"So you can continue to hide?’ His tone grated at her already shredded nerves.
"Yes!" She whirled around, staring back at him with a look that mingled fury and pain. "So I can hide. So it doesn't have to hurt so fucking bad. "
Anything else she would have said locked in her throat the second she saw his eyes. They glowed. Amber lights flickered in the deep gold color as his tight, hungry expression gave his face a savage cast. He looked like a conquering warrior. A man intent on possession.
She stepped back quickly.
"Now there's a fine idea," he drawled as he stepped closer. "Keep a bit of distance between us, darlin', because the closer you get, the sweeter that soft little pussy smells and the harder my dick gets. You really don't want to make it harder. Any harder and I'm going to have to do away with these jeans and see just how deep I can push between those pretty thighs and how loud I can make you scream as you come around me. "
The explicit words sent heat flaming through her body as invisible fingers of lightning began to course from nerve ending to nerve ending, sensitizing her, stoking the fires inside her hotter. She felt the wet heat dampening her panties further.
"Why?’ she cried out then. "You don't want me. You don't want this_" She waved her hand between them to indicate the Mating Heat. "Why do you care?"
"You like fooling yourself, don't you, baby. " He stepped closer. Megan retreated. Now was not a good time to get within touching distance.
"Now see, that's where you are entirely wrong. I wasn't rejecting you, Megan. I was rejecting what nature had done, not you. There is no reason for your anger. "
She lifted her chin defensively. "I have a right to be angry with you. You were using me in those cliffs, using my Empathy to find the answers you needed just as you let Jonas use me to try to trap my cousin. Just as you used what I_" Felt. She wouldn't say the words, wouldn't address the pain of his rejection.
His gaze flickered with regret; the emotion washed over her, clenching her chest as another tear slipped free.
He shook his head slowly, his hand reaching out to touch her cheek, his fingertips rasping over her flesh with heated pleasure.
"I would never use you. " His voice throbbed with the vow. "I have been alone so long, Megan. Alone within myself, knowing, feeling that nothing in this world was ever meant to be mine. Then suddenly something was mine. You were mine. " The possessive tone had her blinking back at him in surprise. Both his hands framed her face, holding her still as his thumbs smoothed over her damp cheeks. "Mine. Everything inside me locked down in fear because suddenly I had something to lose. And so did you. And the thought of that was unbearable. I've lost too much already. "
Her lips parted as her heart began to race, not in lust or excitement or adventure, but in hope. She had found someone who matched her, a warrior and a shield. A man she could respect; one she could argue with and enjoy. She hadn't wanted to lose that. Hadn't wanted to be alone again.
"No"
"Yes. " He snarled, emotion thickening his voice. "Do you not understand yet, Megan? This Mating is not just a physical phenomenon. It is not merely chemicals gone haywire. Look inside yourself. If you could love any type of man, lean on any other person, who would this person be?
Who is the lover that haunts your dreams? What fight boils in your blood? We would have been two parts of a whole, no matter who we were or where we met. You know this. Just as I know this. "
She clenched her teeth, fighting the surging emotion of the realization he was right, but also recalling the denial she knew he had felt earlier. She had something to lose.
"See?’ He latched onto the emotion she couldn't hide, his fingers pressing against her scalp as his taut features became more primitive, more exotic for the emotions he was fighting to contain. "Feel it, Megan. Feel what I knew. My soul would die without yours to fill it. Without you to hold me close in the darkness of night; without your laughter to bring the light into the darkness that has filled every fucking day of my life for as long as I have drawn breath. For the first time in thirty-four years I am alive. I live because of you, and the thought of going back to the desolation of being alone scares me to death. "
His emotions slammed into her, filling her, heating her.
"Feel me. " He groaned, his voice rough, tormented. "I know your gifts, for mine are their companions. When we battle, I feel you reaching out, connecting to me as nothing else ever has, feeding me what you know
even as you draw on my strength to brace yourself against the pain. You are the Empath, I am the shield. Two parts of the whole, Megan. "
He released her then, stepping back to stare at her with such an excess of emotion that she could barely breathe, let alone speak. "This was what I tried to deny, to reject, even knowing that if I lost you, no matter how, my soul would be as dead as the Coyotes who search only for blood and for death. "
He released her, only to pull out of his shirt pocket a small plastic pack that held several pills. His gaze probed her expression as she lifted her eyes questioningly.
"And that is?'
"This," he glanced to his palm then to her before his lips twisted with an edge of bitterness, "is a nifty little drug designed to ease the worst of the symptoms of the Mating Heat. The pain if you don't get fucked often enough, as well as the forced conception caused by the hormones secreted from my body, can become_ harmful. Unfortunately, mating a Breed isn't always pleasant. Unless you want to get knocked up, you take the little contraceptive. "
"A birth control pill?’ How insane.
"After a fashion. " He shrugged, inhaling deeply in a gesture that reinforced the excess of emotions that were filling them both. "Though the hormones in it are radically different than those once used on the drug market. These are more to block the hormone released from me, rather than those of your body. "
"So why aren't you taking it?’ She glared at him furiously.
"Because, darling, I'm not the one who will suffer if you don't conceive. You are. The Mating Heat builds until conception occurs. The hormone continues to grow within your body, overriding everything else but the need to have sex and to procreate. This will ease the symptoms as well prevent ovulation. So make your choice. "