“Still an asshole, I see,” she mimicked acidly, jerking her wrist out of his hold, or trying to. For a heartbeat, Caleb held on, his strong fingers tightening fractionally around the fine bones of her wrist, as if to prove he didn’t have to let her go if he didn’t feel like it.
An unexpected jolt of heat shot down to pool at the base of her spine. She wanted to squirm with it, wallow in his possession and his strength, but she held herself regally still. It had been a long time since she’d been in the presence of a man she couldn’t physically best—ever since she’d walked away from the ranch seven months ago, in fact—and she’d forgotten how much she loved the challenge of it.
As if he sensed her mounting excitement—the bastard could probably smell it—Caleb released her suddenly. He leaned away from her to put more distance between them and rubbed his hand on his pants as if she’d left her cooties on him.
In spite of his all-too-apparent disgust, his voice was still a little rougher than normal when he growled, “What are you doing here? Crawling home with your tail between your legs?”
Shana’s lip curled in a silent snarl. Goddesses didn’t crawl. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” She let her nails shift into claws and stroked over his arm with the vicious tips. “You’d just love to see me on my knees, wouldn’t you, Cale?”
“I’d love to see your ass…” he drawled, “…walking away from this ranch, never to return.”
“Aw, honey, you don’t mean that,” she purred. “You’d miss this ass too much.”
She patted the body part in question and his eyes tracked the movement of her hand hungrily. Oh, yeah, Caleb Minor would miss her, all right.
“Tell me what I can do to get you to leave.”
Shana planted a hand on her hip and pushed her face into an exaggerated pout. “All this talk of leaving is going to hurt my poor wittle feelings, sugarbear.”
“You don’t have feelings.”
The pout morphed into a feline smile. “You make an excellent point. But if I had feelings, I’m sure they’d be very hurt right now. I’d be poor, wounded Shana. Would you take care of me then? Protect me like the big, strong man you are? Or is your docket for damsels in distress all filled up at the moment?”
She reached to run her claws across his stomach again and he slapped her hand away. Shana didn’t bother to pretend the smack had hurt. He wouldn’t have been fooled. Maybe that was why Caleb had always been her favorite of all the asshole bullies in the pride. He’d never been fooled by her.
Or, more accurately, she’d only been able to fool him once. And that had been years ago, when they’d both been little more than cubs and too naïve to know better.
“Is some other hot teenage kitten sneaking into your bedroom every night?” she asked, calling up the memory of the time when she’d had him wound so tight around her little finger he’d nearly cut off the circulation.
He stiffened, his big muscles tensing deliciously before her eyes. Oh, yeah, he remembered. And the memory was apparently just as unpleasant for him as it was for her. Shana hoped it burned like a bitch.
“After you fuck her senseless, do you whisper how you’ll do anything for her? How you love her and will protect her from the big, bad world?” Shana fought to keep the bitterness out of her voice. Cynicism was allowed. Cynicism was a barrier. Bitterness revealed pain and pain was a weakness.
Weakness was an anathema in the pride. Or at least it had been, before the dumbass Alpha had passed up his chance to make Shana his queen and taken Caleb’s weakling sister, Ava, instead.
As she recalled why she’d come here—to take what she deserved back from puny Ava—anger and purpose washed away the insidious traces of bitterness and hurt. The anger was clean, powerful. She smiled viciously. “Or can you even get it up anymore? Did your master have his favorite dog neutered?”
He growled at her and Shana laughed. Men were so pathetically predictable. Attack their virility and all they want to do is snarl and bang their chests to prove their masculinity.
“I’m only going to ask you one more time. Tell me what to do to get you to leave quietly.”
Shana pursed her lips and cocked her head. “That wasn’t asking. That was demanding.” She stepped forward until her front brushed his. “Lucky for you, I like demanding men,” she purred. “Unlucky for you, I’m not going anywhere.”
When he didn’t immediately shove her away, Shana crowded closer, inhaling deeply. Goddess, he smelled fantastic. She wanted to wallow in his scent. Did all lions smell this amazing? Had she just been away from her kind for too long? Or was it him?
She leaned in, rubbing her body against his. It was a platonic gesture among the pride, the casual touching, cuddling and petting, but Shana’s nipples were hard enough to cut glass and she was close enough to feel that Caleb’s reaction to them pressing against his chest through two layers of cloth was far from platonic. Hello, lover.
“You’re freezing,” he growled, grabbing her by her upper arms and setting her away from him.
Shana was tempted to retort that she hadn’t been freezing until he shoved her away. She’d completely forgotten about the cold, the impending blizzard. The world had narrowed down until it was just her and Caleb and heat. But admitting that would have been a confession too big to survive. So instead, she snapped at him.
“Yeah, well, some asshole is making me stand out here in the middle of a fucking blizzard when I could be at home in my nice, warm bungalow.”
Fat snowflakes had begun to drift lazily down from the sky and she hadn’t even noticed, though now she could see them melting on Caleb’s cheeks as he glowered at her. Shana tipped her head back and stared at the sky, amazed in spite of herself by the display nature was putting on. It so rarely snowed here. She’d always thought snow cold and wet and irritating, but now it fell so softly around her, it seemed the world itself was floating and she was floating with it.
“You don’t have a bungalow anymore.”
“Excuse me?” The floating sensation evaporated from one heartbeat to the next. Her gaze snapped down from the falling snow to land hard on Caleb. “What do you mean I don’t have a bungalow? I will always have a bungalow. This is my pride.”
Caleb shrugged carelessly. “You left.”
Asshole. He was enjoying this. “If your pipsqueak sister has taken over my bungalow, I’m going to enjoy kicking her ass out of it.”
He shook his head as if her mental faculties were disappointingly slow. “Ava lives with Landon now, Shay. That’s what marriage means.”
“Then who is in my fucking bungalow?”
At that moment, she almost wished he would say he had taken over her home, though she didn’t care to examine why that thought was so appealing.
He shrugged again. “I don’t know. Somebody. It’s a nice place and it was empty. You know how things are in the pride.”
Shana ground her teeth. She knew. Oh, did she ever know.
Possessions were community property in the pride. If you wanted something to be yours and yours alone, you had to be strong enough to keep it, fighting off all comers. Clothing, bungalows, mates—the best of everything went to the strong. At least, that’s how it used to be.
“I thought your precious Landon was going to change our barbaric ways.”
Caleb shrugged again. Goddess, how she hated that shrug. His fucking nonchalance. As if every shift of his shoulders was more proof that he didn’t give a shit about her and never had. “We are what we are. Change is slow.”
“So some asshole just usurped my bungalow?” Her shock was feigned, but her outrage was real. She’d had one of the nicest places on the ranch compound before she left, totally decked out, complete with a fireplace and a Jacuzzi in the bathroom. And she’d had to kick her fair share of asses to get it.