Page 24 of A Lion's Heart
Only one day in and this mission was off to a turbulent start. All her brainpower and maneuvering was to go into effect in the Central Zone where she could work to impress Faction Leader Maybon. She was also fairly certain that coming very close to having sex with Decan Canter was not on the agenda either, and yet, as he sat beside her and she prepared to pull off, the way he’d touched and kissed her, the path he’d made down her body last night, almost to the point of kissing her…was all she could think of.
“You said you knew I was sneaking above ground alone before.” Nisa stated as she drove through the final stretch of tunnels.
In less than an hour they would be at the Central Zone Headquarters. Then he could drop her off, hear what Jace Maybon wanted to tell him about the search for Cole Linden and get the hell out of there. There’d already been one glitch in his plan. He didn’t want to adjust for anymore.
And Nisa was definitely a glitch.
“Is that how you usually let women know you’re interested in them?” she asked.
She’d been talking for the last half hour, but he hadn’t really been listening. In fact, he’d been trying his best not to get any closer to her than he already had. Even through words. But this last question had him swearing.
“What are you talking about?” he asked as he stared over to her.
She shrugged. “I’m just asking if that’s the way you normally pick up women.”
“I don’t pick up women,” he said.
“Well, not if you go around stalking them first. That’s certainly not romantic at all.”
“And I don’t do romance,” he continued, ignoring her previous statement.
“Oh. Well, yeah, you don’t have to convince me of that fact. You definitely suck at romance,” she quipped.
“I don’t—” he began and then paused to clench his teeth tight enough to possibly break them. Instead it gave him the few seconds he needed to regroup. “I don’t have to convince you of anything. In addition to watching you sneak out at night, I saw the way you cut down any shifter that showed interest in you. The baggy clothes during training sessions, practically staying arm-in-arm with your pal Shya or locking yourself on the control deck to work for endless hours, all the shields you love to employ.”
“I’m not denying them,” she replied, even though he’d caught the quick tightening of her hands on the steering wheel. “I haven’t had a lot of experience with the opposite sex, in that way.”
That’s not something Decan wanted to know. Actually, he did. It made him feel a hell of a lot better than thinking of another shifter with his hands on her.
“It’s not a big deal,” he mumbled and then looked out the window.
The tunnels here were tinted an electric blue color, signifying they were approaching what was considered royal territory in Oasis. The perimeter surrounding each of the zone headquarters were colored passageways to help document where they were in their underground haven. They did not use street or highway names as were helpful to traveling above ground. Down here, they relied on the maps of the tunnels which were programmed into the control board in each of their enhanced vehicles. The lighted passageways were an added notification method.
“Of course it’s not,” she stated. “I mean, it only leads to the continuation of our species.”
Sarcasm was one of her favored shields as well.
“That’s not all it leads to,” he said before rubbing a hand down his face.
“Have you ever been in love, Decan?”
He definitely did not want to answer that question. But Decan knew she wasn’t going to stop just because he wanted her to. Besides, she could be asking him deeper questions—like why the tracking system had been disengaged, or revisiting the inquisition about Keller and the bunker where they’d spent the night. None of which he wanted to answer either. So with reluctant resolve, he figured he’d have to settle for this topic of discussion, no matter how uncomfortable it was making him.
“No,” he replied. “Have you?”
“No,” she answered.
“Well, you’ve got plenty of time for that,” he said, hating how bitter the words tasted in his mouth.
“I’m not looking forward to it,” she told him and turned the vehicle down a narrow passageway. “I mean, I know that some shifters are very focused on finding acompanheiroand living some type of happy life thereafter. But I have other plans.”
Curious, Decan looked over at her again.
Her hair was a riot of bouncy dark brown curls. Silver clips gripped the top of her ear and her Topétenia tat was just beneath her right lobe. The jaguar drawing was long, stretching along the skin from the end of her ear, down to almost the start of where her neck spanned out to her shoulders. It was surrounded by colorful flowers and spirals which, to someone not paying attention, might think was just an exotic floral design. But Decan saw the cat, he saw the pulse of her heartbeat vibrating through the primal creature and his heartrate increased.
The heat started then, moving down his neck, spreading throughout his torso and lower, until the hardening of his cock was inevitable. This was insane. He was just looking at her and she was fully dressed and still, there was something undeniably happening between them.
“And those plans don’t include any type of pleasure?” he asked, his hands going flat on his thighs.
