“Wait,” Ivar said. His gaze was hot enough to melt chocolate. “Promise? Do you still want me to mate you?” The low rasp of his voice echoed through the quiet forest at their backs.
Why did those words sound like a threat? She tried to swallow over a lump in her throat. When all else fails, use honesty. No matter how irritated or frightening he was being at the moment, she’d already reached her decision, and the path was one she had freely chosen. “Yes. I do.”
Ivar nodded at Logan, who grinned. Then he was gone.
Promise backed away and inhaled the strong scent of pine. The trees towered high around them, and the rising moon showed they were back on earth. “Where are we?”
“My cabin.” Ivar pointed behind her.
She turned to see a quaint cabin built into the rocks. In the distance she could see mountains. A bird squawked nearby, and somewhere far off, a coyote howled. She shivered. “I see.”
“Do you?” he asked mildly, taking her hand and starting up the rock steps.
She had no choice but to follow, unless she wanted to fall. So she scrambled to keep up with him. His hand nearly burned her, the skin rough. It was his good hand. “Did you hurt yourself?”
“No,” he said shortly, turning and releasing her before holding his palm up toward her.
She gulped. Graceful and deadly black lines formed a shield around a K on his palm. His marking. The brand was stunningly beautiful. Stark and exquisite. “When did that appear?”
He took her hand again to start walking again, and the marking warmed her palm. “When I’d discovered you’d gone off world.”
She endeavored to calm her pulse and reason with him at the same time. A discussion would be beneficial. “It’s my understanding that to mate, we need to engage in sex, you must bite me, and then press your palm to my skin.”
He paused at the heavy-looking door, which appeared to be metal painted in a manner to appear like wood. “That’s what the experience might read like in a dictionary.”
His words were calm, but the voice issuing them was raspy with the threat of danger.
She swallowed. Her legs trembled as if they knew something her brain did not. “Yes, I, ah, have decided that the marking should be placed on my center back.” She did not have tattoos, and in that location the marking would be easy to cover, even in a swimsuit, should she so desire.
He flipped her around so quickly she yelped. “I’ll put the marking where I goddamn want. You’re lucky I don’t plaster it to your forehead.” His eyes had turned that luminous green, which probably blended with the forest—just like a true predator.
She tried to quell her anxious stomach. Even with the panic, heat glided over her skin, beneath her muscles, to tempt her nerves. Why she found his fury at her arousing, she’d have to analyze later. “You’re angry.”
He exhaled through his nose, his chest moving sharply. “Angry doesn’t come close to what I’m feeling.”
Her own anger finally decided to appear. “Well, then. Maybe we shall wait until you’re more amenable to mate.”
He stepped into her, putting her back flush with the impenetrable door. His chin lowered, and then his head did the same, until his mouth hovered right above hers, his gaze burning into her eyes. “Oh, baby. It’s way too late for that.” Then he took her mouth.
Hard.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ivar kissed her, pouring all his pent-up emotions into the act. She’d scared the shit out of him by traveling off-world with a crazy fairy, and then she wanted to be all logical about mating? There wasn’t any logic in mating, damn it. If she wanted him, she was going to get all of him. His mouth was fierce, and he took what he wanted, conveying to her exactly how much control he’d shown with her. Until now.
He sensed her move, felt her hands come up with her nails already raking his chest and angling toward his face. Without breaking his hold on her mouth, he manacled her wrists, forcing her harder against the door. Sweeping his tongue inside her mouth, nearly groaning at her sweet taste, he pulled her hands above her head and pinned them in place.
Her tongue met his, and she kissed him back.
Even so, she struggled against his hold, twisting her hips. No doubt so her knee could take out his balls.