Page 10 of The Beast's Baby
But that was all he was.
Heartless, productive, closed off.
“How can you let them do that?” she asked in spite of herself, quickly telling herself she wasn’t asking about herself specifically but about all the subjects as one.
This wasn’t going to be done merely to her but to the male subject as well.
“It’s not up to me,” Jay said.
It sounded too simple, put like that. Why should he take any responsibility when it wasn’t him giving the order? Making the decision? Setting the plan in motion?
“You’re really that convinced that this is the right thing?” she asked. “That this is about saving the world? You’d sacrifice my autonomy, my right to choose, for this bullshit?”
“It’s not bullshit,” he snapped.
It was the first slip of that mask she had seen aside from the smile, and it shouldn’t have, but it gave her hope. Hope that there was more to him, that he might be willing to step in. But she had to play her cards right. She kept showing her hand, letting her self-control slip, because she felt like her entire sense of self was slipping away from her.
She had barely gotten a chance to connect fully with her wolf and now this?
She was meant to breed?
Stop, she told herself.You’re working yourself up again. Counter argument. Try to see it from his perspective.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean it like that. I wish I could believe you. It would be amazing if this wolf thing… If it could mean something. Have some sort of real purpose to it, you know? When it happened—the first time—I got so scared because it felt completely out of my control. I didn’t choose the wolf; it was like it chose me. And all I could think was what if I hurt someone? What then? But I realized the wolf is a part of me, not separate from me, even if it feels like it is sometimes. Like how that side of me is asleep now, for example. Even though… I’d rather it wasn’t.”
“You’ll stop taking the tea tomorrow,” he said. “Your wolf needs to be fully present for Phase Two.”
She swallowed. “What if my wolf objects to Phase Two?”
He observed her. There was a coldness there now, as though he was distancing himself from her completely. She felt her heart begin to grow heavy as the hope seeped out of it. He wouldn’t help her. He was on a mission with this, and he had already decided to see it through. To have his name with the rest of his team in the history books.
“Your wolf will get to spend time with another wolf,” he replied, getting to his feet. “It should be happy that it’s not expected to mate with a different shifter species altogether.”
She glared at him, the hatred seeping into her expression no matter what she tried to keep it at bay, and he scoffed lightly. As though he had been waiting for her to break character. As though he had known all along that she would.
She got to her feet when he turned his back to her, the silver dish in his hand, but before she could throw herself onto his back and wrestle him to the ground, he had turned to meet the assault with his free hand outstretched. His fingers closed around her throat with a strength she hadn’t expected at all and when her hands grasped the outstretched arm, she realized he was far from weak. In fact, there were muscles rippling beneath the green of the sweater, her fingers clasping at them as she tried to break free of his hold.
“Don’t test me,” he warned. “I didn’t get this position because I’m easily taken off guard.”
“Apparently not,” she gritted out, trying not to react to the blaze she had produced in those eyes of his.
He was not unaffected. He looked ready to snap her neck. Where the hell had he gained such self-control that he could put a lid on it every second of every day? And why had her attack provoked it to light up his gaze with such fiery anger?
He let her go with a gentle push that made her sit back down on the couch.
She watched him leave, pressing her legs together at the soft pulse he’d produced between them.
Fuck him, she thought to herself, and the soft pulse intensified as if in agreement that yes, she should.
Chapter 4 - Jay
He clutched the four folders against his chest, hoping that they would do the trick and disarm the subject once and for all. Make her understand that they were doing all they could to make her comfortable. After some serious discussion with his boss and the team, they had all agreed that they couldn’t send a mate in that wasn’t accepted. So, they were going to offer the subject a few options.
It was better than nothing. Surely, she would see that.
He didn’t want to think about his hand around her throat or how close he had come to dragging his hand over his cock in one of the bathroom stalls after he’d left her. He’d been so painfully hard that he’d had to stay at his desk for most of the afternoon for fear of it returning unbidden if the memory resurfaced.
He hadn’t thought of her all evening and not at all in the morning, though he’d dressed himself in conspicuous forest green because he knew it did things to his eyes that the few women whom he’d dated had told him they enjoyed. But he hadn’t thought about her when he arrived to work, though he’d checked his reflection in the elevator mirror which wasn’t something he normally did. And he hadn’t thought about her in any unprofessional way when he gathered the folders from his desk and kept himself from checking who had been chosen for her to browse through.
