“William Eugene Callan,” Remi said, digging her heels in when he pulled her toward his snowmobile.

He came to a halt and rounded on her. “If you think for one second that I’m going to let you pretend that last night didn’t happen or that it didn’t mean what we both know it meant, you are sorely mistaken, Remington. I’ll be happy to educate you the second we get back to my house.”

She gave a gasp of indignation. “Educate me?”

He leaned down until his lips brushed her ear, his beard grazing her throat. “I will walk in the door, drag those pants to your knees, and bend you over the stairs to remind you.”

Her legs turned to wet noodles, and she almost crumpled to the sidewalk.

“Are you wet just picturing it? I’ll slap that sweet little ass of yours so hard, every man on this island will hear you scream my name and know you belong to me.”

Wet didn’t begin to describe what was happening between her legs. Her vagina was going to need a life preserver. Her nipples had turned to hard points, and she didn’t know what was happening on her face, but Brick clearly liked it. He tossed the bag on the seat of the snowmobile, then dragged her down the side of the building. Before she could lay into him and remind him that she made her own life decisions, he shoved her up against the wall and closed his mouth over hers.

Hard, demanding. He was doing more than seducing her. He was possessing.

She could out-argue and out-stubborn the man any day. But out-kiss him? That was impossible.

Her body reacted on its own, going pliant and loose against him. Welcoming that invasion, with its heat and friction. When he ground his hips against her, she felt the swollen length of his arousal.

On a low growl, he pushed a hand up under her sweater and palmed her breast.

“Do you feel how much I need you?” he rasped, pressing his erection into her belly.

She nodded, unable to stifle her moan of desire.

“I need you safe even more than I need you naked. That’s how important you are to me.”

Her head was spinning. After fourteen years of rejections, she couldn’t just accept that this was the way it was between them. If she opened herself up to a relationship with him, a real chance at one, he could just as easily change his mind like he had before. Where would that leave her when she’d only just begun putting her pieces together again?

She had a chance at surviving a monster. But Brick? It would be fatal.

“Tell me what you’re thinking right now,” he demanded. Those blue eyes were hard and flinty as they searched her face.

She shook her head.

He dipped at the knee, bringing his hard-on between her legs and pinning her with it. Then he found her mouth and made her surrender to him. When she was sure she’d never draw another breath again, he pulled back. “Tell me, Remi.”