“I’m not going to f**k you.” As he spoke, he slid the hand on her stomach down to the hem of her skirt and bunched it up around her waist. “I’m not going to be some casual encounter. I want you to want me, your mate—not sex. But if you need relief that badly, I’ll give it to you.” He cupped her hard. Gasping, she reflexively snapped her legs together, effectively trapping his hand. He shook his head, his gaze chastising. “Open your legs.”

“What?” she squeaked at the very firm command, feeling off-balance by his sudden change of mood. He didn’t repeat himself, just raised an expectant brow at her. Gulping, Shaya slowly did as he’d asked.

He pushed two fingers past her panties and drove them into her. So hot and wet. “Mine, Shaya. Understand? You’re mine, and this pu**y is mine. And if you ever again think about giving another guy what’s mine, I’ll kill him. I will. I’ll f**king tear him apart, and then I’ll spank your ass so goddamn hard, you won’t be able to sit down for a week.”

Shaya would have told him that she’d never intended to sleep with Simon, but then Nick was on his knees. He’d hiked one of her legs over his shoulder, and he was tearing off her panties. Only an idiot would distract him from what he was doing. She was a bitch, but she wasn’t an idiot.

When she felt the tip of his tongue swirl around her clit, her head fell back just as her eyelids drifted shut. She had been so damn aroused for so damn long that that one touch had her melting against the wall, moaning. As his tongue fluttered between her folds, she moved the hands she’d braced against the wall to his hair and pulled, needing more. He growled against her flesh, making her womb clench. She was glad he was gripping her thighs hard because she strongly doubted she’d be able to stand without help.

His tongue branded her with every stroke, reducing her to a sensual state that was so intense, she was almost afraid of it—almost afraid of her body’s equally intense response. Everything other than the feel of his mouth faded away as he licked, sucked, nipped, and f**ked her with his tongue. And she moaned, gasped, groaned, whimpered, and sobbed. But he didn’t let up, didn’t give her any reprieve, practically torturing her with pleasure. He might have been the one on his knees, but it wasn’t Shaya who was in control. With his unrelenting grip, Nick controlled her every movement. With his talented mouth, he controlled her pleasure and her body’s responses.

“Nick…I need to…”

He growled again, and the reverberations heightened the sensations. Her legs shook as he suddenly thrust two fingers inside her and began suckling on her clit, demanding that she come. He got what he wanted. She screamed as her cl**ax forcefully slammed into her, shattering her. Nick bit down hard on her inner thigh, prolonging her orgasm.

Panting hard, she watched as he fixed her skirt and got to his feet. He gave her another possessive kiss, overwhelming her mouth and biting down punishingly on her lower lip, making it clear just how pissed he still was. Then he was gone. And she was realizing that Nick had been holding back his dominant side big-time.

As Nick tossed back a handful of pills and Derren sat at the dinette frowning in disapproval, Nick was thinking that this was becoming too familiar. Either the headaches were becoming more painful or the pills were becoming less effective, because he now had to take a higher dosage to dim the pain. The bitch of it was that the dosage and the pain thrown together acted as one hell of a sedative. Any minute now, he’d be in the land of the fairies. It wasn’t until Nick slumped on the sofa, eyes closed, that Derren spoke.

“That’s three headaches you’ve had today.” His voice was quiet, which Nick appreciated.

“Yeah, well, it was a stressful day.”

Derren cursed. “Nick, you need to go back to Amber for more healing sessions.”

“No.”

A heavy sigh. “Nick—”

“They’re just headaches. Besides, you know as well as I do that if the sessions didn’t work the first time, they aren’t going to work a second time.”

“It’s always worth a shot. Or maybe you could go find another healer.”

“I’m not leaving Shaya.”

“I hate to say it, Nick—and I really, really hate to say it, because you deserve to be happy—but you’re fighting a losing battle here.” More sensitively, he added, “Shaya’s not going to come around.”

Nick was thinking he might be right about that. She had said that what he’d been doing was working, but she’d also said that she didn’t want it to work. Still, he wasn’t ready to admit it could be hopeless to himself, let alone to anyone else. “Leave it, Derren.”

“You know I’m right. Christ, Nick, she went out with another guy.”

“The reminder isn’t necessary.”

“If that doesn’t tell you that you’re making no headway here, I don’t know what will.”

“Derren, I can’t have this conversation right now.” He couldn’t have any conversation right then. The sounds of their voices were blurring together, and it felt like someone was striking his head repeatedly with an iron rod.

“Let me call Amber and have her look at—”

“No.”

“If I have to, I’ll ask her to come when you’re asleep—nothing in this world could wake you.”

Nick was in front of him in a second. “You do that, and I’ll kill you. You know as well as I do that if Amber touches me even once, I don’t have a chance in hell with Shaya.”

“It’s possible that you don’t have a chance anyway.”

“I mean it, Derren. Do it, and that’s it with you and me. Now I’m going to bed.” Going to a room free of noise and light where he could fall asleep with the taste of his mate on his tongue and the smell of her on his hands.

He hadn’t meant to unleash the full force of his arousal on her, but he had lost control the second his lips had touched hers. They had been so soft and pliant beneath his. Christ, she had been so responsive—moaning, writhing, and clinging to him. Moreover, he had tasted that natural submissiveness of hers, and it had only made him want her more.

Every cell of his body was urging him to go back to that house and take what was his. His wolf was clawing at him, annoyed with him for not claiming her there and then, despite how angry he was with her and how betrayed he felt. His wolf refused to consider what Nick was thinking, refused to accept that the whole situation was hopeless and that his own mate might never want him.

CHAPTER NINE

The next morning, Shaya was ready to slip on her shoes and jacket when her cell phone rang. Digging it out of her purse, she saw that the caller was Kent. “If you’re calling to check if I’ll be late, the answer’s actually no, so—”

A snort. “Well that would be a first. But that’s not why I’m calling. I want you to take the day off.”

Surprised, she paused in her movements. “What? Why?”

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that you and Nick have some serious talking to do. He was severely pissed last night, Shaya, and I can’t say I blame him.”

She didn’t blame him either. “You told him about the date, didn’t you?”

“Yes. But Derren was following us anyway, and it wouldn’t have taken much thinking on his part to work out what was going on. What happened when you got back home?”

Sighing, Shaya fell back onto the sofa and told him everything.

“Is he as good with that mouth as I’ve been betting he is?”

A half smile surfaced on her face. “Better.”

He sighed. “Shaya, I understand why you’ve been protecting yourself so much, I understand why you’ve needed Nick to prove himself to you, and I understand that he hurt your pride in a big way when he didn’t claim you and pretty much ignored you. But you’re forgetting that that male has pride too. As an alpha, he’ll have plenty of it. During the past three weeks, you’ve stomped on it in more ways than one. Also, you’ve hurt him. Badly. So if you don’t want him to leave, you need to swallow your pride and give him that chance he’s earned.”

He was right. And Shaya knew it.

With Kent’s advice still ringing in her ears, she headed to the kitchen to place her empty mug in the sink. As she passed the dining room, she noticed the two movie tickets sitting on the table—gifts from Nick. When he’d heard that there was a movie she wanted to see, he’d bought the tickets for her and Kent to go together, not even hinting for her to take him along instead. God, she’d really been a bitch. It was time for that to stop.

Opening her front door, she went rigid as she looked over at Nick’s Mercedes. He wasn’t there waiting for her with a coffee, as usual. Had his car not been there, she might have thought he was simply still at Starbucks. No, something was wrong. Anxiety slithered through her and over her, making her as nervous as her wolf. Taking a deep breath, she advanced down her driveway, expecting him to come out of the motor home any second. It was only when she neared the vehicle that the door opened. But it wasn’t Nick who stepped out. It was Derren. She frowned when he closed the door behind him and stood in front of it like a protective barrier.

“I’ll be driving you to work this morning,” he said stiffly as he came forward, making her shuffle backward.

“I want to see Nick.”

His expression hardened. “You’ll have to wait until later.”

“I want to see him now.”

He arched a brow. “Why? So you can hurt him even more than you already have?”

She inhaled deeply. “I understand you’re mad at me, I know how protective you are of Nick—”

“Then we don’t need to have this conversation.”

What was bugging her more than Derren’s reprimanding tone was the fact that Nick hadn’t come outside. He had to know that Derren was trying to keep her away; he had to hear what was going on, but he wasn’t interfering. That meant one of two things: Nick genuinely didn’t want to see or speak to her, or he had something to hide. A dark suspicion whispered into her mind. Was he with another female? Had he sought comfort from someone else? Amber? She actually wouldn’t blame him, but she’d kill the bitch for sure.

It was only at this second that she appreciated just how hard last night had been for Nick. Just how deep her actions must have cut him. She really had some apologizing to do. And she needed to do it now.

“My SUV is behind Nick’s car,” said Derren, waving a hand toward it.

He thought he could keep her away from her own mate? Pfft. Acting as compliant as he obviously expected her to be, she nodded and walked toward the SUV. Sharply, she swerved, ramming her elbow into his throat, and then followed that up with a punch to his jaw. Then she was dashing toward the motor home.

Derren quickly made a grab for her as he came up behind her, but she’d expected that. She twisted slightly and kicked him hard in the chest, making him stumble. Then she opened the door and barged inside the motor home. She passed the sofa, dinette, small kitchen, bathroom, and continued to the rear of the vehicle where there were two doors. Taking a gamble that the one on the left was Nick’s bedroom, she opened it wide. And stopped dead.

Nick was lying on the bed on his stomach, fully clothed, pale, and sleeping deeply. So deeply that his shifter senses hadn’t been able to waken him, despite that they would have picked up the argument outside, the tension in the air, and also her scent. His wolf would sense all of that too, but clearly he was having no luck with waking Nick either. Even Bruce, who was sprawled beside the bed and licking the golden-tanned arm that was hanging over the mattress, wasn’t managing to wake him.

Just then, Derren came up behind her and grabbed her shoulders gently but firmly, pulling her back and leading her away. Distracted by her concern, she didn’t fight him. “Why is he lying there like that?” she asked quietly in a shaky voice. “What’s wrong with him?”

She thought Derren wasn’t going to answer, but then he sighed and said, “He gets headaches. Bad ones.”

“That doesn’t explain why he’s not waking up.”

“The worse the pain, the more pills he takes. Yesterday, he had three headaches, and the pain was agonizing each time. Put that pain together with a whole lot of pills, and you’ve got someone who’s so deeply asleep, he’s close to unconscious.”

Suddenly unsteady, she took a seat on the sofa. She’d noticed the occasional tint of pain in his eyes, but she hadn’t prodded him about it, determined to hide her concern for him…like an insensitive bitch—something out of character for her. She’d let the anger she harbored change her behavior in some ways. No more of that. That wasn’t the person she wanted to be. “I didn’t know about the headaches.”

“Why would you? I’ll bet you haven’t taken the time to try to know him at all.”

“Look, you can take as many potshots at me as you want. But not now, okay. I need to understand what’s happening with Nick. And if you’re not going to let me wake him up and talk to him”—not that she really would disturb him, but Derren didn’t need to know that—“then you’re going to have to be the one to tell me.”

He snorted. “After what you did last night, I’m not in the mood to tell you shit. I’m guessing part of the reason you went on that date was because you wanted a reaction. Well, here’s your reaction. I hope you’re happy.”

Panic fluttered through her. “You’re saying that the bad headache he had last night was my fault? That I caused it?”