Brooke, Leah - Panthers' Prey [Black Panthers 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (30 page)

A little tremor went through her when she realized she’d started to accept what they told her as truth.

How the hell could she have started to believe that bullshit?

Lifting her to her toes, James loomed over her.

“I want an answer, Bailey. Stop acting like a child and—”

“Put me down, damn it. I’m not acting like a child. You and Marc barge into my life—”

“
Saved
your life.”

“And right away you start talking about shape-shifters and mates and I’m just supposed to fall for it.”

A muscle worked in his jaw, and she could swear she could almost feel his struggle for patience. Gritting his teeth, he let out a breath.

“Damn it, Bailey, we wanted to be honest with you from the start. We’re proving to you what we said is the truth, and we’re giving you time to adjust to it. We know it’s hard. We’re trying to be patient.”

Wrapping his hand in her hair again, he pulled her close. “But if you think I’m going to let you turn a blind eye to what’s happening between us, you don’t know me at all.”

Running a hand down her back to her bottom, he pulled her even closer.

“And I think you and I know each other very well, don’t we, Bailey?”

She gasped at the feel of his finger sliding between her legs, moaning as he slipped the tip of it into her pussy.

Without hesitation, she tilted her hips back to take more of it inside her, rubbing restlessly against him.

“It’s different with you than it is with Marc. If I’m…ah… supposed to be the mate to both of you, oh, God that feels good, shouldn’t it feel the same?”

He slid his finger a little deeper and moved it inside her.

“We’re not the same, Bailey, something that you’d better come to terms with right from the start.”

His hooded gaze narrowed even more as he slid another inch of his finger into her slick pussy.

“Don’t try to tell me you don’t respond to my touch every bit as much as you respond to Marc’s. I’ve been inside you, baby, and I know better. I’ve held you while you came apart in my arms. You want me every bit as much as you want him.”

She couldn’t deny it, especially not when she almost came when he slid his finger all the way into her, her slick juices easing his way. Coming to her toes as he pressed against that supersensitive spot inside her, she grabbed his shoulders and slumped against him, his determination to prove his point apparent in every mind-numbing stroke.

“I know, and it’s—oh God, that feels good—and it’s wonderful.”

“But there’s a difference, isn’t there, honey?”

Shrugging, she nodded, curious enough to be honest with him.

“It’s not as frantic, but it’s more…I don’t know—”

“Satisfying?”

To her surprise, James slid his finger from her, trailing it up the crease of her ass, pausing at her puckered opening, his broad grin making her nervous as hell.

His breath feathered over her cheek, the silky cadence of it sliding over her with as much warmth as the hot shower.

“That’s because you’ve already accepted the fact that I’m your mate—just as I’ve accepted the fact that you’re mine. It’s just as good, but we’re both sated afterwards. No matter how much you fight it, you’ve already accepted that you belong to me.”

Nothing he could have said could have surprised her more.

Infuriated her more.

Terrified her more.

Panicked, she tried to push at him, only to find herself once again backed against the shower wall, both of her wrists caught in one of his strong hands and raised over her head.

Sputtering against the shower spray, she kicked at him, furious at being manhandled so easily and alarmed at her reaction to it. “Let go of me. I haven’t accepted a damned thing.”

Her stomach tightened in arousal, her clit throbbing in time to her heartbeat.

His grin only managed to piss her off more, but did nothing to diminish her hunger. He raised a brow, his eyes glittering with challenge.

“You think not? Go on, honey. Try to deny it. I’m going to enjoy listening to you beg. But be careful, because it affects me, too.”

She sucked in a breath when his fingers trailed over her belly, her stomach muscles quivering under his hand.

It took tremendous effort to fight him with need clawing at her, the tingling in her nipples and clit growing stronger.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I never agreed to be your
mate
. We fuck, that’s it.”

James tapped her clit, his eyes narrowing to slits.

“Keep it up, honey. No, I’m not talking about a few weeks of fucking you every chance I get. I’m talking mate, as in, for life. You know, sleeping in the same bed every night, kids, the whole thing.”

A surge of panic welled up inside her.

“I never agreed to anything like that.”

God, she burned. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t keep her eyes from his cock, mesmerized by the sight of the wet, purplish head. Her pussy clenched with the need be filled with his long, thick heat, already soaked in anticipation of the pleasure she knew he would give her.

James’s eyes raked over her. “Maybe you didn’t consciously make the decision,
my mate
, but you accepted me as your mate on some level, which is why sex between us is so good.”

Struck by his ridiculous claim, she struggled against his hold, fighting the surge of panic that bubbled up inside of her.

“No, damn it. It’s not true. I didn’t accept a fucking thing. Just because we’re good together in bed doesn’t give you—oh, hell.”

James reached out to circle a nipple, his touch effectively cutting off her rant. His hooded eyes held hers, filled with an emotion that left her transfixed and breathless.

“Let me tell you a little something and maybe you’ll understand.”

Using his entire body to press her against the shower wall, he released her hands to tilt her face up to face his, a muscle working in his jaw.

“That night we found you, I felt a rage unlike anything I’d ever experienced. I caught your scent long before we ever got to you, and all I could think as we ran through the woods was
mine
. She’s mine. She’s in danger, and I’ll never get to her in time. I didn’t know you. I didn’t know your name or what you looked like, but I knew your scent, even though I’d never smelled it before.”

Bending close, he brushed his lips over her temple, the tension in his voice and in his body pressed against hers keeping her silent as much as her fascination in his words.

“I knew that I’d spent my life waiting for you when I didn’t even know I’d been looking for you. I knew you were in danger, and I couldn’t get to you fast enough. I’ve never been so scared.”

He sighed, touching his forehead to hers.

“I could never explain to you what I felt. It’s more than a human emotion, and I wish I knew how to put it into words for you. Maybe one day I’ll figure it out. Let’s just say that I would have, and still would, gladly kill for you. I would risk my life to keep you safe without any hesitation at all.”

Bailey lifted her gaze to his, stunned by the raw emotion blazing in his eyes. She swallowed heavily at what she saw in them, an emotion she’d been looking for her entire life. Everything around her seemed to fall into place. Sucking in a breath at the warm sense of belonging that surrounded her, she let out a shaky breath, lifting her face to his.

“James, I don’t know what to say.”

“There’s nothing to say. Just listen.”

Releasing her, he straightened. With a sigh, he scrubbed a hand over his face and blew out another breath, staring at the shower wall.

“Here we were, racing to get to you, only to find someone in the process of killing you. I struck without even thinking about it. I didn’t care if I killed him or not. I only wanted to get him to stop hurting you. My mind went completely blank except for one thing—the instinct to protect my mate at all costs. If I hadn’t gotten to you a step before Marc, he would have done the same thing.”

He rinsed them both and with a snap of his wrist, turned off the water, his voice low and kept at a monotone the entire time.

“The walk home lasted forever. Here I was walking through the woods with a man who’s been like a brother to me ever since I can remember, and all I wanted to do was fight him and rip you from his arms.”

Snapping a towel from the nearby towel bar, he wrapped it around her and lifted her chin.

“And then I saw his face. Jesus!”

Turning away, he reached for another towel and wrapped it around his waist before getting out of the shower and reaching back for her.

“While we got you out of your wet and muddy clothes, we checked you over for injuries. We couldn’t stop shaking. Neither one of us knew what the fuck was going on. After we finished getting you settled, I left. I stayed away from you that night. I was so wound up I shifted and ran through the woods. I finally stopped and sat there for hours wondering what the hell had happened. But, I knew. Deep down, I already knew. When Leland arrived, he only confirmed what I already knew in my soul was true.”

Bailey’s pulse tripped. Stopped. Raced.

Her heart filled, swelling with a joy so powerful it stole her breath. Shaking her head, she searched his eyes, the knowledge of how deeply he could hurt her nearly choking her.

“I don’t understand. None of this makes any sense.”

James smiled, a mixture of amusement and sadness. “Well, since none of us had ever found a mate, it didn’t make sense to us either. It turns out Leland and another member of our pack—family—had found theirs and fought it. They rejected her and she left.”

The tortured look in his eyes pulled at her as he ran a finger down her jaw.

“They’ve been searching for her ever since. They feel like part of them is missing. But they discovered it too late. They can’t find any trace of her.”

A sense of inevitability closed in on her. The feeling that she was about to choose a path that would decide her destiny loomed large. The fact that all of her instincts screamed at her that happiness lay just at her fingertips didn’t ease her fears at all.

Although she’d learned long ago to trust
her
instincts, she didn’t trust theirs and feared that they’d chosen her for all the wrong reasons and one day would regret their decision.

A rejection she knew would devastate her.

In an attempt at nonchalance, she shrugged, swallowing the lump that threatened to choke her.

“You can’t pick someone just because you think they smell good.”

His smile made her heart race. “I wouldn’t choose a mate on that alone. I prefer to think I decide my own fate as much as the next person. I figure it’s like pheromones. It got me hooked, but it’s not what keeps me there. The more time I spend with you and the more I get to know you, the more I want to be with you.
That’s
what allowed me to accept that you really are my mate. As soon as I came to grips with it, some of the desperation eased.”

“What do you mean by that? Are you saying you don’t want me anymore?” She looked down meaningfully to where his towel tented.

Shaking his head, he grinned.

“It means, honey, that whenever you resist what we have between us, or I do, I want to take you so much that my fucking brain doesn’t even work. Instinct takes over, and I need to claim my mate—
you
—and earn your surrender.”