“Stop fighting me, Cassa,” he growled as she tried to jerk her arm out of his grip once more. “It’s time we talk.”
“Time we talk or time that I listen to you order me out of town again?” Her voice was sugary sweet. “Sorry, Cabal, but I’m rather busy today. Perhaps tomorrow.”
Turning the corner, he yanked her into the diner’s parking lot and strode along the parked cars. His fingers were still locked around her arm, pulling her behind him. Fighting his hold only made her angrier, simply because he acted as though he didn’t even notice the attempts.
“Here we go.” He stopped at the black SUV parked at the back of the lot and pressed the remote. The doors unlocked, and he gripped the handle and opened the driver’s side door. “Will you get in and stay put?”
“Not on your life.” She smiled back cheerily. “Want to tie me in the seat?” She looked around, and wasn’t it just her luck, there wasn’t a damned soul anywhere near. “Looks to me like the coast is clear if that’s your intention.”
“I’m going to get tired of these accusations, Cassa,” he said softly. “There is no way I’d hurt you, and you know it.”
His gaze flickered over her, heated and intense. There was sex in his eyes. Lust tightened his features and gave him a savage, honed appearance.
“I need you, Cassa. Now,” he growled.
Cassa lost the sarcasm. She felt her expression go blank with the hunger that rumbled in his voice and reflected in his gaze now.
“And that’s all that matters? Where were you last night? This morning?”
Where had he been when she awoke needing his touch? Needing him to hold her. She could feel the hunger for him deepening now though, the need, a steady ache blooming in her womb. She had always known it would take little more than one of those sizzling looks to have her melting at his feet. And she was right. That was all it was taking.
“Like you, I had things to do.” He reached up and touched her jaw with the backs of his fingers. “You’re taking the hormones, and evidently they’re working. You would have called my cell otherwise.”
“Begged for your attention, you mean?” She huffed bitterly. “Yeah, let me get right to my knees and start on that.”
“You wouldn’t have to beg, Cassa.” His tone became seductive, deep with sensual promise.
She wanted to shake her head, but could only stare up at him in surprise now.
“You’re playing a game.” She knew he was. “You think you can seduce me out of this story.”
His head jerked back as anger lit his gaze. “Seduction?” He growled. “I barely think so, mate. I doubt I could seduce you into agreeing the sky was blue if you wanted to believe it was green. I have no pretenses that you could ever be persuaded so easily to give up a story.”
“But you’ll try,” she accused him, anger and knowledge churning inside her as the need wrapped around her senses, tormenting her.
Touch. He was touching her, and touch was something she had denied herself for far too many years. She needed him. Ached for him.
His head lowered again, his gaze locked with hers as his lips whispered a kiss along her lips. “So resist me, Cassa. That’s all you have to do is walk away. If you can. Walk away, or accept the fact that the fight is over. You’re my mate. And that’s something that may well destroy both of us.”
◆ CHAPTER 12 ◆
He couldn’t touch her skin-to-skin, but now that he had, he didn’t want to stop. He couldn’t kiss her lips-to-lips, but once that line had been crossed, he hungered for her kiss. He’d told himself for so long that he couldn’t have her. It was his place to protect her, his place to hold back the mating heat and ensure her safety, her security.
The past years had been hell, forcing himself to stand back, to stay away. Refusing himself the slightest touch of her soft flesh.
“You could try telling me what the hell is going on.”
Cabal wanted to howl in fury as she pulled back, crossed her arms over her breasts and glared back at him. She was good at that. The woman could glare with those stormy gray eyes like no man’s business.
“I could try.” He eased back, his gaze going over the parking lot as he tried to sort out the emotions that assailed him each time he was near her.
“But you won’t?” Her gaze narrowed on him and he wanted to smile. Damn her, she made him forget all the reasons why he shouldn’t have allowed the mating heat to begin here.
“I didn’t say that.” He gripped her arm again, pulled her back from the SUV and opened the door.
“Manhandling me only pisses me off.” She managed to jerk her arm out of his grip as he stared back at her in surprise.
“Manhandling you?” he questioned her abruptly. Was that why she fought his hold each time he tried to keep her in place? She thought he was manhandling her? “Cassa, you’re like a damned windup toy. You never stand still for too long. How the hell am I supposed to keep you covered if I can’t keep you within a safe area?”
She knew the Breeds were still targets, and their women even more so. He could feel the gun sights on him, even now. He was always watched, always threatened—and yet she seemed oblivious to it.
“I don’t need you to keep me safe,” she snapped back. “I’m not the one that’s a target, Cabal. Worry about your own safety and I’ll worry about mine.”
His teeth clenched almost violently as a wave of lust shot through his senses. Damned independent woman. It was like dealing with a Breed. He wondered if she had any concept of how well she resembled one. It was obvious she had been around the alpha mates too long; their independent, argumentative ways were rubbing off on her.
“How about I do what I do best, and watch both our backs?” he growled as he waved her into the passenger seat. “Now, would you like to talk, or do you want to stand here arguing for the rest of the day?”
He saw the brief battle in her eyes and swore she was debating whether or not to stand there arguing with him.
“Talk?” she finally asked.
“What the hell do you want me to do, promise I’m not going to touch you? We’re in the middle of mating heat. I want to fuck you so bad that my dick’s throbbing like an open wound.” He could feel every muscle in his body tightening in protest. “Get in the vehicle, Cassa, before I go about my own business and leave you standing here.”
In the cold and the wind? That wasn’t likely; his protective instincts toward her were becoming much too honed, too sharp to ever allow him to do that. She was aroused, nearly to the point that she was in pain herself. He wouldn’t allow that to last much longer.
“A promise would have been nice,” she muttered, but she moved past him, ignored his outstretched hand and hopped into the seat.
Cabal closed the door before allowing a rumble of displeasure to vibrate in his throat. He would have a mate with a mouth that would sear a man’s flesh at fifty paces.
His brother sometimes said that at least he was never bored since mating his wife, Scheme. Tanner often remarked that life was interesting now. Cabal definitely wasn’t bored with Cassa, could never imagine himself being bored, but damn if he wasn’t ready to pull his own hair out.
Jumping into the driver’s seat, he slammed his door, started the ignition, then backed out of his parking slot. Remaining quiet, he turned onto Main Street before heading out of town to the small cabin he’d rented in the state park.
Cassa remained silent as well, which only had the tension tightening through his body. He could smell her emotions, her arousal and the hint of fear she always carried whenever he was around.
It tore at something inside him to know that she feared him, even a little bit. And it was fear of him. He knew the scent of it, he smelled it often enough from others. Where it rarely bothered him at any other time, it bothered him now. To know that something so elemental as her trust in him was denied him sent a shard of disappointment raging through him.