“Back off, goddammit,” he snarled furiously, reining in the animalistic impulses tearing through him.
He had to think.
Blood pounded hard and fast through his veins, chocolate and peppermint teased his taste buds, and that sure as hell didn’t make sense because he hadn’t had one of the sweets in days.
Drawing in a deep breath, her scent, her emotions, he clenched his teeth against another snarl that rose from the animal trapped inside him.
Gypsy was gone.
Her dress and her shoes were gone.
The little clutch purse she had carried was gone.
There was nothing left of her but the scent of such overwhelming pain—and God help him, shame.
He’d shamed her, humiliated her.
Pushing his fingers through his hair, the animal growled out at the silence of the room as self-disgust filled him with a suddenness that was shocking.
What the f**k had he done now and how the hell was he going to fix it? Because as God was his witness, he would have to fix it. Mate or no mate, barb or no barb, he had to get her back. He was beginning to suspect she was far more than any lover, and even without Mating Heat, a mating mark or mating hormone, he wasn’t going to be able to do without her.
He hadn’t marked her, but he knew that somehow, some way, she had marked him. The thought of that wasn’t as distasteful now as the thought of it had been, even hours ago. As though in the midst of their pleasure, in acknowledging that he’d never known so much with another woman, he’d dropped his guard enough to realize she was much more to him than he’d allowed himself to believe.
He wasn’t going to let her go.
He’d hurt her, he knew that. He could scent how much he had hurt her. But she would have to forgive him. He would find a way to make her forgive him.
And if he didn’t?
Some part of him mocked his confidence.
He wouldn’t entertain the thought that she wouldn’t forgive him. He couldn’t. If he did, then the animal pacing and enraged inside him just might break the leash restraining it and do something that would well and truly shock the man who controlled it with such force.
And Rule didn’t know if his pride could take too many more shocks.
...
Huddling in the corner of the elevator, her head down, Gypsy was all too aware of the three Breeds who stood silently on the other side of the car.
They had been striding down another hall as she ran for the elevator, holding her dress to her br**sts because she’d been unable to zip it all the way. Her mother had zipped it earlier, and Gypsy had been unable to finish pulling the tab up in Rule’s room.
She’d had to wait on the elevator in the hall, too aware of the Breeds striding toward her, silent, suspicious as they most often were. Struggling not to sob in agony, she’d stood with her head down, burning with humiliation as they moved silently to stand in front of her while she pressed her back into the wall.
She didn’t want them to see that her dress wasn’t zipped, but when the elevator doors had slid open, they had stepped back and she knew they’d wait until hell froze over if she didn’t step in first.
Keeping her head down, she had done just that, moving to the corner of the car before turning and staring at the floor.
No one had spoken.
She didn’t even know if she knew the Breeds. She couldn’t bear to look them in the face. If she knew one of them, she wouldn’t be able to hold back the humiliation and the pain. It would have poured from her eyes in such grief that she wouldn’t have been able to stand it.
“We’re on our way down, sir,” she heard one of them answer, the link she supposed. “We’ll meet with you at the west elevators if you don’t mind.”
Everyone referred to Rule as Commander, so it wasn’t him. Not that Rule would care, she thought. No way in hell would he really care whether he drove her home or not.
What had she done?
How had she managed to mess it up?