“Leave it be, Wolfe,” Jacob advised him. “It’s not worth the fight. And I won’t see Faith upset in this manner. “

“So I need you to fight my battles?” she asked him, furious, her face flushed, her breasts heaving beneath her T-shirt. No bra. Damn her, and her nipples were hard too.

On the other end, Hope was raging as well; evidently unaware of what Wolfe had been doing until the last moment. He wanted to feel sorry for his Pack Leader, but in this case, Wolfe had brought it on himself. Besides, it appeared he had his own furious female to deal with at this point.

“Leave the apartment, Wolfe. Faith can decide for herself what to do with it. And who to fuck, I believe?” He was asking her more than he was Wolfe.

“You’re a brave man,” Wolfe sighed. “I thought only to make it easier. She seemed pretty angry with you. I thought perhaps if I made it an order—” He could hear Wolfe’s shrug in his voice. Then Hope’s sarcastic comment behind it. This didn’t seem to be the week for mate pleasing. Jacob wondered if it was a mood phase, or some strange PMS.

“Like I need you to tell him that,” Faith snorted. “Who went and made you Sir Galahad, asshole? I haven’t needed you in six years, and I’ll be damned if I need you now. And give me my friggin’ phone back.” It was jerked out of his hand before he could do more than grunt at her sarcastic comments.

* * * * *

Faith swore she was going to kill Jacob and Wolfe. Damned men. First her Pack leader has the nerve, the unutterable nerve, to order her to fuck Jacob, then he threatens her apartment. Her beautiful, bright home, where all her treasures were stored. Where her vibrators rested on velvet, her coffee grinder ground her coffee beans to perfection, and her refrigerator, the modern dream that it was, reminded her when her stash of beer and cola was getting low. Love his heart, she was going to cut it out.

“Dearest Wolfe?” Her voice was sweet as sugar, but there was murder in her heart. “May I please speak to Hope? Woman stuff, ya know?”

Wolfe hesitated. “Faith, I will leave things as they are for now. There is no sense in angering Hope further.”

“Why would I do this to my Pack Leader?” She wanted to sneer but confined the baring of her teeth to Jacob instead as she met his amused gaze. Damned men. Overbearing jackasses.

Wolfe sighed.

“Faith?” Hope’s voice was furious.

Faith turned from Jacob, her body shaking with anger, with hurt. She had thought that Wolfe understood all the years she had suffered. Thought he knew the hell she had experienced living without Jacob.

“He ordered me to fuck Jacob, Hope,” she growled, keeping her voice low, her pain hidden from everyone but the woman who, during late night phone conversations, had kept her sane in the past months. “Ordered me to let another have my home. Do not let him take my home, Hope.” It was all she had that was hers and hers alone. Every inch of it, decorated to suit her taste, lovingly cleaned and cared for by her alone.

“Don’t worry, Faith.” Hope’s voice was trembling in fury as well. “Take care of yourself, and your own needs. I’ll take care of my mate.” The determined anger in Hope’s voice eased the knot of fear that had been steadily growing in Faith since Wolfe had begun his little private discussion with her. She took a deep, calming breath.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“You’re welcome, Faith. I’ll talk to you later. I have a mate to deal with at present.”

The phone disconnected. Faith stood silently, her back to Jacob, fighting the well of fury and hurt that continued to grow in her.

“Since when did you decide to become my protector?” she asked him, fighting not to scream, to keep her voice calm, even, despite the tremble in it.

She clipped the phone back in its small holder on her belt, then turned to face him, her fists clenched to keep from smacking the bemused expression from his face.

“He was wrong.” Jacob shrugged. “I was merely trying to help, Faith.”

“I do not need your help.” She fought to breathe normally, to still the hard, furious beat of her heart. “I have not needed you in six years, and despite Wolfe’s belief to the contrary, I do not need you now.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, staring down at her in lofty amusement, his lips curling into that little half smile of superiority that she so hated.

“Your body does,” he said with such confidence that she was grinding her teeth together in fury. “But, I don’t believe Wolfe has the right to order you to my bed. I want you there because you cannot deny me, not because you are ordered.”

Her eyes widened.

“You think I cannot deny you?” She bit out, so furious, so enraged with his patient amusement with her that it was all she could do not to attack him. “You think fucking me is a done deal?”

He chuckled. Bastard. He was laughing at her. “My dearest mate, I have no doubt it is. But it always has been. You’re a big girl now, I think you can take me.”

Shocked fury filled her system. He stood so tall, so confident before her. As though he knew the ways of all things, supreme in his own knowledge. She wished she could refute his claim, but knew she would choke on such a lie.

“As I remember it, I had no problem taking you before,” she reminded him, feeling the need for violence rising strong and steady inside her. “I think your done deal is more like an itch that needs scratched in your case,” she sneered. “What, miss out on your weekly piece last night?”

His eyes narrowed on her. The amusement in his expression dropping by several degrees.

“You’ve developed a smart mouth, Faith, it could get you into trouble,” he warned her, his voice low, irritated.

“And you’ve developed a domineering attitude that could land you on your ass,” Faith assured him furiously. “Stay out of my business, Jacob.”

Enough of this! Hard-headed damned man, there would be no way to make him see sense, to make him understand that she didn’t need him to pave her way with Wolfe. And she didn’t need Wolfe ordering her to fuck her mate. Damn him. Damn Jacob. What gave either of them the right to suddenly decide they knew better than her, after six years?

“You are my business,” he growled, his voice rife with irritation as he faced her, his own anger growing.

“Am I?” she demanded. “Then why did he order me to fuck you, instead of the other way around? You are the one who left. Remember?”

His face flushed and for a second, just for a second, his gaze flickered. Faith narrowed her eyes, her chest blooming with pain.

“Don’t worry, Jacob. You’re off the hook. You and Wolfe both can go to hell.” She moved to rush from the room to get away from him, and the unbearable pain suddenly radiating inside her.

Jacob stopped her as she went to pass him. He pulled her to him, his hands sliding down her arms in a slow caress. His hands touched her. Faith drew in a hard, shuddering breath as his fingers moved further, dropping to cup her hips, pulling her into his thighs until the hard length of his erection was pressing against her lower back. Heat seared her body, burst through her veins like an explosion of wildfire. She gasped, flinching as her womb contracted hungrily and her clitoris began to throb in need. Dear God, only a touch and she was ready for him to mount her.

She could barely breathe for the physical demands of her body. Could barely stand the agony of suspense, the overriding needs, both emotionally and physically, that ripped through her.

“You feel it,” he growled, his hands tightening on her hips. “It can only be denied for so long, Faith. I know. I have fought to run from it for six years; awaiting Wolfe’s call, praying daily that you would reach the maturity of your body, and be ready for me. Do you think this was easy for me? Do you think my lusts have not nearly destroyed me?”

“You were with others,” she cried out, her hands going to his where they rested on her hips, even as her head fell back on his chest.

His breath was doing wicked things against her neck, sending shivers of pleasure coursing over her body. It was heated, whispering over the mark he had left on her while still a captive within the cursed Labs. She burned in response. So long, she had dreamed of his touch, so long.

“I could not come to you before,” he whispered as his lips stroked over the small mark. “I could not trust myself, Faith. I remembered too well the taste of your honey flowing into my mouth as I shoved my tongue inside your tight channel, sucked at your clit and heard your screams of climax, your pleas for more. You were so young. Not ready for the mating our natures demand. Too young to know the violence of my passion. I had to leave, or I would have taken you and harmed you far more than I already had.”

Where had he got the idea he had hurt her? She wanted to protest his feelings, but she couldn’t for the pleasure suddenly washing over her.

“No.” She didn’t know if she was protesting that decision, or the hand slipping slowly inside the waistband of her pants as the other eased beneath the loose folds of her shirt.

“Yes.” His teeth raked her neck. “I would not have been able to wait. I would not have been able to allow you the time of growing, of learning that you needed. Do you know, do you have any idea the hell I endured trying to stay away, to wait until you were ready for me?”

His voice was strained, ferocious in its hunger. As he spoke, one hand cupped her swollen breast, though the other paused at her lower stomach rather than traveling further to her throbbing cunt. She was on fire. She needed his hand to touch her, stroke her. The lightning arcs of tortured arousal were not unlike the drugs she had been injected with so long ago.

“I didn’t ask you to restrain yourself.” Her eyes closed as she moaned with her need. She had forgotten how strong the needs could be, how they attacked, stroked and flamed through her system with just the threat of Jacob’s touch.

“I would have hurt you, Faith. I had no other choice but to leave.” His tongue stroked over the mark.

Faith cried out, her neck bending further to grant him greater access as the hand holding his wrist applied pressure, trying to push it from her abdomen to between her thighs.

“You did have a choice,” she whispered, she could barely speak. She was breathing hard, heavy, her body was flaming, sensitized and aching almost painfully.

The anger and fury was dissolving beneath the onslaught of a fury of lust. She was shaking, needing so desperately she didn’t know if she would survive the ache.

“God, Faith, you feel so good. You taste so good,” he whispered, his own breathing rough, heavy. His chest rose and fell hard beneath her head, his tongue stroking over the small, sensitive scar he had left below her neck. “I want to mark you again. I need to, Faith.”

His voice was desperate, so hot and dark she could only melt against him, a prisoner of her body’s needs, held by chains of arousal so strong, so hot she could only tremble against him.

She felt the scrape of his teeth, the sharp canines as they rasped over her skin, sending sensual daggers of erotic sensation through her body. She knew what was coming, remembered with perfect clarity the all-consuming, raging lusts that would fill her body. Sharper, more intense than even the needs that tormented her now.

Emotions she had so long denied, swamped her now. Her chest tightened with them, her flesh prickling with enjoyment at his touch. She was weak, too weak to fight him, and her own body.

“No,” she whispered her denial of such tormenting sensations even as her neck arched for another scrape of his teeth, and her hand bore down on his to push it closer to her tormented cunt.

His hand slid in further, beneath the edge of her silk panties, glancing over the honey-slick, bare lips of her pussy. She arched on her tiptoes to get closer, feeling the heated rasp of his fingers over her clit.