Text messaging was a wonderful, wonderful invention. And Dog was so sneakily efficient that he even avoided messaging while Cabal was in the room with her. That was damned scary. It made her wonder if he had an eye in her room, or an ear, that Cabal might have overlooked.
She glanced over at her mate to catch him watching her silently. On second thought, she doubted he’d missed anything, especially not an electronic bug in either of their rooms.
“Look, Cassa, I know you don’t understand my need to protect you . . .”
“Don’t start.” She held her hand up in a halting motion. “I’m not fighting you any further.”
His lips thinned in irritation. For the past two days she had refused to discuss his stubborn insistence that she wasn’t a part of this investigation. She wasn’t arguing anymore.
“We’re going to have to discuss it.” The words came from between gritted teeth. Poor little Bengal, at the rate he was going he wasn’t going to have any molars left by the time he left Glen Ferris.
By the time she left him.
“You mean I’m going to have to agree with you and turn my independence over to you sooner or later,” she retorted sweetly. “Nope, sorry, my pretty striped tiger, it’s not gonna happen.”
A frown jumped between his brows at her mocking pet name for him. He hated any references to those sexy-as-hell stripes. Too bad, because she rather liked them herself.
“That wasn’t what I meant.” There went another layer of those molars.
“Don’t you have a meeting to go to?” She turned the television up louder as she settled more comfortably in her chair and directed her attention to the weather for Glen Ferris for the next week. Looked like it was going to be colder than normal. Big surprise there.
Behind her, Cabal blew out a hard breath. “I’ll be back in a few hours. Maybe we could go downstairs for dinner when I get back.”
She shrugged. She had no desire to eat with him, not when she was getting ready to share burgers with a Coyote who had information.
Damn Cabal. Did he think the thought of a meal with him was going to make up for what he was trying to take away from her?
“Cassa.” He was in front of her before she could move away, bending until he could stare into her eyes, his knees bracketing her legs as the backs of his fingers brushed against her cheek.
The curiously gentle caress had unbidden tears threatening to moisten her eyes. And that, after she had promised herself she wasn’t going to cry.
She stared back at him coolly. He might be able to smell the turmoil brewing inside her, but that didn’t mean she was going to allow him to see it. And it sure as hell didn’t mean she was going to beg.
“What?” Her voice was husky, a measure of the emotion slipping free to roughen the tone as the very nearness of him affected her senses.
“I’m not trying to steal your independence.”
Oh yeah, she believed that one. She could see the proof of his statement. Yeah, boy. Sitting right here as big as life and as ignorant as a rock was Cassa Hawkins. Slammed right out of an investigation that involved her more than it likely did any Breed that Jonas Wyatt had brought in to investigate it.
None of those Breeds had been married to the man the killer wanted. A man who was dead.
She stared back at him silently. Refusing once again to argue her own points or the dishonesty of his statement.
His hand cupped her cheek. She expected him to kiss her, to pull her to him, to infuse her senses with the taste of the mating hormone that she knew would fill the kiss. Instead, he leaned forward, his head lowered, and his lips pressed against the sensitive flesh at the bend of her neck and shoulder.
The kiss was poignantly tender and filled with all the warmth, the need, that she had wanted to feel when his body covered hers at night. It held everything he had refused to give her at any other time.
“I just want you safe,” he whispered, his forehead pressing against her shoulder then. “Just that, Cassa.”
She shook her head as she stared across the room miserably. “You can’t lock me up. And that’s what you’re doing, Cabal. You’re doing the one thing you would kill to keep anyone from ever doing to you again.”
He tensed, then slowly pulled back from her. The amber in his eyes glittered with anger. She’d pricked his arrogance, his male assurance that he knew what was best for her. She didn’t need him making such decisions for her, and she didn’t need his so-called protection.
“You don’t know nearly as much as you think you do,” he assured her, his voice harsh as he rose to his feet, towering over her. “This isn’t a case of wanting your goddamned independence, Cassa.”
“Then it’s a case of you wanting everything your own damned way, Cabal,” she burst out with, pushing to her feet and pacing across the room. “Look, just go to your damned meeting. I have work here to do, and I sure as hell don’t need your help.”
She stalked to her laptop, stared at the screen and tried to fight back the fear she couldn’t keep from building inside her. The fear that somehow the past was darker, harsher than she had ever believed.
The information she had found in the past two days on Douglas, information she hadn’t had before, hadn’t bothered to find, was beginning to give her panic attacks. Reports on the Deadly Dozen, from Breeds who had survived being captured by them, were violent, vicious. Among those reports were those of a single male and the horrifying acts he had practiced on the female Breeds that were captured.
Not just the acts, but also his pleasure, the joy he’d found in practicing them.
“You don’t need anything from anyone, do you?” he growled, coming behind her, his large body bracketing hers, shocking her with the sudden heat that poured through her.
Mating heat and anger didn’t mix. She could feel the blood pounding through her system just that fast. She could feel the heat of his flesh beneath his clothes, the warmth of his palm as it settled on her stomach.
“This won’t fix anything.” She tried to keep her voice strong, sure, but there was too much awareness, too much need for him.
She sucked in her breath as his fingers found the button and zipper for her jeans. They released, too damned slowly.
Cassa closed her eyes, drew in a hard, deep breath and fought the wave of dizzying need that assailed her.
It was always like this. Her nails dug into the top of the small desk as his hand slid into her jeans and found the wet heat between her thighs.
“You want me,” he accused her roughly. “How can it not fix at least this?”
Yes, she wanted him.
Her head fell back against his chest as his fingers parted the plump folds of her pussy, delved inside and filled her with the exciting rasp of his fingers caressing her.
Behind her, she could feel him releasing his jeans, felt the hard, jutting length of his cock pressing against her lower back, and she knew what was coming. She knew, and she couldn’t stop it.
“Bend over, baby.” His voice was rough, sensual, as one hand pressed against her back. “So sweet, Cassa. You make me drunk on the taste of you, the touch of you.”
If only she could make him fall in love. If only she could make him respect her. If only . . .
She bent for him instead, her upper body lowering as she braced her shoulders on the top of the table and felt her jeans and panties sliding over her hips.
God, this was so primal. Sexy. She had never been taken like this, hadn’t imagined she would want to be until she heard his broken breathing behind her and the heated little growls that escaped his throat.
“Fucking you is like flying.” The head of his cock pressed closer, slid through her juices and found the entrance it sought. “Like dying, Cassa. The sweetest escape in the world.”