Her back bowed as she felt the thick flesh pressing inside. Tingles of electric, ecstatic energy sizzled through her, inside her. They surrounded her clit, struck at her nipples. She trembled beneath the force of the energy and fought to keep from crying out as he stretched her slowly, easily.
His hands gripped her hips, holding her in place. She wanted to see his face, but she was feeling something she hadn’t felt the other times when she had lain beneath him. She felt more now. As though he were letting go of something he’d held inside.
His hips moved with a smooth, pumping rhythm. Each stroke of his erection inside her pushed the pleasure higher, pushed her closer to the center of sensation and bliss.
Cassa could feel herself tightening, close to coming apart with the pleasure. She was riding a sensation so desperate, so filled with ecstasy that she wondered if she could survive it.
She wanted to scream but couldn’t find the breath. She wanted to cry out his name, to beg, to plead for more, and couldn’t find the strength. She could do nothing but hold on to the wood of the tabletop, lift to her tiptoes and silently plead for more.
As though he could read her mind, he gave it to her. Harder, faster strokes. The thrusts of his cock inside her stroked hidden nerve endings, revealed others. It stretched and burned, and as the pace increased to a driving, desperate rhythm, her orgasm began to tear through her.
It exploded in her clit, ricocheted to her womb, then detonated in the center of her pussy and left her trying to scream, to cry out with such a surfeit of sensation that shudders began to race through her.
She was lost in him. So lost that little else mattered, nothing else made sense for long, agonizing moments. Until she felt his release pour into her, felt the barb extend from beneath the head of his cock, locking him into her and creating another climax that completely stole her breath.
He was there with her. Through the violent tremors, he held her to his chest, arched over her, sheltered her from a storm that wrapped around her as well as inside her.
His fingers tugged her hair, turned her head to the side, and as she fought to hold on to the last shred of reality, his lips covered hers. His tongue licked over her lips, stroked them, then slid inside and spread the fiery heat of the mating hormone into their kiss.
It infused the last pulsing tremors of her orgasm, intensified it, tightened her muscles and left her shaking rather than trembling, left her arching to him, desperate for more.
His lips slid from hers despite her whimpering cry. He kissed and licked his way down her neck, then before she could prepare herself, his teeth bit down on the mating mark at her shoulder and his tongue rasped over it.
Shivers began to course through her, quaking through her body as a muted scream tore from her throat. Finally, there was the emotion. Now, when she couldn’t see it on his face, couldn’t define it. When it couldn’t soothe the pain racing through her heart.
She wanted to cry at the unfairness of it. Because she knew once it was over nothing would change. She would still be relegated to being the protected rather than the protector she had been for so many years. She would be behind him rather than beside him. And beside him was where she longed to be.
“I’d die without you,” he whispered at her ear, his voice rough, dark, rasping with an emotion she wished she could define, could see on his face. “Do you understand that, Cassa? If anything happens to you, then I’m nothing.”
Because she was his mate. Because once mated, there was never another for them.
Of course he would fear losing her. He would want her behind walls, locked away from danger, safely in his bed.
She had to fight back tears long moments later as the barb receded and he eased from her. She could still feel the pulse and throb of his cock inside her in the echoes of her release. The heat of him was a memory that even her flesh couldn’t let go of.
“I’d do anything to protect you, Cassa,” he swore as he helped her straighten her clothes.
She kept her back to him. She couldn’t look at him, not yet. She couldn’t let him see her tears, or her regrets. Loving him wasn’t going to be enough and she knew it, because she knew she could never be what he needed.
“I don’t need your protection.” She fought to keep the pain out of her tone even as she kept her back to him. “I never asked you for that.”
“It’s here anyway,” he promised her. “I can’t do anything else.”
There was an edge in his voice, not really of anger, irritation perhaps.
Cassa shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, Cabal, we’re never going to agree on this. And until we agree, nothing is going to change.”
She couldn’t allow him to win this battle—if he won this one, then she would never know a moment’s independence again.
She moved slowly from the table back to her chair, before taking her seat with a sense of weariness. Suddenly, she felt tired, uncertain. She had no idea where to go from here or how to convince him that he would end up destroying her.
She turned her head, watching as he straightened his clothing, his gaze glittering with amber frustration.
“I’ll be back later. We’ll discuss this then,” he stated as he stalked across the room to the door.
“Of course we will.” Her smile was tight, sad. “I’ll just sit right here and wait on you like the good little mate you think I should be.”
“Is that what I ask from you?” Anger was invading his tone now.
“Have you asked anything else from me?” she asked quietly.
The door slammed behind him in response, a clear indication that his temper was riding the same thin line as the arousal that bound them.
The sarcasm in her voice should have warned him. If it hadn’t, then he would learn in time, she assured herself.
Pushing back the fear was the hard part. The fear that defying him would earn her more than his arrogance or harsh words. That it would earn a slap, or something worse.
She wasn’t a coward, but she had been taught her limits of physical endurance years before, during one of the most hellish periods of her life.
God, what had made her think that Douglas wouldn’t betray his own career then? He had betrayed her, over and over again. His career wouldn’t have mattered any more to him than she had. Selling the Breeds and their rescuers out to the Council wouldn’t have caused him to lose a moment’s sleep. What had ever made her believe otherwise?
And what had made her think she would ever be free of him? There wasn’t a chance of being free, not ever again.
She watched the news for a while longer, keeping careful track of the time as she did so. She was to leave her room at precisely three minutes after four. No sooner, no later.
She rose from her chair at two minutes after, pulled on her jacket and moved to the door. As the time changed to three minutes after, she opened her door and stepped out as she slung her pack over her shoulder.
Striding to the elevator, she checked the time. Dog had given her exactly two minutes to make it to the back entrance of the inn.
As she stepped into the elevator, she had to fight the feeling that she was going too far. Contacting Dog wasn’t a good idea—if Cabal ever learned of it . . . Meeting with him was an even worse idea.
How else was she supposed to get the answers she needed? How else was she supposed to find out why a killer thought he could kill Douglas again? Unless he meant to kill him through her.
She shook her head at the thought. The killer wasn’t insane. There wasn’t even a hint of insanity in what had transpired so far. Vengeance, yes. Anger, perhaps. But there was nothing crazy.
Did the killer think Douglas was still alive?