“You keep rubbing them.” He cleared his throat, unable to release her.

She pulled away from him, rubbed her hand over it again before allowing her arm to fall to her side.

“Restless, I guess. I need to get home,” she announced, almost desperate now. “There are things I need to do there. I really don’t have a week to spend here, Jacob.”

“Things that can be taken care of until your return,” he assured her, watching her breathing escalate until she moved carefully away from him. “No one will invade your home, Faith. I promise you that.”

She pushed her fingers through the short strands of her hair. Jacob admitted he liked her hair shorter. Liked the way it framed her face, the layered strands framing her elfin features perfectly. It did nothing to detract from her appearance of delicacy, though.

“Why are you forcing me to stay here?” she asked him, her earlier irritation threatening to return. “Why didn’t Wolfe order you home? Why not come to me?”

“It’s just a week, Faith,” he reminded her. “We’ve been apart six years. Wasted years, I’m starting to suspect. Give us this time to get to know one another again.”

He watched as she drew a deep breath. She turned her gaze from him, her lips moist and tempting as she ran her tongue over them nervously.

“I need clothes,” she told him firmly as she moved to the large recessed bookshelf on the other side of the room. “Hawke was nice enough to have lost my pack nearly a week ago. What changes of clothes I had were in his pack. You sent him away.”

Clothes were a must, but something easily taken care of, he thought.

“I’ll take care of it,” he promised her. “Anything else you need?”

She sighed again. “Lotion, but there’s not a hope in hell of my brand being here. I could kill Hawke for losing my pack. Should have known better than to trust him.”

Jacob frowned. She seemed melancholy. Was this one of the mood swings Wolfe had talked about? Damn, she was wearing him out.

“I believe I saw several different brands in the cupboard, in the bathrooms.” He shrugged. He knew her brand was there. Caleb’s sister also preferred it. “Check there when you shower tonight and see what’s available. My friend uses the house for meetings and large get-togethers when he’s here, so I’m certain there’s something there for everyone.”

She turned around. Her eyes broke his heart. They were somber, sad.

“Faith?” he moved slowly toward her. “Can’t you tell me what’s wrong?”

A bitter smile shaped her lips as her hand ran over her neck, down her arm. She seemed to want to shiver, but held back the action.

“I waited six years for you,” she told him softly. “Six long years, Jacob. And I guess I’m just now realizing what a fool I’ve been. How many women have you been with while I waited, Mate? How many times have you fucked another woman while I waited for you like a fool?

* * * * *

Jacob wondered if the truth would surprise her. True, he had decided the night she had shown up at the bar that he was tired of waiting. Tired of wishing he was different, that she wasn’t as soft, as delicate as she was, and had decided a night of raunchy sex was the cure. But honestly, in six years, there had been no other women.

When they escaped the Labs, the males had already gotten their fill of the emptiness involved in screwing just for the pleasure of those who watched, or even for the need to “get off” as the case may be.

From early manhood to adulthood, sex had been a daily diet in his life. Not having to worry about it had been a relief. Until he had seen Faith again. Until the sharp, bitter bite of lust had gotten its hold into him.

“Would you believe me if I said there had been no other women?” he asked her softly.

Her eyes widened. “Is that what you’re saying?”

There was a spark of hope in her gaze, a flash of fear.

“Hell, Faith, you remember what the Labs were like,” he growled, running his fingers impatiently through his hair. “It was years before I got the stink of that place out of my head. Sex was a damned training exercise, like fucking pushups. Hell no, there haven’t been other women. There hasn’t been time. I’m too damned busy fighting and finding the hellholes those scientists call Labs. Who has time to fuck?”

He knew it was his own guilt for the plans he had the night before that caused his ire. But dammit, it was her fault too. She had gone from a raging woman bent on breaking bones, to a woman so soft, so fragile, that her dreams whispered through the air around her. Like a damned fairytale princess. How did you fuck a fairy princess? He wanted her hot and sweaty, slick and wet and begging him to fill her. Princesses weren’t supposed to do that. Were they?

“I remember many things about the Labs.” Her lips thinned as she shrugged tightly. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

“Not yet, Faith.” Impatience warred with desire as he moved to stop her. He wasn’t about to let her leave like this.

He caught her as she made to walk from the room, his arm curling around her waist as he turned her, pressing her tense body against the wall beside the doorframe as she stared up at him in startled surprise. Her hands braced against his broad chest, her slender, graceful fingers trembling over the cover of his shirt.

“There are things I remember as well,” he told her, surprised at the rough quality of his voice. “Things that awaken me in the deepest parts of the night, my cock throbbing. Demanding my mate. If I was wrong about your need to grow first, then I can accept this. But I will not allow you to hate me for my need to protect you.”

“Where have you protected me, Jacob?” she bit out, though he could feel her body softening, smell her desire for him growing. “I’ve needed you. Needed to be with you, and you never came for me. Never called for me to come to you. I would not be here now had Wolfe not demanded it.”

“But you are here.” His fingers tangled in her short hair as he pulled her head back demandingly. “And I’ll be damned if I’ll let you leave.”

Lust, thick and hot swirled in the air around him. The scent of her sweet, female need was like an aphrodisiac, driving him mad. Jacob’s lips covered hers, his tongue pushing into her mouth to claim the velvety depths demandingly. She moaned against him. A whimpering, needy sound that made his body flame.

He felt her body conform to him, so delicate and small, as her hands gripped his shoulders, her nails biting through cloth, pricking at his skin. Fire arched from nerve ending to nerve ending in Jacob’s body as he pulled her closer to him, his lips devouring her. He couldn’t get enough of her. Her sweet taste, her heated passion.

Her lips were satin fire, her tongue a jolt of electricity, and when her lips closed on him, drawing on his tongue, easing the throb in the thickening glands along its side, he nearly came in his jeans. His cock pulsed, throbbed, until he gripped her hips, lifting her closer to wedge the hard length against the heated mound of her cunt.

He braced her between the door and his body, his hips pressing into her, flexing, stroking the sensitive, jeans covered folds of her pussy. He wanted to rip her pants from her body, lift her closer and push hard and deep into the fiery channel that awaited him. He wanted to devour her. Ravage her. He wanted his lips and hands on every part of her body at once.

“Damn you,” he cursed as he jerked back, tearing his lips from hers only to move them along her cheek, her neck. “You’re like fire, Faith. Fire and lightning and you’re burning me alive.”

They were both gasping for air now, straining together, loins grinding into each other.

“Jacob.” The sound of her tremulous voice, fraught with equal parts fear and desire, whipped through his body with a surge of sensation that left him fighting for air.

He could feel his muscles trembling as he fought to control himself, felt his need for her reaching a peak he had never known existed. She was hot and sweet, and his. His mate. His woman.

Jacob allowed his lips to move with quick, ravenous kisses and strokes of his tongue along her neck, dipping under the neckline of her shirt as she strained against him. He loved the way her body arched to him, her neck tilting, giving him better access, her breasts flattening against his chest as she fought for breath. He could feel the hard points of her nipples burning into his flesh, making his mouth water to taste them.

One hand moved from her hips as he tore the shirt from the waistband of her pants. His hand moved beneath the cloth, stroking over skin so soft, so fine that he shuddered in awe.

“I want you,” he growled into her neck as his hand smoothed around her side, his fingers glancing the curve of her swollen breast, his lips aching to stroke it in turn. “I want you now, Faith.”

He heard her whimper, felt her as she tensed, striving for control. Her hands gripped his shoulders tightly, her breath shuddered through her body.

“Now,” he whispered again. “You’re mine. You know this as well as I do. Mine, Faith.”

He didn’t expect her to tear away from him. Didn’t expect the surge of strength that would give her the impetus needed to jerk from his arms, stumbling weakly as she put several feet between them.

Jacob’s eyes narrowed, his fists clenching as he watched the swollen, hard-tipped mounds of her breasts moving rapidly beneath her thin shirt.

“Why now?” she cried out, her dark eyes glittering with emotion. “Why do you want me now, when you haven’t in six years?”

Jacob paused, frowning. “I’ve always wanted you, Faith.” He shook his head, confused by her anger. “There was no question of that.”

“Oh really?” she bit out sarcastically. “Funny, Jacob, I’ve been questioning it for years. Maybe because I never saw proof of this desire you suddenly have for me.”

Jacob felt like snarling in frustration. His cock was swollen, demanding release, his blood pumping through his veins, his flesh demanding release, and it was more than obvious that she was just as aroused. Yet she stood here arguing with him, rather than choosing to satiate the need?

“Does it matter?” He raked his fingers through his hair in irritation. “We can make up for the time we have lost, Faith. If you would stop arguing with me long enough.”

He wished he knew how to soothe her, how to ease the glimpse of pain that flashed in her eyes. He had a feeling his declaration only made the situation worse, though.

Chapter Eight

Faith shook her head. “Sometimes, Jacob,” she said bitterly, “men are so stupid.” She literally stomped from the room, rushing up the stairs and out of sight.

“Shit!” he cursed, wondering if he was going to please her with any damned thing he had to say.

He paced the room long after she left, fighting the need to go to her, to force her to admit she wanted him. He started after her twice, then turned around, growling impatiently. How was he supposed to know how to handle this woman? When had she developed such stubbornness, such temper? It aroused the hell out of him, and confused him to no end. It made the urge to dominate her, to mount her, nearly uncontrollable.

His cock was throbbing impatiently beneath his jeans, reminding him forcibly that his mate was there. She was here now, man. Strike while the iron’s hot. Show her who’s boss. Give it to her now. Damn cock.

He shook his head, almost laughing at his own thoughts. She was driving him insane. Just what he needed, a crazy woman whose insanity was contagious. He was doomed.

Breathing in roughly, he growled out a curse before deciding that his best course of action was to just go to bed. Go to sleep. Forget she was in the house. Yeah. Like that one was going to happen.

He started up the stairs, intent on just that. And he assured himself he would have done just that, if the soft, muted sounds and the light scent of heat and arousal hadn’t hit him the minute he stepped close to her bedroom door.