Page 27 of Act of Command

She licked her lips. “I like to sculpt things and paint. I’ve been working for weeks on a sculpture of a man I thought I made up. I didn’t think you were real.”

“I’m real,” he said, caressing her cheek lightly. “I’m sorry I didn’t stay for our date.”

“Why did you leave?” she asked, unable to tear her gaze from his face. Did the man realize how handsome he was?

He cringed. “Part of it was work-related, but another was catching your scent.”

She pursed her lips, not following his train of thought.

He sighed, still stroking her cheek. “I arrived on campus, and I was headed to where we agreed to meet. Then I caught your scent. It did something to me. I know this is no excuse, but from the minute I smelled you, I wantedonlyyou. No other.”

“So you bailed on me?” she asked, totally lost.

“I didn’t know you wereyou, Mae. I assumed you were already at the Union. My mind didn’t even consider you were my date. You were simply the woman in the yellow dress whose scent drove me mad.”

Her scent did that to him?

She blinked up at him. “If you’d have bothered to show for our date, you’d have figured out I was me.” Saying it felt silly, but necessary.

He scowled. “I know. Trust me. That is all I’ve thought about since learning you and the woman in the yellow dress are one in the same and that you’d been taken. The night of our date, I was called to work. I had to leave the country and I was gone for nearly two weeks. Mae, I need you to know, if I had it to do all over again, I’d change every action I made.”

She stared at him. “I’d have refused to be fixed up by my mother.”

Corbin tensed. “Mae? You don’t feel a pull to me?”

“Oh, I do, but I’m pretty sure it’s the drugs talking,” she said, easing back from him slightly. “I’d have told my mom no when she pushed me to go out with you. Sorry, but I’m not interested in a man who skips out on dates.”

Corbin winced and took her hands in his. “You said you sculpted me.”

“I did.”

He locked gazes with her. “Before the drugs were introduced to your system?”

Crap. She really wanted to tell herself it was just the drugs making her want to jump the man’s bones. With a groan, she closed her eyes. “Great. My dream guy is a douchebag. Hot and with a great accent, but a douche all the same.”

“Mae, has anyone explained mates to you?” he asked, drawing her attention back to him.

“I know about mates. Why?”

He simply watched her as if waiting for her to answer her own question. As she thought harder on it all, her eyes widened and she yanked her hands free from his. “No way! We’re not. We can’t be. Our mothers forced us to go on a blind date that, if you’ll recall, you didn’t bother following through with.”

“I swear to you, I will spend eternity making up for that with you,” he said, inching closer to her. “For now, will you just let me hold you a moment? I need to know you’re okay and then I’m getting you out of here.”

“You can’t get me out. Not yet,” she said, wanting to be held, but refusing to go to him fully. She was still angry he’d bailed on her. It was childish considering the man had somehow managed to find her after she’d been taken by crazy people, but still, her pride was wounded. “People are working to get me out, but they need to coordinate it so no one else being held gets hurt or killed.”

Corbin eyed her and then tensed, touching his side lightly.

Mae’s anger with him faded quickly. “That looks bad. We should clean it or something.”

“It will heal. Whatever they gave me is slowing my natural ability to heal, and I can’t be certain, but I feel much warmer than normal.” His blue gaze zeroed in on her, raking over her slowly. “And other things.”

She felt the heat rising off him and knew what it was. Drug-induced desire. “Corbin, the one guard said they shot you full of the same stuff they’ve been using on all of us. But that they had to give you a whole lot of it. I don’t know a ton about it, but from what I do know, it makes you desire certain things.”

His nostrils flared. “I desire you.”

She yelped.

His eyelids fluttered. “Your smell, Mae, it drives me mad.”

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