A wolfish smile claimed his mouth as he continued to slide his hand back and forth, moving his fingers against the sensitive skin of my belly. 

“Would you like me to make you purr, Kitten?” he asked, dropping his mouth next to my ear, the warm puffs of his breath sending waves of pleasure straight down to my pussy. 

I swallowed. 

“Do you know what that little button between your legs is called? The one you love to rub until you’re panting and moaning down here on the bed that we all share.”

I shook my head. “No.”

“It’s called the clit. And the best way to push that button is by sucking on it.”

My lips parted, and I snagged his gaze as he lifted his head away from my ear. “C-can you show me?” Oh my God, what was I doing? Why I was I asking Zane of all people to show me this? He hated me and I’d given up trying to figure out why. 

I didn’t care. Yes, you do.

Whatever. I was trying not to care.

Besides, how Zane felt about me didn’t matter. Rix, Jorik and I were building a friendship, I didn’t need Zane. And yet, nothing could have moved me from that spot, or stopped me from asking him to show me. Because at that very moment, there wasn’t anything I wanted more.

That dark, wicked smile was back, the one that transformed him from a miserable grump to a sinfully delicious god who seemed hell-bent on destroying me in the best possible way. 

“Oh, Kitten,” he groaned as his fingers slid just a little farther beneath my pants, setting my body on fire. 

His mouth hung just over mine, and I could smell the mint on his breath. 

Even though Rix was always chewing on them, we’d all taken to grinding them into a paste to clean our teeth, and occasionally chewing on them, too. 

I knew this was a game. He was playing me some how, he had to be. 

But I did not care. 

My body was scorching hot, and it seemed that Zane was the only person onboard who could help tame those flames.  

Our eyes locked, and I studied the deep, mesmerizing gray of his irises. Specks of silver and white seemed to move and shimmer as his pupils widened and his lids fell heavily. 

I gasped when his teeth caught my bottom lip in a bite that sent pain laced heavily with pleasure right down to my clit. 

My hips lifted again. Why were they doing that? But the movement pushed his fingers even lower beneath my pants, where I ached for him to touch me. Where I’d been touching myself more and more over the last few days, feeling bliss unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. 

“Why do you … hate me?” I whispered, squeezing my eyes closed and dropping my head back at the same time he dipped his mouth to the side of my neck and scraped his teeth along my carotid artery. 

“I don’t hate you, Kitten,” he murmured, nipping a spot just below my ear.

“You sure act like it,” I countered, struggling to get the words out as my body became a maelstrom of divine sensations. As his touch grew more avid, I struggled to pick up on anything but our raging pulses and the musky, woodsy scent of the man looming over me. 

“You’re …”

“A liability?” I asked. My deadpan gaze met his and challenged him to call me what he’d called me before. Because we both knew that I wasn’t, at least not anymore. I was learning how to compartmentalize, and I’d already proven myself to be a valuable member of this team, if that’s what we were. I provided food for us. I kept watch while they slept. I wasn’t their charge. I wasn’t a princess incapable of defending herself and in need of brave soldiers defending her. 

His head shook but just barely. “A source,” he said, though it sounded like he was forcing the words out when they didn’t want to be said. 

My eyes widened, and I went to push him away, but he held me firm in my small space beneath his body, not that I truly struggled. Because I could push him off me. 

Then why wasn’t I?

“There’s so much that you just don’t know,” he said, his eyes burning into mine and lighting an even hotter fire in my belly than a moment ago. 

“Then tell me.” I lifted my chin in challenge. “Or do you prefer to keep me in the dark?”

His chuckle held only a hint of amusement, and for a breath, we just held each other’s gaze. 

A flash of white anger rushed through me. He was deliberately pushing me, but why? I was aroused beyond measure, desperately wanting him to move his hands between my legs and put his mouth on my clit and show me how sucking it made me come even more than just rubbing it, but despite the inferno in his eyes, I could also see that he was holding back and struggling to do so.