The crouch and roll she executed before coming up behind him wasn’t a typical response to the threat of being held from behind, even for their female enforcers. For her height and lack of physical strength, it worked perfectly. It also gave her the opening to come at him again before he could respond with a countermove.
Within two breaths, he was placed on the defensive by the very fact that, with nimble grace, she managed to elude his grasp and stay just out of reach.
And he wasn’t playing with her.
Stygian had every intention of getting his hands on her and stripping her, first of that little top she wore. The one that tightened around her breasts and clearly showed the hard, pointed nipples beneath what appeared to be the lace of her bra.
The moves she was using weren’t those she would have been trained for by the Coyote females. They were Breed male moves with the addition of a graceful feminine twist, an unexpected arch, kick or jab. And if she absolutely had to, a low, swift crouch and roll that placed her just out of reach.
He was impressed.
He was even more impressed, not to say highly suspicious of the fact that she used them so well. So well that he was beginning to suspect that it wasn’t Ashley and Emma who had been training her. A male Breed had somehow been training her so secretively that he hadn’t heard about it.
And he wouldn’t have thought that were possible.
Remaining alert, keeping his eyes on her, Stygian arched his brow mockingly as she circled him, looking for an opening to bury that pretty little fist in some vulnerable area, no doubt.
When he saw his opening, he moved.
Ducking nearly to a crouch as she moved for him, Stygian managed to twist and come up behind her, both arms wrapping around her, trapping hers and shackling them to her side.
She didn’t attempt to move her arms. Her first, natural reaction would have been to struggle with her upper body. At least, that was what it should have been.
Instead, in another surprising move, she lifted both legs. The heel of one slammed into his knee, taking him to the mat.
Most men, warriors, soldiers, would have lost their hold. Stygian was really rather proud of the fact that he kept hold of her.
Intense satisfaction then filled him as he managed to wrestle her to the mat beneath him, his body holding hers trapped securely between him and the mat.
“Who’s been training you?” he snarled as he gave her ear an erotic little nip. “Tell me, mate, who have you been playing with?”
Not that it really mattered, Stygian thought as he rolled his hips against the gentle curve of her rear and allowed her to feel the hardened erection beneath his jeans. It didn’t matter, because from now on, she would only be playing with him. He would be her only sparring partner. Only he would be training her to do any damned thing.
Liza could feel her juices spilling from her pussy, dampening the folds beyond as well as her panties as Stygian forced a hard thigh between her legs, forcing them open, then spreading them further to allow his hips to wedge into the cradle he created.
“Answer me, mate,” he rasped as his incisors raked along the nape of her neck. “What Breed male has dared to train you so effectively?”
She forced a laugh past her lips—she had to force it, because all she wanted to do was moan and beg him to fuck her.
“What, us puny little humans aren’t allowed to use any of your Breed moves?” She knew better, but pushing him was the agenda.
Pushing him to lose control.
Pushing him to fuck her.
Pushing him to force her control from her and to allow her just a few moments of peace from the thoughts and fears that kept swirling through her mind.
“No Breed males have trained me for anything.” She kept the mockery thick in her voice.
He could detect a lie in her voice, and she had to be careful here.
No Breed males had been training her; instead, the Coyote females Ashley, Emma and Shiloh, and occasionally the Jaguar Breeds Chimera and Shiloh, and several Wolf Breed females. The other training she had was from the men that were part of the team she’d been assigned to with the underground network.
Did the big tough male Breeds think their smaller counterparts didn’t have the ability to train anyone?
“Who has been training you then?” he growled in amusement as she felt his cock pressing into the vee of her thighs, pushing against the entrance of her sex through their layers of clothes.
She wanted the clothes from between them.
She wanted him.
Wanted him hard and deep and—oh God—taking her with the force and hunger that sent her careening into maddening release.
“Who said anyone was training me?” Closing her eyes, her nails curling into the mat where he held her wrists secure, Liza let the sensations, the excitement and intense sensuality wash over her.
“From now on, you want to learn to fight, you can come to me.” His head lowered, his teeth raking the side of her neck.
“Come to you to learn to fight?” She fought to breathe, to fight back her tears as emotion threatened to flood her senses as well. “Really, Stygian, I’ve seen Breeds with their women. They’re not allowed to fight.” She smiled with a sensual, tempting curve of her lips. “They only get to fuck.”
“Really?” he murmured at her ear, his dick jerking in excitement at the carnality in her voice. “Coyote females fight. Ashley and Emma are two of our best warriors.”
“Breed females,” she argued breathlessly. “Human mates aren’t given the same options.”
“Says who?” His tongue swiped over a particularly nerveridden area where he’d bitten her two nights before.
Pleasure sang through her body with a suddenness that left her gasping and had more of her slickening juices spilling from her pussy.
“Diane Broen and every argument she and Lawe are rumored to have had.” She was barely whispering as one of his hands pushed beneath her camisole.
“But Lion Breeds are assholes,” he growled, his voice thick with sexual hunger.
“What?” Liza could barely make out what he was saying as his fingers released the front catch of her bra and cupped the swollen weight of one breast.
“I said, Lion Breeds are assholes,” he repeated, the dark, lust-sharpened sound of his voice stroking her senses as his thumb stroked over the exquisitely hard peak of her nipple.
“Breeds are assholes.” Her fingers dug into the mat again as his other hand—fingers long and powerful—began pushing beneath the low-riding band of her cotton pants.
It was all she could do to breathe.
Hell, she didn’t give a damn if she was breathing or not, as long as he kept touching her.
His touch was like living lust. Hot and mesmerizing, it stole reason, leaving her helpless beneath him.
The air around them was thick and heavy with erotic heat.
His hard body above her was such a stimulant, so powerful and aroused she felt lost in the sensation of his weight against her.
“Wolf Breeds aren’t assholes, though,” he promised as the tips of his fingers brushed against the curls at the top of her pussy.
Liza felt the involuntary clench of her thighs, her vagina, the lush slide of her juices spilling from her body.
His fingers fluffed the curls that sheltered the top of her mound. Only there had she left that soft covering. Below it, the swollen folds were carefully waxed, overly sensitive, and heated, aching for his touch, for more than the firm pressure of his cock and their clothing between it and her.
His teeth raked against her neck once again, the pleasure singeing through every cell of her body.
The feel of his incisors rasping over her sent a rush of electrified sensation tearing across her nerve endings, heating her, burning through her mind.