Lawe's Justice - Lora Leigh [65]
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 didn’t purr on command.
And the last warning had been that the animal Lawe shared his skin with would one day overcome his determination to hold it back, and it would take the mate it sensed waiting.
If the look on Lawe’s face and his stiff, jutting erection were anything to go by, the animal and the man were pretty much in agreement that it was the time to claim the mate and they were prepared to prove it.
Icy blue eyes flared, then darkened, as his expression tightened and primal dominance suddenly marked it.
This was it.
They had been dancing around each other for more than a year now, deliberately easing in, then pulling back at the slightest hint of emotion, only to be drawn back again.
She’d teased, and she’d forgotten the warnings