An Inconvenient Mate

Chapter Four

So many times I fought back tears, felt incomplete and feared you weren’t there.

Her uncle and her grandfather feared that the Breeds had finally arrived to track down the three individuals they had been hiding for more than a decade. Isabelle knew very little about the events that summer. She had been only a child herself and still dealing with the death of her mother and Chelsea’s antics.

Isabelle had barely been thirteen. Her mother had been dead for six years, but the loss of the gentle, loving woman she had been had devastated Isabelle and Chelsea for years. In ways, they still hadn’t recovered from the loss.

Their father had dealt with it by disappearing more often, searching almost continually for the sister who had been lost when he’d been a child himself.

He hadn’t found the sister or proof of her death—what he’d found instead had been a teenage boy and a young girl. Several months later another young girl had shown up and then disappeared within hours.

It had been so long ago that Isabelle couldn’t even remember what they had looked like. They had been at her home for only a matter of hours in the deepest part of the night. Isabelle had only seen their faces for moments. Pale, suspicious, resigned faces. As though they had made their peace with the world and whatever fate awaited them. The part of the night that had always found Isabelle awake and staring into the darkness had also been the time of night that others prowled the darkness. Others who came for the children took them away and ensured they were never seen or heard from again.

She had stared into the darkness after leaving Malachi the night before until she had found herself nodding off to sleep by the wide windowsill.

The night had always called to her, even as a child. Pulling her from sleep, it seemed the darkness whispered on each breeze that slid past her home, and on those currents of air she swore she felt the haunting cries of the coyotes singing through the air.

Was Malachi the reason she had always felt an affinity to those wild, often hated creatures?

The People knew the coyote, though. They knew him for the prankster he was, for the deceiver, but they also knew him for the vital part of the night that he commanded.

He wasn’t all bad. He was equal parts human and supernatural being with all the faults and fallacies that came with them. At least, in legend.

Her lips quirked as she left the meeting, leaving the players in the game being conducted to deal with one another on their own. She had done her part. She had watched Commander Rule Breaker each time he pushed for what he wanted and each time he was denied. And each time she had written the same opinion.

He had expected it.

He had known her uncle and her grandfather wouldn’t relent in turning over the genetic identifications of each of the registered human and Breed members of the Navajo Nation.

Genetic typing had begun when the Breeds had first made themselves known thirteen, nearly fourteen years before. When the Navajo Council had realized the number of their missing daughters who had been kidnapped to aid in the creation of the species, they had immediately set out to ensure they could identify which of the emerging Breeds were their own.

The Navajo weren’t the only Native Americans to have contributed, though. The members of the scattered tribes spread across the United States had sent in blood, genetic identification and all the details that went with it. Just in case. Just in case Breed blood could save a chief or a medicine man, a child or a warrior or a mother. Just in case a daughter returned and children born of her stolen eggs, or a child born of her body, came searching for her.

In case the daughter didn’t return, and the grandchildren did.

Isabelle knew that was her grandfather’s dream. That one day something of the daughter he had lost would return to the Nation seeking the blood ties the Martinez family and the Navajo Nation represented.

As Ashley had done, along with her sister, Emma.

They had come searching, and had found a family they hadn’t known existed for them. Small though they were, and as hidden as Ashley and Emma could keep them, still, the ties were there.

And Isabelle was finding a tie of her own, she thought as she returned to her room to change clothes.

Malachi.

He hadn’t been at the meeting, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t been thinking about it.

He was all she could really think about.

Her ear still tingled with the memory of the nip and that tiny lick to the slight wound.

The rest of her body was heated, had been heated and refused to cool down.

Even the quick, cool shower she forced herself to have didn’t help. As she used the soft, suds-filled cloth between her thighs, she swore it was more frustrating than trying to masturbate.

Each time the silky suds and the soft pile of the cloth raked over her clitoris, it was like being pierced with a hunger so heated she could barely stand it. It made the shower quicker, though, for the fact that she didn’t attempt to masturbate.

Rinsing her hair and body quickly, she stepped from the shower and hurriedly prepared for the evening.

She dressed in a loose, silky maxi dress, the casual outfit falling to the floor at her sandals and giving her a feeling of intense, sensual femininity.

The brush of the cool, slick material against her hardened nipples was almost an unbearable caress. The feel of her bra had chafed the tender points until removing it had been imperative.

The long length of her raven black hair fell below her shoulders in long, soft waves after she blow-dried it. Her blue eyes, almost a cobalt, looked brighter, more intense than she remembered them being before.

Her complexion looked clearer, her cheeks flushed, her lips looked almost kiss swollen. Leaning in closer to the mirror, Isabelle stared at her reflection with a slight frown. She didn’t even need makeup as she usually did. How strange was that?

This was what arousal did to a woman? Anticipation?

She could handle this. Her gaze fell to the small charm she had placed on a gold chain and put around her neck.

A curved fang, the symbol of the Coyote Breeds that he had left for her. Lifting her hand, she brushed her fingers against the fang as the need for his touch raced through her system.

Transferring a few necessary items to a small leather purse that matched her sandals, Isabelle found pulled the small note Malachi had pushed beneath her door that morning. The roses were in her bedroom next to the bed. A smile touched her lips at the thought of the Breed. She hadn’t expected him to find her so easy. Liza’s friend in registration had swore no one had asked for the room number, but Isabelle knew they would have other ways of finding that information.

Shivering at the thought of him being able to find her so easily, and wondering if he would find her again this evening, Isabelle left her room once again and headed for the elevators at the center of the hotel wing.

She had promised Chelsea and Liza she would meet them at the bar before dinner for a drink. The same bar she had met Malachi in the night before. The same one in which she feared Holden might be watching for her. The one she prayed Malachi would be waiting for her.

But if Holden were there, her sister and Liza would have called long before now.

She had no intentions of staying with them for long. She intended instead to find that damned sexy Coyote if he wasn’t waiting in the bar. If he didn’t take her soon, she just might go up in flames waiting for him.

She swore she was going to eat him up from head to toe and every point in between when he got his hands on her. Once he was naked, she would paint his body with her tongue and taste every inch of his flesh.

Then . . .

Her mouth watered.

Then, she would move between his thighs and lick every inch of his cock. She wanted to do everything to him that she had ever dreamed of doing to a lover. She wanted to take his cock into her mouth and suckle it hungrily. She wanted to taste the essence of him and feel his body tense with the need for release. She wanted him so desperately it was a true, physical hunger.

She would swirl her tongue over the head and feel it throb as she sucked it into her mouth.

Her thighs clenched, the feel of her juices once again dampening her panties and causing her to bite her lip. She really didn’t want to have to change panties again. She swore she saturated them as she sat in that meeting thinking about him.

It had been all she could do to keep her mind on what was being said and keeping the notes her uncle asked her to keep. Her perceptions of Rule Breaker’s answers and whether or not she thought he was lying at important points of the conversation. In her opinion, he was lying in most of them.

When she had first arrived at the meeting, she had been disappointed that Malachi wasn’t there, but, if he had been—she clenched her thighs again as her clit throbbed with the need to be touched.

Perhaps she should go change panties again.

Frowning slightly as she heard the elevator bell ping its descent, she was ready to turn and head back to her room. She was swinging around on one foot, her intent clear.

Changing her panties, because thinking about giving tall, blond and Breedy a blow job had her seriously wet.

The elevator doors slid soundlessly open.

She saw him from the corner of her eye. She could almost swear she felt him.

Poised to run, almost in the turn, nearly pushing off, and instead, she swung back around, straightened and stepped into the elevator as though she had never, not even for a second, considered not doing so.

Turning, her back pressing against the side of the cubicle, she stared across the short distance into eyes that gleamed almost black, the color was so blue. In those eyes, she read his challenge. Was her head start over? Because he had clearly found her, and there was no doubt he was ready to reward her taking the elevator rather than running.

Reaching back, her fingers curled over the side rail, holding tight, holding back.

She heard someone curse, a low, furious sound. But it wasn’t Malachi. His lips weren’t moving. He was staring back at her, becoming as locked within the air of sensuality swirling around them as she was.

Her glaze flicked to his lips once more.

She wanted to kiss him. Just one kiss. Just a taste of that sensually full lower lip, a flick of her tongue against his.

Would she be satisfied with it?

Never. But it would ease the ache in her lips. Maybe.

The elevator felt as though it were moving in slow motion. She felt as though she were moving in slow motion.

She tried to keep her fingers locked around the side bar, tried to hold herself back.

There was no holding back from him.

Isabelle swore she could feel him urging her to him. His gaze was intense, a swirl of navy blue, an erotic storm brewing around them.

They weren’t there alone, but they could have been. They may as well have been. As far as Isabelle was concerned, Rule Breaker and Stygian Black didn’t even exist.

Her tongue slipped out, licking over her lips as the sudden vision of her going to her knees in front of him flashed across her mind.

Her gaze flicked to the front of the black mission-style pants he wore. They were formfitting, though not tight. Still, the bulge beneath them was unmistakable.

She swallowed tight. And it was large.

Her eyes came back to his. She forced them up, because she may wish she were there with him alone, but she knew she wasn’t.

Someone cleared his throat as she inhaled slowly, fighting for control. The taller, darker Breed blew out a rough breath. Neither Malachi nor Isabelle glanced toward him.

Her eyes moved to his hands. He was gripping the rail behind him, across from her. His knuckles white from the force of his grip.

The elevator came to a stop, the doors slid opened and a couple started in, stared at the Breeds and backed out. The doors slid closed again.

“Back up,” Malachi said. It was a rough, rasping sound as Stygian obviously pushed the right button. The elevator started up.

Malachi reached out then, pushed a button himself and Isabelle heard Rule growl his name. A real, male feline sound of irritation. The commander wasn’t happy.

Isabelle and Malachi both ignored him. The elevator stopped again.

“Do you really want to stay?” Malachi asked the two men without looking at them as the doors slid open again and no one moved.

No one except Isabelle.

Releasing the rail, she stepped across the distance separating them. She felt as though she were being drawn to him, pulled to him by some unseen force. His gaze held hers, his lashes lowering to half mast.

She was only distantly aware of the other two exiting the elevator. All that mattered to her was that they were gone. She didn’t have to hold herself back. She didn’t have to force herself not to touch him, taste him, kiss him.

She wanted that kiss. The kiss she had dreamed of. A kiss she had been certain she would never feel.

Moving to him, her hands braced against his chest, she went on tiptoe, but without his help, if he hadn’t lowered his head, it wouldn’t have happened.

Her hands slid to his shoulders, one against his neck as she felt the warmth of his breath against her lips.

“I caught you,” he whispered.

Her lips parted as his touched, moved with his words.

“Or I caught you.”

Suddenly, it didn’t matter who caught whom, or if there was a head start, time to think or even a need for thought. His lips covered hers as his arms slid around her, pulling her closer, lifting her to him.

The taste of ambrosia filled her senses. It had to be ambrosia. The elixir of the gods. It had to be something not quite natural, because the taste of his kiss went to her head like a drug. Like a pleasure she couldn’t deny herself because she had waited far too long for it.

For Malachi.

His fingers cupped the back of her neck, tilting her head back as his lips slanted over hers, parted them, and pure heat swept through her senses. His tongue slipped past her lip, swept over hers and tempted her, teased her to catch it.

She nipped it.

He growled.

Strong fingers slid into her hair, gripped and held her head in place as he turned her, lifted her with his other arm and braced her against the side of the elevator.

His tongue swept past her lips again and stroked against hers.

And she nipped again.

Exhilaration surged through her. Adrenaline surged through her veins as his fingers moved from her hair, cupped her jaw and his kiss became firmer, more dominating, demanding.

He wasn’t asking permission. There was nothing exploratory about the claiming, nothing introductory. He was taking her with his kiss, with his tongue, and she knew what he wanted.

What she was aching for.

Her lips closed around his tongue, sucked with delicate greed as it pumped between her lips and the most unique taste, subtle and hot, filled her senses.

She couldn’t define it. She couldn’t describe it.

She wanted more.

A growl filled the air, a moan whispering around it as the kiss suddenly became hotter, hungrier. The arousal that had been brewing inside her became a firestorm, racing through her, tightening inside her.

This was hers. He was hers.

She’d known it the moment her eyes met his in the bar the night before, and she knew it now with his lips covering hers, his tongue pumping in her mouth and his hands pulling at her dress.

“Hell! Malachi. Honey. You have a room. Use it!”

Isabelle blinked as he pulled back from her. Flushing, she gazed around his shoulder to the elevator entrance.

Ashley stood, leaning against the elevator frame, holding the doors back. Fingers tucked into the snug pockets of her jeans, her blond hair falling over one shoulder, her eyes wide as she stared back at them.

Then her gaze slipped down and her brows arched. “Nice sandals there, Belle, but I think they should be on the floor, not wrapped around Malachi’s hips while you’re in the elevator.”

Around his hips?

Yep, they were around his hips.

He lowered her slowly. As her feet touched the floor, his arm went around her back and he all but picked her up and carried her from the cubicle.

“Nighty night,” Ashley called out as Malachi slid the electronic key quickly through the lock on his room, then pulled her inside.

His room was across from hers.

It was only a distant thought and it sure as hell didn’t matter. Because he was holding her again, pulling her to him, his lips moving over hers and spilling the taste of pure desire to her senses.

“I warned you.” Isabelle had only a second to understand the words that rasped from his lips before he was pulling the dress from her. “You’re mine now, Isabelle. Mine.”

As he jerked it up her legs, she might have heard a seam split and she really didn’t give a damn because she was all but naked in his arms and he was picking her up and bearing her across the room to the bed.

“You made promises,” she whispered as he laid her back then straightened before her.

“I made promises,” he agreed. “And I promise you, mate, I intend to follow through on every damned one of them. All day. All night. Possibly all fucking week.”