A warning of danger or an instinctive response to a situation that the animal sensed wasn’t quite right, Lawe acknowledged. He barely caught the growl that would have rumbled in his throat. He barely held back the sudden, raging need to have her or the scent of that need from filling the interior of the SUV.
He wanted her. Naked, willing. He wanted her arching to him, the heat of her pussy enveloping the engorged shaft presently tormenting him, and he wanted her to accept him.
To accept that he couldn’t face the danger she was so determined to challenge.
Lust was rising hard and fast inside him, and Lawe silently admitted the meeting with Jonas and Callan Lyons would have to be delayed for it. Locking his mate to him was a priority he couldn’t ignore much longer. The knowledge that she was somehow, emotionally and forcibly, refusing the mating had his senses in an uproar. Ensuring she carried his scent, if only for the few hours it lingered on her skin after he possessed her, was raking at his balls with merciless talons. The hunger for her was a fever in his blood, one that was rising beneath his flesh as each second without her touch went by.
The glands beneath his tongue began swelling, the hormone filling it and sinking into his senses with heated demand. There would come a point when denying it wouldn’t be possible. When he would have to have her, immediately, without the control needed to ensure he touched her, held and loved her as he ached to do.
It seemed that every time they came together it was with a flaming hunger that stole his ability to drive her to the edge of sensual madness with just his touch. The mating hormone fueled a different kind of hunger, ensnared them with the addictive, sexually charged fever they both found impossible to delay.
As though sensing the hunger tearing through him, Diane’s head jerked to the side to stare at him rather than the passing scenery.
Lawe had to clench his fists; his entire body tensing with the need to fuck her as the scent of her emotions finally reached him. Or rather, the scent of her hunger.
It slammed into him, as though the act of glancing into his eyes, seeing his need burning there for her, had opened the floodgates to her own.
And she ached. She needed.
She wanted him as he wanted her, fast and hard, with a pleasure so incredible it would burn them to the core and meld them to each other, heart and soul.
Nothing mattered to Lawe but holding her, feeling her wrapped tightly around him, crying out his name, her sharp little fingernails piercing the flesh of his back and shoulders.
That was what mattered.
Just one more time. Before he met with Callan and Jonas, he needed her, just one more time before reality intruded any further and attempted to steal her heart from him.
If he even had it at all.
The question was: Could he survive without the heart of the woman he longed for? Or would he experience the slow, agonizing death of his own soul because of her rejection of him?
Or because of his refusal to accept her?
*CHAPTER 14*
Diane always had the feeling she was on the outside looking in. Even before her parents had died. She’d been different. She had been different and she’d always known it. She had never felt accepted until the team had allowed her on that first mission. Until every last man had voted her in, not because her uncle was their commander but because they had trusted her to watch their back. They had trusted her to do her part and theirs if needed.
She’d found her niche in a world of blood, violence, and to her, ultimate justice. She’d been accepted, but there was still a part of her searching. A part of her that had looked around and wondered if that was all there was.
Until the night she had opened her eyes to see Lawe standing over her. To see him cutting the ropes from her, felt him pick her up and carry her out despite her protestations that she could still walk.
She would have fallen flat on her face and he had known it. She had known it. And he had carried her to safety while ignoring her protests.
Even then, barely conscious, dazed from the pain and the beatings her captors had inflicted, Diane had recognized that “something” she had searched for. She had realized it wasn’t a thing, but someone. A feeling, an emotion she had shied away from since the night Padric had died.
It had been love. That first look, the touch of his fingers against her cheek, the low croon of his voice as he promised her she was safe.
She had been waiting for Lawe.
The second time she saw him, she had looked at him and realized how hopeless having him might be.
He wasn’t just powerful, he wasn’t just dangerous. He was supreme male power with advanced fighting skills. But he wasn’t willing to share his world with her. She had seen it in his eyes, heard it in his voice. Felt it in the tightening of her chest and the feeling of being restrained, held back and protected.
He wanted her to forget her own needs, her training and her hunger to make a difference. He wanted to hold her back, for her to always know there was more for her and yet to know that she couldn’t have it and have him as well.
No, she would always have him. Mating heat ensured that they would never let each other go entirely. What she couldn’t have was any peace in it and still be herself. She couldn’t be complete.
She would always be on the outside looking in, and she hated that feeling. She would watch him leave to do whatever he would be doing. Overseeing missions, of course, or perhaps the rumor she had heard that Jonas intended to promote him to assistant director wasn’t just a rumor. Whatever his particular role, he would still be a part of the missions; he would still be commanding, directing, fighting for what he believed in. And she would still be on the sidelines wishing she were there. Wishing she had at least that much to remind her that she wasn’t a drain on oxygen. That she was helping.
As the SUV pulled beneath the hotel’s wide canopy Diane knew this would be her last mission if Lawe could arrange it. And there was no doubt in her mind that Lawe would definitely arrange it.
Waiting as Rule jumped from the front and opened Lawe’s door, she could feel the protectiveness suddenly closing around her, threatening to smother her.
She could feel Lawe’s gaze as she slid across the seat rather than jumping from the other side as she would have normally done.
Could she handle it? she wondered. Could she actually find a way to live with it?
Sliding from the vehicle, Diane was aware of Josiah joining them, moving in just behind her as Lawe placed his hand at the small of her back and urged her forward. As though she needed to be led rather than do the leading herself.
“Where’s Thor?” she asked as they moved through the automatic doors and across the wide receiving area to the short flight of stairs that led to the lobby.
“I’ve teamed him with Emma and Sharone,” he told her as they stepped up to the lobby. “They needed the stability right now.”
Emma was Ashley’s sister, and Sharone was the same as a sister. A littermate who had been trained alongside Ashley and Emma in Russia. They were close, and no doubt suffering the pain and fear that they would lose the vital, laughing young woman they relied so heavily on to vanquish the sometimes dark fears that haunted their lives.
“Stability?” she asked as they headed to the elevators, wondering if perhaps one of the girls’ rage was in danger of giving way to feral fever.