“I have some wine,” she told him, hesitating at the combination bar and counter that separated the two rooms.
“That’s fine.” He nodded. Not that he cared much for wine, but he could feel her nervousness building as he watched her.
Tilting her neck as though to stretch the tightness from it, she moved into the kitchen area, reached beneath the cabinet and pulled free a surprisingly recognizable wine.
It was one of the sweeter wines, he saw. The same brand the Pride Leader’s wife preferred when drinking a glass before going to bed.
She opened it, filled two wineglasses, then set aside the empty bottle. Handing one glass to him, she led the way into the living room.
Rule watched as she curled herself into the corner of the couch, watching him as he sat, not too close to her, but not too far away.
She was too nervous.
He could feel her, ready to jump and run at a moment’s notice as that elusive scent of fear strengthened marginally.
Turning his head, he stared at her for long moments, suspicion biting at his control as he sipped at the wine, watching as she did as well, and seeing the fine tremor in her fingers.
Fuck, he couldn’t do this to her.
“You never date. You never allow any man to dance too closely to you and never allow them to even consider that they could have a chance to leave with you. You’ve had no lovers, and you’ve had no relationships. Yet you’re twenty-four years old and I know you’re not a cold woman. The warmth of you flows over my senses, and the scent of your feminine need has me so hard I’ll carry the brand of my zipper on my c**k long after I shed my pants. So tell me, Gypsy,” he asked her, watching her stiffen until she was so tense a good wind could have broken bones, “why is your life in deep freeze?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she lied, and that lie filled her entire expression as well as her scent.
“I intend to share that bed in there with you,” he stated. “And don’t bother denying any chance that I’ll make it there. We both know I will. Before I do so, I’d like to know any obstacle that would stand in the way of the pleasure I can give you.”
“Aren’t you just as cool as you can be?” When she lifted her head, those witchy eyes glared back at him as she gripped the wineglass with both hands now. “You just state your intent and think I’m going to just follow along with you? Just because you decree it?”
Reaching forward, he placed his own wineglass on the low coffee table before turning back to her and lifting his brows. “It’s a thought. I could live with the idea of it.”
“Well, bully for you, badass.” Gripping the glass in one hand once again, she lifted it to her lips, finished it, then all but broke the glass when she placed it on the table as well, but with a much heavier hand. “I knew this was a mistake.”
She moved from the couch with a suddenness that had absolutely no attempt at subtlety.
He’d played with her in the past weeks, letting her get away, letting her run.
He was tired of watching her run.
“Oh, I don’t think so.” He was at her side, the fingers of one hand shackling her wrist as she stared back at him in surprise.
“I’m tired of being bullied by you.”
He had to laugh at that. At the very thought of it.
“Bullied by me? Or having the truth become an object you can’t push away like you push away those cowboys when they try for more than just a dance? I’m not bullying you, Gypsy, but neither do I intend to watch you run any longer,” he promised her.
...
He wasn’t going to watch her run any longer? What she was going to do was kick his ass out.
“From what? You?” Her lips curled in derision. “Really, Rule, do you think you’re the only Breed who’s come on to me? Trust me, you’re not.”
“I’m the only one you’ve ever left with.” The smile that shaped those too-damned-sexy lips should have been a warning.
In the next second he’d managed to swing her around, pulling her against the heat of his chest and holding her securely against him.
Why wasn’t she fighting him?
She knew a few moves of her own, and she’d used them more than once to escape holds that were more forceful than this one. Yet she couldn’t make herself fight. She didn’t want to fight.