She had never been undressed and neither had he. He hadn’t touched her below the waist and he hadn’t given her the release her body was crying out for. But he had made her ache.
Hell, she shouldn’t want to want him like this. She shouldn’t allow herself to want him like this.
She could be in the bed sleeping off the jet lag and frustration if he would just leave. She could hurry and masturbate, make use of the vibrator hidden in her bags and then rest for a few hours before she had to meet with his boss.
“Fine, I’m safe and sound,” she finally said, breaking the tense silence growing between them. “You can stop protecting me now and let me get some sleep before I face the big bad prick in the morning.”
Not that Jonas was really that bad, but it wouldn’t do to let him know she actually liked him. She had a feeling he would take such deliberate advantage of that fact, it wouldn’t even be funny.
Just as Lawe would take full advantage of the sheer fascination she had for him, if he knew of it.
Letting him know would be the biggest mistake she could possibly make.
Lawe kept watching her. His gaze was like a dominant, powerful caress she couldn’t evade.
The sensation of that invisible touch never failed to leave her off balance and nervous. She could feel her blood beginning to rush through her veins, her heart rate becoming spiked and elevated. Her clit swelled with aching hunger and sexual desperation. Damn, she needed him to leave, then she could at least have him in her fantasies.
“Why are you still here, Lawe?” she asked. He was destroying her nerves with the violet blue intensity of his gaze and her certainty that there were indeed emotions roiling beneath the layer of icy calm.
“You should know why I’m here.”
She shook her head in a tight, jerky motion. Oh God, now wasn’t the time for this. Not while she was so tired, and so weak. “I have no idea, and I really don’t give a damn.”
God help her, he was killing her.
If she had to be fascinated by a man at this time in her life, why did it have to be a Breed? And why did it have to be this particular Breed? There was a level of the independence inside her that he frankly terrified and she knew why.
He was protective.
He would smother her with layers of protection if she allowed him to do it. That was what he would do with any woman he called his own. Hell, even his lovers had been known to complain of his insistence for bodyguards and heightened security. They complained of their inability to shop, to lunch with friends, to enjoy their lives.
For a minute, for the shortest amount of time, she might enjoy it, but Diane knew herself and knew it would destroy her. Her and Lawe. He could never accept danger to his woman, and he sure as hell could not accept danger to the woman he thought was his mate.
And he thought she was his mate.
She almost shivered at the thought.
“You need to leave, I’m tired and I need a shower, and I can’t deal with you tonight,” she retorted, forcing herself to confront the only man she had ever fantasized about wanting in her entire life.
She was thirty years old, for God’s sake.
She’d gotten used to the accusations of being frigid, lesbian, unfeeling, robotic. They had ceased to offend or wound her long ago. In most cases, they sincerely amused her.
For the men she knew, bedding a woman was no different from hunting a particular buck with a trophy rack. They used the same instincts and often the same finesse.
But this man, he made her feel something. This Breed. He made her heart race and her body feel flushed. He made her clit swell, her ni**les harden, and oh yes, she knew damned good and well he sensed it.
He was a Breed, after all. All those nifty powerful senses. The sense of smell, hearing and eyesight that was like four or five hundred times that of a normal human.
He could probably smell her pu**y dampening.
His nostrils flared as she allowed her brows to arch mockingly.
Oh yes, he could smell it.
“You were late arriving from the airport,” he stated as she realized his voice was much deeper than she was used to hearing. It had been since the moment he had spoken earlier. As though the animal genetics he carried were suddenly coming alive in ways they never had before.
She shivered at the thought.