“Only a weakling would allow another male to take his female,” Conall said testily. She saw his eyes narrow and sent up a mental guard. “Why have you blocked me from your mind?”
His grip on her back tightened and his eyes flashed yellow. “Do you want another male?”
Vivienne knew she was treading testy waters. In fact, she was smart enough to know what she said would either placate him or send him into a furious fit. She wasn’t trying to anger him. She was just curious, and a bit angered at the obvious male dominance in the pack. What happened to equal opportunities for females?
“No,” she said slowly. “Only you.” His eyes shifted back to blue but he was tense beneath her.
“Then why did you ask?”
Sighing, she replied, “Don’t you think it’s unfair? That a male can have a mate and whomever else, but that a mated female can’t?”
“No.”
“Conall!” She tried to move but he held her still.
“It has been the way of our people for generations, alainn. Males can only take one mate at a time, but some packs are small, and there are females who are left without. So, in many of these packs, the males couple with those females as well. It’s mostly for reproduction of the species, and the continuation of the pack.”
“And what of these females, the ones who remained unmated? Are they allowed to take whomever they want?”
He nodded once as his eyes grew hooded. “An unattached female may do as she pleases, much like an unattached male.”
“So,” Vivienne began, “hypothetically speaking, if I wanted—”
“No!”
She hid a grin. Conall didn’t know how attractive he was when jealous, but she did. His eyes grew hard, lips taut, and his eyebrows drew down as if he would pounce at any moment. “But you didn’t even hear me out.”
“I will never share you, Vivienne.”
“I wasn’t going to say that,” she murmured.
“You were thinking it,” he replied.
“How would you know?” she asked with a grin, tapping the side of her head. “You’re not in here.”
He growled at her. She smiled, and then blinked rapidly at finding herself beneath him, with his body pressed into hers. Even angry, he was hard for her.
“Are you teasing me?” he asked quietly, his face mere inches from hers.
She considered lying, saying that she wasn’t, but decided against it. She wanted him jealous, and possessive. She didn’t want him angry. “Yes.” She dropped the shield she’d put up against him. It took only seconds before he was probing her mind again, and then his body relaxed and he glared at her.
“You like when I’m jealous?” he asked in a low, slightly menacing tone. His hand slipped under her shirt, quickly moving to her breasts.
“You’re an attractive man,” she replied breathlessly, pushing her chest upward for his touch. His fingertips pinched at her nipples, before he roughly palmed them. Vivienne moaned and sighed, smiling up at him. “Extremely attractive.”
She heard a rip and looked down to find her shirt torn down to the middle. Vivienne shook her head and threw him an amused glance.
“You’re going to have to stop doing that,” she said softly, watching as his hand parted the shirt to reveal the swollen and peaked tips of her nipples.
“You like it,” he threw back at her, moments before his mouth lowered to one of her breasts, tongue swirling around her nipple before his mouth closed over it.
She moaned, and her thighs clutched him tighter.
Yes. Yes I do.
His eyes lifted to hers and held them as he went to her other nipple, sucking at it until she cried out. He released her nipple with a soft pop, and then proceeded to leave her.
Pushing onto her arms, Vivienne glared at his broad back.
What are you doing?
With a smug smile, he replied, “I can be a tease too, alainn.”
Blinking, her mind still clouded by her lust for him, Vivienne watched him leave the room. She fell back against the couch, and shook her head, still confused. Without him robbing her of her thoughts, she was able to formulate a plan. Instead of following him, which she was sure he expected, she pushed herself up and stepped out of the torn shirt and sweats. She stared down at her pink cotton panties, one of her newer pairs, and decided to remove them as well. As it was, she happened to be running low on underwear. There was no need to another one to the torn pile.
She reclined back on the couch, facing the entrance of the living room as she did so.
Conall?
He didn’t reply immediately. It was many seconds before his voice touched her mind.