“Do you care?” He was breathing hard, staring at her as though she were some alien creature he had never seen before. Well, let him stare, because she didn’t know herself anymore either. But she would figure it out before she left, and when she left she would make certain she had freed herself of Seth just as easily as he had managed to free himself of her.
“Do I care?” She flashed a canine at him furiously. “Not for much longer I won’t, if I ever did.”
It was killing her. It was breaking her soul in two, and she could feel the screams of agony ricocheting through the very core of her being.
She had dreamed of him, ached for him. She had watched him every time he had come to Sanctuary and inhaled his scent the moment he left a room. She had fought herself, and she had lost. Now she was losing here too, and something inside her was screaming out at the pain of it.
“If you ever did,” he growled, flashing a look of male disgust. “That’s the problem, Dawn. You never did, until now. Why now? Because someone else might have something you didn’t want to begin with?”
“And when did you bother to ask me if I wanted it?” She wanted to scream. She wanted to rage and pound her fists at him. Because he hadn’t. He had never come to her. He had flirted, he had teased, and she hadn’t known how to handle it, so she had run. And within months he had stopped doing even that. He stopped seeking her out, and he stopped caring. And she had continued to hide, because as God was her witness she had no idea how to tell him she needed him when all she could see was that flash of pity in his eyes.
“I followed you around like a lovesick puppy for months,” he bit out in self-disgust. “When I could find you.”
“Months.” She waved her hand mockingly. “Poor little Seth didn’t get instant gratification. Isn’t that just such a shame? Bad Dawn, being so mean to him.”
Seth stared at her incredulously. Who the hell was this woman? This was not the shadow he had watched slipping around Sanctuary for ten years. This was not the woman who, on the rare occasions they were in the same room, avoided him like the plague.
He clenched his hands again, fighting against the nearly overwhelming need to just touch her. To run his
hands down her arms, to feel her hands against his chest again. To take her lips. He didn’t want a cool little brush of lips as they’d had before. He wanted to take her lips, he wanted to devour them, he wanted to lick against them and suck that pretty little tongue into his mouth. Arousal, almost violent in its extremity, rushed through his system. He could feel the thickening of his cock, the blood pumping furiously to it.
Damn her to hell. He hadn’t been this aroused in his entire f**king life. So aroused he could feel the need in every cell of his body.
“Dawn, don’t push me.” He leaned forward just enough, just that extra bit that would have made the Dawn he knew run for cover.
This one didn’t run. She stuck her chin out further, braced her hands on her hips and smirked. Son of a bitch, she was smirking at him.
“You’re so hot you’re going to catch this room on fire,” she snarled. “Tell you what, Seth, don’t you push me and I won’t push you. And get the smell of your lust out of my face before I have to tell your little girlfriend just how hard you get for me.”
“Dawn, don’t do this.” He wiped his hand over his face, more to wipe the betraying sweat from his brow than for any other reason. “This has been hard enough. For both of us. Let’s just walk away from each other and thank God neither of us ended up too hurt in the process.”
But he saw the pain flash in her eyes, for just a second. It was there, then gone so fast that he couldn’t be certain it had even been there to begin with.
“Of course you didn’t get hurt, Seth,” she murmured, her voice cold, her lips twisting in amused contempt. “You would have had to invest something first, wouldn’t you? As I said, just stay out of my way so I can keep that tight ass of yours alive, and I’ll consider my job done. Now, can I get out of your laundry room? I’m tired of the scent of your dirty laundry.”
Anger and lust beat a tattoo inside his head and his balls. He fisted his hands, fought against the flames racing over his body and knew if he didn’t get out of that room, if he didn’t get away from her, he was going to take her. He would rip her pants from her body, bend her over the f**king folding bench and take her with all the pent-up fury of a lust he thought he had finally conquered years ago. He would do that to her. Even knowing the hell she had endured as a child. Knowing the brutality those monsters had used, he would still do it and he knew it. He knew it and it sickened his gut.
“Stay out of my way,” he snapped.
She lifted a brow and flashed those pretty little canines in a smile that almost had him drooling with the need to take those lips.
“Stay out ofmy way,” she amended. “I’d hate infect you again. Wouldn’t that just suck, Seth?”
“More than you f**king know.” He gripped the handle to the door, gave it a vicious twist and slammed out of the laundry room before he ended up doing something that would scar his conscience forever.
“Here’s your room.” Caroline Carrington was icy, contemptuous and corrupt. Dawn followed her into the room, her brows lifting at the size of it and the clear knowledge that it was a servant’s room. She knew for a fact the Breed Enforcers were being placed closer to Seth’s suite.
“This won’t work.” She turned on the other woman, flashed her canines and watched as Miss Carrington’s eyes flickered with disgust.
Aww, poor little Caro, she didn’t like Breeds.
Too f**king bad.
“I beg your pardon?” Arrogance and imperious demand filled every pore of the bitch.
“I think you heard me, Miss Carrington. Breed Enforcers are being placed on the upper floor, closer to Mr. Lawrence’s suite. You can escort me there now, or I can find it on my own.” She shrugged. “I really don’t give a damn which way it goes, but I’m heading there.”
Put her in the basement, would she? The basement? As though she were a dirty little secret that needed to be kept out of the public eye.