Raven's Prey

woman to resort to this kind of thing. Why the hell do you insist on acting like a child?”
    She heard the genuine lack of comprehension in his voice and wanted to laugh hysterically. It was impossible to move now. Her whole body was completely trapped by his superior strength. All she could do was lie there looking up at him in the darkness with all the impotent fury of a beaten but unbowed woman in her eyes.
    “Are you going to behave?” he demanded, eyes narrowed as he studied her defiant face.
    “Sure,” she spat.
    He sighed. “Honor, if you’re not going to be reasonable—”
    “Most people become unreasonable when their lives are at stake!”
    “Don’t give me that paranoia routine!” he ordered. “I told you earlier this evening, I don’t buy it!”
    ‘Too bad! I’m going to fight you every step of the way, Judd Raven. As I said earlier, I haven’t got anything left to lose!”
    “Do you want to spend the whole trip tied to the seat of my plane?” he snarled warningly.
    “Is that the only way you know to handle a twenty-nine-year-old spoiled brat?” she taunted furiously.
    Something new flickered in the depths of his dark eyes and then it was gone. “No,” he told her in a deadly voice, “there are other ways of dealing with a woman.”
    “Are you threatening to rape me or beat me?” Her only weapon now was her tongue and Honor used it recklessly. She felt driven to taunt and goad him until she could get some kind of human response out of him. If she could find a crack in the seemingly impenetrable wall that surrounded him, perhaps she would have a chance of reaching him.
    Or perhaps she would find there was simply nothing beneath that barrier except more of the same unnaturally cold, hard maleness that seemed to assault her senses.
    “Which would you prefer?” he retorted brutally. “Would you rather be raped or beaten into submission? Is this part of the syndrome, Honor? Has your infantile brain somehow concluded that violence is a form of attention, too?”
    “There’s no real choice, is there?” she hissed scornfully. “You’ll have to beat me into submission because you’re incapable of raping me!”
    “Damn it to hell, woman!”
    “It’s true, isn’t it? Even rape takes some kind of emotion. Hatred, sadism, a sick kind of passion, [_something! _]You don’t have any emotions that run that deep, do you? Not even old-fashioned, garden-variety lust!”
    Suddenly the dark eyes of the hunting bird gleamed dangerously in the moonlight. Honor felt Judd go very still above her, his body tight with a new kind of tension. She held her breath, knowing she had pushed him much too far and knowing, too, that she’d had no choice.
    “Do you know what you’re doing?” he whispered harshly.
    Honor felt as if she were caught up in the talons of a bird of prey but her eyes never left his. “So it’s going to be the beating, is it? I thought so. When was the last time you went to bed with a woman, Judd Raven? I’ll bet it’s been years! Tell me, do you make love to that damned plane—”
    The words were cut off in her throat as his head swooped down toward hers. She had only time enough to read the glittering fury in his eyes, time enough to realize that at least she had sparked some kind of emotion in him and then his mouth was on hers in savage conquest.
    The impact of the brutal kiss washed through her body like a crashing wave. It was far more than Honor had bargained for, even in her desperation to goad Judd into some kind of response. She lay passively beneath the assault, unable even to drag her mouth free of his.
    She had never known anything like it before in her whole life. There was no finesse, no pretense at romance, no hint of tenderness. The kiss could not even be described as passionate. It was overwhelming and devastating, a primitive attempt by a man to dominate a woman in the most fundamental sense. Judd’s mouth moved on hers with feral intent, forcing apart her lips. When she instinctively tried to close her teeth against the invasion of his tongue, he used his thumb and forefinger on her jaw to pry open her mouth. Then he was inside, swamping her senses, exploring and conquering every corner.
    The faint moan of protest and newfound fear which emanated from deep in her throat went unheeded. Judd’s free hand slid roughly down her throat to find her breast and closed over the gentle curve of it. She trembled violently beneath the onslaught, terrified at