Authors: Lora Leigh
It was riding him while he was stallion-hard, thick, throbbing with his own need to release, yet holding back for her. It was watching the rivulet of sweat trail from his forehead to the thick strands of his hair. Another down his powerful, corded neck as her orgasm began to tighten inside her.
Her body was a pulsing mass of need. Lightning flickered over her nerve endings, every nerve ending. Pleasure was cell-deep, soul-deep, and taking him was fueling something wild and powerful inside her as well.
“Mercury.” Her head tilted back as she cried out his name. “Oh God. Mercury!”
She tried to keep moving as she came, tried to plunge him into his own release, but it was tearing her apart. She was shaking, shuddering, feeling it exploding inside her, and he gave it to her then. Took her. His hands tightened on her hips as his moved beneath her, thrusting hard and deep, impaling her with the thick intrusion of his flesh, until his hoarse shout, then a primal, smothered roar, tore from his throat and his release joined hers.
That didn’t mean it was over. She collapsed to his chest, barely aware of her nails digging into his forearms as she felt the barb extend, felt it throw her higher, deeper, into a release that stripped her bare and left her begging him. Begging him for mercy, because the pleasure was tearing her apart and remaking her, and she didn’t know how to live with being remade.
It was a long time later before she could lift her head, before she could drag her sated body from his and roll to the side of the mattress.
Sitting up, she pushed her hair from her face, her gaze on the floor, and she froze.
Those weren’t her sturdy winter boots, in shreds? That wasn’t her gray wool skirt? Her panty hose? Her shoes?
Oh God.
She turned and stared at the closet. The door was open, the light was on, and she felt herself pale. She felt Mercury tense as he lay still beside her, his gaze on her, watching her carefully.
She couldn’t look at him. All she could see was her clothes. Shredded. As though someone had taken shears to them. Her sturdy shoes and boots, plain socks and panty hose. The only thing she didn’t see was the delicate silk-and-lace underwear sets she had brought with her. There were no push-up bras torn to shreds. No stockings. Like the ones she still wore and hadn’t even realized.
Shock slowly bled to fury. She stared at the mess, the deliberate calculation in each carelessly dropped shred of fabric, and she turned back to him slowly.
He was watching her with those icy blue eyes that still seemed wicked, burning with greedy flames. His expression was controlled. His look arrogant. Confident.
“What the bloody fucking hell have you done here?”
He grinned. “Have I mentioned how much I love it when that very proper, very precise accent of yours shows up? It means there’s a party on the way. Be careful, Ria, it’s not just coffee that makes you hotter. But also anger.”
She stared at him, incredulous. The arrogance, primal self-confidence and complete calm in his expression enraged her.
“You destroyed my clothes,” she clipped out.
His eyes narrowed. “Yes, I believe I might have done just that.”
“Why?” She could barely form the word, could barely form a thought.
He lifted up then and leaned toward her, nose to nose.
“I’m sick of fucking a stranger. Of sensing the woman I mated and never seeing her. Those,” he snarled, pointing to the clothes, “hide my mate and I will no longer allow it.”
She edged back and moved to her feet, staring at him, shaking, and it wasn’t from arousal. It was from complete, overriding disbelief and anger.
“You are insane,” she sneered back. “Your mate, my arse. Your mate is back at Sanctuary slinking around like a damned cat in heat. Waiting on you. Waiting on you while you fed me that fucking hormone and made certain I couldn’t leave you. What’s wrong, Mercury? Couldn’t you handle the fact that you didn’t have it the way you wanted it? Now you have to turn me into something you can bear to touch?”
He came out of the bed with a snarl heavy enough, primal enough that something inside her rebelled. Did he think she would back down in the face of his anger? That she would flinch?
Before he could take the first step she was in his face.
“I can have those clothes back, this fast.” She lifted her hand and snapped her fingers imperiously. “A Vanderale Breed will deliver them and a Vanderale Breed will follow any request I make of him. And you can take these shreds,” she sneered, “and shove them.”
“You want a Vanderale Breed to die?” he drawled, his nose almost touching hers, anger a live thing in his eyes now, a living, breathing entity within her as well. “Let one deliver more of those mockeries of what you should wear and I’ll rip him apart and send him running and crying to the imperious Leo he follows. You’re my mate and I’ll be damned if you’ll hide from me any longer.”
“Alaiya is your mate,” she screamed in his face. “With what you did to me, you’ve mocked everything nature intended mating heat to be. What, Mercury, do you need a fucking harem instead of one woman?”
He smiled. A cold, quiet smile that penetrated her fury, that left her staring back at him warily as he straightened.
“We can go shopping this morning. I saved you an outfit.”
“Excuse me!” Her fists were clenched; violence was ripping her apart inside. “What did you just say to me?”
The look on his face had her stepping back. Not in fear, but in caution. Those eyes narrowed, flickered a heavy gold, and his expression tightened with such primal arrogance that she had no idea how to fight it.
“I said, we will go shopping. This morning. After we shower, eat and, if you need me again, have me. We’ll replace your clothing.”
“The clothing you ripped apart?” Her voice was hoarse, strained with anger and disbelief.
His brow arched. “I hardly think so. But you can try to convince me if you like. You are my mate, and Breeds have been known to spoil their mates atrociously. Want to see how far I’ll spoil you?”
She ached to.
“You bastard!” she breathed out, incredulous, certain one of them had lost his or her mind, and she was pretty damned certain it wasn’t her.
“It was just a suggestion.” He shrugged.
“You dirty, arrogant, egomaniacal Breed,” she screamed. “You’re worse than Dane. Worse than Jonas. You’re worse than the Leo.” And that was the highest arrogance insult she could deal anyone.
“Compliments help.” He smiled and moved past her, his hand caressing her butt as he passed, and drawing an enraged squeal from her lungs.
“I’ll kill you.”
“Damned if you won’t if we keep going at each other the way we did this morning,” he called back to her. “I’ll die happy.”
The bathroom door closed. She stared around her, still in shock, certain she was dreaming. The tightly clenched, furious snarl that left her lips would have rivaled his best. And the bastard laughed at her. She heard it. Heard his chuckle, and before she could stop herself, the small clock on the bedside table was in her hands, then flying across the room to shatter against the door.
She stood there, breathing roughly, then groaned and sat back down on the bed, and stared at the ruins of her detestable clothes. What the hell was she going to do now?
CHAPTER 22
“Whew.” Mercury was very, very careful to keep the sharp expulsion of breath quiet as silence filled the bedroom.
He braced his hands against the sink and waited. She stayed in the bedroom. She wasn’t running. Damn if it wouldn’t suck running out into the snow naked to catch up with her.
He could smell the sweet scent of her arousal, the sharp tang of her fury, and had to admit, damn, she was a challenge when she was pissed off.
Not that he would want to chance this one again soon. As he’d said, Breed males generally spoiled their mates, especially during mating heat, when their emotions and sense of balance were so off-kilter.
Male Breeds were highly sexual during mating heat, but they didn’t experience the painful, agonizing arousal that a mated female felt, especially one that wasn’t Breed. They didn’t experience the sharp spikes of anger because they couldn’t control their emotions or their needs. Females were dependent on their mates, and for an independent woman, that was a hell of an adjustment to make.
Ria was one of the most independent women he had ever run across. On the outside, she was so self-sufficient, so contained, that others moved uneasily around her. Humans needed to be needed, just as Breeds did. They weren’t comfortable around those they sensed didn’t want or need such entanglements.
That’s how Ria affected others. They shied away from her, watched her warily, unconsciously aware that she was pushing them away.
That wasn’t going to work in Sanctuary, or anywhere within the Breed world. If she didn’t claim him as her mate, herself, then she would never be happy. And making a place for herself in his life would be agonizing for her, no matter how easy he tried to make it, or how he spoiled that. Her fears would always be there. And other Breeds would always sense them.
He tensed as he heard the bedroom door close. Frowning, he moved quickly from the bathroom.
The one outfit he had left her was missing. Damn her if she had run from him again.
He heard another door close, but not the outside door. Moving through the house, he paused at the closed door to the guest room and sighed in relief.
She was there. Showering without him. He had hoped to shower with her, to ease her.
He frowned and entered the bedroom, drawn by something, a sensation, a scent that tore at him. The scent of her tears mixed with the water. The scent of her confusion, so bleak and unfamiliar to her.
And it broke his heart. Tore at his soul.
The shower was running in the bathroom and Ria was there. He pushed aside the shower curtain to see her, her head against the wall, her hands covering her face, her shoulders shaking with tears.
“Ria,” he whispered.
“Don’t.” She shook her head, her voice hoarse. “I don’t scream. I don’t cry. I don’t hurt like this.” Her voice became ragged, angry. “Leave me alone. Please. Let me control this. I have to control this.”
He stepped in behind her, enclosed them in the steamy warmth and pulled her to his chest. Where she belonged, and he let her cry. He bent his head over hers and closed his eyes, knowing how hard this was for her. Feeling it. Sensing it.
“I love you, Ria,” he whispered against her hair. “I can’t give you any more assurances than that.” He wouldn’t give them to her, because he knew right now she wouldn’t hear them.
She sobbed harshly, her arms going around his waist, holding on to him as her tears branded his chest.
“I didn’t want to love you,” she cried brokenly. “I didn’t want to hurt like this.”
“I know, baby.” He kissed her hair, stroked her back. “I know.”
He let the storm rage inside her, and he stroked her as it eased. When she stood silent against him, he moved back, snagged a washcloth and he washed her. Gently. He cleaned the tears from her face and touched her lips with his, holding back the need that thickened his tongue, that burned inside him. For the comfort.
He gave her the only comfort he knew how to give her. His love.
Sanctuary’s heli-jet whisked them to Buffalo Gap hours later, after Mercury slung her over his shoulder and deposited her in the back area, beneath the pilot’s amused gaze.
She was furious. So mad she could barely breathe, and once they landed at the mall, she had no choice but to behave with decorum. She wasn’t about to get into a screaming match with an arrogant Breed for the press to get hold of.
And Mercury capitalized on it. He even went so far as to allow her to choose an outfit and try it on. She had no sooner undressed than he jerked open the door and stole the clothing she had worn into the store.
And she heard him-he was a dead man-she heard him tell the salesclerk to get rid of her jeans and sweater. He was dead. She was killing him.
She stepped out in the clothes she had chosen. Black slacks and a gray sweater. He took one look at them, flexed his fingers and growled in disaproval as he asked her, very quietly, “Do you want to leave this store naked?”
She left the store dressed in butt-hugging, leg-caressing blue jeans that drew more male eyes than she had drawn in her life, and he dared to snarl at the men watching her. Paired with the jeans was a crimson-
crimson
for God’s sake-figure-hugging, boob-conforming shirt that she hid beneath the leather coat he’d allowed her to keep for some reason.
He did the same thing at the shoe store. She left in a pair of flat, leg-flattering ankle boots that in no way resembled the ones he had trashed. And shoes. So many shoes the store was having them delivered that afternoon to the cabin. High heels, shoes so expensive even she winced; high-heeled boots, leather boots, shapely, sexy boots that sent a surge of panic inside her as he stood over her, intimidating her, all but forcing her to try them on and stand up. To walk in them. To feel the pure erotic feel of footwear designed not just for comfort, but for wicked sensuality.
Store after store. The exclusive mall, attached to the even more exclusive hotel built for Sanctuary guests, held every conceivable store. They were there for hours. From store to store, as Mercury shoved clothes into the dressing room, growled, threatened a scene and pushed her farther into the dark little corner where the feminine woman she hid shouted out in glee.
She wasn’t pleased. When he forced her into the makeup salon, she dug her heels in, only to have him whisper insidiously that he had no problem giving the press a story that would keep them talking for months.
And the press was there. Mercury was a known figure with the Bureau of Breed Affairs. One of their top enforcers. He might not be dressed for duty, but the leather pants and black T-shirt he wore did nothing to hide the powerful male animal he was.