Living in a lair. Living with a leopard that was beyond wild. Her children were never going to live as she had. Never. She wouldn’t bring children into the world if the only way to save them was to force them to live alone in a terrifying place, never to know family or friends. Never to be able to go to a school. She’d missed so much in her life. No child of hers would ever live that way. Not. Ever. Not if it meant she had to take a life, even the life of the man she loved.

“You’re askin’ me, Alonzo, but you aren’ really goin’ to give me a choice, are you? Your leopard claimed mine.”

“And I claimed you. You say you don’t have a lair, but I’ll go to your cousin and make it official through him.”

She stuck her chin out. “I don’ answer to him, or to my father or uncle. Not to my brothers and yes, I have them and yet I don’. I came here to start a new life. I sank every single penny I have into my bakery and my home. It isn’t right that you can come in and just take it all away from me.”

The pad of his thumb rubbed back and forth along her jaw in a caress, one she felt all the way to her toes. She couldn’t spend time with him, not close like this, because if she did, she’d lose herself in him. The chemistry was too fiery. He knew it too. He was too experienced for a woman like her. She couldn’t escape him. It was stupid to try, a waste of her time. She could see the implacable look on his face. Frozen stone. A mountain of a man who moved with blurring speed and had a vicious, killing weapon inside of him.

Again he didn’t answer her. That was her answer. He was taking her choice. There was no turning back as far as he was concerned, so she had to play along for just the rest of the evening and then she could plan her escape. It would suck to leave her bakery and her home, but she wasn’t going to be forced into anything, especially a relationship with a dangerous, lethal being.

She took a breath. “All right, Alonzo, I’ll show you my home. I need to close up the bakery. And I want you out of my house early. I get up at three to start work.”

He nodded but didn’t move away from her. His eyes drifted possessively over her. Brooding. A little moody, yet she couldn’t see what was behind his gaze.

“Were you aware that Emilio Bassini was planning to marry you?”