She glanced down their bodies, her breath catching as her gaze locked at where they were all but joined.
Her scent wrapped around him. A hint of fascination, wariness, but there was also something more—something he didn’t like at all.
The scent of pure, exquisite, lust-filled arousal and feminine liquid heat spilling from her body.
Sweet, with a hint of spice. Clean, with a tempting freshness that made him wonder if she had ever been touched by another man in any way.
Of course, there was no such thing as a virgin Breed female of this age. Unfortunately, most of their females had lost that innocence before they were even old enough to understand what it was.
At that thought, he realized she hadn’t responded to his statement that he had no intention of killing her. Instead, her gaze was focused on his lips, much as his was on hers. The emerald color darkened, her pupils dilating as his head lowered, his lips moving slowly closer to hers.
He was going to kiss her.
Katie could feel it coming.
Adrenaline was racing through her body, the urge to rub her hips against his, to feel the roughness of denim scratching against the lace of her panties was overwhelming.
And she wanted his kiss. She wanted it so desperately that the wild, stormy taste she imagined it held began to tease her senses relentlessly.
“Boss, we’re heading to the primary pick up point and the heli-jet’s landing,” the Breed racing the SUV toward that “primary” point, wherever that may be, informed Devil imperatively. “We still have two vehicles on our asses and plenty of cameras hanging out the windows.”
Devil grimaced as smoldering anger flashed in his gaze.
“Get us as close to the entrance as possible,” he growled, lifting his head to glare at the Breed who dared to interrupt them.
Then he was moving. Ignoring her sharp intake of air as he lifted himself from her body before quickly pulling her into a sitting position on the floor of the vehicle.
“Get ready to move.” Restrained, clipped and cold, his voice did nothing to dilute the arousal raging through her.
Get ready to move?
She stared ahead of them at the huge black raptor-looking heli-jet settling on the ground ahead of them as the Dragoon raced toward it. Turning to glance behind them, she winced at the sight of the quickly moving SUVs following them.
If they made it before the rapidly focusing cameras mounted on the roof of the SUVs that were controlled by the photographers inside, then they’d be damned lucky.
“Put it on.” Black material was suddenly shoved over her head.
“What are you doing?” For a second, the world was black until Devil quickly righted the fabric and pulled the narrow eye slits into position.
Her hair was shoved down the back of her dress, black material draping over her shoulders as she stared up at the black mask he now wore as well.
“Three vehicles left at the same time and were picked up in a heli-jet in three different locations, while all occupants were masked before disappearing into the jets.” His lips curved beneath the silky material. “You’re about to lose your tails, cupcake. Get ready to run.”
Brace!” Flint called back as he lifted one hand from the wheel long enough to jerk his mask from the top of his head into place.
Devil wrapped one arm around his charge, his free hand clenched on the brace bar above him as the Breed suddenly threw the vehicle into a slight turn, skidding sideways until the passenger side of the vehicle was almost kissing the heli-jet awaiting them.
The doors were thrown open by the Breeds rushing from the craft, and as he lifted Mary Katherine O’Sullivan and pushed her quickly into their waiting grasp, he wondered just exactly what he was supposed to do now.
She was the sweetest heat he’d ever scented. The purest hunger he’d ever been touched by. Equally sweet and tempting, she called to him on a level he had never known existed. A level so fucking primal he wanted nothing more than to mark her.
To mark her delicate body with his touch, to claim the sweet heat of her pussy. To push himself inside her, hard, deep, full length until she was crying for mercy. Until she was screaming in orgasm.
And, he realized, there was actually very little that existed beyond that.
Which made her excessively dangerous as well.
Reever Ranch
Cassandra Sinclair glanced up from the stack of papers she was slowly committing to memory and stared around the room. What had disturbed her? Rarely could anything pull her from her research into Breed Law, especially when confronted with the questions that the mating laws never failed to cause. If she didn’t prepare just the right argument, using just the right phrasing, then some smart-ass lawyer, likely female, would end up ripping her apart at some point. The Breeds depended on her to rationalize and explain the Breed law, even as she justified actions that arose from mating heat, without actually letting anyone suspect that it was mating heat. Ah yes, the trials and tribulations of completing the language begun within the Rights of Breed Freedoms that had originally been signed into law. And now, something was making it even more difficult than normal to form those arguments. Rising from her chair, she moved to the balcony doors, opened them, then stepped outside.
That’s what it was.
Pausing, she looked around slowly, silently marveling over the beauty of the desert landscape before her. Then her gaze stopped on the butte rising from the land in the distance.
Spears of stone that looked as though they had been shoved through the desert floor came together and reached into the sky. It was there that the problem hid.
He was there, hiding. Waiting.
She could feel him.
He was there watching her, waiting for her, certain his time would come.
Shadowed, broad and high, the stone wasn’t quite a mountain, but still, it was more than a hill, as she’d heard it been called. It was there that he hid.
The sights of his rifle were trained on her, though he never took them from her face.
She could feel his eyes watching her, baiting her. He had every intention of coming for her. Soon. Just not yet.
She could feel his intent though. It hung heavy in the air around her, assuring her that he was still there.
He had been with her for more than a year now. No matter where she traveled, no matter how she tried to hide, she could feel him there somewhere, if not watching her, then searching for her. Since the day she had dared him to pull that infernal trigger, he had followed her. As though the very fact that she would defy him had somehow made him pause in pulling the trigger, made him take the time to figure something out about her instead.
What?
And always, it was the sights of his gun she felt caressing her face.
Would he kill her? Was this the reason why he watched, waited, why he kept the sights of his gun trained upon her?
“Cassandra, my dear, you stare into the evening sky as though awaiting a lover.”
She jerked to the side, her eyes widening as Dane Vanderale, the hybrid Breed offspring of the one they called the First Leo, leaned his back against the adobe wall of the balcony, lifted a slim cigar to his lips, then lit it lazily, his gaze trained on her face, assessing, always curious.
For the barest second, the light from the match shadowed the hard, savage contours of his expression and caused the emerald green of his gaze to flare with pinpoints of reddened light.
He was a Lion Breed among a small Pack of Wolves hiding in the New Mexico desert, and seemed just as comfortably at ease as he did in the drawing room of his parents’ estate in the sheltered jungles of the Congo.
“Dane, you sneak around far too much,” she told him as he gave a quick jerk of his wrist to extinguish the match.