Page 55 of Hunted Mate
I could fight him, but I missed him, and having his strong body pressed against mine is making me soften. It’s not really a choice, either. I don’t get to decide whether or not I obey him. His touch makes a whole flow of chemicals run inside my body.
“Get off me,” I mutter to the ground.
“No,” he rumbles back at me. “Never.”
“You let them take me to a lab and perform experiments on me.”
He levers himself up a little, and flips me over onto my back, looking down on me with that handsome, sad face of his. He looks tired. He looks like he’s been chasing me for days, barely sleeping, hardly eating.
“They didn’t tell me they were going to do that. I would never let that happen to you if I had any knowledge of it at all. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you better. I should have intervened before you were taken.”
“Yeah, you should have.” I narrow my eyes at him. “If another bad thing happens to me once I’m in your presence, I’m going toblame you for it forever, you understand? And I’m not the girl I was when you burned my stuff down. I’m not going to just be a bit sad. I’m going to fuck your life up.”
He smirks at me. “Fair,” he says. “But nothing bad is going to happen on my account. I have no intention of letting you be any more hurt than you currently are. We need to get out of here, okay? I have my car.”
I reluctantly let him take me to his car. I know if he does betray me, I can do unpleasant things and get myself free again. But I also know that he’s smarter than most, and that next time anybody comes for me, I probably won’t get the same low level of security. In the lab, they barely locked the doors because I was a pretty little blonde heiress who couldn’t possibly be a threat. The people who made that mistake died.
They deserved to. They had done things to me, or participated in the research of the things that were done to me. They tried to change who I was, and I guess they succeeded.
“Move over,” Gray says. “You’re not driving.”
“Really?” I giggle. “But I’m so good at it.”
“Move over, or I’ll take you out of this car, spank your ass, and put you back in it,” he says sternly. “We have enough to talk about, you and I.”
“Oh, do we?” I smirk at the idea of being in trouble.
A strong hand grabs the back of my neck low down and Gray pulls me out of the car just like he threatened. I try to hold onto the steering wheel, but that doesn’t help. It just means I’m faced toward the vehicle when his hand comes down hard on my ass. The burst of pain strikes me as definitely unfair, not to mentionvery painful. He’s not treating me with any kind of gentle kindness. My screech is filled with some pain and a whole lot of outrage. I let go of the steering wheel, but he keeps me pushed in place against the side of the car.
“I don’t need your attitude,” he growls. “I am sorry, but I am not going to grovel. You’re still my mate, you little creature.”
His hand meets my ass several more times, hard and fast and brutally stinging.
My yowls turn into yelps as I realize he’s actually punishing me. Out of the corner of my eye I can see a couple of officers watching the scene with what seems to be satisfaction. Most of the townsfolk have scattered at this indecorous display. It doesn’t fit their idea of what reality is. We are already shattering expectations, and neither one of us has showed our real animal side yet.
“You’re going to have to get yourself under control,” he hisses in my ear. “There’s no excuse for what you’ve been doing. You could have gotten people killed. You could have gotten yourself killed!”
“Get off me!” I try to squirm my way out, for real this time. It doesn’t work. He snugs me back in place against the car with a hand on the back of my neck, and a grip that tightens every time I try to fight.
“I know you’re full of yourself right now,” he says. “But I’m still your mate, and I’m still bigger, stronger, and yes, meaner than you.”
“You’re not meaner than me,” I whimper, my voice muffled.
“Yes, I am,” he says, his voice taking on the tone of a promise.
“I’ve been getting vengeance,” I whisper, rubbing my ass back against him. I’m just trying to stop him from spanking me, and trying to get the sting out, but it has the benefit of distracting him from his punishment.
“I know,” he growls. “And you were entitled to it, but I’m here now. And you don’t have to protect yourself anymore.”
“You let them take me,” I remind him. I’m not trying to rub it in, but I felt really fucking abandoned. For all I knew, he’d lured me into the lab and left me there to be experimented on. I’ve had to consider the possibility of betrayal every minute of every hour since I woke up in that horrible white room.
“My father distracted me while you were taken. I never, ever intended for you to suffer. I certainly never meant for you to be experimented on.”
“Well, the good news is, it didn’t work,” I say. “I’m fine. Not even a little fur.”
“It’s too early to tell if it worked or not,” he says. “And in the meantime, I want you by my side. Literally not out of my sight. My father’s people and the lab scientists are all still looking for you.”
“They want to finish the experiment, huh?”
