Moving in her.
Stretching her inner flesh—
Taking her—
Fucking her like a man possessed by the beast his genetics were derived from.
Oh yeah, she could so get into the pleasure.
It was the thought of that ultimate possession that had her completely freaking out, though.
It was the thought of being bound. Helpless. Watching death steal those she knew, those she loved, and being unable to stop it.
Her parents, because she had been too young.
Her uncle, because he hadn’t trusted her to help him.
And Padric. Padric with his smiling eyes, his devil-may-care grin and his love of poetry. She hadn’t been able to save him because neither he nor her uncle had heeded her warnings that the past would never completely go away.
Giving her head a hard shake, Diane stepped from the shower and quickly toweled dry before dressing in jeans, a white silk sleeveless camp shirt and the scuffed, worn leather half boots she preferred.
Fixing her hair was a simple matter of running her fingers through it as she spread a light gel and arranged the heavy waves as they fell to her shoulders.
The primping wasn’t exactly normal for her, but at the moment she needed all the feminine self-confidence she could steal. Facing Lawe at that meeting with Jonas was not going to be easy.
As a matter of fact, it was going to be killer arousing. It was going to flush her entire body with heat and cause every erogenous zone in her body to light up like the Fourth of July.
Dammit.
All she was going to be able to think about was riding that hard, powerful body. Moving above him. Taking him inside her. Feeling him working the engorged length of his cock into her—
Controlling all that exquisite, exceptional, male power—
She shivered again, glanced in the mirror then grimaced at the completely feminine image she saw in the mirror.
In the eyes of the men she fought with and commanded, there was a difference between being weak and feminine weakness. Just as there was a difference between being a woman and possessing a girlie side that had never affected her ability to lead them, and being a submissive woman. And submissive was something Diane knew she could never be. So it hadn’t affected their willingness to follow her.
A light application of makeup followed, just a dusting of a powder foundation. She spent more time on smoky hues of shadow applied to her eyes and a light application of mascara to lengthen and thicken her lashes. A coating of gloss to her lips, then a light misting of her favorite perfume.
The woman that stared back at her wasn’t the woman who had checked into the hotel the night before. Worn, exhausted and struggling to haul her bags to her room, she had felt as though she would never get enough rest.
This morning, rested, bright-eyed and approaching a clear mind, she drew in a deep breath and gave a brief nod to her image. Her determination to never allow his touch may have been compromised, but so far, she was dealing with the consequences of it.
Her pussy was wet and heated, longing for his touch.
Her nipples were tight and hard, aching for his lips, the stroke of his tongue, the sucking heat of his mouth and the rasp of his teeth.
Every cell in her body longed for the warmth of his, but it wasn’t agonizing. It was irritating. Damned irritating. It was close to a compulsion, but she was handling it.
And she would continue to handle it, she promised herself. Staring at the image in the mirror, she decided she was now ready to face the day.
Or Lawe.
A flush raced over her face and down her neck at the memory of the searing pleasure that had shot through her body at the culmination of his touch the night before. A pleasure that had suffused her entire body. It had been so unexpected, so hot, she’d been helpless against it.
It had weakened her, heated her, marked a part of her she couldn’t explain.
And the release . . .
Was that a moan that slipped past her lips?
Gripping the counter tight, she breathed in sharply and fought back the insidious ache that insisted on tormenting the most feminine parts of her body.
She had to stop.
She could feel her pussy dampening, clenching, preparing for the ultimate possession by the ultimate male animal.
And she had to stop it from happening.
Now.
She could not go into this meeting with Jonas Wyatt smelling of sexual need and the inability to concentrate.
She couldn’t allow Lawe Justice to turn her mind into mush like this.
There was too much at stake for that, not just for the Breeds but for her sister and her niece too.
The serum that the medical research giant Phillip Brandenmore had injected her niece with was so unknown that they had no idea what it would do to the child.
Diane knew there were changes in Amber. She could see them when she spent more than a few weeks away from the baby. And then there had been the night when Rachel called her on a secured sat line while Diane had been out of the country on a mission.
Rachel had been sobbing.
Her daughter was purring, she had cried, and the other children hissed and snapped at the babe whenever she was around, causing Amber to cry.
Amber wasn’t a Breed, but she was acting like a Breed, and she was becoming frightened of the other children because of their reaction to her. She was withdrawn, whimpering whenever Rachel took her around the other children because of their reactions to her. Amber was now frightened of all children, and she was barely eight months old. She was too little, too young, to have to face such an instinctive and primal reaction from others her own age.
Rachel had been nearly hysterical and trying to hold back her pain and fear from her mate, Jonas. Rachel had called her sister instead and spilled out the pain building inside her and the pain tormenting her.
The agony tearing her apart as the changes in her baby became more noticeable was destroying her. Sobbing, she had begged Diane to just make what was happening to Amber stop, when they both knew that if it could be stopped, then Jonas would have already done whatever was necessary to put a halt to it.
The mother inside her sister had splintered and wept for the changes in her baby. Changes that were so uncertain and unknown.
Brave, strong, resilient Rachel had waited until her mate had left for D.C. and then she had broken down. It was then she had finally called her sister and told her what was happening to Amber after Brandenmore had attempted to kidnap her that night.
Diane had rushed back to the States in the middle of a mission despite her men’s anger, and returned to her sister’s side.
What she had seen for herself had shocked her to her very core, and terrified her.
At five months old Amber had watched her with an intelligence and understanding that Diane couldn’t seem to process.
Amber wasn’t talking yet, but Diane had had the most intense feeling that Amber would have known exactly what she wanted to say if she could have spoken.
The fear that Amber would be harmed in the future was ripping those who loved her apart. So much so that Diane had begun immediately investigating Phillip Brandenmore in the search for the scientists that had helped him create the serum.
Jonas had his own investigation going, but, as she had told him, Amber wouldn’t have been his first victim. A scientist never used his most important research subject for the first trial. And Amber had been very important for some reason. A reason Diane had yet to find.
There would have been others.
Diane wanted answers and she was in a position to push buttons and go further than the Breeds. They were watched with the same intensity as any experiment under a microscope. They could only work in the shadows, but the type of social interaction Diane was an expert in, they hadn’t really been raised to do. That type came with the life Diane had been born to as a child and lived until she was a teenager.