Oh, she wasn’t going there.
Not even in her mind.
“What I want is protection, not another pretty boy,” she said between clenched teeth, shoving her hands against his chest as she prepared to leave.
Let Troy deal with the muscle-bound fool. She was through.
Only she wasn’t.
Even as her palms slammed against his chest, his fingers captured her wrists in an unbreakable grip. At the same time he was spinning her around, jerking her until her back was pressed hard against his chest and pinning her arms across her chest.
“I know what you want,” he growled, his face buried against her neck left bare by her red halter top.
She shivered, telling herself it was outrage at being manhandled and not white-hot excitement at the brush of his warm breath over skin or the feel of his body pressed so intimately against her.
“I’ll let you two play.” Troy chuckled, wiggling his fingers as he moved past them. “Ciao.”
“Troy,” she snapped in disbelief. Surely the imp didn’t intend to leave her alone with this ... psychopath?
Evidently he did.
“Don’t worry, I’ll send you my bill,” he assured her, sashaying out the door.
“Idiot,” she muttered, her wolf prowling restlessly just below the surface. It wasn’t angry, it was ... on edge. As if it sensed something momentous was about to happen. Which was as disturbing as the ease with which he’d captured her.
“Can we talk now?” he asked softly.
“Not until you let go of me.”
“If you insist,” he taunted, his lips brushing against the pounding pulse at the base of her throat before he slowly released his grip.
Holding her head high, Sophia refused to glance in his direction, instead heading across the crimson carpet.
“We’ll finish this in the privacy of my office.”
She sensed him fall into step behind her. “You’re the boss.”
“Actually, that has yet to be decided.”
Despite his bulging muscles and impressive fighting skills, Luc wasn’t stupid. Hell, until this moment he’d always prided himself on being the most intelligent Were in the room.
Now he had to wonder if he’d left his brain back in Miami.
Not that it was entirely his fault, he swiftly assured himself, his gaze trained on the finest ass he’d ever set eyes on as it swayed across the room. A man would have to be a saint to think clearly when face-to-face with Sophia.
Even warned of her lethal beauty, he’d been stunned by his first glance at the delicate features that looked as if she was barely out of her adolescent years and her slender body that was shown to advantage in her leather pants and tiny halter top.
He’d expected a hard, jaded female who would turn him off with her bloated conceit. Not an exquisite woman who attempted to hide her vulnerability behind a brittle shell. Or one whose emerald eyes held a haunted fear.
The man in him wanted to haul her into the nearest bed and teach her the true meaning of howling at the moon. The wolf in him wanted to toss her over his shoulder and take her to the safety of his lair.
It was his wolf’s reaction that was most troubling.
Lust he could handle.
But possession?
It was addling his wits and jeopardizing his mission.