made her want to snarl. And because she was hurting and close to crying, she gave in to the urge, saw him jerk where he stood below the tree.
That didn’t make her feel good.
Ashamed of herself, she returned to tugging on the string of lights, not doing much of anything to actually unravel them.
“Desiree.”
Surprised he hadn’t backed off after her harsh response, she glared down at him. “What?” It came out another snarl.
Again, he didn’t back off. Hands on his hips, he looked up. “Come down here. You know I can’t climb like you.”
She made a face at him, not feeling particularly charitable right now. “I didn’t ask you to stay.”
A growl rippled on the air.
It made her claws release. With a dominant, she’d have jumped to the ground and gone claw to claw with him. Doing that with Felix wouldn’t release the anger and tension. It would just make it worse.
“I didn’t mean you!” he yelled up at her. “I was talking about me! I’m the one who couldn’t fucking keep it up!”
“Because of me!” Desiree yelled back, jumping to the ground. “It’s the truth so stop dancing around it.”
“You know I didn’t mean it that way.” Felix held her gaze for a single, powerful second, his eyes blazing. “You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever met. The problem is with me.”
Desiree’s anger spilled out and away from her, leaving her empty, her emotions a bleak gray. “No,” she whispered. “You aren’t a problem.”
Felix was a man at home in his skin, part of the reason she’d been attracted to him from the start. The idea that she’d made him see himself as damaged or not enough? It hurt worse than any words he’d spoken in the heat of the moment. “I’m not the problem, either.” Sadness clenched its fingers around her heart, squeezed so hard the pain was blinding. “We’re exactly who we’re meant to be.”
“And maybe,” he finished, his voice echoing her bleak realization, “we’re just not meant to be who we are together.”
• • •
Felix buried himself in work the next day, but even as he dug his hands into the earth, he couldn’t help looking out for his cat with the green eyes, though he knew that seeing her would only twist the knife deeper. After their disaster of a date, it was impossible to avoid the harsh reality that he and Desiree weren’t compatible on the level of the hierarchy.
Felix had never thought he was a proud man, but it turned out he had a mile-wide streak when it came to Desiree. Every time he remembered his body’s icy and demoralizing response to her little nip, he felt his gut twist. That wasn’t how it was meant to be. He might be a submissive, but he was built to care for those who were his own. Yet he couldn’t even give Desiree the skin-to-skin contact she needed without—
“Hey, Felix.”
Hunkered down next to a seedling in the final row, beside the tall firs still standing, he shifted his center of gravity to absorb Drew’s slap on the shoulder. The other man came down beside him. “It’s getting dark, man. You intending to plant at night?”
Felix patted down the soil and, stripping off his gloves, shifted to rest his back against one of the nearby firs without meeting Drew’s gaze. When he looked around, he saw that he and the SnowDancer tracker were the only ones here. “Where are the rest of the security people?”
“If you could see them, they wouldn’t be doing their job.” Drew sounded like he was grinning. “Here. I grabbed you this.”
Accepting the bottle of water with a nod of thanks, Felix twisted off the lid and took a drink. Still not looking at Drew, he said, “How do you do it with Indigo?”
“That’s a very personal question, Felix.”
Felix frowned, then realized what he’d said. Lips twitching as an unexpected laugh built in him, he shook his head. “I didn’t mean that.”
Drew’s blue eyes were laughing when Felix glanced at where the other man was still hunkered down, their gazes catching for an instant. “Good, because otherwise, I’d have to beat you up.”
Finishing off the water, he ran a hand through his sweat-dampened hair. “I meant the fact that she’s more dominant.” Drew was very, very strong, but Indigo was a lieutenant.
“I love her.” A simple, powerful statement. “I don’t need to go all caveman to do that, to give my mate what she needs.”
“No,” Felix said quietly. “Because you’re a dominant, too.”