“I am not.”
“The hotel is in the opposite direction.”
“My mate will not be seen in such a place,” Leon snarled, putting emphasis on the word that twisted through Elena’s heart, gouging out the stuttering muscle to turn to ash in her hands.
His mate.
No, she wouldn’t think of it. Couldn’t conceive of the terrors to come. If she dwelled on it for even a moment more…
“I’m not your mate,” she hissed, unlatching the belt as he was forced to slow at a stop sign.
“The hell you aren’t! You signed the papers, little one. You aremine.”
Foolish as it might be, Elena grabbed the handle and wrenched the door open as Leon applied the brakes at another stop sign. She blessed whatever neighborhood curmudgeon had fought for so many to be installed as she lurched out of the gaping hole.
Elena screamed as he reached over the seats and snatched her back in. Hand tangled in her hair and clothes, he hauled her over the seats as the car slammed to a halt. Free hand jerking the emergency brake up, he pulled Elena over to sprawl on his lap.
“What the hell do you think you are doing,” he shouted inches away from her face. “Do you even realize what you could have done to yourself?”
“I would have been fine,” Elena yelled back.
“You find me so awful that death would be preferable?”
“Yes!”
Elena gasped as his mouth came down on hers. She writhed within his hold, twisting away even though it ripped her hair free of his fingers, her blouse strangling her as it caught in his hand. Leon made a low rumble of warning. His free hand caught her hip, pinning her to his lap as he angled her head for better access.
The sweep of his tongue was white hot across her lips. Evergreens and smoke invaded her senses, inundated her with his scent and heat as he deepened the kiss. Forcing her to open to him, he teased her with careful flicks and gentle nips. Cupping the back of her head, his growl turned sultry. Filling her with a heat she’d never known as she arched into the low reverberation with a quiet whine of confusion.
Her body was on fire, synapses misfiring as heat simmered under her skin. Hands fisted in his shirt, she fought to push him away, but found her arms pulling him closer. She fed him her moan as her thighs slid against one another in fitful bursts of unease, a dull ache forming between them as she clenched overempty air. His hand glided up her thigh, bunching the fabric of her long skirt against his wrist. She opened to him, a flower to the sun as his fingers teased against her.
Wrenching away from the kiss, he panted a mere breath away from her lips. Staring her down from inches away as her brows began to drift down. A frown forming in the dazed pleasure he’d begun drowning her in.
“For someone who thinks me so monstrous, you’re awful quick to spread for me,” he murmured.
Shame coursed through her veins in an icy floe, leaving her feeling cold and dirty. She shoved at his arm, struggling with the folds of her skirt to hide away the length of her legs and the breadth of her humiliation. She’d grown wet, thighs slipping against each other as the spun sugar sweetness of her excitement clouded the warm air of the car.
Leon’s smirk burned along her skin as his eyes took their fill of her predicament before he dumped her into the passenger seat. With exaggerated care, he pulled the belt over her chest, latching it at her hip as Elena fussed over the state of her clothes and her bruised pride.
Gods, he was right. She’d spread for him with wanton abandon with nothing more than a kiss. How far had she fallen that this savage beast could do this to her?
What was wrong with her that she would do it even after what he’d done to her?
Curling around her middle in a defensive huddle, Elena avoided even looking at him as he started them on their way once more. Mortified and ashamed, she stared out the window, her bleak mood souring the bright, sunny day as he guided the car past the small homes and well into the grand mansions she knew.
Curiosity flared and died between one trembling heartbeat and the next as he passed what she knew to be the homes of most of the higher echelon. She’d expected his house to bewithin their shadow, but he continued on well past them to where the newer developments overshadowed ancient traditions.
The house he pulled in front of was modern, with sleek lines and all the trappings of wealth. Short, well-kept bushes lined the walk, a sea of evergreens taking place of pride among the landscape full of reds and golds. Elena shivered as she looked out the windshield at what was to be her prison.
It was as cold as the man himself, every harsh line and sharp angle a mirror of the shadowy depths of his nature. She flinched as he opened her door, fingers scrabbling over the latch of her belt before he could lean in to do it for her. Even having him this close was too much for overwrought nerves, her stomach doing a slow somersault as he grunted and took her arm in hand. Not even a hint of graciousness in his actions as he hauled her up the steps and into the house.
“You’ll have your own pin,” he murmured as his fingers tapped out the numbers on the keypad beside the door.
“I’ll be allowed to leave your prison then,” Elena said with a saccharine smile as she twisted her arm in his grasp. Reminding him he held her prisoner even now.
“You’ll act the part of a gracious mate, and will not embarrass me,” he said with a quiet snarl as a woman slowly approached. There was something in his eyes that could be called warmth in any other man as he introduced her. “This is Mrs. Emma Jacobs. She runs my house and will get you anything you need.”
“I need you to unhand me,” Elena muttered, tugging on her arm once more.
