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“Holy shit!” Okay. He was flappable. He was flapped. He was what-the-hell-ever, but no way was she going out in public like that.
“Is that a common greeting among your people?” Marie asked, raising her chin and smiling. But underneath the smile was a hint of something else. Hurt, maybe. Nervousness.
“Damn. I mean, no, that is not a common greeting. I’m sorry, you just knocked me a little off balance,” he admitted. Then he stepped forward, forcing her to let him enter the cabin. He closed the door behind him and took another step toward her.
The polite thing would have been to maintain a courteous distance.
When she put that dress on, she should have known he’d have no chance at polite.
He deliberately dropped his gaze from her face and scanned her luscious curves in the silky dark blue dress. The neckline dropped low in some kind of draped fold, and the rest of it wrapped her waist and hugged her breasts and hips like it had been sewn around her body. The swing of the skirt caressed her legs just above her knees, and he wanted nothing more than to drop to his own knees before her, push the fall of fabric slowly up those silken thighs, and discover what exactly she was wearing underneath.
He lifted his head and stared down into her eyes. “Did you wear that for me?” he said, almost not recognizing the raspy words as his own voice.
The brave smile trembled on her lips, and she began to answer, then abruptly turned away from him and walked toward the kitchen. But the view from behind was just as sexy, and he had to shift his legs as he hardened painfully inside his pants. Waves of dark silken hair tumbled down over her shoulders and back, brushing against her rounded hips. The vision he’d had earlier of her hair spread over his bed came back to him in full force, and he had to remind himself to breathe.
She stopped on the other side of the table, as if using the furniture as a barricade between them. “It was simply a dress I brought to wear for dining,” she said. “Is it inappropriate?” She’d uttered the words in a tone of bored indifference, but the rapid pulse of her heart told him it was an act.
“You can’t lie to a shape-shifter, darlin’,” he said, putting a little southern drawl in the words. “I can hear your heartbeat. If you want to play games with me, I’m all for it. But be advised that I’m alpha for more reasons than physical strength. Are you sure you’re up to playing games with me?”
He’d moved closer to her as he talked, stalking her. His cat had the scent of prey in its nostrils. No. Not prey. Something more primal. More visceral.
Mate.
Ethan stopped midstride as the realization came to him. His cat wanted to lay mate claim to this woman. This Atlantean who was not even a shape-shifter.
No.
Hell no.
“No, I am not sure that I am up for your idea of games,” Marie said. “If you prefer, we can cancel our dinner plans, although I’m sure it would have been…pleasant…to spend time with you. But if the idea distresses you…” She shrugged. “Far be it from me to cause distress to the alpha of your pride, as you so continually remind me you are.”
He weighed and discarded responses and finally settled on the simplest. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”
It was her turn to be caught off guard. He watched, entranced, as rich, rosy color swept up her neck to her cheeks and burned there. She tilted her head and examined the wood grain of the table, which was evidently fascinating. “I…No, you…Thank you. That is very kind of you.”
“No. It’s not,” he said flatly. “It’s not kind at all. It’s the truth, and I’m just wondering how many fights I’m going to get in if I take you out in public wearing that dress. You look like a man’s hottest fantasy come to life, and I know more than one of my pride who would lose their senses over you.”
She fisted her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Is that what women are to you here on the surface? Possessions over which to be fought by brainless men?”
He laughed. “Nice grammar, ocean girl. ‘Over which to be fought,’ huh? Never thought proper syntax would make me hot.”
Marie blinked, opened her mouth, and then closed it. Finally she started laughing. “You are incorrigible,” she said, her eyes sparkling with the shimmering depths of the sea at midnight under a rising moon.
He took a step closer and held out his hand. “I can live with incorrigible. How about I apologize for my unforgivable rudeness and we start over? I’m Ethan. Welcome to my territory. Would you like to have dinner with me? Somewhere away from any brainless men? Well, any brainless men besides me, of course.”
She hesitated, then placed her slender hand in his. “I am Marie, and I would be honored to have dinner with you.”
The touch of her hand sent something shining and razor-edged skimming through his nerve endings. His cat snarled and paced inside him, demanding to be let out to play.
To claim. Mate-claim.
But Ethan forced his animal half down and back, determined that the man would enjoy this evening. There was no possibility of laying mate claim to a nonpanther, let alone a woman who was not even a shape-shifter. This would simply be a pleasant meal among friends.
As he followed Marie out the door of the cabin, unable to look away from her gently swaying backside, he clenched his hands into fists and focused on the essentials.
Control.
Pleasant dinner.
