“I don’t shoot men in cold blood.”

She lifted her head and looked at him, finding a focus for her anger and frustration. “But you do shoot them, don’t you.”

“They can leave. I’ll give them the choice.”

A choice. He would give them a choice. Meanwhile, he gave her no choice whatsoever. She shook her head at the irony. She remained his unwilling captive, subject to his whim and command. And just moments ago he’d proven he wouldn’t hesitate to manhandle and threaten to keep her under his control.

Well, by God, she wasn’t going to stand for it anymore.

Dropping her arms to her sides, she marched toward him. Rage, fiery as the sun overhead, burned to cinders her last shred of caution.

She recognized the calculated, measuring gleam in Rane’s eyes. He doubtless expected her to let fly at him with a tongue-lashing.

She had something much more satisfying in mind.

When she was two feet away from him, she halted, clenched her teeth, and swung at his smug face.

Swift as a striking snake, he caught her wrist only inches from his cheek.

His lightning reflex stunned her. She hesitated a heartbeat before she lashed out with her other hand, only to have it captured like the first in his unyielding grip.

She struggled and jerked against his hold, too furious to give in. He held her easily and that angered her even more. Her wrists burned in his relentless grasp by the time she finally settled, breathing hard, seething with pent-up violence that begged for release.

Mere inches separated them. She tilted her head, and his ragged breath cascaded over the edge of her jaw. A spark of…exactly what, she couldn’t guess, gleamed in his dark eyes. One side of his lips quirked into the little smirk she’d come to recognize. She knew he intended it to be ugly, but it still jolted her heart off-kilter.

“You bastard!”

“So, the wildcat shows her true face at last,” he drawled.

She’d show him wildcat. She opened her mouth to scream.

He jerked her forward, crushing her breasts against his chest. Shock raced through her and sucked away her breath. She tried to pull back, only to have him swoop in and plant his mouth on hers.

Her intent—thoughts of screaming, escape, hurting him—all shattered into sparkling fragments and scattered on the wind. The entire universe suddenly narrowed to one focus: his lips grinding against hers.

At first, he just held her like that, in a bruising crush meant to smother her cries. Then it changed. His mouth opened over hers, hungry and commanding. She felt the knotted tension in his body, the rapid-fire bursts of his breath against her cheek.

She had wished for this.

Only a few times in her life had she been kissed, and never with such unrestrained, savage urgency.

Her fevered blood responded. She opened her mouth to him, and he swirled inside with a low moan trapped in his throat. Unable to resist, her tongue joined with his in a slow, sinuous dance. Tension gripped her body and sent her straining toward him, seeking his male hardness as though pulled by a magnet.

Her clinging hands smoothed over the corrugated planes of his ribs. She didn’t know when or how it happened, but he had released her wrists at some point. His arms were now wrapped around her, one hand spread against the small of her back, holding her so close only the fabric of their clothing separated them.

But, not close enough. The wondrous thrust and glide of his tongue, the slow stroke of his hands, the hard pressure of his thigh crowded between her legs demanded even more. A sweet, achy sensation tightened her breasts and pooled low in her belly.

The newly turned out Miss Evangeline Clayton, lately of New York, where she’d spent two grueling years learning to deport herself like a lady and the proper way to deter a gentleman’s unwanted advances was helpless to defend herself against the disreputable gunfighter’s scandalous assault on her senses.

Worst of all, she wished he’d never stop.