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Moving carefully, he slid his arms beneath her knees and around her back before lifting her against his chest. She’d had coffee; if she woke up, she was going to go ballistic on him. He hoped she slept for a while longer. A whole lot longer, if he was lucky. But she wasn’t sleeping on this couch in the command lounge. She had a bed. Two actually, his and hers. If she needed to sleep, then she could do so in comfort.
As he moved from the lounge, she cuddled closer, her cold little nose burying itself against his neck as a little shiver worked over her.
She was cold. A surge of possessiveness shot through him at the realization. The caverns weren’t cold. They were a comfortable seventy-one degrees almost all year long. If by chance any part of them grew chillier, then there were heating units in place to take care of that.
He held her closer as he moved through the stone- and steel-reinforced tunnels to their quarters. Her bed had been turned down for her, he knew, the lights left low, but he was damned if he wanted to put her in her own bed.
He wondered if it were possible that she would sleep through him putting her in his bed. He was more than willing to leave her dressed, though he wasn’t as sacrificing where his own clothes were concerned. Tucking her against his naked body would tickle the hell out of him.
It was worth trying. Better to fight it out with her now than to try to seduce her there in a week or so. Maybe he just needed to put his foot down a bit. He’d never done that with her. Never given her boundaries other than that of not allowing her father on Haven or Base without his presence.
She had simply forgone seeing her family rather than do it in front of him.
He frowned darkly as he entered his own room.
Or had she forgone seeing them?
He glanced down at her. Dammit, he had stated she couldn’t see them at Haven or on Base without his presence. He was betting money she had seen them somewhere else. Why the hell hadn’t he considered that l
oophole? Anya would not have gone this long without seeing her family, even if it meant dealing with him.
Cunning, conniving little imp. How had he been so wrong about her? And he knew clearly that he obviously was. Anya was stubborn as hell, but she loved her family with a devotion he was frankly jealous of.
He knew clear to the bottom of his gut that she had met them somewhere else. No doubt with her bodyguards’ full endorsement. He was going to have to do something about the damned women running roughshod over him on his own base. His coya. That flighty little genius Ashley that so loved playing the dumb blonde. The too quirky Sharone and the quiet, manipulating little Emma. Hell, he hoped the Felines managed to temper some of that shit in the younger twins they were fostering.
Shaking his head, he settled his mate carefully on his own turned-down bed and eased the little blanket she had tried to use for warmth away from her as he lifted the sheet and comforter over her. He didn’t bother with the lights. He stripped to his skin, slid in beside her and eased her into his arms.
He almost groaned at the warmth of her body against his own chilled flesh. The way she settled in against him, mumbling, grumbling a bit with charming feminine irritation until she was as close to him as she could get, her nose buried against his shoulder, her rounded body tucked into his until he could feel her warmth seeping into him.
His eyes closed as emotion threatened to swamp him. Fuck, he didn’t deal with emotion. It wasn’t his damned strong suit. In the labs he’d been created and trained within, he’d learned to let no one but Brim know his weaknesses. To let nothing touch himself. To never feel regret. To never know possessiveness. They were lessons that had been taught to him in the most exacting of ways. Lessons he had adapted to, too easily at too young an age, supposedly due to his Coyote genetics.
They had rushed in on him the first time he had seen this fragile young woman though. Gently rounded, she wasn’t exactly slender. She was a nice handful for a man. Some might have accused her of being a little heavy. But she was perfect for him. With her rounded little rear, her plump breasts and silky thighs. He could hold on to Anya. She wasn’t skin and bones, nor was she muscular and hard. She was just soft. Soft and warm. And she was his.
He let his hand smooth down her hair with the lightest touch as he ignored the heavy, desperate throb of his cock. He had learned how to push that pain back over the months. It wasn’t easy, but being able to hold her, being able to warm the ice that often tormented his insides, was worth it.
For the first time in over eight months, Del-Rey felt warm. He wasn’t willing to give that up. Yes, he was going to have to put his foot down. She would sleep here, or he would sleep in her bed. Sleep. Hold her. He couldn’t demand anything more. He wouldn’t demand more. But by God, this he was determined to demand.
CHAPTER 6
She was warm. So warm she felt toasty and relaxed all over. Well, almost relaxed all over. There was that pesky arousal she couldn’t seem to get rid of in the past months. The dampness between her thighs, the ache in her clit, hard nipples.
And she had worn her bra to bed for some damned reason. She hated wearing a bra to bed. She would wake up enough to take it off, but that would mean pulling out of the pocket of warmth she had managed to find, and she wasn’t willing to do that.
She shifted closer, and realized she had to be dreaming again. Because it wasn’t a furnace she was hugging, it was a hard, clearly aroused male body.
Her lips tilted at the corners. She must be surely desperate to be dreaming this well. She hadn’t dreamed like this in, well, days maybe. But she had never been warm in those dreams. She had been cold and frightened, confused and begging him to help her. To warm her, while he stared at her in confusion.
Del-Rey.
She still had moments when she was amazed that such an incredible creation had ever touched plain, plump little Anya Kobrin. Her father had always told her she was mother material, and that one day she would find a good man that would appreciate that in her. The men she knew went for the tall, slender, beautiful women. Not the short, plump ones like her.
But from the moment she had first met Del-Rey, when she was around him, she didn’t feel plump or plain. She had felt excited and warm, tingling all over. At sixteen she had had her first seriously sexual dream, and they hadn’t stopped.
So yes, this was definitely a seriously whacked dream, because Del-Rey wouldn’t be holding her. He hadn’t held her after he’d had sex with her that first and only time, and he wouldn’t be merely holding her now to keep her warm. Not with that erection she could feel pressing between her clenched thighs.
He was just as large as she remembered, she thought with sleepy wonder. So thick and heavy. She’d felt every rasp of every bulging vein in that wide shaft as it pushed inside her that night. The pleasure/pain of it had been nearly more than she could stand. The shocking events that came later, though, had nearly thrown her into a catatonic shock.
He had been large already, but as he’d begun releasing inside her, another secondary swelling had grown in the middle of that hot, hard cock. He had knotted her. Animal genetics had kicked in like a bitch—that’s how Dr. Armani had explained it.
