She shook her head. “This is my choice.” She turned to him again. “You suffered it.”
“It’s not as hard on the male, baby,” he sighed. “It’s endurable. For the females, it’s not as easy.”
She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “So, I get horny. I’ll just drag you from whatever you’re doing and you can do your mating duty before anything else.”
“Really?” His brow lifted. “And should I get horny?”
An impish grin crossed her lips. “It’s not as hard for the males, remember?”
What the hell was that sudden tighteness in his chest, that emotion that gripped his throat and had him staring at her with a need to never have her out of his sight? To always see her eyes sparkling with mirth, that pursed little grin on her face?
She was, quite simply, adorable. And she was his coya. Not just his mate. Not just his woman. She was the other half of who and what he was as alpha of his packs.
She sighed then. “I believe, based on information I’ve gotten over the months, I have several hours before that luscious body of yours is going to be put to work again.” She bounced from the bed before he could reach out and stop her. “I have to shower and get dressed. We have a meeting at Haven as soon as you’re ready and an interrogation to watch. Wolfe agreed to hold the questioning of the bartender until you could be present.” Her expression tightened as she turned back to him, brazenly naked, br**sts firm and tipped with hard ni**les, fiery curls gleaming between her thighs. “He meant to kill me. Why target you like that?”
Del-Rey’s brow lifted as he rose from the bed, though fury clenched his gut. “That shotgun wasn’t on me, sweetheart, it was on you.”
“But all killing me would accomplish is whatever my death would mean to you,” she pointed out. “Very few outside Haven know about the separation agreement. To the world, according to the tabloids several months ago anyway, we’re the latest great Breed love match. The kidnapped Russian admin and the Coyote alpha. The stories were very romantic.”
“Really?” He frowned back at her. He hadn’t lied when he said he didn’t read the damned tabloids. “How romantic?”
She gathered up her clothing as she shot him a look he couldn’t quite decipher. One of those feminine looks that he’d often wondered about when he saw other men getting them. Normally when said male had done something that displeased said female.
“Excessively romantic,” she snorted as she checked her link. “Ashley has some information I was waiting on as well; she’s waiting for me.”
She dumped the clothes in a hamper. Only then did he see the dusty state of her clothing.
“How did that happen?” he asked as she disconnected the link she had put through to her bodyguard to request clean clothes.
“Spelunking.” She moved from the bedroom into the adjoining shower room.
Del-Rey frowned as he followed her. “Cave exploring? What caves? We’ve explored them all.”
She rolled her eyes as she turned the shower on and adjusted the water. “Of course you have. You’re just not using them all. You have more Breeds coming in, remember? Where are you going to put them? Will they have beds? Blankets? Towels?”
He leaned against the entrance and watched her, loving the graceful movements of her body, the way she tipped her head back, washing her hair, and still watched him.
“They would have found what they need.” He frowned at the thought. “You’re trying to cuddle the whole damned place, Anya. There’s not enough of you to go around.”
She laughed at that. “I don’t have time to cuddle. But I do have time to arrange reasonable rooms for them. It will engender loyalty, Del-Rey, and a sense of thankfulness. There’s nothing like a hot meal and a soft bed to remind a man of what he’s fighting for.”
He didn’t like her seeming knowledge of men in general. She should only be aware of his needs, he thought with a hint of piqued pride. Dammit, she hadn’t been cuddling him or taking care of his manly needs in the past eight months. Why worry about others? He was opening his lips to ask just that question.
“Hope and Faith have been forcing me along on their forays into managing Haven,” she said then. “I know what I’m doing here.”
He had no doubt of that and that wasn’t his bitch. Simply put, he had no desire to share her time or her attention with the rest of the packs as a whole.
He was selfish that way, he admitted. Coyotes were bred to selfishness though, he assured himself; he had a reasonable excuse.
He was forming another protest when she began soaping, washing her body quickly, suds rolling over silken flesh, shimmering against her skin and holding his attention more surely than a weapon in his face would have.
Damn her. She had him tongue-tied. He’d be damned if he knew how to put his foot down here and settle the area of what her duties could or couldn’t be. Cuddling other Coyotes, even impersonally, wasn’t going to be one of her duties.
Unfortunately, before he managed to get a grip on his tongue or his wayward lusts, she was wrapping a thick towel around her and the soft peel sounded, announcing someone at the door.
“That’s Ashley.” She peeked around his shoulder to the monitor that looked out into the hall. “Get in the shower; she doesn’t need to see your manly ass. She’s ditzy enough. I don’t need her getting worse.”
He frowned back at her. Again. What did his ass have to do with Ashley’s often apparent lack of common sense? Shaking his head, he moved into the shower though, determined to get a handle on his lusts so he could get a handle on his mate. He was starting to get the feeling that if he didn’t do it quickly, there might be no hope for it.