Page 23 of Cruel Mate

She tried her hardest to regain control of her hammering heart, sure that he could most definitely hear it pounding in her chest. Would he know why she was suddenly so embarrassed? Could he smell her arousal?

Shit! She cursed, silently almost certain that he would be able to. Christian always had been able to. He’d told her so in the early days, back before he had turned out to be the biggest asshole she knew. Even bigger than Zander, and that was saying something.

All she could hope for was that Zander wouldn’t recognize the scent.

Though he cocked his brow at her and examined her face closely, he didn’t say anything. And Layla silently prayed that she wasn’t so easy to read as some of her friends told her she was.

He’s not Darwin, she reminded herself. Her younger cousin had almost always been able to tell what was on her mind or if something was troubling her, but Zander wasn’t him. And she was hopeful.

Yet she wasn’t sure she had ever been more turned on in her life. Whether it was his touch or her own stupid imagination, she didn’t know, but it took everything she had in her not to act on the horridly strong emotions she was currently feeling.

The lingering pain in her knee might well have been the only thing that truly stopped her from seeing what might happen if she were to try and jump him. That, and the fact that, she reminded herself, she absolutely hated Zander Mallox’s guts.

Chapter 9 - Zander

Jeez, what the hell is the matter with me? Zander thought, stroking the sole of Layla’s foot with the pad of his thumb. It was just a foot, Layla Keely’s foot, and he had never been a just fan of feet before, but somehow his cock was rock-hard beneath the shorts he had found in one of the cabin trunks.

Her skin was warm and inviting against his own, and it made him feel more confused than ever about the woman sitting before him. She had gotten them into a heap of trouble. She was the most infuriating she-wolf on the planet. They had argued more times than he cared to count. And yet, the feeling he had felt as he stepped up onto the porch several hours earlier with her unconscious in his arms still lingered in him. And somehow, he couldn’t stop from massaging.

The urge to sweep his hands further up her leg, to pleasure her until she begged for him to enter her, was almost impossible to resist. He knew he could. It was not a case of fearing that he couldn’t. What he feared was that if he allowed it to happen, even once, he would never be free of the knowledge again, the knowledge that she was in fact his fated mate and the world he had always promised himself he would never have would be entirely open to him.

He had always assured himself he would never have a mate. Of course, he enjoyed the company of she-wolves. He had lain with women all over the world on his black ops missions, and yet this one was different.

Looking upon her as she half-sat, half-lay against the wall of the cabin, her head tilted back and eyes closed as if she were enjoying his attentions, Zander was in very real danger of doing something stupid.

“Fuck,” she breathed out, and Zander’s hands paused immediately.

“Shit, sorry, did I hurt you?”

The fear was real. The mere notion that he might have actually hurt her made him feel a guilt like none he had ever felt before. He struggled to hold back a growl of frustration.

This wasn’t him. He wasn’t the kind of man to drop everything, to change who he was, all for one woman. He loved his life the way it was, carefree and on his own terms, not pandering to some she-wolf who would have him playing house and popping out two point five pups.

It wasn’t him. He had never seen that for himself. And yet, as he sat there, staring at her with concern, he saw an entirely new life unfolding before him. One that terrified him.

“No, no!” Layla exclaimed, her eyes flying open, her head lifting to meet his gaze. The way her cheeks flushed red suggested that her exclamation had been something entirely the opposite of pain, and Zander was forced to bite the inside of his lip.

How had he not heard the pleasure-filled inflection in her tone before? Was his concern for her so deep that he was losing sight of everything else?

Somehow, not being aggressive and angry toward her was even more infuriating than what had come before. And yet, he couldn’t take his hands off her. They were still practically glued to her damn foot. It was just a foot, for goodness' sake, and yet the softness of her skin in his calloused hands was all too comfortable.

“You didn’t hurt me,” she shook her head, meeting his gaze in a way that made his insides flutter. They actually fluttered. He no longer felt like a man, not even a wolf. He felt all warm and gooey inside, and the sensation was one he had never felt before. It both sickened him and left him feeling overjoyed in a way that was confusing, to say the least.

For a second, he allowed himself to imagine what it might be like to simply give in to those feelings, to run his hands up her leg, squeeze her calf and the back of her thigh and pull her down the bed so that he could come down on top of her.

Having seen her naked after they had shifted, it took little imagination to think of what lay just beneath the blanket that still draped loosely over her. All that creamy soft flesh was just screaming at him to be kissed, touched and caressed.

His palms itched to do just that, and his lips tingled with the need to kiss her. The hardening of his cock was growing exceptionally painful.

It was all too easy to imagine all of the naughty things he could do to her here in a cabin, alone in the woods. The doors were locked, the windows shuttered, and they were far from anywhere else. Nobody would hear them. There was nobody to hear the way that he would make her scream his name. He would make her scream louder than she ever had before.

And yet, he still couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Struggling against the overwhelming desire that filled him fit to bursting, he slipped out from beneath Layla’s leg and adjusted himself on the bed, praying she would not see how she affected him in the downstairs department.

Though a werewolf and in no danger of freezing, he suddenly felt entirely underdressed in only shorts. She would know exactly what was wrong if he tried to use that as an excuse.

Instead, he tried his hardest to change the subject quickly, to get his own mind off of what was going on down below. Even the wolf inside of him was clawing to be released, to get to the woman in front of him and do terrible, terrible things to her.

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