King Collins interrupted him, voice deathly quiet, murmuring on a hiss, “She is my damn Prodigy to do with as I will, so therefore, you need to shut the fuck up and stay out of this, especially, seeing as you, someone she had preconceived notions of trusting, were part of the problem.” As I stared at the side of my King’s face, brown eyes flicked to me, and he tilted his head to the door, his tone lightening immensely. “Go on, Caro. Get cleaned up.”
“I will,” I murmured, and quickly averted my face as damn tears started to well. “And again, I’m sorry.” I quickly left the room before I completely shamed myself by bawling like a child in front of everyone…because no matter how many men I had been with…talented, to the not so talented…I still couldn’t fucking erase the memory of the one man I would hate even in death.
Chapter Ten
I got myself cleaned up in the week to come.
I didn’t drink. I went to meals. I went to meetings.
Although, I did tend to ditch my bodyguards, much to their dismay, hating them following me everywhere, even standing outside bathroom doors while I was inside.
And that was how I came to be alone, and face-to-face, with Elder Merrick late one evening.
The man I had been avoiding. The man I had been ignoring. The man I had been trying to forget in my sober state.
Sitting inside the intimate living room of the Elemental section I favored, I lifted my head from the book of Laws I had been trying to memorize, having finally gotten around to perusing it when I heard the door shut and lock. I froze, my finger stalling on the page I was turning. He stood only in a pair of black athletic shorts and worn tennis shoes, his curls half pulled back from his face in a small ponytail, his glistening chest bare, the black curls on his chest damp, muscled arms crossed over his chest, and navy blue eyes glaring directly at me.
Inhaling shallowly, I closed my book and set it on the small coffee table in front of me, trying to keep my voice steady as I stared at him coldly. “Have you come for retribution?”
Muscles ticked on the sides of his jaws “I was doing my damn job. I won’t apologize for it.”
“So you’ve told me,” I murmured harshly, standing and moving toward the door, needing to get out of here before I lashed out. “And you should be proud, since you did it so believably, Cain.” I hoped the use of his name would sting like it did me, my tone like the lash I meant it to be. “I mean, why not go ahead and continue fucking me to gain what you needed. We’d already done it once by mistake. Why not use it after you’d already screwed up?”
He sidestepped, placing his back against the door handle when I reached for it, and fuck if his heat and smell of a forest before rain didn’t surround me. “You’re right. I manipulated and used you.” He ran a hand over his face, his eyes glowing in his fury as he threw his arms out wide, bending, shouting in my face, “You’re not my fucking kind! I despise any damn mixed-faction relations. I always have. It was how I grew up. And somehow, I got so stupid drunk one night I thought I was fucking a Shifter who was overly friendly with the Prodigies, only to wake up next to a damn Elemental, so yes, I used what I had.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, screaming in his face, “If I could take back that damn drunken night where I also thought I was fucking someone of my own kind I would. I want to kill you, I hate you so fucking much for what you did to me!” I was shaking as blood burned hot within my veins, perverse gratification flooding me as I saw his hands were shaking in his own fury, and I went for the kill shot. “You know why you hate me, Cain? You want to know why?”
His wolf growled, his power flaring, and he bellowed, “Why the fuck do you think, spirit bitch?”
I hissed, “Because you fucking liked it. You wanted to use sex as your in to give you a damn reason to fuck me, someone of another faction.”
His chest heaved repeatedly, and he growled, “And you hate me so much because you still want me, even after what I did to you on a job you even agree with, but despised just because it was you that got fucking duped.”
My lungs pumped heavily as my jaw clenched, unable to deny his words, just as he didn’t deny my allegation, as I stared straight up into his eyes, my breath panting in arousal, my lower gut burning for him, and I growled quietly, “You. Are. Shit.”
His scent spiked, the spice that had been beginning to waft, damn near blasting me. “And you are shit.”
Instantly, we were on each other. Reaching for one another. Our mouths slamming against one another’s with bruising force. Ah, God…he felt so damn good. Grabbing onto his curls, I knocked the band from his hair, getting a fierce grip on this man I hated, a mixture of desire and hatred washing over me as he growled low, his slick, hot tongue wasting no time, delving forcefully inside my mouth, curling around my mine. I groaned with all the craving for him I had tried to extinguish with other men, his hands moving down to cup my ass, squeezing and lifting me effortlessly against him. My legs wrapped around his waist as he fluidly dropped to his knees, lying me on my back onto the carpeting in one swift move.
His hands were instantly pulling the camisole top I wore over my head, our frenzied mouths separating, and he growled harshly, “Fuck, I hate you.”
“I hate you too,” I muttered, meaning it wholeheartedly, but groaned heavily when he palmed one of my bare breasts roughly, his teeth latching onto my nipple, his scent flooding around us, his power, aged forty more years, leaking about us in a flurry, a potent blend of wild animal and spiced evergreen and forest before a rain. He laved my puckered nipple, groaning heavily as he sucked its sensitive peak fiercely into his mouth, my breasts swollen in need, my back arching off the ground as I shouted, “Cain!”
His wolf growled loudly as his lips traveled across to my other breast, nibbling in sharp nips until he pulled heavily on my neglected nipple with his teeth, pinching with an erotic pain and pleasure. Fire shot through my limbs as I trembled under him, his lips sucking and pulling as his hands moved hastily down my sides to my pajama shorts, his lips popping off my breast, his voice guttural. “I’ve wanted to see this forever.” He pulled my shorts and panties off, and stared down between my legs with glowing eyes, face flushed fierce with loathing and desire, lips swollen. “There’s the white.”
Burning need had my hips rising to him. “Get back down here.”
His teeth bared at the order, but not even three seconds passed before his shorts, boxer briefs, and shoes were tossed aside, and his heavy body was lying over mine, hot and deadly, and so damn perfect. I pulled his mouth down with a sharp yank of his curls, even as his hand dove between my legs, and he groaned against my lips. “Fuck, you’re as wet as I remember.”
I grabbed his cock as he thrust a long, strong digit into my slick, hot channel. “Uhh,” I moaned. “Ah, fuck…I hate you.” I hated that he felt more perfect in my hand than any of the other men I had been with. I rode his finger on a moan, and started pumping his massive shaft. “You’re shit.”
He shouted into my mouth as I pumped him harder, thrusting into my fist. “And you’re not my kind.” He shoved another finger into me swiftly, staring down at me, nostrils flared, watching as I screamed. “I detest you.”
“Good. We’re on the same page,” I muttered on a choke. “Now, fuck me, dammit.”