He dropped the belt to the floor, smiling in amusement as his fingers then went to the buttons on his shirt. Hope trembled. She could feel her cunt heating further, the muscles of her vagina clenching in preparation. Her heart sped up, beating a harsh, driving pulse against her breast.
“I may spank you, but I promise not to beat you,” he said, his rough voice silky, brooding. “But you can halt any punishment at all, Hope, by telling me the truth. Tell me how she knew of the mating frenzy, and how she knew you would be the one I would choose as my mate. Tell me why you allowed another man to touch you, allowed her to taunt me with the proof of it.”
“Are you crazy?” she practically yelled at him. “How the hell am I supposed to let another man touch me when all I do is puke if they try?”
That infuriated her more than anything else. The few times she had tried to date, tried to get over him, it had turned into a disaster within an hour.
“So innocent and outraged.” His smile sent a shiver up her spine, but did little to alleviate the need in her cunt. “One last chance, tell me how that bitch mother of yours knew we had not perished in that fire?”
Her need for him was making her crazy. If he didn’t f**k her soon, she would be a screaming idiot. She had waited long enough—six torturous years dreaming of him, aching for him.
Hope blinked up at him. He was shrugging out of the shirt, his broad, muscular chest gleaming in the dim light of the bedroom. His muscles rippled, tightened. His face was tense as his fingers fell to the snap of his jeans.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
She couldn’t take her eyes off his movements. He would shed his jeans next, revealing the extent of his arousal. She remembered well how thick and long it was, a temptation, even to the teenager she had been so long ago.
The scientists had kept them naked. She remembered watching Wolfe move about the compound, unashamed of his nakedness, even during arousal. So tall and broad, he moved with an innate grace that had drawn her attention time and again.
His hands hooked into the waist of the material as he kicked his feet free of whatever shoes he was wearing. Within seconds, he was gloriously naked. His c**k rose to his abdomen, tight, hard, thick and engorged. The bulbous head was purplish, flaring just a bit thicker than the shaft, and throbbing with arousal.
“Oh, God,” she whispered breathlessly.
He moved to the bed, kneeling beside her, staring down at her with a cold, hard expression. He meant to be a bastard, she knew, but she could see the heat licking in the dark shadows of his eyes. He wasn’t unaffected, and the engorged c**k wasn’t his only reaction to her. She was his mate, and whatever he did, she knew he wouldn’t hurt her. At least, not physically.
CHAPTER THREE
For a moment, his expression softened.
“Do you know how long I have waited to touch you as I want to?” he growled, his voice harsh as his hands went to her shirt to finish unbuttoning it. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to maintain my control before, and not take the innocence of the child you were?”
Hope felt herself trembling, her flesh sensitizing as she felt the heat of his hands, the hard promise of his body.
“I offered,” she whispered. No, she hadn’t, she had begged. She had cried and pleaded with him to take her after he left that mark on her upper shoulder.
“And so you did,” he agreed, his voice lethal, his eyes swirling with anger as he stared down at her. “I wanted only to protect you, Hope. How did you repay the sacrifice I made to ensure that protection?”
His hand circled her neck. He applied no pressure, but she knew he wanted her to know that the threat was there. All she could feel was the fire of longing, though. It zipped through her veins, bubbled in her cunt.
“What did I do?” She shook her head, seeing rage in his eyes, rage and lust and a spark of pain. “I didn’t do anything, Wolfe.”
She couldn’t understand the rage she glimpsed in him as she denied betraying him. How could she betray him? Even her soul knew she belonged to Wolfe.
“You betrayed me with another man,” he snarled. “Don’t bother to lie to me, woman. You have lain beneath others. Took them into your body and let them f**k you rather than waiting for me to come to you.”
Hope felt the blood drain from her face.
“That’s not true,” she gasped, horrified. How could he believe such a thing? “I swear it’s not, Wolfe. I’ve never been with another man.”
He shook his head with a sharp negative movement. His lips twisted with bitterness, with bleak fury.
“You would think I could still smell the betrayal on your body, the scent of another’s seed. I am so captivated by your beauty, by my own need, I can’t even smell the traitorous scent.” He seemed angrier with himself now, as though his senses refused to see what was there, merely because he did not want to believe it.
“Because there is none,” she bit out, furious. “What do you have to do, rape me to figure it out? Damn you, I’m still a virgin. It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out.”
She knew well his possessive instincts. After his refusal to take her, her mother had taunted him outside the cell. Two of the Lab’s soldiers had held her, fondling her as Wolfe was forced to watch.
Wolfe had sat in the cell; cold, hard, the shifting colors in his eyes dangerously alive. Her mother had finally relented and had Hope released. After Hope was thrown back in the cell with him once again, she stalked away from them.
Wolfe had held her, comforted her, but still refused to take her. The next time he was released from the cell, the two soldiers who touched her had died.
“You are no longer a virgin, Hope,” he finally said heavily, his expression filled with disgust. “How do you even hope to convince me of such a lie?”
His gray eyes glittered with anger. He stared down at her as though she had just informed him that he had mistaken her for someone else. She shook her head, anger building inside her.
“How can you say that? Do you think that just because you forgot so easily about me, that I could do the same thing? Too bad I couldn’t mark you as well. Maybe then you wouldn’t have forgotten so easily.”
“And you think you did not?” He growled. “I have the proof of your betrayal, Hope. The pictures the Bitch sent me of you trapped between their bodies, your face twisted with pleasure.”