Authors: Lora Leigh
“She’s in heat,” he bit off. “The effects are too hard on her.”
“Well, tell me something that even those ignorant full-humans over there can’t figure out?” he said mockingly. “They’ve been sniffing around her like hounds after a bone. Get her the hell out of here. I’ll bring out the stuff she needs in the morning before I leave with Danson. That is if we can get her out of here without a damned fight. Give her the coffee, just make sure and sneak in a decaf blend. The alcohol doesn’t seem to hit her as hard as the caffeine does.”
Jacob growled. He was looking forward to the fight. He was praying one of those prancing, eager morons got brave enough to give him what he needed. He moved away from Hawke, and strode quickly, furiously to her table as she finished the last glass of beer.
Perspiration glistened on her face and dampened the shirt she was wearing. Her breathing was fast, her eyes glittering in her pale features. She was so aroused he could practically see the white hot heat rising from her body, steaming around her.
“Are you insane?” he asked her, his voice low enough, pulsing with enough anger that the males around her beat a hasty retreat. “Didn’t you hear a damned word I told you earlier?”
“I heard every word you said. Evidently though, you didn’t hear me.” She shrugged as though her condition were nothing unusual.
Jacob could see the blood rushing through the vein at her neck, pouring the caffeine through a system already overloaded with adrenaline and lust.
“You’re making yourself sick,” he bit out. “Why would you want to do that, Faith? Are you so damned stubborn now you don’t care if you’re killing yourself?”
Surprised laughter came from her throat as she shook her head at him. “I’m not sick, Jacob, nor am I about to be. You’re overreacting to the fact that I refuse to obey you. I told you earlier, you do not own me, despite your opinion to the contrary.”
She rose to her feet, and he was the one surprised to see that she did so gracefully, without stumbling. “I’ve arranged for my deliveries in the morning. As I figured, adult toy stores are scarce as hen’s teeth here, but I figured, as long as you’re willing, what the hell, you can take the place of my BOBs. Are we ready to go now?”
The calm innocence in her expression had his fists clenching to keep from strangling her or kissing her into silence. If he touched her, he was afraid he would end up giving the bar a show they would never forget.
“My motorcycle?” he gritted out, furious.
She waved her hand towards the bartender.
“Oh. Ramirez locked it up in his garage. Hawke or Danson can bring it back to you in the morning. They have the keys.” She shrugged as though she hadn’t just handed his prized machine over to the biggest thief in the territory.
“Hawke,” he gritted out.
“Yeah, Jake,” Hawke’s voice was wary.
“Get my fucking cycle. Now!”
“Uh, sure, Jake.” Hawke’s voice was carefully controlled, but Jacob heard the underlying laughter in it.
“Let’s go.” He gripped Faith’s arm, careful to keep an eye on her. He wouldn’t put it past her to bite him again.
Docile, her small smile more worrisome than comforting, she followed him out to the SUV. He opened the door for her, watching with a slow burning anger as she jumped pertly into the seat. His hands were clenched into fists as he stared down at her.
“Are you ready to pay for your pleasure now, Faith?” he asked her, fighting for control.
She looked up at him, her gaze slumberous, sexy.
“Jacob, I always pay, one way or the other, for my pleasures. I learned that lesson the last night in the Labs.”
The husky, sensual tone of her voice, the cynical cut of her words was a double-edged sword spearing into his loins. His cock throbbed, reminding him of the near to bursting erection contained in his pants. How the hell could he get hard again, this fast? His cock would soon be raw if he didn’t do something to contain Faith and her damned impulses.
He leaned forward, noticing that she did nothing to shrink away from him. Her eyes narrowed, and damn her to hell, she licked her lips with a slow, wet swipe of her tongue that had him nearly coming in his pants.
His lips covered hers, hard, savage, his teeth nipping at them when she didn’t open immediately to the hard thrust of his tongue. When they parted, he surged forward, his hands going to her shoulders, pulling her closer as he growled into the kiss.
Hesitantly, her tongue stroked his, washing over the fevered glands that pulsed at the side of his tongue. She knew what he wanted. Knew what it would do to her. His hand tangled in the short strands of her hair, pulling her head back as a whimpering moan issued from her throat.
“You know what I want,” he bit out, nipping at her lips again. “Do it, Faith.”
“Not yet, Jacob.” There was a plea in her voice, and a hunger that fed his own.
“Now,” he ordered against her lips, his voice hard, unrelenting. “Now, Faith, or I won’t be responsible for what happens right here, in front of this damned bar. Now do it.”
His tongue plunged into her mouth again as a moan ripped from his throat. His tongue throbbed almost as hard as his cock, the glands at the side aching with the need to release their potent intoxicant into her system.
Her tongue stroked over his, igniting a lust that would have blinded him had his eyes been opened. Then her lips tightened, her tongue stroked again, and then she began a gentle sucking sensation that had his entire body tightening, raging with such unbearable need and pleasure that sustaining control became a gamble as each second went by.
He felt the pulse of the glands, the emission of the hormone that would send her body into such heat, such lust, that he knew she could never deny him. She moaned into his mouth, her hands moving from his arms to his head, spearing into the thick strands of hair as she fought to bring him closer, to draw more of his taste, his essence into her.
“Damn, Jacob, you’re going to incite a gang rape if you don’t get her the hell out of here.” Hawke’s voice was furious. Jacob pulled reluctantly away from Faith, and glanced over his shoulder at the crowd that had gathered.
He slammed Faith’s door and stalked to the other side. When he pulled away from the bar, he looked over at her. His teeth clenched hard, his fingers tightening on the steering wheel as he saw her breasts, swollen and hard, moving beneath her shirt. Her nipples were hard and the scent of her arousal was drowning him in lust.
“Bastard,” she whispered.
“Had you left the alcohol and the coffee alone, you could have handled it,” he bit out, furious with her and with himself, for his own lack of control and his reluctance in forcing his dominance on her earlier. “I told you, Faith, your system will not tolerate it right now.”
“You just might be surprised at what my system can do,” she muttered heatedly, crossing her arms under her breasts and sitting back in her seat with an unladylike snort.
Jacob could smell her anger, almost as crisp and hot as her arousal. He wanted to shake his head; confused by the creature that had taken the place of the soft-spoken woman he had once known. This woman was proud, tempestuous, and so damned reckless it terrified him.
“Trying to ignore me will not help the situation, Faith,” he bit out as he headed for the hacienda. “You know what you did tonight cannot be tolerated. Do you think you are not in any danger? Have you forgotten the Coyote Breed mercenaries who hunt us like rabid dogs? Or the Council Soldiers who would love nothing better than to rape a Breed female in heat?”
“Now would be a good time for either of them to try me,” she growled.
She literally growled. Jacob flicked a quick look in her direction, surprise and his own arousal surging through his body. She sounded as though she would relish taking on either danger right now. She should be terrified, not prepared to fight.
Jacob felt like banging his head on the steering wheel and howling in exasperation. The woman had no care for her own safety now. What was he to do about her? How was he to protect her? Better yet, how was he to ensure her good sense long enough to keep her alive until the effects of the ‘mating frenzy’ wore off? Damn her. Being mate to this woman would end up killing him.
“Faith,” he muttered. “You are riding very close to the edge of my control.”
“Oh really?” she asked him sweetly. “I just love pushing boundaries, Jacob. Let’s see if I can’t skate a little closer.” And then she moved.
Chapter Fourteen
Jacob allowed her to take her place between him and the steering wheel. Her cunt settled nicely against the swollen hardness of his erection beneath his jeans, searing it with her arousal. He ruthlessly tamped down the desire to release it. If he did, he would rip the pants from her body and force her to ride him to completion before they made it to the house. That wouldn’t do. No, he had other plans in store for Faith, and satisfying the arousal coursing through her body right now was not included in it.
She terrified him with her willfulness, her impulsive recklessness in defying him. She controlled the man, the part of him that wanted only her satisfaction, the heat of her passion and her desire. But nothing controlled the beast that lurked just under the skin. The male predator that demanded submission demanded her protection above all things. She was his woman, his mate, and while in heat, she was at her weakest.
Faith couldn’t know how arousing, how seductive the fragrance of her arousal was. It was a scent capable of possessing the mind and the loins of any man not strong enough to heed the stamp of his mark on her neck. A scent that roused a near violent lust.
It also made her easily tracked. There were still Breeds out there who followed their creators. Those who had broke, who had fallen beneath the cruelties and training of their merciless masters. Jacob couldn’t stand the thought of losing her to such rabid creatures.
Her head lay on his shoulder now as her fingers pushed aside the edge of his shirt. He steeled himself against the soft tongue that stroked over the mark she left on his broad shoulder.
“Mine,” she whispered, her hands sifting the strands of hair at the back of his neck as she lapped at the wound.
Jacob maneuvered the SUV through the narrow roads and back alleys, tortured, tormented by the softness of the woman who had draped herself over him. But he refused to lose himself in her touch. In her caress. He smiled tightly. He knew what she was doing, all soft and seductive on his lap, and he knew it wouldn’t work. Not this time.
“Am I, Faith?” he asked her seductively as he turned onto the rough track that led to the house. His tongue stroked over her neck in turn, rasping the mark he had left on her.
“You are now.” There was a thread of amusement, of confidence in her voice.
“And you are assured of this, how?” he asked her dryly. He refrained from allowing her the knowledge that she was, of course, right.
“My mark, Jacob.” His hand clenched at her hip as he heard the note of hope, of wistful longing in her voice. “You took my mark.”
Jacob felt his heart clench. There was an echo of loneliness, of pain in her voice that disturbed him.
“I am your mate.” He kept his voice soft, even. “Of course I took your mark, Faith. Just as you took mine.”
He felt her sigh, the whisper of her breath across the wound. It was a sigh of regret, of longing. Suddenly it hit him, that he had truly left her alone for the last six years, unaware of the repercussions to her, the hell her body would have put her through as she waited for him. And she still came to him. She had allowed him to touch her again, only to have him leave her, when he should have comforted her, eased her through the aftermath instead of fighting his own demons.
And still, she had come to him. Perhaps not in sweetness and need, but with a lust and demand he could not have refused even had he wanted to.
“I missed you, Jacob, while you were gone.” She was soft, aroused, and so hot the heat of her pussy burned through his jeans to his straining cock. He pressed closer to her, wedging his erection tighter against her saturated heat as he held her against him with his hand at her hip.
“I’m still paddling your ass, Faith,” he promised her, his lips quirking into a smile as her laughter whispered over his neck.
She was not taking him seriously. And though Jacob had no intentions of hurting her, he knew that the sexual punishment to come would assure that she would give second thoughts of defying him in such a manner again.
His body tightened at the thought of it. The memory of taking her, dominating her in that damned Lab cell had haunted him for six years. He remembered clearly the impulse that had pushed him past his reason, and forced him to take her in the most primitive way. Submission. She was his mate, his sexual weakness, his sexual strength. He was determined that she know him for his strength and his dominance over her sexually. It was that need that had pushed him into the act. They were the same impulses pushing him now. She would know that he would not tolerate such defiance.
“Promise?” she asked him seductively.
“Oh, I promise you this and more.” His hand smoothed over the rounded cheeks of her ass, clenching his teeth against the thought of driving his cock between those rounded globes.
Damn. He could feel the damp heat that wept from her vagina as she rubbed against him. Silk covering satin and hot wet woman. Was there any combination more seductive to man or beast? But it didn’t still the dominant surge of possessiveness pouring through his veins. Ahh, sweet Faith. She thought she could tempt him, seduce him once again from forcing her submission to him? She had much to learn about her mate.
“Oh, I definitely promise,” he assured her again as he brushed a kiss over her forehead.
She nipped at his shoulder then. A second later her tongue laved over it. He could feel the smile that curved her lips.
“You are pushing your luck, Mate,” he told her softly as he fought to maneuver the bumps and gullies in the path he was driving over.
“Not yet I’m not.” One small hand went to the buttons of the shirt he wore, slipping several free as he fought for breath. Her mouth moved along his collarbone, her tongue licking over him like a wash of sensual lightning.