“Do as I said,” he snapped.
“Fuck you, Jake, you go to sleep…”
“Do not worry, the day will come when you will do just that, Faith. Until you can handle it, I suggest you run now and run fast, or you may learn what it feels like to have your mate mount you without your permission. ” Fury snapped in his body. Her continued defiance roused the beast and made it howl.
He watched her pale. Terror flashed in her eyes a second before she ran. He cursed violently, dragging his hands through his hair as he tamped down the beast that demanded he run her down. He couldn’t. He never could. She was his mate, and yet he would be forever denied her touch. His ravenous, grieving howl echoed through the mountains now, as it echoed through his soul.
Damn Bainesmith, the Labs and Faith. For those three reasons he had stayed away from his Pack, and the woman who tempted and tormented him. For two of those reasons he would leave again.
He couldn’t trust himself, couldn’t trust the lack of control that had raged through his body the first time he had taken her. And he couldn’t face her fear of him now. He saw it in her eyes each time he came near her, heard it in her voice when she spoke to him, and he hated it. Hated hearing it, and hated himself for causing it.
He stalked to the jeep awaiting him several feet away. It was already packed and ready to go. Wolfe wouldn’t need him any longer. The others could clean up the mess, and Wolfe would have them all packing up and heading out soon. There wasn’t much left for him to do. He started the ignition, stared toward the cabin Faith had stayed in and shook his head. Damn, if only she was a little older, a little more experienced. If only they had been born, rather than created, raised rather than trained. If only he could have stayed—
* * * * *
Faith watched the jeep pull out of the cabin yard, her eyes narrowing in anger and pain as Jacob drove away. He wouldn’t be back. She knew he wouldn’t be. Her mate. The thought was a silent sneer.
She hadn’t seen him in six years. Had waited each day with bated breath, thinking that would be the day he would return to claim her. That he would realize he needed her. Realize she needed him.
Her teeth clenched as anger seared her insides, as hot and devastating as the arousal that often plagued her as well. She didn’t need him. She ignored the little voice inside her that assured her she did. She could live without him easily. She tamped down the protest from her heart and from her body that she couldn’t. She had her vibrators; she had her home, her coffee and her freedom. Who needed a mate? She did of course, sarcastic and mocking, her inner voice jumped to the fore.
She sighed wearily, sadly. It would be time to return home soon. They would get Wolfe and Hope back to the Pack compound outside New Mexico, and then she would return to New York. Back to her life. Back to her job. Back to her loneliness.
Chapter Three
Six months later
He knew that ass. Jacob watched the woman as she shifted her hips, looked around the bar, then turned back to the bartender. Her short auburn hair was cut close, framing her irregular face and giving her an almost pixie look. She was barely five feet five inches, dressed in soft black jeans, a black leather jacket and hiking boots. And she had the prettiest rear he had ever seen on a woman. She was tempting seduction, hot lust and a warning he didn’t need. He groaned silently.
She shifted again. Her buttocks flexed and his dick throbbed. Hell, he didn’t need this. It had taken more years than he wanted to remember before he stopped waking in a sweat, the feel of that tight ass gripping his cock, driving him crazy. Hell of a time for a rescue, he had always thought. And here she was, six months after he was forced to walk away from her again, somewhere she shouldn’t be, tempting him and the fragile control that kept him away from her. And this was the wrong damned place and the wrong damned time to be tempting his control.
The dirty little South American bar was filled with thieves, cutthroats, mercenaries and whores. He was here to buy information, get laid and get out, in that order. And she walks in. He sighed wearily. His internal trouble barometer was going off the scales, and the six yahoos at the table nearest her looked much too interested in that cute butt to suit him. That was his ass. Didn’t matter that he had never finished fucking it, or the tempting little cunt beneath it. He still considered it his if it was anywhere in his vicinity. And what the hell was that man doing with her? She wasn’t supposed to be with a man.
Every possessive instinct he possessed roared out in protest. The soft, feral growl that rumbled in his chest was no surprise. It was all he could do to keep it to a soft warning rather than the vicious snarl he wanted to release.
“Jake, what the hell’s wrong with you?” His companion, a gunrunner and general badass, hissed from beside him.
“Problems,” Jacob grimaced then tossed back the rest of his whisky. “We’ll have to fight our way out. ”
“Why?” Confusion filled Danson’s voice.
Jacob glanced at the other man, seeing the calculation in the hazel eyes that watched him. He nodded at Faith.
“See that tight ass?”
There was a moment’s silence. Jacob glanced at the other man only long enough to get more pissed than he already was. Danson’s quiet, intense perusal of those tempting curves was an insult to Jacob’s possessive instincts.
“Nice ass,” Danson’s voice was too appreciative to suit Jacob.
“That’s my ass, Danson, twisting around at that bar. My ass, my woman, and she’s about to get herself and me in a hell of a mess. ”
He stood to his feet, grimacing at the sudden tight fit at the crotch of his jeans. His eyes narrowed as the six bastards ahead of him geared themselves to confront the pretty little ass flexing as the woman looked around the room again. Damned fine ass, he sighed. He was gonna wallop it first chance he got for being so damned stupid as to walk into this bar.
* * * * *
“It’s gonna turn into a fight,” her friend and adopted Pack mate, Hawke drawled lazily as he leaned back against the bar and watched the small group of men who had been calling out obscenities and impossible suggestions for the past few minutes.
There were six of them, and Faith could smell the rancid scent of unwashed bodies and violent lust. They were men looking for a fight and a woman they could hurt. Evidently, the whores in this place were too damned easy if they actually thought picking on her right now was a good idea. She shifted uncomfortably. She didn’t need this. She was here to find Jacob, that was all. Despite the pulse of adrenaline that sped through her veins, she fought for enough common sense not to push the bastards further.