The need to understand drove her to try to answer the questions roiling through her mind. But another need was beginning to burn through her as well.
The need for her mate.
◆ CHAPTER 16 ◆
There was nothing as confusing as a damned Breed, especially Cabal. He’d gone from refusing to hold her at all to refusing to release her.
He held her hand out of the sheriff’s home. When they were back in the Raider, his large hand cupped her knee as he drove. He acted as though he couldn’t stand to take his hands off her.
Was he trying to distract her? Throw her off balance? What the hell was up with him?
She gave him another suspicious look as they drove through town. The Raider itself drew an incredible amount of attention as it eased through the light traffic of Glen Ferris. Not that the town was large enough to actually slip through without being noticed. The Breed insignia on the door of the vehicle didn’t help matters much.
Breeds drew attention wherever they went though. The world still wasn’t used to, or certain of, this strange new species that man had created.
“The Breed Freedom Society that hid the Breeds in the area. Do you know the identities of all its members?” she asked as she tried to think past the feel of his fingertips rubbing against the inside of her knee.
“No one knows the identities of the Freedom Society,” he answered her, and he didn’t seem concerned by it.
She stared back at him in disbelief. “Right,” she answered mockingly. “No one knows their identities. You haven’t checked into it. And I’ll just bet Jonas doesn’t have a clue either.”
His lips quirked at her snappy words. “What Jonas knows pretty much stays with Jonas,” he stated. “Who knows what he knows?”
She almost snorted at that, but found herself staring at him in disbelief instead. He was joking with her? The stoic, sober, dangerous Cabal was cracking jokes? Since when?
“You’re making fun of me,” she accused him suspiciously.
The look he turned on her was one of confusion. “Making fun of you? Why would I do that?”
“Because you can,” she sighed, attempting to move her leg from his touch and failing. Not for the first time.
“I’ve never attempted to identify all the members of the Freedom Society for a reason,” he explained. “They’ve struggled to remain anonymous, even to the Bureau. I’ve tried to respect that.”
“And if they’re hiding a killer now?” She turned to him as she asked the question. “What if they’re aware of the rogue, aware of the murders?”
He stared through the windshield as she watched him with a hint of anger.
“Danna is a member of the Freedom Society, we know that.” She held up a single finger. “Walt. I’d bet he was part of it, and high ranking at that.”
“Why Walt?” His hand slipped higher on her leg, his fingers rubbing, caressing, interfering with her thought process.
She could barely manage to control her breathing. If his fingers went much higher, she was going to lose her breath entirely.
“Why Walt?” She looked down at his hand, watching as his darkly tanned fingers continued to smooth, to rub over the denim that covered her legs.
There were chills chasing up her legs, frissons of sensation beginning to sing through her nerve endings, to strike higher, to wrap around the sensitive bud of her clit.
She was growing wetter, more sensitive. She could feel the tender flesh of her pussy heating, preparing for him.
All she wanted to do was to slide across the console, straddle his lap . . .
And what the hell was stopping her? This was her mate, right? He was her man. He could touch. He could kiss. He could do whatever the hell he wanted to do.
Her jaw tightened at the thought. Well, maybe she should try doing what she wanted to do for a change. They were close enough to the hotel. Hell, for that matter there were any number of places that he could pull off the road, darken the windows and just have his way with her. If he were of a mind to do that.
She wondered if she could put him in the mind to do it.
“What the hell are you up to?” She slid around in her seat, watching him closely now, wondering if she had the courage, if she dared to be so bold.
“Me?” He stared back at her in surprise. “What do you think I’m up to?”
His fingers were moving higher, only inches from the wet, desperate flesh that vibrated with need for him.
“You’re trying to distract me.” She could be naughty. She could be bad. She would be, because she was sick and damned tired of this particular Breed thinking he could, and that he would, control her.
She let her fingers touch the back of his hand, the pads barely caressing his flesh as he paused on her thigh.
“You think you can control me, don’t you, Cabal?” she asked him softly, the accusation weighing heavily between them. “You don’t want me asking questions. You don’t want me investigating this story. So what are you doing?”
He glanced over at her in disbelief. “What am I doing?”
“You’re using the mating heat and the sex to distract me,” she answered him. She should have been furious. She assured herself that she would be later. For now, she was going to be what she wanted to be. For once, she was going to do what she wanted to do. For once, she was going to distract rather than be distracted.
She decided that was a mate’s job. At least when a woman had a mate such as Cabal.
“I wouldn’t do that.” He cleared his throat as she moved her hand from his and laid it on his thigh. Her fingertips danced over the denim that covered the hard muscle there, moving close, then drawing away from the bulge of his hardened cock.
She watched as he took a deep breath, his chest expanding as she released her seat belt and moved in her seat.
“Hell,” he breathed out roughly as she slid one leg over his thighs and moved until she was straddling him, her body braced between him and the steering wheel.
“I’m sure this is illegal.” His voice was suddenly guttural, harsh.
“Have you ever cared about the legalities of what you do?” she asked, her head lowering to his shoulder, her lips touching his neck.
“Only if I could get caught.” His hand gripped her hip, his body tightening as she raked her teeth along his neck. “We could get caught.”
“What are we doing?”
“Driving and riding in an illegal manner?” he questioned her. “I’m sure there’s a law somewhere.”
“I’m sure,” she murmured, suddenly distracted by the taste of his flesh as her lips caressed his neck, her tongue stroking over it.
She felt a surge of power racing through her as Cabal’s hips lifted, shifted, his cock pressing into the vee of her thighs as she moved over him. He wasn’t pushing her from him. He wasn’t denying her or ridiculing her.
“Damn, Cassa.” He was groaning instead, as she pulled his shirt from his jeans, her hand smoothing over his hard abdomen, feeling the muscles flex beneath her palm.
He was warm. So warm and hard. He made her feel soft, female, in ways she had never realized before.
“If I wreck, we’re going to be in trouble,” he warned her, but he wasn’t ordering her away. He wasn’t calling her names; he wasn’t cursing her for her temerity.
He was aroused. And he was holding her to him.
How many times had she fantasized about this? About being brave and bold with him. She had dreamed about being the woman she had never been able to be before. The woman she hadn’t known how to be.