She should have known. She had known. There were infrequent pictures of Mercury out of uniform, and those pictures had made her wet, long before she met him.
There were simple business dresses and skirt outfits, but short ones, figure-flattering ones. Silks and soft cottons, sweaters that stretched over her br**sts and displayed cle**age, and so many damned pairs of stockings, push-up bras and matching panties that she wanted to faint at the thought of the cost. He was spending a fortune and wasn't even wincing.
"I hate you," she muttered as they left another store. He had let her keep her simple leather coat until there. He pulled it from her shoulders, tossed it to the clerk with an order to burn it, then pulled a shorter, hip-hugging black leather jacket with a thin advanced insulate over her arms.
The soft interior felt like heaven. The leather conformed to her body, as the other clothes did, and drew the gaze to her ass in the back, her thighs in the front. Another damned reason for him to growl.
She wished she could protest his taste. She wanted to. But she would have had to lie, because he had exquisite taste in everything he chose.
"You'll love me again in a few hours," he promised her, inhaling slowly, grinning at the proof he found of her arousal. "Perhaps sooner."
"I really hate you," she hissed.
"I hear love in your voice, Ria." He kissed her quickly. "Come on, one more stop to make."
One more stop. At an exclusive dress designer who whisked her right in, measured her, hemmed and hawed and cackled gleefully as Mercury chose several dresses for her. Because she refused. She was horrified. Outraged at the price. And the sheer beauty of the party gowns he chose.
"Thanksgiving, several Christmas parties and New Year's," he told her. "You'll be attending with me."
"My job is almost finished," she informed him, striving for a calm she didn't feel as they stepped from the boutique.
Mercury came to a hard stop and glared down at her.
"Would you go back now?" he demanded then. "Would you leave me, Ria?"
She paused, staring back at him silently. He could come to South Africa with her, but she knew the same thing he did. Leo's pride was already established, the hierarchy formed, just as it was here. There was no place for him there, whereas here . . .
She shook her head slowly. No, there was no returning ever again to what she was. And she couldn't leave Mercury. She had proved that the night before. Dane had offered her escape, and she had refused it.
"No," she finally whispered. "Not yet."
"Not ever." His voice hardened.
"Not yet." Not until he asked her to. Not until he could no longer deny the pull Alaiya would have on him.
And then, she was terribly afraid, there would be no place to escape the pain.
"You love me, Ria." He stared into her eyes. "I can smell it pouring from you, reaching around me, inside me. You can't deny it."
"I don't deny it," she admitted.
"But you regret it?" Anger flared in his eyes.
And she had to shake her head. No, she wouldn't regret it. She would die from it, walk in sorrow when it was over, but she wouldn't regret it.
"I don't regret what I walk into with my eyes open," she finally told him. "But I don't have to like it. And when you realize the mistake you made, what you've done to both of us, Mercury, I have a very bad feeling you might regret it."
She walked ahead of him again, and Mercury let the smile tug at his lips as he watched her move. She owned the clothes she was wearing. Not just physically, but he could also see that her attitude, her demeanor were cracking.
He had to clench his teeth as he watched her walk, though. Those jeans hugged her ass like nobody's business, and that light black leather jacket called attention to her hips and slender thighs. She was a wet dream walking, and if he didn't get inside her, he was going to go crazy.
He checked his watch and grimaced. The small green indicator on it informed him of Jonas's need for contact. Not imperative; it wasn't an emergency, but he needed to finish up here soon and get her back to Sanctuary.
Mating was taking time. Time he didn't want to give up, to catch a traitorous bastard that he just might have to kill for interfering in his plans this way.
Shaking his head at the thought, he followed his woman, watching her mood, casting silent snarls at the men that ate her with their eyes. But pride filled him at the looks she was getting.
All that gorgeous, thick hair flowed down her back, her hips swayed, her ass bunched deliciously, and every man who saw her wanted her. He had a woman to be proud of, not just because she moved like sex itself, but because she was smart, honorable and loved him enough that she had tried to let him go.