Passion's Prey

“He didn’t talk at all” was her reply.

Kalina simply shook her head. “They’re like that.”

“He’s not playing fair. He wanted me to tell him everything and I did,” she said, absently rubbing the mark at her side, her son’s name surrounded by floral swirls. “He should have reciprocated.”

“Is it important to you to know what he’s holding back?” Kalina had asked.

Caprise thought about that for a long moment, then sighed. Before last night, hell, about two weeks ago, it wouldn’t have mattered to her one way or another. Today she couldn’t say that. “Yes, it is.”

Kalina’s response was a genuine smile. “I knew it.”

“You did not know anything,” Caprise said, only slightly agitated. It was different having someone she could confide in. Kalina had said she and Ary were there for Caprise, that she could share things with them and they wouldn’t tell a soul. Caprise believed them and she appreciated their offer.

“So how are you going to get him?” Kalina asked after she’d cleared Lucas’s plate from the table and come back to sit on the couch next to Caprise.

“I don’t know yet.”

“My advice—and I know you’ve known X a lot longer than I have—I would smother him. Don’t give him a moment to think of why the two of you joining is not a good idea. Don’t let him find refuge.”

Caprise let her words sink in. “Like in battle you’d never let your opponent get a catnap,” she said slowly.

“Precisely. Stay on his back until he has no other choice but to face you, to face what’s going on between you two.”

“Or run and hide,” she followed up with. There was the possibility that X really didn’t want this mating thing with her. Maybe he wanted to mate with someone else. Maybe … stop it! she berated herself. Xavier Santos-Markland wanted her, she knew he did. The companheiro calor was so strong, if it were a drug she’d be high as a kite right now. No, whatever was standing in their way had nothing to do with her, but with him.

“You won’t run and hide, it’s not in your nature. You’ll bide your time to figure out a strategy, then you’ll strike.” Kalina picked up her mug of hot chocolate, blew on it, and smiled before taking a sip. “And when you do Xavier won’t know what hit him.”

Lucas had interrupted then, attempting to tell Caprise that X and the others were on their way out of the conference room. To avoid seeing him right at that moment and any awkwardness between the two of them and her brother, she’d slipped out the door before they made their way to this part of the First Female’s suite.

Now she was back, and she was ready.

“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in bed?” X asked, his brows drawn in a tight line.

He looked like he was about to explode, he was so angry. Any other woman would have run screaming. Caprise wasn’t any other woman and she wasn’t running anymore.

“I don’t have a curfew,” she said, taking a step closer to him.

His body was tense, anger rolling off him in heavy rivulets that assaulted her like huge waves. She didn’t falter, simply took another step closer.

“Do you have a time to be home, or someone you have to go home to?” she asked him.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. She watched his muscled chest, beneath the fitted material of his black T-shirt, move up and down. Her mouth watered and at the same time her heart melted. He was trying so hard to keep a lid on whatever was inside of him. It was almost painful for her to watch.

“There’s no one else, Caprise,” he said finally, his eyes opening slowly as if he’d been drugged. “And don’t tell me you’re going to play the jealous girlfriend now.”

Caprise chuckled because of all the human and shifter traits she possessed and would inevitably claim, jealousy was not one of them.

“Just clearing the air about where we stand.”

He looked tired as he spoke.

“We’re currently standing in the hallway in the middle of the night discussing whether or not I’m sleeping with someone else.”

She nodded. “Well, are you?”

He didn’t speak right away but stepped toward her. She probably should have backed up, his height combined with his thick build could be intimidating—very intimidating. But she stayed still until her breasts brushed against his torso.

“When I touch you, nobody else touches you. Got it?” was his terse reply.

Caprise shook her head. “We weren’t talking about me, buddy.” She lifted a palm, placed it right over his left pectoral, and let the beat of his heart vibrate through her fingers, up her arm, until it seemed like their rhythms matched … finally.

“For the time you’re in my bed, no one else is,” he said finally. “Does that satisfy you?”

Caprise licked her lips. “Not quite.”

“You don’t want to do this right now, Caprise. Just go back to your room and go to bed,” X told her solemnly.

His eyes were already shifting, the dark brown going to intense green in a matter of seconds. And that wasn’t the only change. A heady scent filled the air around them, circling them both and holding tight until Caprise felt like she was breathing the exact same air he was. She was smelling what he was; they were sharing something so acute and so intimate when they were both fully dressed and standing upright. It was an intense feeling, so much so that she swayed a bit and damn if her big brooding hero didn’t reach out and wrap a muscled arm securely around her waist.

“I know what I’m doing. And I’m not going to bed without you.”

* * *

“You don’t want this right now,” X said when they were closed in her room.

His mind was dark, fathomless, and void of anything real. Or at least that’s how he felt. It was that strange feeling that overcame him sometimes, the one that left him uncontrollable. His palms itched, fingers clenching and unclenching. Even the cat inside him was looming like it was ready to pounce at any moment. He could do anything right now, absolutely anything. Fuck, drink, run, or even kill. Nothing seemed to matter.

And then there was her scent. It had changed somehow, was stronger than the floral aroma that had originally drawn him to her. Heavier, more intense, this new scent clogged his lungs until he felt like he wanted to choke—to cough it up and finally be rid of it. Even his normally excellent vision seemed a little blurry around the edges.

Caprise stood at the end of her bed. She wore shorts that were too fucking short and a shirt that hugged her breasts too goddamn tight. His dick took the hint and perked the hell up instantly. X growled.

“I want you right now,” she said, her voice settling over him just like a full glass of Hennessy.

Hell, his mouth even watered the way it did just after the Hennessy slid down his throat. He licked his lips. She licked hers in response, keeping her eyes on his as she did.

He yanked at his shirt until it ripped and fell from his body. “This isn’t going to be pretty,” he told her as his hands went to his belt.

Her eyes grew darker and she pulled her shirt over her head. “I didn’t ask for pretty.”

“I mean it, Caprise. I don’t do soft whispers, cuddling, and all that shit.” His zipper down, he was about to push at his jeans but he remembered his boots.

Bending over, he untied them with record speed, probably broke the damn laces but didn’t care one way or the other. When he stood again he kicked them off, pushed his pants and boxers off, and looked back to Caprise to see if she was still interested.

She was naked. Like fucking Christmas morning the best damn gift sitting under a perfectly decorated tree, naked as the day she was born.

“I want you,” she repeated. “Just as you are.”

X didn’t believe in forcing females, had never done that a day in his life, no matter how out of control he felt. At the same time, no other female had said the words she’d just spoken to him. They rendered him still for about ten seconds. Then the darkness pressing firmly against his skull pushed him forward.

He grabbed her at the waist, his fingers pressing tightly into soft skin. She gasped, her hands moving to his