Following her gaze, Dante growled. Glory. He was tempted to confront her—not harm her, he would never harm a female. But he was interested in ensuring that she understood just how pissed he was.
“Don’t,” said Jaime gently, earning his attention. “All you’ll gain from it is losing our pack’s alliance with Nick. Let him deal with her.” In truth, Jaime wasn’t convinced that Nick would be able to do much. The fact was that Glory was a law unto herself.
Jaime wasn’t a person who looked down on others, but with Glory it was impossible not to.
The girl was kind of like a doorknob—everyone got a turn. That, combined with her penchant for spreading false gossip and her love of stealing other people’s boyfriends, made for a very toxic person.
“How come you never did that whole ‘I told you so’?” She had told him so, had warned him that Glory was poisonous and he’d do better to avoid her. His own instincts had told him that, too.
But he’d been so hot and hard for the female sitting opposite him, and he’d needed a reprieve. Glory had happened to be there when he most needed it.
“I figure you’ve learned your lesson without me rubbing salt in the wound. Besides, it wasn’t a surprise that you didn’t listen. You’ve always thought with your dick.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes, it is.”
“In that case, do you wanna blow my mind?”
Jaime smiled. “You got that from Dominic, didn’t you?”
“Maybe.” He laughed.
That gruff laugh was like a caress. God, how pitiful was she to be lusting after someone who didn’t want her! Maybe she could have gotten past it if it wasn’t more like a craving than a lusting. It reminded her of that feeling she got when she was unbelievably hungry and all she could think about eating was chocolate; that always made no sense to her, as it wasn’t like chocolate would ease the hunger or was good for her, and yet still she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Only instead of the hunger being in her belly, it was somewhere much lower, and instead of chocolate, it was Dante.
Thankfully, he seemed to accept that she wasn’t going to answer his questions and simply drove her back to pack territory. Or, at least, he seemed to accept it for now. No doubt he’d do as he said and pester her. While she was confident that she wouldn’t let anything slip, she still couldn’t help but worry that he would catch her at an extremely weak moment—like when she was so damn aroused that he’d be able to smell it and all she’d be able to think about was jumping on him. Her objective would have to be to spend as little time with him as possible, she decided. That and address her hungry libido this weekend before she broke down and assaulted him.
After three days of nothing more than polite smiles and having Jaime expertly avoid his company and questions, Dante was at a point where he wanted nothing more than to strap Jaime to a chair and torture her secret out of her. He could liken his experiences with Jaime to the act of holding a fish—it was smaller and weaker and therefore should be easy to grab and restrain, but it had a way of slipping out of his grip and going on its merry way.
Whereas in the beginning his motive to uncover her secret had been concern, the whole thing was now more of an obsession. It hadn’t been long before his frustrations had overridden his males-shouldn’t-intimidate-females ethic. And what had she done in response when he demanded that she tell him? Patted him on the head and sang, “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” The female was killing him.
Her attempts to avoid him were helped along by how demanding his job was. Still, each afternoon over the past three days he’d turned up at the dog sanctuary to take her to lunch. Each time she had avoided him. The first day he had arrived to find out that she had left early and gone to lunch with Pretty Boy. The second day she had eaten an hour before and was working the afternoon to cover someone else’s shift. Today she had arranged to go for lunch with her female coworkers for one of their birthdays. What could he say to that? It was only later that he wondered whether it truly had been anyone’s birthday. Taking into account Jaime’s sly streak, probably not.
His patience was wearing thin. Too damn thin. Making it worse, he had to watch Dominic flirt like crazy with her all the time. He knew they were just playing and that nothing would come of it, but it pissed off his battered ego just the same. Marcus had picked up on how annoying Dante found it, and his response had been to begin flirting with Jaime, too. And Marcus was good at flirting. He could make even the mated females blush. Jaime was unfortunately no exception. Although she didn’t give Marcus any encouragement, she didn’t dis courage him either. Dante’s ego was having a real bad time with it—not to mention his wolf, who had serious issues with both Dominic and Marcus right now.
Increasing Dante’s agitation, she was still driving that tin can of a car every day. Each morning he had instructed her not to take it, she had given him a “whatever you say” look, and then she’d gone and done what the hell she wanted to anyway. In short, there was simply no controlling her. As a person who was used to being obeyed and having his orders respected, Dante didn’t know how to deal with this female.
Likewise, he didn’t know how to deal with the raw cravings he was experiencing or the unfamiliar twinges of possessiveness and jealousy. Furthermore, he was beginning to find her intriguing on a nonsexual level. Dante didn’t do nonsexual levels. He was pissed with both himself and her about the whole thing. So when he saw her unlocking the tin can later that evening, something in him snapped. “Didn’t I tell you not to drive that thing?” Surprised, Jaime jumped, and slowly turned to face the pain in the ass stalking toward her. She sighed tiredly. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”
“I told you, it’s not safe,” he insisted, coming close. “It’ll be better if someone takes you wherever you’re going and picks you up afterward. In fact, I’ll do it myself.” He gestured to the SUV beside her car. “Come on. Where are you going?”
“It’s really not necessary.”
“Where are you going?”
Shit, that voice. It pulled at her, demanded compliance. As usual, Jaime’s body immediately responded to the dominance that coated it—her pulse went into overdrive and her clit decided hey, what the hell, I will, too. Her need for him beat at her insides, at every defense she had against his raw masculinity. “I’m meeting up with Shawn.” She almost jumped again at his growl. “Dante, you really do need to get over your problem with him.”
She was probably right, but Dante couldn’t. The thought of her with the human had anger ripping through him. Images of Pretty Boy kissing her, touching her, being inside her, were flicking around his head and threatening his legendary self-control—control which had been tested by this female too many times over the past few days.
Making it worse, his wolf was clawing at him, raging at the idea of her and Pretty Boy together. As far as his wolf was concerned, no one else had a right to touch her. Feeling the extent of his wolf’s possessiveness only infuriated Dante more. When it came to Jaime Farrow, he was no more in control of his wolf than he was of her. Currently his fingers were tingling with the need to touch her. He wanted to take that mouth, to plunder it with his tongue just as he wanted to plunder her body with his cock.
Shaking off those thoughts as best he could, Dante scrubbed a hand down his face and switched his focus back to their conversation. “You need to break it off with him.” She sighed. “This is getting real old and real boring.”