Those animal instincts were raging. As though the animal he could have been was pacing furiously inside him, the tension from the situation building to the point that release, in some form, was becoming a necessity.
Pacing the sitting room restlessly, he turned to her at the sound of the bedroom door opening, his gaze narrowing on the dove gray cotton lounge pants and matching camisole.
The tank top smoothed over her pert br**sts, hugging the lush curves just enough to cause his mouth to water. And f**k him, but her ni**les were hard. Peaked and swollen beneath her bra, pointing against the lace beneath and refusing to hide from his gaze.
The need to lick those hard little points and burn the tender nerve endings with the hormone swelling his tongue was nearly irresistible.
A growl rumbled in his throat, drawing her surprised gaze.
His patience was nearing its end.
His mate. She was created to belong to him, and by damned, she would not hold herself and his rightful bonds to her heart for much longer.
Damn, it would be easy to pull the material from her body.
Not to mention sexy as hell.
He was only a breath from refusing to warn her of the kiss coming that would put her in the frame of mind for the wild, uncontrolled sex the animal inside him was demanding he initiate.
His kiss would ensure the heat then. It would do as it was meant to and make her as crazy for him as he was for her.
He took a step and stopped.
No. He wouldn’t do it. If there was to be any peace in his heart that she had come to him of her own free will, then he had to force himself to have the patience she had asked him for two days before.
Since he couldn’t f**k his mate, that left sparring with his partners. One or the other was going to have to happen.
Sparring it was.
“We’re going to the gym downstairs,” he told her as she moved for the coffeepot.
And God only knew he’d give anything to allow her that cup of coffee. Normally, caffeine was like a kick-in-the-ass shot of high energy to mating heat. But his patience was at an end. He didn’t think he’d survive waiting to see if it would actually work.
Because right now, she looked good enough to eat from head to toe.
Her hair was still damp from her shower, lying in long dark blond curls that fell nearly to her waist. One long curl waved over her breast and tempted him to move it aside. To brush it over her shoulder as he pushed aside the strap of the top and began tasting soft, satiny flesh.
The soft cotton pants she wore skimmed over her soft curves.
“You can go to the gym downstairs,” she stated with a shrug as she poured the coffee. “I have work to do.”
She turned and moved to the laptop as though to power it up and do just that. Just as she had done the past two evenings. She stared at the screen, her expression still, her emotions ragged as she pretended to work.
Setting the coffee cup on the table beside the couch, she moved to open the screen on the device.
“Then bring the laptop with you,” he growled. “I f**king don’t care. I’m going to the gym, and whether you like it or not, you’re going with me.”
Nothing flashed in her normally expressive gray eyes. Not anger, fear or uncertainty. She stared back at him with such a blank look that his teeth clenched.
“Pack it up and get moving, Liza. Now.”
She must have seen something in his gaze that warned her against crossing that line.
Glancing at the laptop, she sighed wearily before closing the top and securing it. “I’d like to get back in time to actually sleep tonight,” she informed him.
“Why?” He had to force himself to throttle the anger building inside him. “It’s Friday night, not Sunday, and it’s not as though you have a job to return to.”
“No, I don’t, but I do have other things I can be doing besides sitting on my ass and filing my nails.” Her voice never raised, never changed inflection. “There is more to my life than a job, Stygian, or what’s happened since you came into it.”
“Such as?” Watching as she moved toward him, it was all he could do to keep from pushing her to the floor and mounting her.
His dick throbbed with a hunger that was becoming painful, imperative as the swollen glands beneath his tongue pulsed in heated demand.
“Such as the Navajo Scholars Fund I chair, the museum fund-raisers I help with, and the scheduling I do for the chiefs of the Six to visit the Nation’s schools. Did you even care to check into anything I do besides what may or may not aid the Breeds in their little agenda here?” she questioned without inflection.
“I don’t know, Liza, I rather liked the university’s cheerleading squad and the fund-raising projects you were doing there,” he drawled. “Don’t you have a meeting coming up soon?”
“Not one you can attend.”
Oh, that unbothered, unemotional attitude of hers was going to get her ass in trouble.
Better yet, it was going to get her ass f**ked.
The need to take her down, to heat her arousal to boiling point and find that point of feminine submission was becoming a hunger Stygian knew neither of them was going to escape. Especially if she kept this attitude up.
“If you have to do this, let’s get it over with. I’ll be ready for bed early tonight,” she stated as she headed for the door.
Stygian clenched his teeth, forcing back his growl as he followed her.
She would be ready for bed early tonight?
Oh, she didn’t want to mention that bed right now. She really wanted to do her best to keep his mind off that bed.
“This is stupid, dragging me around like this,” she informed as she stopped at the door and turned back to face him. “I do have things to do, Stygian.”
There was no anger in her face. None in her eyes.
Son of a bitch, he wasn’t mated to a f**king mannequin, and her impression of one was starting to piss him the hell off.
He was not going to get into a confrontation with her, he told himself—told the animal snarling inside him.
He’d be damned if he’d force the lust he knew was inside her to rise, even though he knew if he pissed her off enough, she’d relieve the ache torturing his balls.
She’d have no choice.
If he pushed hard enough, it would burn inside her as well. It was that push he had the problem with. He wanted a willing mate, one who came to him without a push or coercion.
One that came to him because she needed and ached for him as desperately as he did for her.