Had he really told her he’d drive her home after he washed up?
He ran the towel quickly over his hair, shook the remaining water out of it and drew in a quick, hard breath. There was no such thing as a reasonable explanation, but maybe a partial truth would work. She made him feel a pleasure that no other woman had ever made him feel, and it simply shocked the hell out of him.
That was the truth, and he thought maybe Gypsy could sense the truth sometimes. A certain expression, the way her eyes darkened when he held something back from her, or when he hadn’t exactly told her the truth.
It was a suspicion he couldn’t prove yet.
Snapping the towel into the bathtub, he exhaled roughly and opened the door, stepping back into the bedroom.
“Gypsy, baby, I’m sor—” He looked around the empty room.
Before he could stop it, an enraged snarl erupted from him, an animal’s fury pounding through his veins with such suddenness that it was shocking.
The man he was became the secondary part of his senses. The animal jumped forward, suddenly free, suddenly enraged, though not at the woman. No, the animal was enraged at the man and clawing beneath his flesh as he tore free of the inner restraints.
Because of the man, his mate had run.
Before Rule could stop the impulse, his hand slashed out, claw marks raked across the wall, the shock of seeing that primal, impossible sight snapping inside him.
Claws?
His fingers, blood smeared, the tips of strong, lethally sharp claws extending from the tips—
Another snarl tore from him, nearly a roar as animal instincts clashed with human ones and nearly overwhelmed him once again.
“Back off, goddammit,” he snarled furiously, reining in the animalistic impulses tearing through him.
He had to think.
Blood pounded hard and fast through his veins, chocolate and peppermint teased his taste buds, and that sure as hell didn’t make sense because he hadn’t had one of the sweets in days.
Drawing in a deep breath, her scent, her emotions, he clenched his teeth against another snarl that rose from the animal trapped inside him.
Gypsy was gone.
Her dress and her shoes were gone.
The little clutch purse she had carried was gone.
There was nothing left of her but the scent of such overwhelming pain—and God help him, shame.
He’d shamed her, humiliated her.
Pushing his fingers through his hair, the animal growled out at the silence of the room as self-disgust filled him with a suddenness that was shocking.
What the fuck had he done now and how the hell was he going to fix it? Because as God was his witness, he would have to fix it. Mate or no mate, barb or no barb, he had to get her back. He was beginning to suspect she was far more than any lover, and even without Mating Heat, a mating mark or mating hormone, he wasn’t going to be able to do without her.
He hadn’t marked her, but he knew that somehow, some way, she had marked him. The thought of that wasn’t as distasteful now as the thought of it had been, even hours ago. As though in the midst of their pleasure, in acknowledging that he’d never known so much with another woman, he’d dropped his guard enough to realize she was much more to him than he’d allowed himself to believe.
He wasn’t going to let her go.
He’d hurt her, he knew that. He could scent how much he had hurt her. But she would have to forgive him. He would find a way to make her forgive him.