How had he known? How could he know?
Gypsy stared back at the Breed whose presence in her life had changed so many things, too many things too fast; she felt a part of her soul that lay so undefended, so raw and bleeding since the moment she realized who and what had taken a child’s only security, fill with something so much stronger, so much more intuitive than anything she had ever known.
Suddenly everything was more intense, more intent.
Each sound, each scent, the brush of air across her flesh, the heat of her mate’s body next to hers, the feel of him, inside her spirit, where none should exist but herself.
Yet Rule was there. A comfort. A strength that grounded her as nothing had ever grounded her before.
She couldn’t tear her gaze from him.
Gypsy felt her breathing slowly even, felt the heartbeat that she hadn’t known had been racing with fear suddenly slow and calm.
“Lawe and I survived because of a bond no one knew we had,” he growled, satisfaction glittering in his eyes as that presence inside her refused to vacate. “Because we could strengthen each other. Because we could open ourselves, allow each other in, and whether the strength we needed was physical or psychological, we could provide it. Until he mated. Until I realized he was building a much stronger, much more intuitive bond with the woman he called his mate.”
She shook her head, emotions rioting through her as she realized there was nothing she could hide from this man, this Breed. There was nothing she could do to hide from him, and nothing she could do to protect him.
She couldn’t push him out. She couldn’t hold on to the fear, the driving fury or the hunger for vengeance. She couldn’t shut that inner, emotional door on the Breed who had stood by her side since the night she had stared across a crowded bar into his eyes . . .
“Far longer than that,” he revealed as her eyes widened in disbelief. “I’ve been by your side, Gypsy, since you were fifteen years old. If not I, then later, Cullen Maverick. Or should I say, the Bengal Judd.”
He knew what she had suspected? That Cullen Maverick was the Breed Jonas searched so desperately for?
Gypsy shook her head, her breathing roughening. “No . . .”
“Your contact is the Bengal Judd, Gypsy,” he told her quietly, his expression filled with such emotion that she had no idea how to combat it. “I may not have realized I was your mate, but the instincts inside me, that animal that ensures I never completely f**k up, knew. It knew, connived and conspired within my subconscious, until I did exactly what I had to do to always watch over what belonged to me. Including conspiring with a Breed who would become wanted by every agency, every Council team, every f**king scientist in the world, and even the one man I owed every iota of loyalty to, Jonas Wyatt. I conspired to the point that I ordered him to take the bargain of working with him to you, on the condition that no other man touch you. That you have no lovers, no one to stand between you and your mate when the time came for me to claim what was mine. And later, when Jonas began searching for that Breed, I hid my knowledge of this from even my own brother. Trusting. Believing he had sent everything he had to Jonas. Knowing, without him, you would have drifted away from this world within a year of Mark’s death.”
He was the reason that demand had been made of her?
She could feel adrenaline pumping into her system—disbelief, amazement, it was all there, yet her heart wasn’t racing, and she couldn’t feel betrayal. She couldn’t feel it, because she was just as entrenched in his heart as he was in hers now. Feeling him.
Breathing him.
“I was a part of you before I ever caught your attention that night,” he promised her, his free hand moving to cup the side of her face, his thumb brushing against her lips. “I’ve always been here, Gypsy. Just a heartbeat away from you. More damned scared of what I was feeling than you could imagine, because losing you would have destroyed even the animal that lurks beneath the skin. The animal that fought with every heartbeat, with every breath, to ensure your protection every second after the night you lost what was most dear to your heart. Because you, mate, are most dear to my heart.”
She had to blink back her tears.
Gypsy couldn’t believe she was on the verge of shedding tears.
Her breathing hitched, a sob tearing from her chest as his head lowered, his lips touching hers.
“Don’t try to push me out, Gypsy. Don’t take that from me. Don’t take what completes me or allow a knowledge you refuse to share to destroy the only bond I’ve ever allowed myself other than that which connects me to my twin.”
His lips took hers then. Entrenched inside her spirit as he was, not just giving pleasure, but sharing his own. It felt like liquid nitrogen shot straight to the demand already heating in the depths of her pu**y.
Her juices began trickling from her core, dampening the inner muscles before spilling the moisture to the swollen outer folds.
His lips moved over hers, his tongue sinking past them, filling her senses with the taste of chocolate and peppermint and a hunger she couldn’t deny herself. One she couldn’t deny him.
Before she could stop them, her hands were buried in his hair, the battle still raging inside her senses to hold on to him, to push him from her, to ensure that nothing risked him. Especially the ghost of the past that she knew she had to face alone.
The kiss, the hunger pouring through her was suddenly absent as his head jerked back. A snarl sounded from his chest, causing her eyes to widen as her lashes jerked open.
“You can’t hide from me, mate, not with a secret as important as your life.” The sound of his voice was animalistic. More animal than man, and with more primal intent than she had ever heard in it before. “You’ll learn, beginning now. You will never attempt something so foolhardy, ever, Gypsy.”
The next kiss locked her soul to his, she swore it did. He burrowed inside her, held her to him, opening her to emotions, to needs, to hungers she had never known existed inside her. That she had never known she even ached for the lack of.
Holding to him, she was only dimly aware of her clothes being all but torn from her. In some cases, seams ripped. A few buttons popped and rolled to the floor.