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“You’re a hazard to your own health,” she bit out. “How did you know I wouldn’t use that knife?”
“I didn’t,” he admitted with a small smile. “I think I even expected you to go through with it. ”
Her gaze flickered heatedly. “Why would you let me, Tanner? Why would you do something like that?”
He reached out, his thumb brushing over her cheek, catching a tear before staring at it thoughtfully for long seconds. How could he explain that to her when he couldn’t explain it to himself?
“Because I had to know if I’m more to you than just your captor. ” He lifted his gaze back to hers. “Because you are much more to me, Scheme, than you ever should be. ”
She swallowed tightly, her gaze becoming shuttered now.
“That’s crazy. ”
“Yeah, it is,” he admitted with a smile. “But no crazier than this is. ”
His head lowered to her. He had to taste her lips, dampened with her tears. The sweet salty taste of her went to his head like a narcotic. The touch of her lips against his, like warm satin, her tongue a stroke of fire, sent raging impulses of pleasure to tighten his cock further and draw his balls tighter.
Her kiss heated him faster, hotter than a volcano at eruption point. It was like being in the middle of an inferno.
“I went crazy every time I saw another man touch you,” he growled against her lips, his hand threading into her hair to hold her in place as her eyes jerked open in surprise.
“Someone had to watch the surveillance. ” He nipped at her lips with his teeth. “In case one of you talked business in the fucking bed. ” He caught her lower lip, pulling at it, scraping over it with his teeth as her eyes narrowed back at him. “I went crazy,” he repeated. “Every goddamned time I would be feral for days. ”
Her lips trembled. “Then why did you?”
He couldn’t keep himself from touching her face, from smoothing his fingers over her delicate jaw.
“Because I couldn’t bear for anyone else to do it. ” He would have had to kill anyone else who dared to see her like that. Naked. Vulnerable. Reaching for something she never found. He had seen it in her eyes, that dissatisfaction, that need. Just as he felt it in his soul with every other woman he had been with.
“Why doesn’t it bother you?” He would have been enraged to learn his privacy had been invaded in such a way. She should have been clawing his eyes out instead of lying back in his arms and staring up at him.
Not that her rage would have made a difference. With his luck, it would have only made him hotter.
Resignation tilted her lips. “Because you didn’t let anyone else see it. ” Her whisper sliced through him. “And because it was you. ”
And for the first time he paused. “Why does that matter, Scheme?”
She shook her head slowly as her hand lifted to curl around the side of his neck. “I don’t know why it matters,” she said, her tone so stoic, so somber, it clenched his heart. “But it matters. ”
Then her head lifted, her teeth catching at his lower lip as she tugged at it erotically.
“You said you made lists?” she asked then.
He smiled slowly. “I made many lists, pretty girl, and all on exactly how many ways I intended to please you. ”
“So please me, Breed,” she whispered heatedly. “Show me everything I’ve been missing. ”
It sounded like a dare, a brazen challenge. But he heard the desperation in her voice, saw it in her eyes. She needed this as much as he did, needed to lose herself in the pleasure and the heat that built with each touch between them.
Lifting her in his arms, Tanner carried her to the bed, keeping his eyes locked with hers, his senses focused on her.
She was confused, desperate. He could feel the raging pain inside her, the need to understand the fires that built so quickly between them.
Why wasn’t she his mate?
As he laid her on the bed, Tanner stared down at her, memorizing her features, the soft pale skin of her face, the dark chocolate of her eyes. Her sable hair fanned out around her; the violet velvet of her outfit whispered over her slender body.
She would have made the perfect mate. Strong-willed, passionate, built for endurance and survival. She should have been his mate.
