“So … ,” he drawled, rising slowly to his feet. “They tell you who I am?”
Cocky bastard. Did he think she couldn’t figure that one out on her own?
“Are you a Breed?” she snapped.
His brow arched. Was that surprise she saw in his face?
“Why, mate, I do believe I am.” He was laughing at her again.
Propping her hand on her hip, she restrained the need to snarl back at him in fury. “Do I smell as though I give a fuck what your name is right now? Yes, I know what your goddamned name is, and I’ll be damned if I’ll scream out ‘Dog’ while I’m coming. So please be kind enough to choose another.”
Choose another name?
She was worried about the name she called out when she orgasmed, when the scent of her Heat was like a drug hitting his system?
He didn’t even have time to tell her what he thought about that demanding little statement before she turned with a little twitch of her nose and a toss of her head and stalked through her bedroom door.
Had anyone ever delivered such a stinging rebuke only to sweep away before he could deliver a comeback?
He didn’t think so. And he didn’t like it. He couldn’t remember a time anyone had left him speechless. And the knowledge that his fledgling mate had done so didn’t sit well with him.
He grinned, raw, primal lust rising hard and fast, releasing the hunger he’d been holding back.
He’d warned her the night he slipped into her hospital room so long ago to never dare him. And though she might have been unconscious when he bent over her, she’d damned sure come awake once he’d whispered the words.
She might not say the words, but every look, every word out of that smart mouth of hers, was a blatant challenge, and it was time to meet that challenge in a way she couldn’t refute.
Dog slipped silently into the bathroom minutes later, naked, anticipating a confrontation with his mate, when he was brought to a hard, sudden stop.
The scent of feminine arousal was heavy in the small room. Tempting. If ambrosia had a scent, then it was the smell of his mate’s need for him. But mixed with it, and vying for supremacy, was the scent of her pain and her fear.
Never had he scented her fear.
Trepidation on occasion, anger, confusion a few times, but he’d never fear.
Moving silently to the entrance of the shower, he expected to see her tears, a ravaged expression. Instead, she stood beneath an icy spray, her forehead and hands resting against the tile wall, her profile composed and eerily calm.
There wasn’t a hint of the turmoil he could sense pouring from her, mixing with her arousal but doing nothing to dim it.
Standing so still a
nd silent, the soaked silk of her hair flowing down her delicate back, she made him more aware of his own strength and larger build in a way he’d never been before. But it was the mix of chaotic emotions that held him, that had his chest clenching, had him pausing before he reached for the shower’s controls and pushed the temperature from icy to something far warmer and more inviting.
He waited for the fall of water to warm as he watched his little mate. As she stood like a statue, silent and so very still, he could sense the battle inside her, feel it tearing at her. And only a fool wouldn’t be aware of whom she feared so deeply that she was standing there fighting to control herself.
She feared him. Feared him with the same depth that she wanted him.
And there wasn’t a damned thing he could do to fix it. He didn’t dare give voice to his own secrets, because once they touched the air around him, they’d be secrets no longer, and he couldn’t protect her if that happened.
“So, tell me, mate,” he said instead. “What name would you prefer I carry?”
Cassie swung around, so shocked that she hadn’t heard him, hadn’t smelled him enter the room, that she could only blink back at the Breed standing in the shower’s open doorway.
“Is there something else you’d prefer to call me?” There was nothing mocking, cruel, or censorious in his tone. He spoke as though merely curious as to her answer.
She could only shake her head, uncertain now.
For a second, he lowered his head and stared at the floor as she slowly became aware of the fact that the water flowing around her had become much warmer, steamy in fact. And within the warmth she could swear the hunger emanating from him was sinking inside her and increasing her own.