"Oh, God - no!" she cried, and went down hard on her knees, too fast for him to cushion her fall.
She collapsed in a clumsy, face-first sprawl on the floor. Rio heard her breath whoosh out of her on the abrupt impact and knew her lungs had to be screaming. Not that it sapped her of her determination. Damn, she was tenacious.
She made a last-ditch, frantic scrabble on her belly, trying to drag herself over the carpeted floor to get away from him. But she stood no chance, certainly not against one of his kind.
Rio crawled up the length of her, trapping her under the weight of his body. She was panting as he flipped her over onto her back and sat himself astride her. She wriggled, still fighting him for all she was worth, but she wasn't going anywhere. Rio had her imprisoned beneath him, holding her arms tight against her sides with the strength of his muscled thighs.
She was completely at his mercy now, and from the look in her eyes as she stared up at him, she didn't expect he had much to give.
Rio could guess what he looked like - Jesus, what he smelled like too. This close, he couldn't hope that his scars were hidden behind his overlong hair. He saw her terrified gaze flick to the left side of his face, where the flames and flying shrapnel had left their mark a year ago. The tight, reddish-silver tangle of ruined skin must look especially hideous underneath all his grime. He must look like some kind of half-crazed monster...
Yeah, he did, because that's just what he was.
And he was also suddenly, acutely aware of the soft, warm woman trapped beneath him. Where he was dressed to offend, in torn clothes that were too far gone months ago to even make decent rags, she was wearing a curve-hugging, cap-sleeved tee-shirt with a pleasantly deep V-neck and light tan cargo pants that rode just below her hips. She smelled clean and fresh, infinitely female.
And she was beautiful.
Holy mother, was she ever.
He'd never seen eyes of her precise color, a rich, verdant green flecked with pale gold. A thick fringe of dark brown lashes framed those intelligent, mesmerizing eyes, which stared up at him now in such wary uncertainty. Her cheekbones were delicate and high, accentuating the graceful line of her jaw. She had the kind of beauty that made her seem both innocent and wise, but it was the shadows in her incredible eyes that intrigued Rio the most.
This woman had known disappointment and hurt in her life. Maybe even betrayal. She'd been wounded before, and now here he was adding a new brand of terror to her life experience.
Even worse, she aroused him.
Not only the knowledge that he had her caught between his thighs, but the sight of her pretty mouth, which was stained with a trace smear of his blood from when she'd bitten him. Everything male in Rio was alert with the feel of her beneath him. Everything Breed in him was tuned in to that scarlet smudge on her tempting lips...and to the thrumming tick of her pulse where it beat so quickly at the base of her creamy throat.
He wanted her.
After the months of exile in that godforsaken cave, after Eva's deception that had left him dead in so many ways, Rio looked at this woman and felt...alive.
He felt ravenous, and she likely picked up on that fact from the low growl he could do nothing to suppress. He felt his vision sharpen as his pupils began to narrow with his interest. His gums ached as his fangs began to elongate behind the tight line of his lips.
And his c**k was suddenly, achingly erect. There was no hiding that fact, even as he shifted his hold on his captive.
"Please...don't do this," she said, a tear sliding down her cheekbone and into her silky red hair. "Whatever you're thinking, just...let me go. If it's money you need, take it. My purse is right over there - "
"I don't want you or your money," Rio ground out tightly. He got off her, angered with himself for the twin physical reactions he was having a hard time holding at bay. "Come on, stand up. All I want is your camera."
She slowly pulled herself to her feet. "My what?"
"The camera you had with you in the cave, and the pictures you took. I need all of it."
"You want...the pictures? I don't understand - "
"You don't need to. Just give them to me." When she didn't move to comply, Rio trained a piercing look on her. "Get them. Now."
"O-okay," she stammered, and hurried over to a large backpack that stood in the corner of the room. She dug through it and pulled out the slim digital camera.
When she started to open it up to pop out the image disk, Rio said, "I'll do that. Give it to me."
She held the camera out to him with shaking fingers. "You followed me all the way to Prague for this? What's so important about those pictures? And just how did you find me anyway?"
Rio ignored her questions. In a few minutes, none of this would matter. He'd have the images and then he'd scrub the female's memory of the entire chain of events.
"Is this all of them?" he asked her as he turned the camera on and scrolled through the contents of the disk. "Have you downloaded them to any other devices?"
"That's it," she replied quickly. "That's everything, I swear."
He reviewed the handful of shots from the cave, the ones of himself in partial transformation, and the ones that showed the Ancient's hibernation chamber and the glyphs painted in human blood on the walls. "Have you shown these to anyone?"
She swallowed, then shook her head. "I still don't understand what this is about."
"And that's how we're going to keep it," Rio said.
He walked toward her, only three steps between them. She backed away, but came up against the window on the far wall of the room. "Oh, my God. You said you weren't going to hurt me..."