“You want me. I can smell it. Why deny it?”
“And you think wanting is all that matters?” she asked as she turned and moved to the cabinets for plates. “There’s more to life than just wanting, Mercury.”
She sat the plates on the table before facing him again, her expression earnest.
“Is wanting you so bad?”
No, wanting him was so bad, Ria thought to herself as she stared at him, amazed at the relaxed, sensual animal he had become, as though changing from the enforcer’s uniform into jeans and a T-shirt had somehow altered his entire personality.
“It depends on what the want is,” she sighed, then stared back at him intently. “Let’s be honest here. There’s not a chance of anything between us besides a one-night stand or a fly-by-night affair. I don’t want either of those.”
“You want love.” He nodded slowly, as though he could possibly understand that. “A commitment.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” She opened her own beer and took a quick drink. She needed something to settle her nerves.
“There’s nothing wrong with it, Ria,” he answered softly. “But what makes you automatically think I’m not capable of caring for you? Not that I’m saying I do.” He suddenly frowned. “But I’m not incapable of it just because I’m a Breed.”
“No, because you’ve already mated. I’ve read your file, Mercury. Any other woman will always be second best,” Ria answered, keeping her voice soft, quiet. “I don’t do second best real well.”
As she met his gaze, his eyes darkened and narrowed, chilling in their appraisal.
“Mating is a chemical reaction
,” he snapped. “It doesn’t mean I’m dead or that my emotions were lobotomized.”
“No, it means sex will always be just that, sex.”
“And there’s something wrong with that?” he growled. He really growled. It wasn’t just a deeper tone as it was with some men, it was an actual rumble of sound, a rough, graveled scraping of his voice.
“It’s all according to your point of view.” She sipped at the beer again, using it to distract herself from the fierce frown on his face. “For me, sex has to mean more. I have to feel more than just arousal.” And she had been feeling more than just that, for this Breed, for far too many weeks now.
“You’ve never had a one-night stand?”
“Not by choice,” she retorted. “Look, this isn’t a debate. It’s my choice. I choose not to have sex with you. See why I didn’t want you here? Why I preferred a woman to stay with me rather than you? I knew you would harass me over this.”
“Harass you?” He came out of his seat, the relaxed facade dropping in the blink of an eye. “I have yet to harass you. I simply want answers.”
“Tell it to someone who will believe you.” She rolled her eyes at the declaration. “Come on, Merc. You want sex. And you don’t care what you have to do to get me in bed, you’ll do it. Forget how it might hurt me, or how it will affect how I do my job.” She stopped then, her eyes narrowing. “Or is that the point? Are you trying to influence my decision where the Breed funding is concerned?”
Anger snapped in his eyes and it wasn’t a comfortable sight. But neither was the heartache awaiting her. She needed to belong. She could never belong to this man because he had already lost that part of himself that could belong to a woman.
“Do I look like Jonas’s fucking gigolo?” he snarled.
Ria propped her hand on her hip as she set the beer down with a thump and faced him.
“Oh, just go ahead and pretend he’s not above it,” she charged. “It wouldn’t be the first time one of his enforcers has seduced a mark to get what Jonas wanted. He’s cold, calculating and manipulative. And he lets nothing and no one stand in the way of what he wants. Go ahead and deny it.”
Jonas is his father’s son, Dane liked to drawl in amusement. Jonas Wyatt was created from sperm collected from Leo before his escape from the labs a century before. From the reports she had read on the director of Breed affairs, he possibly had all of Leo’s worst traits. He was damned scary.
“I am not a goddamned puppet for Jonas Wyatt,” Mercury snarled. And damn if he didn’t do a good snarl.
He was pissed.
“Then why the sudden pressure to sleep with you? I’ve been here a month and you’re just now getting to the hot looks and the flirty little comments?”
“You wanted me to jump you the first day? Damn, wish I had known that, because all I could think about was bending you over that desk, shoving that damned shapeless skirt over your ass and watching my cock sink balls-deep into your hot little pussy.” His lips lifted in a snarl as he flashed his incisors at her. “Sorry, baby, thought you might need a small amount of time there to get to know me.”
The image was flashing through her head. Oh God, she would never be able to sit at that desk comfortably again.