Good Lord, Breeds and their effect on women should be outlawed.
“No one could accuse you of being humble,” she snorted, pulling away from him even as she acknowledged that he was letting her pull away from him. “Or polite.”
He wasn’t releasing her because she was forcing him to, or because he had any constraints against making her retain that place in his arms. He was releasing her only because it was what he wanted to do.
She turned to him slowly.
“Before you make the mistake of spouting all that womanly ire I feel building inside you and demanding I keep my dirty Breed paws to myself—”
She had to laugh at the irritation that flashed in his deep blue eyes.
“Strange women you run with there, Breaker,” she snickered. “It’s not the paws that offend me. It’s the arrogance and the attitude. I don’t like being handled, by anyone. Don’t do it, and we’ll just keep getting along fine. How does that sound?” She had to laugh at him then, because he really did have the power not just to burn her alive with lust, but to also make her laugh. He charmed her, and she hadn’t been charmed in a damned long time. “Do you often listen to the womanly ire, then?”
“I believe Breeds listen often when they can’t smell the sweet scent of all that female honey spilling like hot syrup on a summer day,” he retorted, his tone echoing with a sense of impatience. “I’ve yet to understand why women believe lies are so very important when they’re most often more eager for a man’s touch than they let on. The moment you obey them, disappointment has a tendency to mar the delicacy of their scent while they then become angry that you obeyed them. And that only makes for a horny, irritated, not to mention confused Breed.”
“Because a man’s ego, or a Breed’s, doesn’t need to be fed?” she asked, her eyes widening for effect at his obvious confusion. “Maybe we want you to work for what we have to give you? We do tend to believe we’re worth a little effort, you know.”
It seemed Breed males, just like their counterparts, the human males, could be so incredibly obtuse when it came to women.
“Breeds can smell their lies,” he pointed out. “What’s the point in lying when one will be so easily caught in the lie?”
Yep, obtuse.
But it wasn’t the first such conversation they’d had over the past eight or nine weeks. Though it was the first time he’d approached her as blatantly as he had in the bar, and before she’d managed to get into her vehicle.
“Perhaps most women haven’t watched those little documentaries the Breeds put out close enough.” She had studied them for months. “And there could be the fact that even in those documentaries, there’s very little layman’s language. There’s also the fact that you had to have used the most incredibly gorgeous, dangerous-looking, deep-voiced male Breeds living to narrate them. I suspect those Breeds were used in an attempt to distract us just as you meant to. The same can be said for the females used in those videos. The only intent in them was to fool the suspicious and to draw the unwary even deeper beneath your spell. Besides, women absolutely love ice cream, cake and chocolate too. Doesn’t mean it’s good for us, or that we eat it without first considering the calories it contains.”
She’d already known this Breed didn’t like games, nor did he believe in the chase. That was really too bad, because she was very experienced in playing games.
She was considered an expert at them, sometimes.
He only grinned at the accusation, those laser-bright blue eyes holding her gaze, encouraging her to sink beneath the waves of hunger she could feel beating at her resistance. “And did those videos draw you deeper as you denied yourself your favorite sweets?”
Leaning against the side of the vehicle, Gypsy crossed her arms over her breasts as she smiled back at him, shaking her head at the fact that men could be so hardheaded. She was very well aware of the fact that her position only plumped the curves of her breasts higher over the vest-style top she wore, drawing his attention. Momentarily anyway. She liked that about him; he didn’t leer, despite the fact that she could almost feel his need to touch her.
“Sorry, Commander, they didn’t fool me. And my chocolate and ice cream doesn’t wake me up in the mornings, bitch at me for not cleaning, cooking and waiting on it hand and foot or leave dirty clothes lying around my house, so yes, I enjoyed it immensely.”
His lips tilted into a half grin as he watched her closely while tucking his thumbs into the band of his pants, as though trying to find something to do with them besides touch her.
He stood, his feet braced slightly apart, muscular body not exactly relaxed, but neither was he poised for danger. Dressed in the black mission uniform most Breeds wore whenever in public, he presented a dangerous male allure.
Thick black hair fell back along his nape and framed the savagery in the hewn features of his face.
High cheekbones, firm, well-molded lips, and thick, thick inky black lashes surrounding brilliant sapphire eyes, while his shoulders were wide enough that a woman could convince herself of her safety while in his arms.
Or just in his presence, in the shadows of one of the most notorious bars in three states. She could stand there with him, enjoy the banter and not have to worry about some drunken wannabe Romeo groping her.
He was the epitome of everything Breeds were being portrayed as. Strong, intent, protective and honorable. And for the most part, they were.
But Gypsy knew just how dangerous some of them could be.
A flash of memory surged through her.
Lengthened canines gleaming in the dark as she screamed out in horror, saliva dripping from them as maniacal savagery reflected in the yellow-gold depths of the creature’s eyes.
No matter how she fought, they tore at her clothes, shredding them, removing them, intent on raping her.
As he jerked her thighs apart—
She flinched, dragging herself back from the memory as a familiar band of panic tightened at her chest just before the sat phone in her vest pocket vibrated furiously.
“Gypsy, are you okay?” Rule moved closer, the scent of her sudden fear subtle, vying with the scent of arousal and the remnants of amused fun as he caught the distinct sound of the phone vibrating in one of the little pockets of her snug vest.
She’d been enjoying herself, only to have something yank her quickly from her joy as though to remind her of some pain.
A bleak pain so horrific that he could smell the agony of it even from outside the cavern where she’d huddled nine years ago, Rule remembered.
“It’s time I leave.”
He watched, denying the urge to pull her back to him as she slid inside the vehicle and pushed it into gear. The sporty little black Jeep tore out of its parking space and raced from the lot with a surge of power.
His eyes narrowed.
He was certain that motor was far more powerful than it should be.
Just as his attraction to the woman was.
Narrowing his eyes on the fading taillights of her vehicle, he checked the glands beneath his tongue carefully once more.
Breathing in, he pushed back his arousal, feeling the loss of stiffness in the eager shaft beneath his mission uniform and giving an imperceptible nod as the once-hard flesh lay dormant once again.
The beast that had been irritating the crap out of him, courtesy of his genetics, was quiet rather than roaring out in rage that a possible mate was escaping.
Hell, he halfway felt as though the animal senses inside him couldn’t have cared less where she went or what she did as long as she didn’t represent physical danger.