“When are we driving back? I can’t leave my car here.”
“We’re not going back just yet.”
How interesting.
Kita continued to stare back at him, wondering at that feeling of heated moisture between her thighs.
Damn him, he kissed like a fucking sex god. Like her greatest fantasy. He had done what others had failed to do. His kiss had only fueled her need. Then he had done what two other lovers hadn’t even managed to come close to. He’d sent her into orgasm. And he had managed it with only his kiss and his fingers. Other men hadn’t even been able to do it, no matter the grunting efforts they’d put into it.
SHE WAS GLARING at him.
Creed narrowed his eyes as he tried to read her expression.
It was impossible.
For the first time since he had become her bodyguard, Creed could not tell, by her expression alone, what she was thinking. But there was enough emotion rolling off her for him to guess by scent alone. And there wasn’t enough anger to save her.
She should be furious. Ahead of the subtle scent of arousal still coursing through her, she should be raging at him. Which would only make the arousal hotter, build higher.
Instead, she was, first and foremost, aroused; behind that, he sensed irritation and confusion.
The confused part, he shared. Because all things considered, she was truly rather rational. Especially considering the fact that she was now in mating heat.
Just as he was. He’d had her kiss, he’d had her orgasm, but he was still vicious hard, his dick throbbing with furious hunger. It was the most intense need he had ever known. Since the moment his lips had touched her, since he had felt the warmth of her inner lips, the mating hormone had begun to build in the glands beneath his tongue.
It was more than an itch now. It was a burn, an arousal far deeper than it had been before the mating heat had kicked in.
“I don’t like that look on your face,” she muttered as he continued to watch her silently, to draw in the unique scents of her.
He arched his brow, unwilling to allow her into his thoughts just yet. To give her a chance to learn how deep his need for her went when he was beginning to grow very concerned over what the next few days would bring.
“And what do you mean, we’re not going back just yet? That’s why Dad sent you after me, correct?”
She wasn’t calling her father “Daddy” any longer. And each time she said “Dad” instead, the scent of disillusionment drifted toward him.
Every emotion had a scent, and to the Breed senses, they were easily detectable.
Disillusionment was a scent that clashed with her innocence, her compassion. It was a dark scent of sulfur subtly underlying the sweetest, softest scent of a spring rain, the scent of her arousal. It was there, though, and it pissed him off.
“Cabin fever does crazy things to a person.” He shrugged as he watched her carefully. “It’s my opinion that perhaps you need a few days’ vacation. A chance to relieve some tension.”
It wasn’t exactly a lie, but it wasn’t exactly the truth either. But he wasn’t about to tell her that he and his boss were leading her father to believe she’d been kidnapped.
“He doesn’t know you’re a Breed, does he?” Her lips pursed mockingly.
Amusement joined the other scents, just the slightest hint of it.
“No, he wasn’t aware of it.”
“What about the men you were working with?”
His brow arched. “I didn’t tell them.”
He hadn’t had to tell them. They were part of the Bureau of Breed Affairs; Jonas had likely told them. If not, then it wouldn’t have been hard for them to guess simply because Creed had been working with them for so damned long.
Kita shook her head in amusement, an amusement he could easily read on her expression this time.
“You don’t hate Breeds,” he commented.
She rose from her chair and moved languidly across the room before turning and leaning against the door frame and staring back at him. “I never hated Breeds, Creed. They didn’t ask for what was done to them. They were born into it.”
Created into it, Creed corrected her silently. They had been created into this world, and trained rather than raised, to be killers.
He nodded slowly. Over the year he’d been in her home, he had seen that in her. She’d been waiting, watching, neither trusting nor distrusting the Breeds. She had paid careful attention to news stories and discussions, and at odd times had seemed to be studying her father, essentially observing him in the act of just being a father.
“And now you’ve kissed one,” he said softly. “Come in the arms of one. What do you think now?”
“I think you’re just as savage and as determined as every report I’ve ever read says you are. And I highly doubt you’ve been in my home to protect me, no matter the danger. So why not tell me exactly why you were there.”
“That was why I was there, Kita.” It just wasn’t the only reason he was there.
She nodded again, her expression, her gaze thoughtful. It was then the scent of her reached him. The increased feminine heat. The arousal burning hotter, burning brighter inside her.
“Time will tell why you’re here then, won’t it?” she whispered, breathing out deeply.
“Will it?” He rose to his feet himself then, moving toward her slowly, feeling the hunger rising inside him as well. “Perhaps it’s an answer we should find now, Kita.”
Her heat wasn’t as intense as it would be once he’d spilled his seed inside her, but the arousal was high enough to slowly become uncomfortable.
Advances into the mating phenomena were coming in slowly, being researched to damned death, and only then was certain information being shared with the Breeds.
It was still a subject considered NTK, Need To Know. And only Breeds showing visible signs of mating, or those involved in highly sensitive operations, were given the information.
Creed had been given the information. He knew the suppositions, the small advances that had been made, the research the Breed scientists had done. And he knew the heat hadn’t reach its full pitch yet. And it wouldn’t until he released his seed inside her.
Until then, the hormone he had released so far would irritate more than anything else.
Unless he kissed her again.
It was a one-kiss gig unless he wanted her to hate him.
Condoms required.
There were still the tiny hairs along his visibly hairless body that carried the hormone, but the quantities were so minute that as long as he didn’t kiss her again, then he could control it.
As long as he didn’t fuck her without a condom, it would be a while before the ramifications were apparent.
At least, to Kita. He, on the other hand, was already feeling the ramifications. He’d kissed her, and so the hormone was now infused with the genetic impulse to increase the heat and torture their bodies until conception occurred. To mutate the genetics in his sperm to be more compatible with her ova even as any hormone shared with her would make her likewise more compatible with him.
Stopping in front of her, his hand reached out and gently lifted a heavy lock of hair. He felt almost mesmerized by that hair. So many shades of natural blonde shimmering against his fingers.
He could feel the rumble of a growl in his throat.
He could smell her arousal, her interest. He could smell emotion, tenderness, and yet a rising need for confrontation. A scent reminiscent of that detected within both mates and human couples alike. A scent that came close to love.
Forcing his gaze from the heavy lock of hair he held, he took in the slumberous passion outlining Kita’s face.
“You’ve entranced me, Kita Claire,” he whispered as he turned his head slightly, the need to kiss her barely held in restraint by the knowledge of the consequences.