream. the words crashed in his skull. the dreams that tortured him for eight long years had been insidious memories that had managed to survive the drink-induced haze his mind had been in. he had had her, and the memory of it, so dim and shadowed, had haunted him ever since.

four

dawg shut back the rage and the fear that he had somehow hurt her and she wasn't admitting it. no doubt, this changed things. son of a bitch, he couldn't blame her for staying as far away from him as possible all these years. but that didn't mean he was willing to let her go.

he would have been inclined to doubt that he could forget a night with her, but there were too many dreams, too many indications that she was right.

he had taken her virginity. he had taken her without consideration of her innocence, her youth.

he had taken an eighteen-year-old virgin to his bed and done things that even mature women would blink at being asked to do.

he cleaned up the glass from the broken bottle carefully, aware of her watching him now with quiet concern. fuck that; he didn't need her concern. he wanted her. he wanted her hot and wild, all that hunger and passion he had glimpsed in her burning for him.

she would have loved him, he thought, to have followed him into his bed all those years ago. it made him cringe, wondering what he had done to her, how he must have hurt her to make her run before he even awakened.

and he deserved it even less now than he had eight years ago.

"this deal. it involves us only," he told her as he threw the glass in the garbage and kept his back to her. "no one else."

when she didn't speak, he turned and stared back at her.

what the hell had been wrong with him the night he had taken her? he had known that crista wasn't the sharing kind. she was a one-man woman, just like kelly.

"why can't you just let me go? you owe me that, dawg."

yeah, he owed her. if his dreams were anything close to what had actually happened, then he owed her a hell of a lot more than he could ever repay.

"you owe me as well," he told her coolly. "all i have are fragmented dreams that drive me fucking crazy. whatever we started eight years ago, we'll finish this summer. one way or the other."

nothing on earth could convince him to let her out of his sight now. possessiveness, desire, and emotions he hadn't felt in so many years he barely remembered them rose to the surface of his consciousness. emotions he felt in those dreams. something softer, more tender, and yet a thousand times hotter than lust alone. he wouldn't call it love; he had assured himself years ago that love didn't exist. besides, this went deeper than anything he had heard love described as.

"just like that." bitterness curled at her lips. "as though the fact that i don't want to finish anything doesn't matter."

"it wouldn't be blackmail if it did." he shrugged, fighting back the guilt he could feel building in his gut. "if you wanted to pay the price, then it wouldn't be such a dirty word, would it?"

she stared at him with big dark eyes filled with hurt and made him wish he were someone other than who he was.

"tell me something," he asked her then. "that night we had, did you at least enjoy it?"

her gaze flickered away as sharp heat filled her face.

"that's not the point."

"if my dreams are anything to go by, you were just as hot for it as i was. tell me i'm wrong, crista. tell me you hated it."

he moved toward her then, watching as her head snapped back and her eyes tracked his progress across the room.

she didn't retreat; she couldn't be frightened of him. she stared back at him defiantly, her hands clenched at her sides, her expression mutinous.

she wanted to say she hated it, but she couldn't. she hadn't been able to lie worth a damn when she was younger, and she couldn't do it now.

"it was hot, wasn't it, crista?" he stopped within inches of her, his hand cupping her arm, smoothing down it to her wrist before he lifted her hand to his shoulder and gripped her waist. "so hot we burned down the night. that's what i dream. that you're wet and wild, screwing me with the same crazy lust i'm screwing you with."

her face flamed brighter.

"and you slipped out on me that morning, didn't you? just ran away, like the scared little girl you were."

her eyes flashed with anger.

"i'm not a plaything for the nauti boys. not then and not now."

"and you were too scared to stick around and fight for the singular position, too, weren't you, crista. what happened, baby? did it get too hot?"

"fight for dawg?" she widened her eyes as though mocking him. she tried to mock him, but he saw the pleasure she was fighting to hide as he drew her closer, nudging his cock against her lower belly and feeling the muscles clench. "why fight over something every other woman in the county had already had?"

dawg smiled. "you were scared."

"i was disinterested." she couldn't lie. he heard the tremor in her voice, saw her grimace as she acknowledged it.

he shook his head at her as he allowed the fingers of his free hand to twine into those long, silky strands of hair. soft, fragrant hair. in his dreams it had twined around him, snaring him, binding him to her. and it had never let him go.

"are you more interested now?" the hand at her waist bunched the material of the shirt in it.

he was going to have her. he was going to touch her, taste her, feel her come apart in his arms.

"dawg please..." her voice trembled then.

dark eyes stared back at him almost pleadingly as the shirt cleared her thighs and rose higher.

"please what, crista ann?" he lowered his head until he could inhale the scent of her. sweet vanilla and wild roses. she always smelled of vanilla and wild roses to him.

that elusive little scent wasn't enough though. he had to taste her. his lips touched the silken flesh of her neck, his tongue tasting her flesh, and he swore he saw stars as the taste of her exploded against his tongue.

his arm came around her back, lifting her to him as primal hunger replaced the careful seduction he had intended.

he pulled her head back, covered her lips with his own, and found the fiery heat he had been searching for, for eight damn years.

and son of a bitch if it wasn't worth waiting for. she exploded in his arms. a shudder rushed through her, then her hands were twining in his hair, pulling at the thick strands, and pulling his lips harder against hers.

god, she made him feel. made him feel things he couldn't remember ever feeling, except in his dreams. dreams of her. dreams of heat and primal pleasure and sensations he couldn't have imagined really existed.

but they existed here with her in his arms, her body straining toward him, her whimper of pleasure and distress filling his ears as his tongue parted her lips and delved inside.

fiery sweetness. spicy ice. she was every contradiction in the world, and his blood raced at the defiance, the challenge, and the sheer response he felt radiating from her.

crista tried to tell herself she could fight the attraction, the pleasure. before he touched her, she tried to convince herself she could hold herself aloof from him.

until his eyes had dilated with pleasure and he had pulled her to him. until his lips touched her neck; then that hungry moan had left his lips a second before his kiss rocked her mind.

this was a very bad thing. starbursts of pleasure were exploding inside her bloodstream as she fought herself, fought her response to him, and failed.