Lawe's Justice

*CHAPTER 3*

There were few things Diane Broen hated worse than she hated late night landings and forcing her tired body to yet another hotel room.

One of these days, she promised herself as she entered the lobby of the exclusive, expensive hotel Jonas Wyatt sent them to, she was going to have her own bed, her own apartment, and her own clothes to fill it.

Rather than whatever she had in her suitcase, whether it was dirty or not.

“Boss, don’t forget about that meeting we have with the accountant while we’re in town,” Thor, the big deep-voiced blond Swede reminded her as they stepped into the lobby of the D.C. hotel and headed for the elevators.

“Do we have an appointment?” she asked, all but dragging her bags behind her as she fought to stay on her feet long enough to get to her room.

Three months. She and the four men who had once fought with her uncle and now followed her command, had been on the trail of one of the most elusive damned targets she’d ever been sent after.

They had gone after terrorists, extracted kidnap victims, provided security for heads of state, kings and even a few shady characters, but never in the history of her time with her uncle’s men had they failed to complete a job. Until now.

It was as though she had disappeared off the face of the earth and the message she had received the night before returning to D.C. hadn’t settled her mind.

An anonymous message left in her hotel room and a warning that there was a spy too close to her. A spy who didn’t care to kill. And with that message was a reference to a possible location that she still couldn’t believe.

Hell, she didn’t need this.

“I’ll get an appointment, boss,” Thor promised. “But you have to keep it.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said with a sigh as she punched the elevator button and watched the lit numbers descend as the elevator moved from the upper floors back to the lobby.

She was taking that warning to heart, as much as she hated to. There was too much at stake, and she wasn’t risking her men without more information.

She leaned against the wall and stared back at the four men.

The Swede, Thor, was their moneyman. He kept them solvent and well supplied. He paid the bills and managed to keep their paychecks from bouncing. Next to him was Aaron, their logistics expert, emergency medical needs, and travel agent. Brick was their communications expert and supply tech while Malcolm took care of weapons and, before they’d joined the Bureau of Breed Affairs, he’d scheduled their missions.

They’d lost two of their men after joining the Bureau though. The two Breeds that had fought with them since the team had rescued them from a small lab several years before. They’d moved on to security in Sanctuary, the feline base in Virginia.

Now Diane and her remaining team were expert consultants to the Bureau, a glorified title for gophers she liked to think, but it kept her close to her sister, Rachel, and Rachel’s daughter, Amber.

It kept her close enough that she could ensure she was never again unable to help her sister and niece when they needed her.

The elevator pinged its arrival.

“Hey, boss, want me to haul your gear?” Thor’s voice was softer as she opened her eyes and stared back at him.

She was tired, and evidently she looked tired too.

She was aware of the other three men watching her curiously.

“I have my gear, Thor.” She straightened as the doors slid open and a couple left the elevator. Their expressions were wary as their gazes moved over the less than reputable-looking group.

Diane snickered up at Thor as she stepped into the elevator and caught his disgruntled look. Readjusting her gear on her shoulders, she almost wished she had taken him up on his offer.

Yeah, she would have loved to have had Thor haul her gear for her. His shoulders were a hell of a lot stouter than hers, and he carried his own gear as though it weighed nothing. But her uncle had warned her that no matter how tired or wounded she was, she had to pull her own weight if she wanted them to respect her. The day she couldn’t haul her own gear, and she wasn’t wounded, was the day her men would start protecting her instead of following her. It would be the day she would lose her command.

She’d fought too many years for their respect to risk that. She wasn’t going to give it up because she’d missed a few nights’ sleep in order to return to the States in time to follow the lead she had been given and to complete her mission.

“Man, I need a cold beer, a warm woman and a soft bed,” Aaron said, sighing as he leaned against the elevator wall, his brown eyes reflecting the same weariness they all felt.

Diane snorted as she leaned against the wall as well and waited for the tenth floor. “Cold beer, warm shower, and that soft bed.” She sighed.

The thought of a warm man slid through her mind and she immediately, forcibly, pushed it back.

“Here we go,” Thor breathed out in relief as the doors slid open. “I’ll let you know about that accountant, boss.”

“I’ll be there,” she promised. “Once Wyatt hears my report we’ll probably be heading out for that vacation we’ve all dreamed of.”

It was the only distraction she had to use to explain her own disappearance once she gave the impression of having given up on this mission.

She wasn’t about to give up.

The girl she was looking for was too important and there were too many forces converging around her for Diane to give up now.

“Night, boss.” Thor headed in the opposite direction to his room.

“Night, boss,” Malcolm echoed as he crossed the hall to his room.

“See ya, boss.” Aaron followed Thor, and headed farther up the hall, his shoulders drooping just a bit.

Aaron got his wish to head home to see his parents. Brick could pick up with the woman he’d been living with for the past few years, while Malcolm had a sister he intended to visit. Thor kept talking about budgets, accountants and balancing the books. She threw a careless wave over her shoulder to her men as she headed down the hall to her room. Reaching the door, she nodded to the Breed Enforcers assigned to guard the floor of the exclusive D.C. hotel reserved for Breed VIP visitors to the city.

Tonight, it was home.

She could feel the grime of the past three days on her body, and the long hours spent in the middle of the desert before that hadn’t helped. And it seemed no matter the direction she went, the information she was searching for was always one step ahead of them. Just as the woman was.

Lawe stepped from the stairwell entrance, preferring it over the elevator to help alleviate some of the tension that tightened his muscles.

As the door closed behind him, the ping of the elevator had him pausing as the doors slid open and Rule stepped into the hall.

Dressed in black, the Lion Breed Enforcer insignia on his right shoulder and his black hair pulled back from his face to reveal the strong features and brilliance of his topaz eyes, he didn’t look like Lawe’s twin. There was a resemblance, though, one strong enough that the genetic line wasn’t in doubt.

He paused as he turned and saw Lawe, a frown marking his brow.

“Jonas didn’t mention you were scheduled to be here.”

Lawe’s lips tightened.

“Do you ever get tired of his machinations?”

Rule snorted. “Don’t we all. If it weren’t for the fact that killing him would only cause more problems, I would kill him myself.”

It was a regular refrain from damned near every Breed that came in contact with the director.

Rule tilted his head then as he stared back at Lawe questioningly. “Why are you here?”

“Because Jonas is playing games with us,” Lawe growled. “He knows she’s my mate, Rule.”

Rule nodded sharply. “It would be hard to miss. She carried your scent when I first met her. I wondered if you would tell me when it happened and why you walked away from her.”

The curiosity in his twin’s gaze was impossible to miss. Lawe had been ignoring it for months, and didn’t intend to explain it now either.

“I haven’t mated her.” Lawe’s teeth clenched at the speculation in his brother’s eyes. “Jonas sent you to try to push me to it.”

Rule’s lips thinned. He didn’t like Jonas’s games any more than anyone else, but Lawe could see something more swirling in his brother’s gaze. Something that had him tensing at the possibility that his brother could become a problem where Diane was concerned, just as Jonas was becoming one.

“No mating huh?” Rule asked softly. “Tell me, Lawe, what do you think of Jonas and Ely’s position that if a Breed doesn’t claim his mate, then a genetic relation, or brother, may have that chance?”

Lawe’s nostrils flared with his attempt to hold back the instinctive anger that shot through his system because of the question.

Jonas and the Breed specialist, Dr. Ely Morrey, seemed to be under the impression that if a female wasn’t physically mated, then the first stage of mating heat made her vulnerable to other males.

That first stage, when the minute quantities of the hormone appear on the fine hairs covering a Breed’s body, or when something as simple as a brush of his lips to her flesh could infect her with enough of the hormone to activate her ability to become a mate. That combined with an emotional response, Ely had hypothesized, could allow her to mate another Breed.

Lawe had no idea if it had ever happened in the past, but he’d be damned if he’d allow Rule and Diane to prove it.

“Don’t go there, Rule,” Lawe warned him softly. “I don’t think your horoscope declared today to be a good day to die.”

Rule reached back and rubbed at his neck as he gave a heavy sigh.

“Jonas wants you out of this,” Rule said as he dropped his arm back to his side. “I agree with him. You don’t want her, you don’t want the mating and I understand why. That doesn’t mean she should be left vulnerable to any Breed looking to complete it. A Breed perhaps unable or unwilling to utilize her strengths.”

“Use them you mean?” Lawe questioned with icy disdain. “Don’t sugarcoat it, Rule. We both know Jonas doesn’t want to lose her and her team. He knows I’ll pull her off active duty the second I can.”

Rule shrugged. “She’s a hell of a warrior. You’ll destroy her if you do that, Lawe. On the other hand, I think I could handle it.”

Lawe couldn’t help but laugh, though the sound held little amusement. “Go find your own woman. This one’s off-limits to every other Breed with the mistaken intention to even attempt such a thing.”

“But you’re not claiming her,” Rule pointed out softly. “You know, Lawe, we’re brothers. Identical twins, despite the differences in our looks. I don’t want to love a woman to the point it marks my soul. If you don’t want your mate, give me that chance. I’d take care of her.”

Was he serious?

Lawe stared back at Rule and once again was struck by the strange chill that had entered his brother’s eyes in the past months. There was the chance that his brother was entirely serious.

“Why don’t you just run on home while I consider your request?” Lawe grunted though he felt that dark-animal corner of his being awakening and attempting to overtake his humanity.

Rule’s lips quirked. “While you’re considering it, I’ll just step in here and get things started, why don’t I?” Despite the amusement, there was an edge of warning in Rule’s tone.

The snarl that curled Lawe’s lips and flashed his canines was the first indication that the animal genetics were slipping the leash he kept on them.

Rule didn’t back down. His brow lifted instead as he crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Lawe. “You don’t do that often,” he pointed out coolly. “You’re letting her get to you.”

“No, you and Jonas are getting to me,” Lawe growled. “What the hell makes you think you can force a mating? Even Cabal told us he’d had no attraction for his twin, Tanner’s, mate. What makes you think it would be different for you? Hell, what makes Jonas and Ely believe such a thing could even be considered?”

“Because they were created differently, Lawe. We’re actually twins. Fraternal perhaps, but still the genetics are stronger than Tanner and Cabal’s, and we share a bond they didn’t. It’s worth finding out if those genetics would allow me to claim the woman you don’t want. Besides, it’s information Dr. Morrey may be able to use in the future if my ability to be her mate is possible.”

Lawe almost shook his head, hoping to force a level of belief into his senses. To actually accept that his brother would consider such a thing.

“You would take what’s mine?” Lawe asked, unwilling to admit to the confusion.

“You’re not claiming her, Lawe,” Rule growled. It was a low, rumbling sound that hinted at the same internal anger Lawe was feeling. “You don’t want her. I don’t want a mate that could destroy me. It seems a fair enough exchange to me.”

“You don’t want her either. Not as she deserves. So what the hell makes you think it would be worth the fight I’ll give you? Get the hell out of here, Rule.” There wasn’t a chance he was going to let his brother around his mate. “Get out of here before I do something we’ll both regret.”

His brother started to turn and move up the hall toward Diane’s room. Lawe could see his intent, feel it, and he wasn’t having it.

He was moving even before he was aware of the impulse. For that brief moment of time the animal inside him rose up and acted before he could rein it in.

Rule was against the wall as Lawe pressed his forearm tight and hard into his brother’s throat. The Breeds standing guard farther up the hall stepped forward then deliberately restrained themselves from moving from their posts.

The VIPs they guarded were more important than their feline curiosity or instincts concerning the violence rising between the two brothers. But they still watched curiously and Lawe was still very much aware of them.

“No!” he said with a snarl in his brother’s face. “Don’t destroy the bond we’ve had since our birth, Rule. Back the fuck off.”

Rule’s lips curled in amusement despite the powerful arm Lawe had pressed into his throat.

The mocking amusement he’d had moments before returned to his gaze. “The scent you put on her can be washed away eventually,” Rule warned him. “It’s not strong enough to do anything but cause a Breed to pause and then assure him she’s Breed compatible. If I don’t take my chance, then another Breed will. Which would you prefer, Lawe? That another mate her or that one you know will protect her with his life has her?”

“Another Breed won’t get the warning you’re getting. I’ll fucking kill him. Stay the hell away from her or I’ll make damned sure you wish you had.”

Before the animal raging through his senses could strike out and harm the brother he had pledged to protect, Lawe jerked back before stabbing his finger on the elevator control panel.

The ping of the elevator sounded before the door slid open.

“For both our sakes,” Lawe stated quietly with much more restraint than he actually felt.

Their gazes locked in silent confrontation, each gauging the other’s intent and the strength behind it before Rule finally gave a slow nod.

“This time,” Rule stated softly. “This time, Lawe. But before I see another take what I know should be yours, I will step around you and claim her myself. One way or the other, no matter the enmity it may cause between us.”

Lawe clenched his fists at his side and forced himself to hold back the anger that pounded through his veins and kept his animal instincts on a sharply honed edge.

He hated that feeling. That feeling that there was another entity rising inside him and threatening to steal the control he’d honed over the years.

His gaze remained locked with his brother’s until the elevator doors slid closed and the small cubicle carrying Rule made its return journey to the lobby of the hotel. He stood, watching the numbers on the digital display count down the elevator’s progress until it reach the lobby.

He made himself stand there, watch, and wait as he fought the primal instincts tearing through him.

He’d managed to keep it at bay during the past months since he’d rescued Diane and realized she was his mate. He’d reined it in and assured himself that he could deny that savage impulse to claim her. Each time they’d come in contact, each time the battle became harder, but he’d still managed to walk away.

As he stalked to her door, that control he’d had most of his life was fading away. The animal part of him was clawing its way to the forefront of his senses, and its attention was locked on a single, subtle scent.

The scent of its mate.

The mate that even now the rational, logical part of his brain was screaming to deny. He couldn’t have her. He wouldn’t allow himself to risk her. But he could ensure, at least for a little while, that the scent he placed on her was strong enough to keep even Rule at bay.

For a little while.

Diane had finished dinner and cleaned up her mess when she suddenly paused just inside the kitchenette, her gaze slicing to the door at the sound of a keycard sliding through the lock.

The soft hiss was a sound most people would have never detected, but most people hadn’t been trained by her paranoid uncle.

Perhaps paranoid was the wrong word to use. Her very cautious uncle.

In that second, her weapon cleared the holster she wore at the small of her back. The small laser-powered personal defense handgun had the look of the old-style Glock the military once issued, but it contained all the power of the adjustable laser-powered rifles.

The bursts of fiery energy could knock a man off his feet or put a hole in him the size of a bowling ball.

“Put your weapon down, wildcat. It’s just me.”

Diane froze, the weapon still held at her thigh by both hands as the door swung open and he stepped in.

Just me. Just—there was no “just” where Lawe Justice was concerned. There was nothing so simple as that word implied.

Confident, powerful, a supreme male animal and as fucking alpha as he could get, he stepped into the suite as though it belonged to him.

He was complicated, powerful, mysterious and rakish, wicked and seductive, and her entire body seemed to flood with warmth at the sight of him.

Diane remained still, her jaw locked in a deliberate attempt to exert control over herself and her reaction to the sound of the dark, sexually intent tone that had her body wanting to melt.

There were nights when the thought of him, of the touch she ached for, tormented her to the point that she wondered if perhaps he didn’t own a part of her already. At the very least, he owned her fantasies, her erotically charged, sensually tormented fantasies since the first moment when she had opened her eyes to find him standing above her.

Tall, his shoulders broad, his body powerful, the thick, heavy length of his black hair was much longer than it had been the last time she had seen him. He looked as dangerous as she knew he was. As primal and as savagely intense as she sensed he was.

Denim encased long, powerful legs and rode low on his hips to be cinched by a leather belt at his muscular hips. A white cotton shirt, the arms folded to the elbow covered wide shoulders and an impressive chest. Heavy Western boots covered his feet, a silver chain riding low around the heel.

He looked good enough to take a bite of, and her mouth watered to do just that.

The dark overnight growth of a beard shadowed his lower face—most Breeds couldn’t grow a full beard, but that rakish, next-day growth was the norm for those who allowed that sexy to-die-for look. And that was exactly the look Lawe was going for tonight. The look that stripped her down to bare bones, hard-core sex and the need to ride him until they were both exhausted.

Not that it would take her long to reach exhaustion after the past three months and a search that had driven her bat-shit crazy. But what a way to go.

“What are you doing here?” First replacing the weapon, she then unclipped the holster before walking through the suite. Passing the small living area as Lawe stepped into the room, she moved to the bed where she laid the weapon on the bedside table before turning to face him.

“What I’m doing here should be rather obvious.” Midnight black brows formed a V between the intense ice-cold violet blue eyes that swept over her.

Cold, cold eyes. She could never see what he was thinking, and she sure as hell had no idea how he felt from one second to the next. But she wanted to. There had been times she would have given anything to see behind the ice in his gaze.

“If you say so,” she agreed with a hint of mockery. “I’ve arrived safe and sound, Lawe, so you can go back to your own room, your own place or wherever you’re sleeping now. I’ll give you my report when I give it to Jonas in the morning. I’m too tired for the third degree tonight.”

She often wondered where he slept. And with whom. Rumor was, Lawe spent very few nights alone and his sexuality sure as hell didn’t rest.

She knew the Bureau had several apartments in town, as well as a safe house, where he and other high-level Enforcers stayed while in D.C.

What the hell he was doing here this late simply made no sense. Lawe Justice rarely, if ever, stayed in hotels unless he had the Presidential Suite. And she knew the three Presidential Suites were in use by the Russian Wolf and Coyote Pack leaders, as well as the Russian Feline Pride leader.

“I would have worried about you if I hadn’t known you arrived safe.” He surprised her with his reply. “Damned good thing I did too. You’ve just arrived and I can see how little you’ve taken care of yourself. What good did it do me to rescue you from certain death if you’re just going to commit suicide slowly?”

Never let it be said that the Breeds didn’t protect their assets to the best of their ability. They did. Even to the point that he was here tonight to ensure she had arrived and was tucked safely in her room.

“You prefer I do it quicker? That eager to be rid of me, are you?”

He snorted. “Beats watching you waste away day by day.”

Why, how sweet, she thought with savage mockery.

Yeah, right, that was why he was here all right, to check up on her health.

Bullshit.

He was there for the same reason she couldn’t get him out of her mind. Because neither of them had the self-control or strength of will to stay away from the other. And that terrified her. In the ten months since he’d rescued her from a Middle Eastern hellhole, he’d consumed not just her fantasies but also her thoughts and her determination not to care for anyone but Rachel and Amber.

She didn’t need this. Not here, not now, not at a time when she was trying so very hard to make too many decisions where her life was concerned.

As she turned back to face him, she watched as his gaze shifted from her to the bed, then back.

The bed was turned down invitingly, ready for them if either had the guts to push it.

The shower awaited. They could share it, she thought, though it would be a tight fit. The thought of heated water sluicing over his hard, naked body had her knees weakening in arousal and the need for touch.

Just for touch.

As he had touched her in England just before he left to return to the States after rescuing her. The way he had stroked the backs of his fingers along her cheek.

Or just after Brandenmore had finally been captured by Jonas Wyatt. He’d found her in New York that night before she had flown to Turkey for another job.

He hadn’t taken her. He had just touched her, his calloused fingers playing over her body as though the sensation of her flesh beneath his touch was an ecstasy all its own.

She had never been undressed and neither had he. He hadn’t touched her below the waist and he hadn’t given her the release her body was crying out for. But he had made her ache.

Hell, she shouldn’t want to want him like this. She shouldn’t allow herself to want him like this.

She could be in the bed sleeping off the jet lag and frustration if he would just leave. She could hurry and masturbate, make use of the vibrator hidden in her bags and then rest for a few hours before she had to meet with his boss.

“Fine, I’m safe and sound,” she finally said, breaking the tense silence growing between them. “You can stop protecting me now and let me get some sleep before I face the big bad prick in the morning.”

Not that Jonas was really that bad, but it wouldn’t do to let him know she actually liked him. She had a feeling he would take such deliberate advantage of that fact, it wouldn’t even be funny.

Just as Lawe would take full advantage of the sheer fascination she had for him, if he knew of it.

Letting him know would be the biggest mistake she could possibly make.

Lawe kept watching her. His gaze was like a dominant, powerful caress she couldn’t evade.

The sensation of that invisible touch never failed to leave her off balance and nervous. She could feel her blood beginning to rush through her veins, her heart rate becoming spiked and elevated. Her clit swelled with aching hunger and sexual desperation. Damn, she needed him to leave, then she could at least have him in her fantasies.

“Why are you still here, Lawe?” she asked. He was destroying her nerves with the violet blue intensity of his gaze and her certainty that there were indeed emotions roiling beneath the layer of icy calm.

“You should know why I’m here.”

She shook her head in a tight, jerky motion. Oh God, now wasn’t the time for this. Not while she was so tired, and so weak. “I have no idea, and I really don’t give a damn.”

God help her, he was killing her.

If she had to be fascinated by a man at this time in her life, why did it have to be a Breed? And why did it have to be this particular Breed? There was a level of the independence inside her that he frankly terrified and she knew why.

He was protective.

He would smother her with layers of protection if she allowed him to do it. That was what he would do with any woman he called his own. Hell, even his lovers had been known to complain of his insistence for bodyguards and heightened security. They complained of their inability to shop, to lunch with friends, to enjoy their lives.

For a minute, for the shortest amount of time, she might enjoy it, but Diane knew herself and knew it would destroy her. Her and Lawe. He could never accept danger to his woman, and he sure as hell could not accept danger to the woman he thought was his mate.

And he thought she was his mate.

She almost shivered at the thought.

“You need to leave, I’m tired and I need a shower, and I can’t deal with you tonight,” she retorted, forcing herself to confront the only man she had ever fantasized about wanting in her entire life.

She was thirty years old, for God’s sake.

She’d gotten used to the accusations of being frigid, lesbian, unfeeling, robotic. They had ceased to offend or wound her long ago. In most cases, they sincerely amused her.

For the men she knew, bedding a woman was no different from hunting a particular buck with a trophy rack. They used the same instincts and often the same finesse.

But this man, he made her feel something. This Breed. He made her heart race and her body feel flushed. He made her clit swell, her nipples harden, and oh yes, she knew damned good and well he sensed it.

He was a Breed, after all. All those nifty powerful senses. The sense of smell, hearing and eyesight that was like four or five hundred times that of a normal human.

He could probably smell her pussy dampening.

His nostrils flared as she allowed her brows to arch mockingly.

Oh yes, he could smell it.

“You were late arriving from the airport,” he stated as she realized his voice was much deeper than she was used to hearing. It had been since the moment he had spoken earlier. As though the animal genetics he carried were suddenly coming alive in ways they never had before.

She shivered at the thought.

“I’m really tired, Lawe.” She didn’t have the time or the heart to engage in the battle she knew he wanted. “Can we postpone this until tomorrow?”

Exactly what “this” was she truly hadn’t figured out yet. All she knew was that if she allowed herself to take what she wanted, if she reached out and grabbed at him with both hands, she would be making a supreme mistake. One that could end up destroying her.

She didn’t want a keeper or a jailer, and that was what Lawe would become. She couldn’t bear the thought of it.

“Funny, each time we’re together and the scent of your arousal begins to fill the air, it’s suddenly cut off just as quickly,” he mused, shocking her with the comment. “How do you manage it, Diane? Give me your secret, love. Maybe then I could control my own hunger as easily.”

“I remember quickly what pricks male Breeds can be,” she informed him sharply. “Do you think for a minute I’d put up with it without shooting you? Then Jonas would have to shoot me. Rachel would probably cry—” She shrugged as though she had gone far enough.

His lips tilted in amusement. “You have it all figured out I see.”

“I like to be prepared.” Hooking her thumbs in the belt loops of her pants she continued to watch him carefully. “What’s the saying? Better safe than sorry? I must prefer nice, safe non-Breed males. They don’t hassle me near as much and let me come and go as I please.”

Oh boy, big mistake. She watched his gaze narrow dangerously.

“And how many of those non-Breed males have you preferred, Diane?” His voice dropped as he began to move closer, becoming silky and dark, seductive. He could talk a woman out of her panties with his voice alone, she thought with an edge of searing hunger. And once he turned the heat up, how the hell was she supposed to resist him?

She stood perfectly still as he moved to her. He eased between her and the wall until he stood directly behind her.

She should have run, but that would have been the same as admitting defeat. Besides, he was a Breed male—the worst thing a woman could do was run. She became the prey then. An erotic delight that Lawe would ignore.

“Does it matter?” She had to force herself to remain still as she felt his cheek brush against her hair.

“Oh, it matters.” That was definitely a growl in his voice. “More than you know.”

She definitely heard the low, dangerous snap of his teeth behind her as he finished speaking.

“What the hell are you doing?”

She gave in. She moved to jerk away, overwhelmed and unprepared for the effect he had on her.

His hands clamped on her shoulders, holding her in place as a sharp breath expelled from her lungs.

“I want to bite you, Diane,” he growled. “I want to come behind you, fill your sweet pussy with my dick and lock my teeth in the side of your neck while I feel the tremors of your release shaking through your body. Be damned careful, baby, because trust me, it would be something neither of us will recover from.” His body tightened further behind her, his hips dipping, rolling, grinding his cock against the crevice of her rear as she felt her knees weakening.

One hand fell to her hip, holding her in place as Diane tried to pull free once again, her breathing rough and uneven as pleasure began to tear through her body.

The other hand stroked from her arm to her lower belly, pushed beneath her T-shirt and between one heartbeat and the next curved around the swollen, sensitive flesh of her breast as his fingers found and began to play with a tender nipple.

“Lawe!” Breathless, thick with a sudden, overwhelming pleasure and uncertainty, her fingers gripped the wrist at her hip as she felt her breathing lock in her chest for precious seconds.

Between her thighs her pussy clenched and spilled its juices as her clit began throbbing furiously.

The need to come was screaming through her body, drawing her muscles tight as she fought to find enough sensation against her clit to send her flying into release. Maybe then she could find her control again.

This was the closest they had ever been, the most they had dared to touch. Each of them knew what mating heat would do to them, just as they knew it was there, between them, banked but ready to flare out of control.

Something was definitely flaring out of control now. Like a wildfire burning everything in its path, the sensations and the hunger for more burned away her resistance and her common sense.

“Lawe,” she whispered his name this time, the whimper of agonized arousal an indication of the heightened sensations flaring across her nerve endings. “Please. Don’t do this to me.”

She couldn’t bear the throbbing desperation any longer. No amount of tightening of her thigh muscles was easing the ache. It was beginning to pound out of control, the piercing need shattering her defenses and stealing her ability to breathe.

It was terrifying. Exhilarating. It was the most dangerous thing she could allow to happen.

“Let me show you what you’ll never find with another man, Breed or not.” Savage, fierce, he growled the words at her ear as his hand stroked from her hip to the closure of her jeans.

Tearing at the snap and zipper of her jeans until they parted and his fingers were able to push inside.

She should stop him, she knew. She should have never allowed it to go this far. She couldn’t allow herself to sink so deep into this morass of sensations.

But it was happening.

Her thighs parted as his fingers met the soft tuft of curls between her thighs.

He hadn’t kissed her. But at that moment every thought was centering on what he was doing, not on what he hadn’t done.

There were very few preliminaries, but she didn’t need them tonight. When his fingers found the saturated, sensitized slit of her pussy and the swollen folds of flesh between her thighs she wondered if she somehow lost her mind in that moment.

Because there was no way that any man’s, or Breed’s, touch could really feel this good.

She really didn’t feel sensation suddenly snapping through her body as something so far beyond pleasure tore through her senses.

A cry slipped past her lips. Rough, ragged, it was one that echoed with a building ecstasy and the need she couldn’t control.

She didn’t want to control it.

“Lawe, this is dangerous!” Her voice filled with the need for more, the fear of more, the exclamation came just as his fingers stroked around her clit, gripped it and began plumping it.

Her knees weakened as she arched into the sensually charged, erotically painful pleasure. She could barely gasp for air, the sensations were so brilliant. It was all she could do to spread her thighs farther apart. Tilting her hips closer, Diane reached back to hold on to his neck as his fingers released the tight bud, slid lower then sank inside the clenched, tight depths of her pussy.

She moaned. Her inner muscles clamped on his digits, flexed and convulsed around them.

“Feel your body milking my fingers.” The growl in his tone, animalistic and primal, had her womb clenching with pulse after pulse of erotic excitement. “That’s how you’ll grip my dick, Diane. All sweet and hot. Like a tight little fist wrapping around it and sucking my cock until I’m exploding inside you.” His fingers pushed in deep, the feel of them rough and calloused. “Until I’m pumping my come so hard inside your pussy we’re both dying from it. Locked so tight inside you we’ll wonder where one begins and the other ends.”

And she wouldn’t care.

She was so close.

She wouldn’t care where he began and she ended. All she cared about now was the pleasure and the need for release that beat inside her bloodstream like a fever.

“So silky and hot.” His fingers eased back before thrusting inside her again, hard and deep and drawing another ragged cry from her lips.

“I want to taste you, Diane.” His voice was more guttural, rougher than ever. “I want to fuck you with my tongue, taste all your sweet juices and feel you coming for me. I want to taste your pleasure until I’m drowning in you.”

“Lawe, please.” She couldn’t bear it. The need for release was growing, tightening, burning inside her until she felt as though flames were licking through her body. “Just do it, damn you.”

“Mate you?” His fingers were deep inside her, stroking, caressing, rubbing against nerve endings never touched before and too sensitive to bear it for long. “Should I mate you, Diane? Give you my kiss and let you go crazy with the heat that will fill both of us?”

“Why are you doing this to me?” She moaned as reality threatened to intrude.

A whimper built in her chest as the sensations began to coalesce into a white-hot conflagration that she no longer had any control over.

She could feel her release building, feel her womb, her pussy, her clit tightening, reaching, rushing headlong into ecstasy.

“You’re mine,” he whispered at her ear as his fingers stroked, rubbed, thrusting into the clenched tissue. “My scent covers you. It’s my touch you ache for and only mine that will satisfy that sweet, hot little pussy.”

His fingers were moving harder inside her. Faster. She could feel it beginning to pour through her, like a wave rushing out of control, pounding at her, building, surging—

She wanted to scream.

“Why are you doing this?” she cried out, desperate for release as he tormented her. “Please, Lawe . . .”

“Don’t think to let another have you, Diane,” he snarled at her ear, nipped it. “Because no other will ever give you this . . .”

Harder.

His fingers fucked inside her with a rhythm that had her gasping at the savagery of the pleasure, reaching, crying out and giving herself to every white-hot sensation he unleashed inside her.

When the ecstasy hit she could do nothing but lift to him and gasp for air, her pussy clamped down on his fingers, convulsing, spilling more of her juices as she shot into her release with a power that left her spinning out of control.

She had never known anything so intense, so erotic and primal. An orgasm had never tossed her so violently into rapture, into such an ecstasy that there was no control, no denial or reality but that of Lawe and the culmination of his touch.

With Lawe, there was no way to throttle back, no way to ease anything or control it.

She was his.

Dependent upon him to remain standing and not sink to the floor.

Dependent upon him to hold her against him, to share his warmth, his heartbeat, to protect her for the few fragile moments she was defenseless and unable to protect herself.

She was dependent upon Lawe to ensure she came back to her own body after flying through space and time. To ease her past the savagery of each aftershock, to croon her name at her ear, to bring her slowly back to earth before he eased his fingers from the tight, convulsive grip of her sex.

Slumping against him as he turned her in his arms, one hand pressing her head against his chest as the sound of his heart raging in his chest beat at her ear. Beneath the furious beat a primitive male growl rumbled as a sob nearly tore from her chest.

His hold, the way he all but wrapped himself around her, the way he dared her to ever allow another’s touch, even as he gave her a pleasure she knew she would never reach without him, proved every fear she had ever had of him.

He would own her.

If she allowed it, Lawe Justice would steal every ounce of her independence, every chance of being the woman she had always fought to be.

She could be herself, or she could be his mate.

Standing in his arms she battled the tears filling her eyes.

She could never be both.

“I can’t be someone I’m not,” she whispered painfully, not bothering to hide the conflict inside her, just as she didn’t bother to hide the pain.

There was no way to hide it deep enough to keep him from sensing it. She was simply too weak, and too torn.

“How do you know the extent of who you are?” His hand stroked gently down her back as he posed the question softly. “How do you know, Diane, that fate hasn’t given you an escape you were unaware you needed?”

She stiffened, her head cradled against his chest as she blinked back the tears and accepted the knowledge that Lawe would never accept the fact that she was exactly who she had been all her life. The fight for justice, the feeling of being a part of that fight, of simply making a difference, just a difference, had always run to the very core of who and what she was.

“I know who I am.” Just as she knew he couldn’t accept it. “I know what fate meant for me, Lawe. You’re the one who doesn’t want to accept it. You don’t want to accept me.”

Yet, she had accepted him. Every part of him. The arrogance. The genetics, the Breed strength and phenomenal confidence he possessed.

She accepted everything he was, and there was nothing she wanted to change.

Nothing except his refusal to see who she was.

His mate.

So much more than a biological match, or even an emotional tie. A mate was more than a wife, a willing fuck or the survival of the Breed species.

She was his feminine equal.

The other half of him.

His right hand, his left if that was what he needed.

His sword.

Warrior to his warrior.

And all he wanted her to be was the toy he took out for amusement whenever he had the time.

She stepped back and stared up at him sadly. Her body still vibrated, her sex ached and the hunger for him burned hotter and brighter inside her.

He was her other half as well.

Her right hand.

Her warrior, her partner, her strength as well as her weakness. Anger bit at her soul that he refused to accept her as she accepted him.

“I need to be alone—”

“No, Diane . . .”

Her hand snapped up as she moved farther away from him. “I need to think, Lawe. I need to know I can be what you need before this goes any further.”

“It’s too late to deny it.” His heavy and brooding gaze speared hers. “Mating heat doesn’t work that way.”

Her chin lifted.

Like hell.

“Nothing rules me, Lawe. Not mating heat, not emotion or need. Not even you. I’ll accept it willingly, or it will not be a part of my life. And I need to consider what I can and cannot accept.” She stalked to the door and opened it slowly as he followed. “Please leave.”

“We’re not finished.”

She took his parting words as a statement of intent.

“We haven’t even started,” she informed him. “And we won’t, until I decide I’m ready.

“I should have just kissed you.”

“And I should have never returned here,” she snapped back. “You’re not my boss, nor are you my jailer. Now please, leave. At least allow me the chance to accept what can’t be changed here and to go on from there.”

His lips thinned. He didn’t answer. He stalked past her, striding into the hall before turning and heading toward the elevators once again.

As Diane closed the door, she knew her life had just taken a turn. And it was, quite possibly, a turn for which she wasn’t entirely ready.