AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He didn’t answer right away.
Slanting a look at him, she cocked a brow. “Well?”
“I’m taking you to the big house.” His jaw went taut, as if he expected her to fight. “There are plenty of rooms and you need rest. I’m sure you’ll also want to clean up, maybe eat before the pack gathers tonight.”
Unable to hold that intense blue gaze another moment, Zee dipped her head. Let him think she was mourning her father. She didn’t need to do it now—she’d mourned the man she’d thought him to be ages ago. The man who’d died had been nothing more than a stranger to her.
“A hotel would be more convenient.”
“No.” The hand on her knee tightened. “You’ll stay with me.”
She ground her teeth together against the urge to argue. Would it even do any good? Shit, one call from him could ensure no hotel within a hundred miles allowed her to rent a room. Well, unless she ventured east. She could contact the Atargarians along the Carolina coast. But that would make things unpleasant between the two factions if Niko decided to be an ass.
And he would force the issue.
“Why?”
* * * * *
HER FLAT QUESTION HADhim wanting to snarl but he controlled the impulse, just like he’d been controlling other impulses for the past several hours—like the need to reach over and stroke his fingers up her thigh to seek out the wet heat of her when she’d been daydreaming.
She’d been aroused, so lushly, sweetly aroused, he’d been hard-pressed not to pull the car over to the side of the road—then pull her over... onto his lap, so he could bury his cock in the snug, sweet heat of her.
Those daydreams... they had better have been daydreams about him—or better yet of them from last night.
And then there had been the way she curled up all lazy and sleepy and he’d had the urge to pull her closer, guide her head down to his lap so he could stroke his fingers through her hair and just appreciate having her here. So close. With him.
Where she belonged.
Now he had the urge to bite her, on her plump lower lip, on her stubborn jaw, her ear. But he controlled it, his mind already thinking a good dozen steps ahead.
“What do you expect to happen here, Zee?” Instead of sliding his hand higher the way he wanted, he rubbed it in slow circles on her knee.
Brow furrowing, she asked, “What do you mean?”
“Well... ” Her skin felt impossibly soft against his touch. “You came to me last night. I think it’s safe to say I... scratched the itch.”
Her cheeks flushed but she didn’t look away. “Your point?”
“Is that all you plan to let happen? Was it simply to get my scent on you so people would know I hadn’t turned away from you?”
She set her jaw. “I wasn’t thinking anything past the fact that I wasn’t going to walk back onto these lands and have people thinking I’ve gone ten years without anybody touching me because I’m still a fucking pariah. I do have some pride.”
Ouch. He had some pride too—actually, too damn much of it, and she was savaging it under one small foot.
“So, I’m assuming any man would have done it.”
She slanted a look at him. “The man you sent to tell me about my father interrupted me and a very, very attractive man assigned to Air Command. If he’d waited even ten more minutes, I wouldn’t have been in the bar—I would have been in my apartment, wrapped around a sexy lieutenant who never ever thought to call me a fucking leech.”
Jealousy, so ugly and vicious, tore jagged claws through him, wanting out. He resisted the urge to hook his hand over her neck and drag her to him, tell her that nobody would ever lay hands on her but him.
That was a claim of possession he could have made ten years ago.
Now he had to earn the right to call her his.
“I guess that answers that. But tell me... ” He squeezed her leg, letting his hand settle a bit higher than it needed. “Do you think people will miss the fact that my scent is now embedded in your skin?”
She opened her mouth but snapped it shut without commenting. “What do you want, Niko?”
