“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 climax 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.