Mayhem glanced away. “How much do you know about her?”
“Excuse me?” As the other prisoner just continued to stare off into space, Lucan went palms up, are-you-stupid. “I know she volunteered to help Kane. I know she dragged me back indoors when I was dying in the sunshine. What the hell else do I have to know about her.”
As the bonded male in him started to prowl around inside his skin, he had to cut that possessive crap quick. His wolf was a hair trigger when it came to defending territory to begin with. Throw in his sexual attraction for Rio?
He might as well have been a bomb waiting to go off.
“Watch yourself with her,” Mayhem muttered. “That’s all I’m saying.”
“And I’ll give you a piece of advice. Don’t talk about my female to anybody—and that includes me. You’re not going to like where it lands you.”
Mayhem shook his head and stared down the empty hallway with its closed doors and its dim lighting.
“Fine, you got it,” was all he said.
Good decision, Lucan thought as he went back into the quarters. Good fucking decision.
As Luke stepped out into the hall, Rio covered her face with her palms even though she was alone. Was she really going to do this? Really?
Dropping her arms, she rolled over onto her stomach and wondered what Luke was saying to either Mayhem or Apex. He was propping the door open with his foot, but his voice was low so she couldn’t tell the words. Beyond the conversation, though, in terms of the rest of the place getting busy . . . she heard nothing in particular, which she took to mean that any uprising was either contained or yet to come— Abruptly, Luke pivoted back around, took a step forward, and shut the door. As his eyes met hers, she felt like there was a mask over his facial features, but his eyes. Oh, yes, his eyes. There was no masking what was in them.
And as he stayed put, it was clear he was asking her a question.
So she figured she better give him an answer.
With a slow, sensual pivot on the bed, Rio eased onto her back and let her head fall off the edge of the mattress. Knowing that he was watching, she moved one of her hands to the side of her throat and slowly let it drift downward onto her collarbone. Lower to between her breasts. Even farther so that it was on her stomach.
She stopped just as it came to rest on the center of her pelvis. “I want you. Now.”
“Jesus Christ, female,” he growled.
As Luke stalked over to her, he stared out from under lowered lids, his gait like that of a predator, his arousal straining against the front of his pants. And with all those muscles fanning out to fill his shoulders, his pecs, his abs . . . he was too spectacular to deny.
Not that “no” was in her vocabulary when it came to him.
He stopped in front of her, and what do you know, her upside-down view was just as spectacular as the face-on ones she’d been enjoying: His torso was magnificent from this angle.
Except then he cursed.
“We can’t do this right now,” he said gruffly.
“No?” Rio arched—and yup, his eyes went exactly where she wanted them to go: Her breasts. “What’s going on out there?”
“There are people coming. And not a lot of time.”
“Really?” She brought up her knees and rubbed her thighs together, back and forth, back and forth. “Then we’ll just have to be quick about it.”
“The guards are changing soon.”
“But not now.” What the hell was she saying? Was she really—“Not right now, correct?”
Luke started to breathe heavily, his abs rippling as his chest pumped up and down. Behind his fly, his erection jerked.
Rio arched her spine again and reached her arms out. Linking her hands around the backs of his thighs, she put a little pressure into the hard cords of his hamstrings. If he didn’t come forward, she would let it be. She wasn’t going to beg for sex from anybody, not even him. But if he did— Luke closed the distance so that the crown of her head rested on the front of his legs. As he stared down at her, his jaw started to grind.
Opening her mouth, she ran her tongue over her lips. Then she bit the lower one.
“Fuck,” he breathed.
Extending her tongue again, she flicked it back and forth . . . then she opened her mouth wide.
Luke’s eyes squeezed shut and his head fell back. But his hands came forward.
They were such great hands, strong, blunt-tipped, the veins that ran down the backs of them standing out in stark relief.
He undid the button of his fly. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
“I’m not going to beg you.” She did some hand work of her own, moving over the front of her shirt. “The timing is bad anyway, right?”
“Really fucking bad.” And yet he drew the zipper down. “The worst.”
“Couldn’t be worse.” She drew a circle around her breast, imagining that it was his touch, his fingers. “Ever.”
“Ever.”
The erection that broke out of his fly was thick and long—and oh, God. Big. And as he wrapped his beautiful hand around it, she bit her lower lip again.
“Rio . . .”
As he hesitated, she shook her head and continued to caress her breast on top of her shirt. “I’m not even going to say please. So don’t hold your breath for that. Give me what I want or not. I’ll be fine either way—you, on the other, may be uncomfortable for the rest of the night.”
With her other hand, she went between her legs, spreading them a little, touching herself through her pants, through her underwear . . . through the insanity that had so clearly taken over her judgment. In this moment, though, all she knew was that she was tired of waging a war against an intangible, disinterested enemy of shoulds, and woulds, and coulds. She hadn’t been just a woman in a very, very long time, and staring up at Luke right now? It was impossible to do anything but feel.
And yeah, sure, fine, maybe the concussion(s) had wiped out the risk-assessment portion of her brain.
But she really didn’t care.
“I don’t get even a please?” Luke murmured.