Perhaps all Chelsea was giving up was her freedom, Liza thought. Liza could sense losing so much more than her freedom though.
“Maybe.” Liza shrugged. “Tell Isabelle and Malachi I said hi.”
What more could she say? She couldn’t beg Chelsea not to leave when she knew herself that even she couldn’t stay. Not right now. Perhaps not ever.
Striding to her, Chelsea gave her a tight hug. “It won’t be too long, Liza,” she promised. “And you know we’re going to invade that hotel they’ve stuck you in and have a total girls’-night-out shindig.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” A tight, brief hug and Liza released her friend before stepping back.
“Well, come on, Loki.” Chelsea gave the Breed one of those superior, you-are-my-servant looks that she was so well known for.
Loki eased from the stairs with a lazy smile and amusement gleaming in his dark gray eyes. “‘Please’ not in your vocabulary, sweetheart?”
“Neither is ‘sweetheart,’” she assured him. “So let’s get moving. Isabelle promised me lunch.”
“Lunch sounds good.” Loki seemed a bit more energetic at the mention of food.
“You weren’t invited,” Chelsea informed him.
To that, the Breed only laughed as he picked up her suitcase and followed her to the front door as Dog, Mongrel and Mutt bid Stygian good-bye and left as well.
The house was empty but for her and Stygian now.
Turning to him, her gaze went instantly to his, the glints of blue in the night-black background more intense than before.
“You always know, don’t you?” She had to draw in a hard, deep breath at that realization. “No matter what I’m feeling. No matter how aroused or how angry I am.”
“Or how distant you are.” He inclined his head in agreement.
“Can you sense it with everyone?” Wrapping her arms across her br**sts, she considered how she would feel if he could sense every woman’s arousal for him.
Because no doubt, there were quite a few women more than interested in taking him to their bed.
His lips pursed thoughtfully. “In some situations,” he finally admitted. “But our senses in regard to our mates are incredibly heightened, Liza. That’s how I know when you’ve retreated to the point that you’re barely on the same plane with the rest of us mortals.”
She flinched, jerking her gaze from his and looking away as he moved closer to her.
“It’s how I knew the second that distance began easing and your need for me kicked in with a vengeance. The mating heat may ease when you do that, but it will also bring you back to me. You may have found a way to delay it at times, in ways no one else can, but you’ll pay for it when you return.”
“So you admit it exists?” Why wasn’t she even surprised? Or angry? “So you have to wait until you kiss your mate before you can tell them about it?”
He shook his head. “No, I have to wait to be certain you won’t reveal it to anyone, even friends or family. Because the news stories are partially true. Mating heat has the potential to destroy us, because we don’t completely understand it ourselves. How do you assure others it’s not something they should fear if you can’t explain exactly what it is?”
“So why tell me now?”
He stared back at her, his gaze somber, intense. “Because we both know where it’s going. You’ve known what was coming and you’ve still come to me. You know where it’s going. Why fight it any longer?”
“Why me?” Turning back to him, she asked the question that had plagued her since the moment she realized something wasn’t exactly right with the attraction she felt for him. That it was more intense, more primal.
“If I knew that, then I would have the single secret that could possibly save the Breeds from extinction should the world ever learn of the mating heat, Liza.” His fingers curled around her upper arm as he pulled her closer.
The heat of his body met the chill in hers before it sank to that core of lava-hot arousal simmering and growing inside her.
A hard, involuntary breath pushed her br**sts against his chest while he pulled her even closer with a hand at her hip. When she was flush against his body, the length of his erection imprinting itself against her lower stomach sent a wave of furious heat washing through her.
“See?” he murmured as he laid his lips against her temple. “It’s like fire and gas. One touch is all it takes to make the arousal burn brighter, make it torment and ache until nothing helps but another, deeper touch.”
His touch firmed, gripping the silk of her shirt and pulling it from the belted band of her skirt. Pressing his hand beneath the material, the calloused palm stroked up her spine, sending a shiver raging across her flesh as pleasure flared from each point of contact.
“And it doesn’t stop?” Could that be possible? Could the tabloids have that much right? That the Breeds, like some of their animal cousins, mated for life?
“It doesn’t stop.” His breathing was heavier now, his tone rougher, rasping as his head lowered, his lips brushing down her neck, the wet heat of his tongue licking against her flesh.
Tilting her head to the side, Liza all but begged for more. Just that one careless caress against her neck was enough to send a spike of sensation racing through her nerve endings and peaking in her swollen clit and the clenched, saturated depths of her pu**y.
Her hips moved involuntarily, rubbing the sensitive nub of her clit against the hard muscle of his thigh as his lips lingered at the base of her neck, his cheek rubbing against the sensitive flesh of her inner shoulder.
Each stroke of the wet heat of his tongue against her skin had her body tightening further. Pleasure and a violent need for more began to amass in her system.
“The night Isabelle met Malachi,” she whispered, the words tearing from her as her fingers moved restlessly over his shoulders, “I watched you in that bar.”
“I could smell your heat,” he growled as his teeth raked across tender nerve endings at the curve between neck and shoulder. “I waited for you, Liza. Until well after the bar had closed, still I lingered, certain you would return.”
Liza felt a rush of regret and hunger as it tore through her. Lifting his head, he met her gaze with his, the blue in his eyes like dark stars on a midnight background.