He’d known Justice would follow the little female mercenary. There was a scent on her that he had left. It wasn’t mating heat, and it wasn’t that brand of ownership male Breeds placed on their mated females. Still, though, it was a scent that warned other male Breeds away. One that lingered on her and assured a Breed that touching her would be territorial invasion.
The primal genetics that were so much a part of Gideon had drawn back in discomfort, uncertain about nearing the female any farther than he had when he’d brushed against her at the airport the other night.
Justice hadn’t mated her.
He’d done something far, far more primal.
Lawe Justice had somehow managed to mark her with just enough of his scent to ensure that any other Breed recognized his intent to mate her. She belonged to a powerful, dangerous primal being.
A Breed who would kill to keep what he had marked as his.
• • •
Lawe unlocked the door and eased it open. Slowly, he stepped into the hotel room Diane had taken for the night and glanced around the small room.
The sound of the shower running and the soft scent of her wafting from the bathroom assured him she was currently standing beneath the running water rather than watching from some shadowy corner, waiting to spring a trap.
She was actually damned good at that. She was as quiet as any Breed, just as capable and, when needed, just as merciless. She lacked only their strength. Their strength and their ability to call upon the DNA that added the extra surge of power, the rush of adrenaline infused with a feral hormone, which added to their strength and their lack of mercy.
The scent of her, beyond the artificial soy and almond scent of her soap and shampoos, reached out to him, causing him to close his eyes as a grimace of hunger pulsed in the engorged iron-hard length of his dick.
God, he swore her scent was that of peace, of solace. Whenever she was near he could feel those qualities attempting to slip past his guard.
The scent of her was like a beacon. She smelled of a spring rain and summer heat, which pierced him with a bolt of pure lust that tightened his balls and filled his cock with a furious, burning sexual need.
She smelled of promises, and only God knew how he figured that one. It was a scent he couldn’t pin down, one that filled with warmth that went beyond lust and had his arms aching to hold her.
Just hold her.
To find and give comfort.
Comfort was another quality he’d never truly known and had no idea how he managed to identify it.
As he turned the dead bolt on the door, the bathroom door opened and a rush of steam spilled into the room. Before Lawe could draw in a breath, Diane stepped out and for a few precious seconds stole any chance he had of breathing.
Water beaded on her shoulders. A small rivulet coursed across her collarbone. Beneath the towel, her legs shimmered with a satiny smoothness that bespoke regular visits to salons for exfoliation. There were no razor marks, no redness from waxing. She was particular when it came to her body. She was rounded but toned, healthy but without the current fixation on being skinny.
She was, to the male and to the animal, perfection.
Arousal hit him instantly, throwing his senses into chaos as her soft freshness lanced through his control. He’d never imagined there was a break in the shields that kept emotion from weakening the formidable drive and determination he’d once had to never feel for another being.
In that instant, he learned differently. He felt those emotions tearing through him, rushing his senses and throwing his beliefs to the wind. And for a second—for one unbelievable second—he imagined fighting at her side, sharing their triumphs and hearing her laughter at their successes.
A growl rumbled in his chest, hoarse and unbidden as he fought to keep from crossing the room and jerking her to him. To keep from taking what he so desperately needed her to give him.
• • •
Diane froze as she reentered the bedroom. A flush mounted her cheekbones, filled her gaze. She could feel the warmth washing up her face before increasing to pure flaming heat and rushing south to send a surge of sensation burning through her pussy. At the same time, her chest clenched, emotion swamped her and the saddened realization that she could have him or her freedom burned like a blaze through her mind.
Oh Lord. She didn’t need this. She didn’t need the emotion. She didn’t need something else, or someone else, to lose. And with Lawe, there was no other course. She could have the man she longed for, or the freedom that was the same as the air she breathed.
Her thighs clenched as her clit began to ache, her vagina spilling the heated, slick moisture that made her pussy feel swollen, her clit more sensitive.
The arousal that tormented her whenever she thought of him kicked into overdrive.
But she didn’t have to think of him now, her aroused, overheated body screamed. He was here. He was aroused. There for the taking. Ready. Willing.
A silent groan and that tingling urge to rub against him had her juices gathering further, easing past the swollen folds of her pussy to dampen her thighs as well.
Diane could feel her body softening, her thighs weakening. She tightened her grip on the towel. Her fingers clenched in the material between her breasts, holding on to it as though it were all that was holding back that insane need to touch him.
To be touched by him.
How did he do it to her? How did he make her feel so vulnerable and needy? How did he make her want him so desperately when she hadn’t ached for a man in years? She had never ached for anyone like this, she realized. For that “something,” that ethereal promise of “more.” That satisfaction, satiation and pure contentment she’d seen in other women who had mated with Breed males and found their fulfillment.
Her sister. Lyra Jordan. Megan Arness. Merinus Lyons. Faith Arlington, and even Storme McKenzie and Ria Warrant. Strong, vital mates to arrogant, dominant and yet loving Breed males who had accepted their mates were more than vessels to continue the Breed legacy, or porcelain dolls that needed to be smothered with protection.
Here was a really good one. Why the hell was she so willing to throw away her pride and her independence for a momentary pleasure? Why, in that second, did she suddenly wish she were less independent and more like her sister, Rachel, just to please the brooding, somber Breed standing before her.
He made her dream. That small voice, so filled with hope, whispered inside her as the memories of all she had lost over the years rose to torment her.
He made her dream honest-to-God vivid-color dreams of a future colored in more than blood. She had begun dreaming of a man that the woman, the part of her that was a warrior and the part that was still a frightened little girl desperate to find control and freedom, could hold on to. Hold on to and still be herself.
“Why are you here?” she forced the words past her lips, forced herself to ask the question rather than moving to him and begging him to fuck her.
Or to allow her to fuck him.
Whichever could be achieved and her orgasm reached in the quickest amount of time.
Instead, she filled her tone with irritation to add to the unwelcome glare that she forced to crease her expression.
“Why are you here?” he repeated the question with a heavy emphasis on her location. “You were not told to resume this mission.”
The wrong thing to say and he knew it the moment the words passed his lips. Unfortunately, there was no way to call them back.
Diane smiled back at him sweetly as she stepped across the room, and Lawe couldn’t help but watch her warily. She was damned well trained and quick as hell and he knew it.
But she didn’t move for him. Attacking him obviously wasn’t on the agenda tonight. At least, not yet.
Watching him warily Diane moved past the bottom of the bed, keeping her gaze on him, her body tense and ready to run as she moved to the backpack lying on the mattress.
One hand stayed knotted in the towel cove
ring her. If wishes alone could rip it from her body, then it would have already been lying on the ground in shreds.
Nearly holding his breath he watched, his gaze centered where she held the towel securely. He wished it from her body, every muscle in his body tensing as he willed her to drop the material and give him a glimpse of that perfect, beautiful flesh.
The head of his dick throbbed¸ pounding furiously beneath the material of his jeans as he felt his balls drawing tight to the base of the thickened shaft in the need for release. Just beneath the engorged crown of his erection, the flesh seemed to stretch tighter, hotter as it pulsed in need.
The barb was there, stretching just enough to assure him of its presence. To assure him that this woman was indeed his mate.
Beneath his tongue the glands that held the mating hormone was swollen as it throbbed, ached. The need to push his tongue into her mouth and demand she engage in the sensual, heated kiss that would spill the hormone to her senses, was overwhelming.
“Stop looking at me like that.” The demand was made as the scent of her arousal began to intoxicate him, to fill his senses and the glands beneath his tongue with the mating hormone.
The confrontation she seemed determined to initiate wasn’t helping, and neither was the fact that those were clothes she was pulling from her bag.
Yoga pants, a T-shirt, panties that were little more than a triangle of silk.
Gripping the clothing in one hand, keeping her death grip on the towel with the other, she moved to skirt around the bottom of the bed and, Lawe knew, to return to the bathroom to dress.
He stepped in her way, blocking her escape as effectively as steel bars as he ensured she would have to make close, personal, intimate contact with his body to get by him.
She stared back at him warily as she paused at the bottom of the bed.
“That’s the hell of it where these little rooms are concerned.” He glanced around the small cheap hotel room as he allowed a rueful grin to tug at his lips. “Two people can’t move around it at the same time without brushing or even stroking against one another. Whereas the more expensive suites that most Breeds prefer have plenty of room to move around and avoid contact, if that’s what they wish.”
As he spoke, he crouched down, one knee on the floor and the other bent as he loosened the laces of the combat ankle boots he wore.
She eyed him warily now, a hint of desperation filling her gaze as he shifted to the other boot, loosened it, then straightened and pulled each off.
“What the hell are you doing?” she gasped out, knowing full well exactly what he was doing. And her body knew. She could feel her sex growing wetter, hotter, flushing the sensitive folds and causing her clit to swell tighter.
“You ran from me, Diane,” he growled as he pulled the thin, black temperature control socks from his feet. Then his hands moved to the utility belt of his pants, his fingers working it loose.
Breeds had different growls for different emotions: irritation, aggravation, an angry growl, a furious growl. And then there was this growl. It rumbled deep with lazy, hungry intent. This one echoed through her nerve endings and caused her vagina to clench as she swore the sound echoed in her tender depths.
“And I’ll run away from you again.” She swallowed tightly as she defied him, nervously, her grip on the towel tightening until her knuckles turned white. “I’m not your puppet, Lawe.”
“You’re my mate.” He heard the growl in his own voice, hated himself for the primal dominance that vibrated in his voice.
“I’m not yours to control nor did you purchase a shining new toy you can sit on the shelf until you decide to play with it.”
If her pussy wasn’t heated, flowing with the sweet, soft juices he was dying to taste, then Lawe might have paid attention to that hint of desperation in her voice. The apparent fear of his touch, of the mating heat, and he would have forced himself to turn away.
It wasn’t fear despite the appearance of it, though. He smelled desperation, hunger, confusion. She wanted him; she ached for him with the same clawing hunger that he ached for her and that was all the animal rising inside him recognized.
They were dying for each other, yet she thought she could run and he wouldn’t give chase?
The animal DNA inside him demanded he do just that. That he give chase. That he become the hunter, the dominant force that would bind her to him.
What made her believe she could place herself in danger and he wouldn’t stand in front of her? That he wouldn’t protect her with every last ounce of strength that he possessed? That he wouldn’t give his life and the life of every Breed ever created to see to her safety, to the continuation of her.
“Placing you on a shelf is the last thing I want to do, sweetheart,” he promised silkily. “But playing with you is definitely in the cards.”
Rather than removing his jeans after the belt loosened, Lawe shrugged the thin jacket from his shoulders, then tugged the black sleeveless shirt from his body and tossed it aside.
Her little tongue, pink and tempting, reached out to flicker over her lips.
The gleam of moisture on the sensual lower curve had his balls clenching, the need to take her pounding through him.
He was so hard he could barely stand to breathe as he unsnapped the metal tabs of the jeans and, as she watched, stripped them from his body.
“Did you think you could run from me without consequences, mate? I’m a fucking Breed. Run and I will give chase. Challenge me, Diane, and I will accept it. Do you see me as some poor castrated animal you can control so easily?”
“Castrated?” Her gaze flickered to his erection. “Not really. But I’ve been assured by Jonas several times that you’re really quite domesticated. Do you purr on command, Lawe? Or does only Jonas have the power to give that order?”
She was insane, Diane decided, certifiable. Her uncle had made that prediction more than once during the years before his death.
He was obviously right. Only a crazy person dared to manipulate a Breed in such a way, no matter how harmless it was.
But both Lawe and Jonas deserved every moment of it.
Jonas for daring to play his games with her, and she knew he had been. She hadn’t figured out how, but she knew him for the calculating, manipulating monster he was when it came to ensuring every capable Breed mated.
And Lawe, for making her feel. For making her want. For refusing to be a partner and a lover.
She didn’t want or need either to feel the emotions tearing her apart or to ache with such need for any one man. She hadn’t asked him to step into her life and throw all her beliefs and the life she’d resigned herself to into chaos. And she sure as hell hadn’t asked her brother-in-law to help him. She’d begged Jonas for a way to make Lawe understand how it would never work to pressure her into giving up the life that made her feel valued. Instead, he’d suggested she resign herself to giving it up.
He’d warned her about yanking Lawe’s chain more than once.
He had warned her that Lawe was not a domesticated housecat but a fully trained Lion Breed in his prime.
Just as he had warned her that Lawe didn’t take orders worth a damn and he sure as hell