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“Ely is no electronics wizard.” He sighed heavily. “She hates computers just to begin with. If it’s not scientific equipment, then she has no use for it. They would have to keep it simple.”
His voice was heavy, filled with regret, as he rose to his feet. “Get this information printed out, pull the program here, and I want it installed on the personal network we’re putting together for in-house use.”
Ria smiled tightly. “Not without clearance, Jonas.”
“We need this program, damn you!” His hands flattened on the desk as he growled back at her.
“Jonas.” Mercury stepped between them, his large body tense, his voice warning. “Pull back.”
Jonas jerked back from the desk and glared at Mercury.
“Fuck this shit! When this is over, I’m joining Lawe in the damned monastery. I’ve had enough of overly territorial Breeds and the mating heat bullshit that makes my job hell. Watch it, Mercury. I’ll give you my job.”
He pushed his hands over his short, dark hair and breathed out heavily before turning back to Ria. “Can you at least print out the information and bring it to Callan’s office? I need proof, Ria. Not supposition or information on a program we’re not allowed to have,” he sneered.
“I can install the program on Callan’s computer. It can ghost for up to seventy-two hours before it deletes itself and becomes inoperable and undetectable to the main network. Or any other private network.”
He nodded sharply as he moved from the desk and allowed her back in her chair.
Sitting was agony. It clenched her thighs around her clit, reminding her of the emptiness inside her core, and tightened her womb spasmodically as the need for sex began to eat her alive.
She restrained the need to place her hand against her lower stomach in protest of the pain, and she feared that the next few hours were going to be impossible to get through.
She typed in the key to release the program from the computer, inserted another ghost program to clean it from the drive and the network, then pulled t
he small external drive that held the information they needed.
When she looked up, it was to see Mercury’s gaze on her, that hard blue color of his eyes burning within his face. He needed too, and yet he did nothing to ease either one of them.
If she wanted him, she would have to take him.
She stared at him, almost feeling the sweet relief, the burning need as if she had forced his heavy erection inside her, taking him to the hilt and feeling all that heat and power at her control. That could become more addictive than the mating heat itself.
Her breasts became more swollen, her nipples painfully hard beneath the lace of the bra she wore. She felt like panting. Like going to her knees and taking what she wanted.
“Today, children,” Jonas cleared his throat, breaking the spell weaving around them. “Sometime today, if you don’t mind.”
Ria rose to her feet and forced her gaze back to the files she had laid aside to back up the information on the external drive.
She wanted to shake her head, to attempt to clear it and the emotions striking through her—anger and need, heartache and the certainty that living without him wasn’t an option now.
He had done this to her, she argued inside. He had made the choice to take her rather than the woman that nature had meant for him.
And if that woman was suffering as a result?
She shook her head. It didn’t work like that. Elizabeth’s research proved that mating heat required an exchange of the hormone; a kiss, a sex act—more than just a desire. The hormone could only show up with mating heat in full force. The Breed tongue might itch, but the glands would swell only minutely at first unless further contact was initiated.
It took more than just the knowledge that mating heat could be an option. And obviously, it was possible for a Breed male to take another mate, if that exchange wasn’t made. Because he had mated her. And mated her. And she needed him to mate her again before she melted into a puddle of need on the floor.
They left the office and Mercury came up beside her, his hand riding low on her back, fingers sliding beneath the short hem of her shirt as they headed to Callan’s office on the other side of the mansion.
As they turned down the main hall once again, she was there. Avaricious eyes watched Mercury, sliding over his body as he and Ria moved toward her. Greed and lust flickered in the other woman’s eyes as Ria clenched her fingers to fists to restrain the need to claw those eyes out.
She could feel the violence rising inside her. Something she detested, feared, within herself. There had always been a part of her psyche that she kept tightly restrained, that she never allowed free, for a reason.
She had dressed down, rarely worn makeup and stayed on the perimeter of everyone else, for protection. For herself. She hated the inner violence she felt whenever she lost something important to her.
She remembered the rage that had consumed her as a child when she realized, when it finally hit her, that her mother had left her forever. No matter the reasons, her mother had left her alone.
