He almost winced. Those tabloids had no clue. And neither did she. Because he would have her, and by the time the mating heat was finished with them, they would both be begging for it.
***
SHE couldn't believe this mess. She couldn't believe Matthias had actually killed, in cold blood. He hadn't even given Dr. Albrecht a warning.
She shuddered at the memory of it. The memory of his face, so dispassionate. There had been no anger, no fury, it hadn't even been emotionless really. Just unconcerned. What he had done had caused not so much as a flinch of remorse.
How many others had he killed? Would he kill her the same way?
Grace turned her face away from him and stared at the door of the SUV. The seat was reclined fully: that, in combination with the dark night and the rural area they were driving through, left her completely out of site.
She was stretched out, bound, helpless. Most women would have been begging for their lives, screaming, crying. She was trying to think instead. To wait. To steal a chance to escape. If one came. She had a feeling one wouldn't come. And begging would do her no good. It wouldn't have done Albrecht any good, either.
She had been falling in love with Matthias, and perhaps that was the part that hurt the most. They had spent most of her breaks sharing coffee in her small office, and the evenings enjoying quiet dinners together, or long walks in the park.
He fascinated her. Drew her. Knowing what he was, the horrors he had experienced had pricked at her heart, and her woman's heart had wanted to erase those horrors with softness. She had even told her family about him. About the Wolf Breed whose eyes were so filled with loneliness. Who smiled as though he hadn't known he could do so. Who watched her in a way no other man ever had. Her father had wanted to meet him. Her mother wanted to cook for him. Her brothers offered to teach him to play football.
She blinked back her tears at the loss. At both their losses. He had no idea what he was missing out on when he lost her family.
She liked to say she was fully a part of reality, and reality demanded that she accept that Matthias wasn't just going to let her go. He couldn't afford to. The whole Breed community would suffer for what he had done tonight, if the authorities ever learned of it. And Grace was well aware of his loyalty to not just the pack he claimed as his own, but to the Breeds in general.
She closed her eyes as she felt his fingertips stroking her leg again. His palms were horribly scarred, the faint ridges from those past wounds rasped over her flesh, and her soul. They brought pleasure and pain. Pleasure from his touch, pain at the knowledge of all he had endured. She thought she had gotten to know him. She knew he could kill. He'd told her of some of the assignments he had been sent on during his time in the labs. She'd known he had killed since then in the confines of the investigative work he did. She hadn't imagined he could kill in cold blood, though. Shooting a man from the behind, without warning, somehow seemed worse than killing one face-to-face. She knew there were rumors that Albrecht had been part of the Genetics Council. Rumors that he had ordered deaths, worked on the genetic alterations, and perhaps even been a part of what the press called the twelve-member directorate. He had been the head of the Genetics Councilthe shadowy figures that financed, directed, and oversaw each stage of the Breed development. All Grace had ever seen was a mean, disillusioned old man, though. One that didn't even have the common sense to close the door to his suite and who was constantly searching for his appointment journal.
If the rumors were true, he should have been arrested rather than released after the inquest into the Breed atrocities. He shouldn't have been killed the way he was.
"Grace, the smell of your fear is killing me." His voice was soft, gentle. "I promise, I'm not going to hurt you."
"And I'm supposed to believe that?" She turned her head to stare back at him, seeing the flash of somber regret in his gaze before he turned back to look at the road.
"You will believe it," he said, his voice as heavy with regret now as his gaze had been. "But you won't die. Not by my hand, or by any others, as long as I can protect you."
"What? You think you can make me forget what I saw?" She hated the tears in her voice, but even more, she hated the damned disillusionment. She hated looking at him and fighting herself to believe what she had seen with her own eyes.
"Not forget it," he admitted. "I'm hoping, though, that you'll understand it enough to keep the knowledge of it to yourself."
He was crazy. That was all there was to it.
"Oh, well, if that's all you want, then I'm all for it." Living was worth lying for. "Let me go now, and mum's the word. I promise."
He flashed her a chiding smile.
"I can smell your lie as easily as I can smell your arousal, Grace. Have you forgotten that?" Her eyes widened. Cream flooded her pu**y and wept to her labial folds, rushing to surround her clit. That little bundle of nerves was pulsing now, engorged and swollen. The sound of his voice was rasping, filled with male lust and determined aggression.
"Yon never mentioned the arousal part," she gasped.
"I didn't, did I?" His fingers slid higher on her thigh, and, traitorously weak, her legs trembled, her breathing became rougher, and her juices thicker.
His fingers grazed the damp crotch of her panties, and Grace heard the low, weak moan that betrayed her slip past her lips.
"The scent of your arousal has made me crazy." His voice deepened, as a growl rumbled in his chest. The sound should have frightened her; it turned her on instead.
Sensation was humming through her body, tingling in her clit and her ni**les, making her gaze heavy as his fingers continued to brush lightly against the damp cotton of her panties. That slow, deliberate caress held her spellbound.
He was using the hand that had held the gun that killed Albrecht. But it wasn't death she felt. And it wasn't disgust. It was pleasure. A hot, insidious pleasure that held her mesmerized.
"Matthias, this is wrong." She wanted to tell him to stop, but the words wouldn't push past her lips.
"Don't do this to me. Please."
"You do it to me, Grace," he accused her darkly. "Each touch you've given me, no matter how innocent, made me weak. Made me hard. I've been so damned distracted by you, my head so filled with the memory of your scent that I didn't know when you entered that suite. I should have known. I should have sensed you and been able to pull back. To hide until you were gone. But you were already so much a part of me, that I carry you with me, whether you're actually there or not." The SUV slowed. It didn't stop, but it was definitely slowing as he glanced at her. A second later he jerked his gaze back to the road, but his hand didn't leave her, his fingers didn't pause in their caresses. The implications of his declaration seared her mind. There were rumors, tabloid tales and obscure reports of Breed mates. Mates that were rarely photographed, rarely seen by journalists. It was said that in the ten years since the Breeds had been revealed, that the mates to those Breeds hadn't aged. Tabloids ran stories almost weekly of a sexual frenzy during what they called "mating heat." And then there were the wild tales of orgies and animalistic behavior.