Page 40 of Venice Heat (Urban Heat 2)

Eiji shook his head. “On the chance he will wait until after you change, we need to stay here.”

“I can stay calm.”

“I don’t want to risk you.”

They stared at each other, and she thought she saw something warmer than concern in his gaze. If he had marked her, it meant he opened himself to her as much as she’d opened herself to him, didn’t it? She dared not ask, especially since she still didn’t know if it would lead anywhere.

“Eiji, you said I can’t remain a rogue wolf. Why not? You are.”

He removed the sword from her aching hands and re-sheathed it, but he didn’t place it back on the mantel. The fact that he trusted her to use it said a lot, and she appreciated that.

“You have a little more protection because I’ve marked you. Any shifter you meet will pick it up and know you belong to me.”

She glared at him.

“However, a single female wolf shifter is a lure for many different kinds of shifters, not just our kind.” He seemed to think about how to make it clearer. “You are a sweet dessert that they will all want to taste and then possess.”

She shook her head. “What, will they smell it on me?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” She’d been kidding. No one had ever told her these kinds of details.

“Without a mate, wherever you go, you will have men coming after you trying to mate with you.”

Shae clenched her hands at her sides. “By force?”

Eiji took a step toward her, but she stepped back.

“This is why my family—”

“It’s their nature.”

“You mean ours, don’t you? The nature of rape?”

Something blazed in his eyes. “No, the nature to make you submit.”

“Fuck that.”

She marched into the bedroom and started going through her suitcase looking for something to wear. The clothing she’d worn over the last few days lay bundled together in preparation for repacking them.

“Shae, I don’t make the rules.”

“No, you just exploit them.”

“I didn’t force you.” The clipped, biting tone angered her all the more.

“How do I know that?”

He snatched a blouse from her hands and tossed it on the floor. The next instant she found herself flush with the wall and him pressing so tight against her air couldn’t squeeze between them. Shae’s body lit on fire, and try as she might, she couldn’t get the stupid thing to calm down.

Eiji breathed in deep through his nostrils. “You’re telling me I’m making you feel what you feel now?”

“Get off me, Eiji.”

He shifted his hips, bringing his hardening cock in contact with her belly. She bit off a moan. His torture continued with a nip at her bare shoulder. Her pussy throbbed.

“All the times you opened your legs, I made you do it? And when you said, ‘Don’t stop, Goshujin-sama,’ that was me and not what you desired?”

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