Cabal closed the door before allowing a rumble of displeasure to vibrate in his throat. He would have a mate with a mouth that would sear a man’s flesh at fifty paces.
His brother sometimes said that a
t least he was never bored since mating his wife, Scheme. Tanner often remarked that life was interesting now. Cabal definitely wasn’t bored with Cassa, could never imagine himself being bored, but damn if he wasn’t ready to pull his own hair out.
Jumping into the driver’s seat, he slammed his door, started the ignition, then backed out of his parking slot. Remaining quiet, he turned onto Main Street before heading out of town to the small cabin he’d rented in the state park.
Cassa remained silent as well, which only had the tension tightening through his body. He could smell her emotions, her arousal and the hint of fear she always carried whenever he was around.
It tore at something inside him to know that she feared him, even a little bit. And it was fear of him. He knew the scent of it, he smelled it often enough from others. Where it rarely bothered him at any other time, it bothered him now. To know that something so elemental as her trust in him was denied him sent a shard of disappointment raging through him.
Maneuvering the SUV along the mountainous roads, he glanced over at her from time to time, taking in her calm profile. The thick waves of her dark blond hair flowed around her face and shoulders, fell over her breasts and down her back.
His fingers itched to bury themselves in that silken mass, and he found that denying himself was only making the hunger grow. He felt lost in the need rising inside him. That need was threatening his control and the assignment he was on. She threatened the assignment he was on.
By the time he pulled the vehicle into the small driveway of the cabin he’d rented, Cabal felt as though his control had been stretched to its limits. It was the scent of her. Subtly sweet, heated with a hint of wild desire.
That was what tempted him past bearing, he decided, as he stopped the vehicle in front of the wide front porch and turned off the ignition. That hint of wild spice in her arousal.
“Here we are,” he announced as he turned to her.
“Convenient.” Her smile was tight as she turned to him before opening her door. “What are we, a few miles from that little valley I was looking for?”
Two maybe. He was surprised that she realized that.
“You have a damned good sense of direction,” he said, com plimenting her as he opened the door and stepped out of the vehicle, before loping to her side to help her out. Not that she needed any help. She was jumping out of the SUV as he moved to open the door. He should have known she would be too damned independent to wait for a man to do anything for her.
“My sense of direction has always been excellent,” she informed him as he placed his hand at the small of her back and led her to the front door.
The cabin was large and roomy. The lower floor, with its wide living room, spacious kitchen and spare bedroom, was neat and open. Upstairs, the master bedroom overlooked the door, and held a large master bath.
The rental cabin was built for year-round stay, and afforded plenty of room for the additional Breeds working the assignment with Cabal, when they were needed.
“Nice place,” she said as he closed the door behind them, then silently locked it.
“It works.” He shrugged, moving ahead of her. “Coffee?”
The last thing either of them needed was coffee. The caffeine played hell with mating heat and they both knew it.
“Sure.” Her smile was knowing, mocking, as she followed him into the open kitchen. She knew what caffeine did to the system, and she was daring him just as fiercely as he was daring her now. “Then we can talk.”
Talk wasn’t exactly what he had on his mind. Laying her down and licking her from head to toe—now that idea held some merit. He was curious though. How much longer would the mating hormone treatment she was taking allow her to hold out? She was doing damned good. A hell of a lot better than he was actually.
“Sure, we’ll talk.” He wasn’t promising what they would talk about though.
Awareness of her tingled over his flesh like an invisible caress and sent a shard of aching loneliness tearing through him. He knew what he was missing by holding back; he knew the completion he could find by claiming his mate.
But he also knew what he was risking if he allowed his emotions to become involved any more than they already were. He was risking his very soul, as well as hers. Unlike other Breed enforcers Cabal was a covert enforcer. He was unregistered and known for his complete lack of regulation. He was a suicide operative. He took the jobs the other enforcers couldn’t because of Breed Law or protocol. He took the jobs with a fatality rate much higher than most.
He was a mate now though. If anything happened to him, then the hell Cassa would live through was something he didn’t want to contemplate.
Once this mission was over, his enforcer status would have to be reconsidered. There were plenty of other Breeds who could take his place, and honestly, he thought he might be more than happy to step aside for them.
“What do you intend to talk about then? The fact that you don’t want me for a mate, or the one where it’s already too damned late to do anything about it?” There was a snap to her tone that had him turning and staring back at her silently.
Hell, he wouldn’t have imagined that mating could have started with something so simple as his blood against her tongue. She couldn’t have done more than taken a drop of his blood, but somehow, it had been enough.
Bullshit. He’d become more enraged than ever when he’d seen Cassa and her husband in the control room of the facility he thought he would die within. He’d watched her fight to release him, watched Douglas’s glee at the blood and death.