“How are you feeling, gorgeous?”
Honestly? Like she wanted to gouge out those piercing eyes that took in her every move and expression. It was the stare of a hunter, and Roni very much felt like prey when he focused his full attention on her. It was something he did a lot, which only intensified the sexual tension that pulsed between them—a tension that was unexpected considering she was nothing like the foo-foo attention-whores he dated.
In the beginning, his flirtatious nature had irritated Roni, despite her powerful elemental attraction to him. Sublimely gorgeous people intimidated her, particularly the typical “smooth talkers”—guys who had mastered the art of making females part from their clothes using speech alone. Roni liked a male with substance, not a player who was incapable of loyalty and relied on his looks to get him what he wanted in life.
However, her irritation had soon given way to curiosity, because the more time she’d spent around Marcus Fuller, the more she’d come to realize that the whole “smooth talker” act was nothing but that—an act. He hid behind the charm and the carefree attitude he projected to the world.
This guy cared very deeply about something. There was so much anger there, packed in ice . . . yet no one seemed to see it. No one seemed to see that this was a wolf with secrets.
He was also a wolf who was annoyingly impossible to dislike. She envied how he could so easily put people at ease. Envied his ability to mix well with others and be instantly accepted into any social circle. Roni, by contrast, had a tendency to make people feel uncomfortable with how out of tune she was with others’ feelings and their social expectations.
At his impatient expression, she removed the lollipop from her mouth. “I told you, I’m fine.” She slid off the bed, and he cupped her elbow to support her as she stood upright. The simple skin-to-skin contact caused her nerve endings to spark to life. She pulled her arm free from his grasp. “I can walk perfectly fine without help.”
He flashed her that infamous smile designed to make any female blush and trip over herself to get to him. “You should know that prim, schoolteacher tone totally turns me on.”
Roni would have been immune to that smile if it were sleazy. But no. It was a confident, mischievous, “I could make you come all night long” smile. She would bet that he damn well could. Not that she’d ever find out. Marcus flirted with her, sure, but only because he didn’t know any other form of communication. And besides, tomboys weren’t his type.
Her wolf loved having all that raw sexuality and seductive charm directed at her, and she constantly pushed at Roni to act on her desire for him. It was taxing, since she and her wolf were so extremely close that the line that existed between her human side and animal side was blurred. It didn’t mean she didn’t have full control of her wolf, but it did mean that her wolf’s emotions could intrude on Roni’s human responses, and vice versa. As such, her wolf’s desire for him fed her own, making it even more difficult to resist him.
Frustrated with him, herself, and her wolf, Roni stuffed her lollipop back into her mouth and offered him a blank look, refusing to let him see that she was no more resistant to his charm than every other female.
Nothing. The female in front of him didn’t give him the slightest reaction, which only made Marcus smile wider.
He had been on his way home from visiting his sister when he’d received a call from his Beta male, Dante, to let him know about the crash. He’d broken all kinds of laws as he drove like a maniac to get home and see for himself that everyone was fine, that Roni was fine. And now here she was, doing that aloof act again. And he was nothing short of amused.
Initially, Roni’s apparent indifference had galled him. He hadn’t liked that he seemed to be the only one feeling this intense attraction that bordered on magnetism. Every time they were in close proximity, the air crackled with sexual energy, and he hadn’t believed that could possibly be a one-way street. Yet, while the idea of skimming his hands over that seductively lithe body and having those supple legs wrapped around his waist often consumed his thoughts, Roni always appeared totally unmoved. It made no sense.
Rather than push, Marcus had backed off. He’d watched her closely, studied her every reaction to him, and soon come to realize that she wasn’t so indifferent to him after all. Why she was fighting their attraction, he didn’t know. He wanted to find out, to figure her out, so he could find a chink in her armor. Roni was incredibly intelligent; in order to seduce her physically, he’d need to first seduce her mentally.
The problem was that Roni was a difficult person to get to know. She held back from everyone outside her own tiny circle of people: her brothers, her Beta, and Shaya. But his old Alpha hadn’t labeled Marcus “that stubborn little shit” for nothing.
When Marcus wanted something, he would hunt it down until it was his. And he wanted Roni Axton in his bed; he wanted to explore this thing between them until all that sexual tension had burned out, until she no longer dominated his thoughts and fantasies.
There was just something about her . . .
Maybe it was that she was so very different from the females he usually dated. Maybe it was that she didn’t stroke his ego, didn’t fawn all over him in that way he’d come to find distasteful. Or maybe it was just that she had the most luscious ass he’d ever seen.
It was probably all three.