Rule Breaker

CHAPTER 2

ONE WEEK LATER

Gypsy slipped into the underground entrance of the Navajo Covert Law Enforcement Offices and made her way tiredly through the steel-lined corridor leading to the elevator to the upper floors.

She checked her watch. Five minutes to spare.

She’d made it, but it hadn’t been easy. And it sure as hell hadn’t been a sure thing that she would make it back before nightfall to begin with.

Stepping into the elevator, she punched the button, leaning against the side of the metal cubicle as she smothered a yawn and waited for that little ping that indicated the ride was coming to an end. Which meant her week was coming to an end soon as well, and hopefully, at least one good night’s sleep.

Straightening from the wall as the doors slid open, Gypsy stilled, her eyes narrowing at the sight of the man she’d come to see.

Dressed in dun-colored tactical pants and a matching T-shirt, he could have been hot as hell, if he didn’t work at being an asshole so often. Light brown hair, brown eyes and a well-tanned complexion made him a real hit with all the other ladies he knew, though.

She must be weird, because she simply hadn’t ever been interested.

“Hell, I usually have to track you down when I return,” she drawled, standing straight and moving from the elevator as he glared at her.

What the hell had she done anyway?

“How long have you been back?” Cullen Maverick, commander of the agency, demanded, his tone dark, the snap in it irritating.

Damn, he must have already taken his prick pills for the day.

“How long does it take to get from the underground garage to here?” Mockery was usually the best and most effective weapon against his grumpiness. “Try chilling out a sec, Maverick.”

“Then you’ve not been back long enough to realize there’s a damned Breed APB out on your ass, right?”

She did freeze this time. She didn’t just pause.

Coming to a hard stop, she pivoted and just stared at Cullen, certain she must have misunderstood what he said.

“There’s a what?” she asked carefully, praying she wasn’t giving away that panicked where-can-I-hide feeling beginning to shoot through her.

“You heard me,” he snapped. “An unofficial Breed APB put out on you by Commander Rule Breaker. What the fuck is going on?”

“Unofficial?” She snorted at that one. Well, that happened just about every other day after she pissed one of them off. Or unless the director’s baby wanted more “moo-cake.” “When it becomes official, let me know.”

Turning on her heel, she began tracking to his office, knowing damned good and well he wasn’t going to take possession of what she had anywhere else.

Cullen wasn’t fond of the security cameras picking up every move he made or the information exchanged between him and his men. Or his contacts, such as Gypsy.

Besides, her cover of irritating Cullen just for the hell of it had already been established and followed for years. Unless she was actually seen handing something over, then she’d be screwed. And so would he be. For a minute anyway.

His office door was locked, as usual.

Paranoid prick, she thought, respecting the hell out of him for being as suspicious as he was.

The snick of the lock being deactivated followed his hand moving into his pants pocket. Wrapping her hand around the knob again, she stepped inside the office and waited for the door to close behind him.

Once the room was secure, she removed the small case holding the nano-nit she’d collected from the spa in Broken Butte, New Mexico. She’d put it in place more than a month ago, in the manager’s office where the majority of the information would go through.

Full audio and video.

The tiny bit of robo-electronics was incredible.

“Here you go.” Smothering a yawn, she handed the small plastic case over to him. “Mission accomplished and all that.”

He took the case—ultra thin, an inch square perhaps—and flipped it to his desk, still glaring at her.

Uh-oh.

Gypsy stared at the case, then back to Cullen as her lips thinned in irritation.

“I’m not in the mood for this shit,” she informed him warily. “I don’t know what your problem is . . .”

“If you’re sleeping with that Breed, then kindly inform me now,” he snapped, his arms going over his broad chest, his brown eyes snapping with ire. “Because he’s making my life highly uncomfortable, Gypsy. Highly.” The last word was a low, furious sound directed between his clenched teeth.

She almost flinched.

“What the hell has he done?” Her eyes went wide, disbelief and confusion smacking her brain as the depth of Cullen’s anger finally registered. “For God’s sake, Cullen, since when am I responsible for what some crazed Breed does?”

“Are you sleeping with him?” he bit out again. “So help me, Gypsy, if this is because of a damned lover’s spat—”

“I’m not sleeping with him!” she informed him, outraged. “God, I’ve barely spoken to him.”

Hell, she couldn’t sleep with anyone. It was killing her.

What Breaker did was catch her gaze across a room, he wasn’t picky which one, and she swore he was mentally fucking her at those times.

Taking her.

Pushing into her.

He made all her little feminine parts just perk right up and start prepping for the invasion.

Damned feminine parts.

“Then what the fuck is his problem?” Turning, he stalked to his chair, throwing himself into it as he continued to glare at her. “The man has been in every bar, nightclub and dive, legal and otherwise, and actually managed to crash too many fucking parties looking for your ass for the past week. Get him off the radar, Gypsy.”

Get him off the radar?

She stared at him, wide eyed. “What does he want? God, Cullen, we’ve barely spoken. He flirts a little. His buddy, that damned Vanderale heir they’ve let run amok, pays more attention to me than Breaker does.”

“I don’t fucking care what he wants,” he informed her furiously. “Get your ass out there tonight, Gypsy, and by God give it to him, or find a way to make him stop wanting it. Either way, get him off the fucking radar before someone decides to find out why one little party girl is so MIA that even the Breeds can’t find her.”

She stifled a groan.

The Commander was hot as hell. He did things to her libido that should be outlawed. That didn’t mean she had time for this. No matter how eager certain other parties were for her to establish a closer, though nonsexual, relationship with him.

This was just uncalled for, though. She was tired. She wanted to sleep.

“Cullen . . .”

“Don’t Cullen me.” As he jackknifed in his seat, his glare took on a whole new meaning as pure fury glittered in his eyes and deepened his voice. “Get it done. Tonight. Or kiss this little side job of yours good-bye. You’ll definitely be relegated to the damned phones, on midnight shift, for the next year if it’s not taken care of. Now.”

Fuck.

She really wanted to sleep tonight.

But she really, really liked her little side job too, dammit.

“Fine, tonight,” she muttered, wondering what the hell had happened to her little world while she was gone. “But I don’t see how any of this is my damned fault. I didn’t do anything.”

“You’re not five,” he pointed out sarcastically.

“Then stop reminding me of what it felt like to be blamed when I didn’t do it,” she informed him pointedly. “I was hoping to sleep tonight.”

“Sleep after you get that damned Breed off your ass.”

“I didn’t invite him to get on it, Cullen,” she protested, heading to the door.

“You did something,” he grumbled. “Whatever you did, fix it. Reject him, kiss him, fuck him, I don’t give a shit and don’t want to know about it. But make him go away.”

She slammed the door on the last order.

Dammit, she really wanted to sleep.

...

Sometimes, it just didn’t pay a man or a Breed to make a decision, Rule decided as he lounged against the bar at yet another honky-tonk on the list of known clubs Gypsy often found herself at.

Knowing he’d finally caught up with her hadn’t helped his mood, or his irritation. She’d eluded him for a week and he was growing tired of waiting for her to get her ass back to town.

Rule was beginning to think he was going to have to actually chase her down if he was ever going to see her again.

A week between sightings was too damned long a wait, especially once he’d made up his mind to have her.

After going without the sight of her the past week, he was as antsy as an addict needing a fix and wondering if he should worry about that reaction.

And that just pissed him off.

Maybe he just had an addictive personality, he thought as he watched her and several of her friends stroll purposely onto the dance floor.

She was preparing to dance, and God bless her heart but she could turn grown men into slavering animals hungry to fuck whenever she danced.

The smell of their lust never failed to cause him to glower at any male unlucky enough to catch his gaze.

Maybe he was just too damned used to finding her whenever he wanted to.

Hell, he’d watched her practically grow up.

He couldn’t count the times he’d slipped to Window Rock in the past nine years to check on the broken, traumatized child who had fought so valiantly against those Coyotes so long ago.

And he had to say, she’d grown into a hell of a woman.

She was wary and secretive, and the effects of the night her brother died were often apparent in her too-serious gaze.

But she’d turned into a hell of a beauty.

And he was a sucker for a woman in black leather too.

Miss Gypsy Rum McQuade had adopted a penchant for black leather just after her eighteenth birthday.

And she’d been driving him crazy just as long too.

Watching the dainty form, leather boots over her knees, short black leather skirt clinging to her hips and luscious ass, a black leather vest that flashed her bronzed belly and the upper curves of her full breasts, he couldn’t help but grin.

He might have been drooling a little, and damn he hoped Dane Vanderale hadn’t caught him.

But hell, that woman was built to tempt, seduce and deliver, all in one package.

Rule decided he was the Breed to collect on it too.

He was damned sure tired of all that lush, pretty body going unclaimed by him.

Jaw clenching, his cock throbbing, he watched as she moved.

Lifting her arms and moving her hips, her legs shifting gracefully in four-inch heels, her expression becoming exotic, erotic. Sexy enough to make a Breed have to force himself not to pant.

Long, long straight hair, so dark it was almost black and framing a dusky face so delicate he couldn’t stop the hard-on straining the black mission pants he wore. Graceful and witchy, sensual and burning with a hidden fire, she made him want to burn with her, burn in her.

Fluid and graceful, hips and shoulders swaying, jade green eyes gleamed teasingly, long thick lashes at half-mast. Those eyes glittered with wicked promise—and cool distance.

A distance she’d used against him more than once in the past two months since Jonas had brought his investigation to Window Rock.

Tonight, she was just flat avoiding him, and her explanation for her disappearance was causing more than a few raised brows since she’d arrived less than an hour ago.

According to her, she had been at a spa in Broken Butte, New Mexico.

The local sheriff who had mated Jonas’s sister, and a deputy, the sheriff’s cousin who had mated another Breed, had checked into the story and reported back to Rule, mere minutes ago, that Gypsy had never been to that spa in Broken Butte. They knew, because it was no more than a front for the Bureau of Breed Affairs and every customer that came through its doors was completely vetted.

But who said she came in as a customer?

Rule refrained from shaking his head in frustrated disgust.

Gypsy was going to have to be more careful if she intended to keep doing these little odd jobs for one of her bosses, Cullen Maverick.

She was going to end up getting her ass burned at this rate. And if her ass got blistered, then his would be fried.

That thought and any other fled his brain, though, as her eyes met his and locked for heated seconds, and he swore the hunger that raged inside her began to burn him hotter.

Amid a floor filled with seductive, graceful women, sexual invitation gleaming in their eyes—eyes without the distance, without the reserve that shimmered in the very air around her, she stood apart with inexplicable awareness.

She gave herself to the music and that was all she was giving herself to, her gaze seemed to warn.

She didn’t give herself to the men who attempted to draw her to them. She didn’t give herself to the women who would have rubbed against her in sensual abandon. Nor did she give herself to the drunkenness or the drugs that flowed so freely.

She might be as secretive as hell, but purity flowed from her, even as he felt the dark, rich desire trapped within her—like a living flame.

She burned inside.

Rule swore he could see the flame burning there in the center of her eyes. Not the same flame easily glimpsed in a Breed’s or animal’s eyes in a certain light. This was a flame barely contained, burning from the center of the soul, trapped, aching to be released.

A woman aching to be touched.

“See what I see?” Dane Vanderale, the legitimate hybrid son to the first Leo and Rule’s biggest headache, drawled through the comm link, the South African accent mocking. “She’s avoiding you, Breaker.”

“I see her,” Rule stated into the mic that curled from the communications link set in his ear. “Find out where she’s been yet?”

“She says the spa, but your sources say she wasn’t there,” Dane reminded him.

“Dammit, Dane, that’s not what I want to hear,” Rule growled.

Dane chuckled, the low, knowing sound grating on Rule’s nerves.

“Best watch the hormones, old friend. What’s that first rule? Run, don’t walk, stumble or hesitate. Run hell for leather at first sign of Mating Heat? What else would you call such infatuation for one woman? If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was your drug.”

The accented drawl of amusement had Rule’s teeth gritting in irritation.

“I think I’d know by now,” he grunted.

He’d been close enough to her in the past years that her scent was as familiar to him as his own. And it had never changed since it had shifted from girl to woman the year she turned eighteen.

“So that’s why you just keep watching the hell out of each other, huh?” Dane chuckled. “Tell me there, fraidy cat, when are you going to get up the nerve to tell the pretty girl hello tonight instead of stalking her like some perv as you have the past weeks?”

He’d told her hello several times in the past weeks. She’d pretended to ignore him as often as possible, though he was well aware she knew exactly where he was every second that he was in her vicinity.

She was damned wary around him, watching him carefully, almost suspiciously, and making his dick harder for the very fact that she was keeping herself so damned aloof.

Letting Dane rile him would be foolish at this point, though. The other man lived to piss off other Breeds.

Rule often thought he might even have a death wish.

“Let’s not be a smart-ass tonight, Junior,” Rule growled, using the insulting nickname Dane’s father, the Leo, used whenever he became pissed with his son. “Now, answer the fucking question before I have to send your pelt to Daddy with my apologies for finally growing sick of your ignorance.”

Dane growled, the sound far too close to the sound of the animal rather than the hybrid Rule knew him to be.

“Ah, and what a day that would be,” Dane quipped. “The Leo would likely pat your back and adopt you should you be so brave as to attempt such a thing. Or give you the burial you’re obviously searching for. Once I’ve finished with you, that is.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Rule directed a glare in the hybrid’s direction. “Just answer the question, asshole.”

“Where’s she been?” Dane repeated sarcastically. “You neglected to mention that she was part escape artist and part invisible woman when you gave me the job of tracking her down. It’s damned hard telling where she’s been, from what I’ve managed to find out. Even her lovely little sister has no idea where she goes, according to Loki. Though she has mentioned a concern that you’re going to show up at her sister’s apartment looking for her soon. I bet the lovely Gypsy’s expecting the big bad wolf. Think she’ll be surprised when she gets the fraidy cat instead?”

“I’m gonna kick your ass, prick,” Rule warned him.

“Yeah, yeah, take a number, nutcase.” Dane actually laughed at the threat. “Be nice or I’ll sic the big bad witch on your ass. Any woman living in an apartment next to a house with gumdrops painted on it has to be a real badass.”

“She’s no wicked witch, Junior,” Rule drawled. “And she can feed me sweets anytime, right?”

There was one sweet he fantasized about on a regular basis, actually.

“Careful there, fraidy cat, she might be too much woman for a little kitty like you. You should let a real feline do this little job.” The pure amused indulgence in the hybrid’s voice had Rule shooting a thoughtful glance through the crowd to where Dane stood by the bar.

“Dane, are you drunk?” Rule questioned him.

The hybrid Breed lifted his glass with a mocking grin, dark sunglasses lying low on his nose so he could glance over the rims.

“Not yet,” Dane sighed. “But the temptation is there.”

Dane was unusually irritating, even for him.

“And what’s with the damned shades? It’s a bar, not high noon in the middle of the desert,” Rule scoffed, wondering what the hell had gotten into the Breed.

Dane gave a short little nod in salute before turning back to the sight on the dance floor.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Rule was tempted to close his eyes. But the band was breaking into another song. Something about what a guy had to do for the singer “if he wanted to be her cowboy.” It was an old song, but one Gypsy seemed pleased to hear.

A second later his eyes widened, his cock grew impossibly harder and he swore he was going to have trouble breathing.

Son of a bitch, it was enough to make his balls tighten in pure appreciation as those lovely legs bent just enough, her head tipping back, her hips shifting, rolling, as delicate hands caressed the air from her breasts to her hips.

“God have mercy. But I love to watch her make grown men crazy,” Dane breathed out in amazed appreciation instead as the tempting little leather-clad flame on the dance floor began working her entire body to the music. Hips, thighs, shoulders and breasts drew his gaze as she approached a table where four Breed Enforcers sat, just as entranced as Rule and Dane were becoming.

Gritting his teeth, he switched to the enforcer channel on his comm device.

“The first one of you morons to touch that woman will face me,” he snapped into the line as Dane’s short, surprised laugh barked across the link.

“Better run hell for leather, mate,” Dane injected just below the laughter level.

Rule didn’t answer the hybrid any more than the enforcers answered the order. Their eyes were locked on that image of pure, entrancing fire as she moved toward the table they were sitting at.

They weren’t listening.

“Good luck, my friend,” Dane advised him, his tone and accent thickening further as the beauty tossed her head, all that thick, thick silken hair brushing around her body as she moved closer to the table in response to the singer’s demands that her “cowboy” take her for a ride.

The hard length of his shaft throbbed like an open wound, too sensitive and too hungry to be contained.

Despite the aching sensitivity of the engorged flesh between his thighs, his tongue showed no signs of the hormone filling the glands. All he tasted was the beer he’d drunk just before catching sight of her and the peppermint and chocolate hard candy he’d finished before his gaze swept the dance floor.

Narrowing his eyes, he prowled through the crowd and headed for the table where those lucky-assed enforcers were enjoying a show no Breed or human male could possibly contain his lusts through.

He didn’t trust those damned Breeds leaning toward her not to touch. Despite the order.

He stepped to the table between two of the younger enforcers; the scent of their lust slapped at his senses, offensive, and pulling a dangerous growl from his chest. And he didn’t attempt to hide the savage warning that the restless animal inside him ensured the sound contained.

The Breeds moved.

As one, they cleared the table, the sight of the female not nearly enough to wipe away the more than two decades of training they carried inside them.

That was more like it.

He ignored Dane’s low laughter as he took the chair at the side of the table and stared back at the surprised little minx with an obvious, silent dare.

If she wanted to tease Breeds, then why not see how she fared teasing a full-grown, well-trained, more than experienced Lion Breed commander rather than a few young enforcers who still carried the scent of the labs they were rescued from.

Lifting his hand imperiously as the waitress passed by, he caught her nod from the corner of his eyes. The waitresses at this bar loved the excellent tips they received, not just from the enforcers, but from the Bureau of Breed Affairs as well for reporting any indications or rumors of Council soldiers lurking in the establishment.

He wasn’t there for the waitress or the information, though. Evidently, he was there to give one fiery little woman a Breed to torture.

Gypsy moved closer, hips swaying, her arms lifting above her head as she moved directly to him. She positioned her legs to each side of one of his, thighs spread just that little bit, her knees bent, hips moving with a slow suggestiveness just above his knee that had lust flaming through his senses.

He swore he could feel the heat of her pussy radiating from between her thighs straight through his mission pants. Hot enough to sear a man’s senses, wet enough to drown them.

And she was indeed wet.

The scent of her sweet juices had his mouth watering, his need to taste her racing through his system.

The tempting little morsel gave her head a toss, a smug little smile tilting the corners of her lips as the song came to an end and the music eased into a slower tune.

“Watch my drink, hybrid,” he ordered Dane across the link as he moved before the lithe little vision could leave the floor.

Hooking his arm around her waist, he stared down at her obvious surprise.

Surprise? What the hell had she expected?

“Are you all tease?” he asked her. “Or is there a woman lurking beneath the promise in those pretty green eyes?”

Her brow lifted, laughter gleaming in her witchy gaze.

“It’s all tease. And furthermore, purr boy,” she drawled—and quicker than a Breed could blink she was out of his arms with a disapproving little frown—“you should know better than to manhandle me. You request a dance from me, you don’t demand. And you sure as hell don’t grab me like a toy.”

And with that little proclamation, she moved away from him with all the haughty grace of an ice princess offended to her last perfect toenail. And completely unaware that in that single movement designed to break free of him, he’d recognized the slightest, well-trained, experienced shift of her hip, shoulder and one delicate foot.

Dane was, of course, rolling with laughter.

Rule couldn’t help but grin as he kept the knowledge to himself. “I believe that might have been a dare.”

Two months of circling each other with wary arousal and she’d thrown out a dare she should have known he couldn’t resist.

“You’re not a Coyote, Breaker,” Dane reminded him, his tone surprisingly pensive. “Remember?”

To that, Rule could only grin. “Sorry there, Dane, just because Coyotes borrowed the phrase didn’t mean Lions didn’t start it. It’s never dare a Breed, not never dare a Coyote.”

Then, aware of the eyes watching him, the human’s amusement, and the intriguing scent he was certain other Breeds were tempted by, Rule followed the scent of arousal that one little Gypsy Rum McQuade left in her wake.

...

Oh God, was she insane?

Gypsy tried to breathe as she strolled across the dance floor to the bar, ordered her favorite beer, then leaned back against the counter and sipped at it. She was all too aware of the fact that Rule had yet to take his eyes off her.

Of course, it never mattered where he found her, he watched her, those neon blue eyes trying to sink into her soul as though he were determined to learn every secret she possessed.

And each time he did it, he made her hot. From that first look two months before across the distance of a crowded bar to the second that he’d strolled to the table of younger Breeds she’d danced for as she felt his eyes on her, searing her. Like a rush of sensation washing over her flesh, the knowledge that he wasn’t taking his eyes off her had her thighs clenching, a damp warmth tingling against the suddenly sensitive, swollen bud nestled amid the slick folds between her thighs.

Dammit, she was creaming.

Again.

Oh hell.

She was creaming her panties for a damned Breed who made her completely crazy every time she came in contact with him. One who wasn’t just making her body crazy, but was now putting out those unofficial APBs on her whenever he had a mind to.

That was just uncalled for.

No Breed should be able to do this to her.

No man, period, should be able to do it.

No other Breed had ever accomplished it.

This Breed should not be able to do it.

What had been mere interest as she avoided him over the past weeks at the clubs and bars where she made her weekly rounds was now turning into full-fledged sexual want. And sexual want was a mighty big no-no in her life.

That did not ensure that she put as much distance as possible between herself and the Lion Breed as he moved in beside her, though. He turned his big body to watch her profile as she stared out over the dance floor, that strange warmth she always felt from him reaching out to her.

“Courageous little thing, aren’t you?” His gaze invited her to laugh, to share the amusement that threatened to warm parts of her that had been cold far longer than he could ever guess.

“Courage?” she questioned him with a hint of disbelief after taking another sip of the beer. God, what was she letting him do to her? She knew better than this. “That’s not courage, it’s disinterest, Rule. I told you before, I don’t like the trouble that follows Breeds like a crazy ex-girlfriend.”

But this Breed made her long to break her exile from the sensual, hungry nature that had risen inside her as she had matured.

“There are times I believe I would prefer the crazy ex-girlfriend,” he assured her wryly, his lips quirking with a hint of bitterness as she felt the rasp of a single callused finger caressing across her bare shoulder. “As for trouble following us, it’s not as though we ask for it.” His declaration pulled her gaze back to him.

His eyes gleaming between thick, black lashes, he watched her, his gaze rich and warm, making her want to press herself against him, to still the ache for his touch that tingled across her flesh.

“No, you don’t,” she agreed with a sigh as the caress disappeared. “That doesn’t mean I don’t have a choice in dealing with the issues that come with you. Because I choose not to become part of that battle.”

Just as she chose the life she led. And that life did not include joining Rule in some fly-by-night affair that would be over as quickly as it began.

“Interesting that you believe you have a choice in who you ache for,” he stated, his voice rasping, his gaze intent now. “I’ll have to remember to believe that one.”

Sapphire eyes gazed down at her, filled with amusement and mystery. The look in them invited her to play, to put aside whatever hurt her, whatever she feared, and just play with him for a minute.

But Gypsy knew better than most the dangers of playing with Breeds. It was a lesson she’d learned one blood-filled night that she would never forget.

“Such pretty eyes should never appear so somber and unhappy,” he observed then, bending his head to her ear to be overheard above the music. “They should be filled with passion and a love of living.”

Gypsy flinched, jerking back from him as she realized how close he’d come to her without her being aware of it.

She was getting too used to him invading her space every chance he had. Her body was damned sure getting too used to Rule doing so.

That was going to have to stop. It was going to have to stop right now.

“Is there a reason, Commander Breaker, that you have taken such an interest in me over the past months?” she asked suspiciously, narrowing her eyes on him. “Because it’s starting to irritate me and I’m certain you have better things to do.”

He smiled.

Completely male, completely assured, that look was pure, calculated trouble. “Actually, I’m just killing time and trying to keep you in one place before I go off duty here in about ten minutes.” He tapped his ear and the tiny earpiece he wore. A communications device, she knew. “Besides, Control seems to think you must be guilty of some heinous act or two. I believe I might have even heard a few accusations such as breaking hearts and stealing kisses?”

Gypsy smiled with real amusement, laughter threatening to fill her voice as she stared back at him. “Does that line work for you often?” she laughed. “I would have thought a man of your experience could do much better.”

He chuckled at her response. “Very good, Gypsy, very good. But give me a little credit. You blew my mind on that dance floor. I’m still recovering. Give me a minute and I promise you I will astound you with the many ways I can stake a proprietary claim without ever touching you once.”

Her brow arched. “You would need a mind first.” She wrinkled her nose mockingly. “I think I’ll take my proprietary claim and head home. Now that you’ve found me, maybe you can rest too for a minute.” Setting the remainder of her beer and several bills for payment on the bar, she gave him a little wave. “And I’ll see if I can’t remember to find a bar with a few less complications, not to mention a few less Breeds the next time I go out.”

Proprietary claim?

Gypsy could feel a shudder racing through her at the very thought of Rule claiming her. That was a move her life simply couldn’t accommodate, no matter how tempting it sounded.

She’d already had no less than a dozen calls since returning home that night. The calls had come from friends, family and even acquaintances, informing her that the Breed Commander Rule Breaker was questioning where she’d disappeared to.

As if it were any of their business.

She made a mental note to talk to Cullen and see what he could do to get the Breeds off her ass. After all, she had been doing a job for him while she was gone. She was certain he wouldn’t want the Breeds aware of just what kind of job she was doing for him either.

Not that he’d seemed inclined to want to help her earlier. Once he cooled off, though, he might be in a more helpful frame of mind.

Leaving the loud, smoky confines of the bar for the clear, crisp Arizona night, Gypsy drew in a lungful of clean desert air.

She was growing tired of the bars and the often lecherous, always drunken attention she gained there. More and more often she put off her arrival at the various clubs and bars until late into the night.

Pulling her hair back and retrieving an elastic band from the snug pocket of her leather vest, Gypsy confined her hair to keep it out of her face. With the Jeep’s top down, the long strands could become too tangled to comb before going to bed if she wasn’t careful.

“Hey there, Gypsy Rum.” Mutt, a Coyote Breed rarely known to smile when others were around, strangely enough often smiled at her.

He was cute as shit too.

For a Coyote Breed.

There were few of that species that Gypsy could tolerate being around, but Mutt was one of them. With his shy, hesitant smile so at odds with his kickass confidence and dry wit, he had a way of making her laugh even when she didn’t want to.

He came into her parents’ sweets and gift store often, along with two others, to buy the hard candies her sister, Kandy, made to sell.

He was especially fond of the butterscotch, she remembered, while Loki, one of his partners, enjoyed the cinnamon and Commander Breaker always went for the chocolate and peppermint.

“Hey, Mutt.” Pausing, Gypsy smiled back at the Breed moving quickly from the pickup he’d slid from as she left the bar. “What’s up?”

“You’re leaving early.” Tilting his head, he posed the question in a statement as the late evening wind ruffled his overly long dark blond hair. “You’re usually still here after I leave.”

“Things to do.” Gypsy retrieved the ring holding her key fob from the pocket of her vest and casually activated the small Desert Sport II, a redesign of the ages-old Jeep that had always done so well in the deserts.

The motor rumbled with a powerful growl that reminded her far too much of the sound that had vibrated from Rule Breaker as she walked away from him. The Jeep’s top retracted with smooth efficiency, tucking beneath the backseat and floorboard neatly in a matter of seconds as Mutt watched with raised brows.

“Man, I do love your ride, girl,” Mutt murmured, tucking his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans and standing rather uncomfortably in front of her, his head slightly tilted as he watched her. “One of these days, I swear I’m gonna own one.”

“One of these days?” she grinned. “I hear Breeds make a hell of a lot of money, Mutt. Go buy one.”

His lips quirked wryly. “There’s no way to make them secure without taking out the retracting hard top and completely changing the interior to make them resistant to laser and ammo fire. If I did that, it just wouldn’t be the same. And if I didn’t do it, then all I could do is watch it sit in a garage somewhere.”

Her amusement dimmed in the face of his obvious disappointment.

His gray eyes flicked to the vehicle again, his jaw bunching as Gypsy narrowed her gaze at the small, almost hidden tip of the wand attached to his comm set curving toward his cheek.

He was attempting to delay her and wasn’t exactly certain how to do so without rousing her well-known suspicious nature, it seemed.

Too late. Consider it roused.

Turning without so much as a good-bye, Gypsy strode across the wide paved road that separated the parking sections. She was in the process of gripping the door to slide into the driver’s seat when her waist was shackled from behind and she was pulled back into a hard, muscular chest.

Again.

Heated warmth surrounded her, reminding her how chilled she often felt, how lonely she always was. And how very dangerous this man could be to her precarious senses.

“Now see, I was trying real hard to play nice.” Laughter shadowed the deep drawl of his voice. “Rejection depresses me, you know. Makes me do dumb things just to get attention.”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s so lame, Breaker.”

He chuckled behind her. “It could be so true.”

“Doubt it. But what I don’t doubt? Someone really needs to teach you how not to manhandle private property,” she informed him, trying really hard to be angry. Unfortunately, arousal was converging on her like alternate forces of nature intent on destroying her resistance to him.

“So who has ownership?” he asked, his breath against her ear and sending a pulse of energy straight to the sensitive flesh between her thighs. “I’ll take it up with him and ensure that those rights are transferred immediately.”

She just bet he would too, then ride right back out of town the second his boss crooked his little finger.

She didn’t think so.

“I’m going to file a complaint with the Bureau of Breed Affairs if you don’t take your damned hands off me,” she warned him, thrown off guard by his complete dominance and the shocking weakness attempting to spread through her system. Talk about conflicting responses. “Is that what you really want?”

She felt his lips brush her ear, a heated breath sending a surge of response racing through her. He felt too good. Too warm. And far too much trouble.

“All complaints are routed to me first.” Amusement laced his voice, but there was nothing amusing about the iron-hard length of his shaft pressing against her lower back. “Shall I tell you just how quickly I’d delete that particular e-mail?” He inhaled her scent slowly. “How long do you think you’d delay sending it? Long enough to bring yourself to climax while imagining me between your thighs, filling you, driving you to release?”

Heat flushed her body, raced through her system and left Gypsy fighting for a semblance of common sense. Because he was right. So right. The second she slipped into her bed she would be reaching for one of the intimate toys she kept on hand to take care of the ache growing out of control and flooding her body.

Good Lord, Breeds and their effect on women should be outlawed.

“No one could accuse you of being humble,” she snorted, pulling away from him even as she acknowledged that he was letting her pull away from him. “Or polite.”

He wasn’t releasing her because she was forcing him to, or because he had any constraints against making her retain that place in his arms. He was releasing her only because it was what he wanted to do.

She turned to him slowly.

“Before you make the mistake of spouting all that womanly ire I feel building inside you and demanding I keep my dirty Breed paws to myself—”

She had to laugh at the irritation that flashed in his deep blue eyes.

“Strange women you run with there, Breaker,” she snickered. “It’s not the paws that offend me. It’s the arrogance and the attitude. I don’t like being handled, by anyone. Don’t do it, and we’ll just keep getting along fine. How does that sound?” She had to laugh at him then, because he really did have the power not just to burn her alive with lust, but to also make her laugh. He charmed her, and she hadn’t been charmed in a damned long time. “Do you often listen to the womanly ire, then?”

“I believe Breeds listen often when they can’t smell the sweet scent of all that female honey spilling like hot syrup on a summer day,” he retorted, his tone echoing with a sense of impatience. “I’ve yet to understand why women believe lies are so very important when they’re most often more eager for a man’s touch than they let on. The moment you obey them, disappointment has a tendency to mar the delicacy of their scent while they then become angry that you obeyed them. And that only makes for a horny, irritated, not to mention confused Breed.”

“Because a man’s ego, or a Breed’s, doesn’t need to be fed?” she asked, her eyes widening for effect at his obvious confusion. “Maybe we want you to work for what we have to give you? We do tend to believe we’re worth a little effort, you know.”

It seemed Breed males, just like their counterparts, the human males, could be so incredibly obtuse when it came to women.

“Breeds can smell their lies,” he pointed out. “What’s the point in lying when one will be so easily caught in the lie?”

Yep, obtuse.

But it wasn’t the first such conversation they’d had over the past eight or nine weeks. Though it was the first time he’d approached her as blatantly as he had in the bar, and before she’d managed to get into her vehicle.

“Perhaps most women haven’t watched those little documentaries the Breeds put out close enough.” She had studied them for months. “And there could be the fact that even in those documentaries, there’s very little layman’s language. There’s also the fact that you had to have used the most incredibly gorgeous, dangerous-looking, deep-voiced male Breeds living to narrate them. I suspect those Breeds were used in an attempt to distract us just as you meant to. The same can be said for the females used in those videos. The only intent in them was to fool the suspicious and to draw the unwary even deeper beneath your spell. Besides, women absolutely love ice cream, cake and chocolate too. Doesn’t mean it’s good for us, or that we eat it without first considering the calories it contains.”

She’d already known this Breed didn’t like games, nor did he believe in the chase. That was really too bad, because she was very experienced in playing games.

She was considered an expert at them, sometimes.

He only grinned at the accusation, those laser-bright blue eyes holding her gaze, encouraging her to sink beneath the waves of hunger she could feel beating at her resistance. “And did those videos draw you deeper as you denied yourself your favorite sweets?”

Leaning against the side of the vehicle, Gypsy crossed her arms over her breasts as she smiled back at him, shaking her head at the fact that men could be so hardheaded. She was very well aware of the fact that her position only plumped the curves of her breasts higher over the vest-style top she wore, drawing his attention. Momentarily anyway. She liked that about him; he didn’t leer, despite the fact that she could almost feel his need to touch her.

“Sorry, Commander, they didn’t fool me. And my chocolate and ice cream doesn’t wake me up in the mornings, bitch at me for not cleaning, cooking and waiting on it hand and foot or leave dirty clothes lying around my house, so yes, I enjoyed it immensely.”

His lips tilted into a half grin as he watched her closely while tucking his thumbs into the band of his pants, as though trying to find something to do with them besides touch her.

He stood, his feet braced slightly apart, muscular body not exactly relaxed, but neither was he poised for danger. Dressed in the black mission uniform most Breeds wore whenever in public, he presented a dangerous male allure.

Thick black hair fell back along his nape and framed the savagery in the hewn features of his face.

High cheekbones, firm, well-molded lips, and thick, thick inky black lashes surrounding brilliant sapphire eyes, while his shoulders were wide enough that a woman could convince herself of her safety while in his arms.

Or just in his presence, in the shadows of one of the most notorious bars in three states. She could stand there with him, enjoy the banter and not have to worry about some drunken wannabe Romeo groping her.

He was the epitome of everything Breeds were being portrayed as. Strong, intent, protective and honorable. And for the most part, they were.

But Gypsy knew just how dangerous some of them could be.

A flash of memory surged through her.

Lengthened canines gleaming in the dark as she screamed out in horror, saliva dripping from them as maniacal savagery reflected in the yellow-gold depths of the creature’s eyes.

No matter how she fought, they tore at her clothes, shredding them, removing them, intent on raping her.

As he jerked her thighs apart—

She flinched, dragging herself back from the memory as a familiar band of panic tightened at her chest just before the sat phone in her vest pocket vibrated furiously.

“Gypsy, are you okay?” Rule moved closer, the scent of her sudden fear subtle, vying with the scent of arousal and the remnants of amused fun as he caught the distinct sound of the phone vibrating in one of the little pockets of her snug vest.

She’d been enjoying herself, only to have something yank her quickly from her joy as though to remind her of some pain.

A bleak pain so horrific that he could smell the agony of it even from outside the cavern where she’d huddled nine years ago, Rule remembered.

“It’s time I leave.”

He watched, denying the urge to pull her back to him as she slid inside the vehicle and pushed it into gear. The sporty little black Jeep tore out of its parking space and raced from the lot with a surge of power.

His eyes narrowed.

He was certain that motor was far more powerful than it should be.

Just as his attraction to the woman was.

Narrowing his eyes on the fading taillights of her vehicle, he checked the glands beneath his tongue carefully once more.

Breathing in, he pushed back his arousal, feeling the loss of stiffness in the eager shaft beneath his mission uniform and giving an imperceptible nod as the once-hard flesh lay dormant once again.

The beast that had been irritating the crap out of him, courtesy of his genetics, was quiet rather than roaring out in rage that a possible mate was escaping.

Hell, he halfway felt as though the animal senses inside him couldn’t have cared less where she went or what she did as long as she didn’t represent physical danger.

That meant no Mating Heat.

He grinned.

That meant Miss Gypsy Rum McQuade definitely wasn’t his mate, no matter Dane’s suggestion that his hunger for her indicated it.

Becoming addicted to her was a definite threat. But he could handle an addiction. He could walk away from it. Just as he had walked away from several of them while being tested in the labs for any weakness.

And that made her fair game, because he wanted nothing more than to fuck them both into exhaustion.