The roar that filled the room had her flinching. It was animalistic, it wasn't Breed. It was filled with all the power and the rage of genetics that had somehow been increased with him, that poured through him. That sound was pure animal.
When his head lowered again, the expression on his face terrified her. Because she knew he wasn't letting her go. She knew he would ignore mating heat and it would destroy them both.
She moved to jump from the bed, to rush from the room. He caught her before she did more than tense. He was on her, pushing her down, snarling. His fingers tangled in her hair, held her in place, and the enraged lust that filled his face had her heart tripping in fear.
"My f**king mate." The growl was savage.
"No . . ." Because he was going to kiss her. Give her something that belonged to another woman. Not to her.
And she couldn't evade him.
His lips came down on her, slanted over hers, and his tongue passed into her mouth with determined hunger. Greed. With a desperation that surged through her senses and a taste that had her going still inside.
Wild. Primal. Heat and lightning, power and dark hunger. It filled her mouth. It covered her tongue, and it was so good. Like nectar.
She fought it. She bit at his tongue, but not hard. Because when she did, more of that taste filled her mouth.
"Suck my tongue," he snarled against her lips. "Take it."
"It's not mine!" she screamed back at him, her own fury growing now. "Damn you." Her fists struck his shoulders. "It's not mine!"
His lips came to hers again; he pumped his tongue into her mouth, forced the taste into her senses, and oh God, it was so good. It was everything she'd dreamed it would be. It was impossible to resist.
She whimpered. She begged him with her tears as her lips closed over his hesitantly. She drew it from him. She tasted him. And within seconds, she was consumed by him.
CHAPTER 20
She was his mate. Nothing else mattered. No other thought filled Mercury's head as he felt her lips surround his tongue, felt the hesitant, suckling movements, milking the hormone from him.
He felt her pleasure, sensed the desire rising eagerly inside her even if she was hesitant in this. He was giving to her, taking what belonged to him, giving what belonged to her. What he had dreamed of giving her.
Heat flashed through him, a burning wave of searing pleasure and ecstatic agony. The animal and the man merged here, with her. There was no battle, no fight for supremacy between the two. For Ria, they were one.
He growled into the kiss. His fingers kneaded her scalp and he drew the scent of her into his very being. His mate. He had needed this. Ached for it. From the moment he had first caught sight of her, he had prayed for it. And he had never realized that he was the reason he hadn't mated her.
That the control he had forced on himself after coming off the feral displacement drugs had blocked his ability to mate her.
He hadn't realized it until the animal inside him had sensed her panic and her fear, her premonition of danger.
She had drawn the animal free. From the first scent of her, the first time he had seen her, spoken to her, the animal had refused to sleep any longer. It had awakened, drawn as Mercury had been drawn, by her scent, her honor, by the fact that she was created to live inside his soul.
Now, as she drew the dark, potent hormone from his tongue, and he knew it was potent, the growls that came from his chest echoed inside his head.
At the moment, he was more animal than man. She had run from him. She had left, refusing to see who she belonged to, refusing to allow him, him, her mate, to protect her.
Protecting her was his pleasure. Protecting her, ensuring she survived at all costs, was what he had been born for. He had been born for this woman. Born to fill the cold places inside her, just as she filled them within him. She eased the cold, dark loneliness inside him. She vanquished it, brought warmth, laughter, brought the sweet knowledge that the animal and the man he was truly belonged.
She had run from him. She had allowed another woman to come between them, stepped aside, no matter the reason. She would never step aside again.
She would never dare consider it, even if she might suspect his happiness lay elsewhere, she would never think to turn from him. She would hold on to him with talons as deep, as sharp as any animal's.
He would show her. Her pleasure was his. Her security was his. His Ria was going to learn to take what belonged to her.
"You dared to leave me." He tore his lips from her, glaring down at her, watching the flush that suffused her tear-swollen face, watched the hunger that began to fill her chocolate eyes.
She shook her head slowly. "What have you done to me?"
"Taken you." He fingered the cloth of that detestable dress. "And I will take you more. And more. Until you realize, Ria, nothing can tear you from me."