His eyes raked down her body and he imagined tearing the bright dress off. Oh, how he’d like to show her just what he could do if given the chance. How she’d beg him to take her. Beg him to dominate her. To be her alpha in a way both the wolf and man craved.
Chloe swallowed twice under his burning gaze. “If you were in a relationship with me—the real me and not the girlfriend you invented—this is exactly what would have gone down. This charade can still work. We just need to…tweak things.”
He stifled the urge to rip through her clothing, in order to focus on what she was saying. “I paid for that perfect girlfriend.”
Pain slid through those damnable green eyes, slicing him like claws. Though he’d only spoken the truth, he wished he could call the words back.
“I might not be your ideal lover,” she agreed, her voice soft, “but I can be a convincing one.” When she lifted her chin he could almost see her building up her defenses against him. “A girlfriend your pack will believe you could love.”
“Will they?” He leaned closer. How could she be so damnably infuriating and heartbreakingly vulnerable all at once? He was torn between the need to chastise her, putting her in her place, and to hold her close, soothing away that cursed hurt in her expression.
“Didn’t tonight work well?”
“Yes.” Better than he’d dared hope for all day, which grated like nothing else. He should have anticipated this. Should have crafted a story that fit the woman he’d cast to play this role, rather than those from his past. He might have been able to hide away one of his women who asked little of him, but he’d never have been able to do it with Chloe. If she were his lover in truth, she’d eventually have demanded to be taken out of the shadows. To be treated as an equal.
There was a reason he avoided dating women like her.
“There, you see?” Her hopeful voice brought him back to the present. “No need for anger.”
How little she knew of his kind. He adjusted his hand to align with the curve of her hip. “You expect a werewolf’s anger to evaporate just like that?”
She tensed. Clearly, she hadn’t been paying attention to her lessons on how to handle weres.
“How did Niall advise you to calm me?”
Her eyes grew impossibly wide as she realized his sensitive hearing had picked up her conversation.
“Peanut butter cups,” she said, her voice high.
A grin touched his lips. “Liar.”
“Sugary confections are all you’re getting from me, wolf.”
He leaned down until his lips brushed her cheek as he moved toward her ear. “Challenging an alpha?”
She exhaled slowly, the breath caressing his skin.
“It’s not in me to be anything but a partner with the men I’m with,” she finally said. “Even if the rest is pretend, that’s not going to change.”
He smiled against her neck, his inner wolf prowling ever closer to the surface. It was more than pleased with her answer. After all, an alpha wolf needed a partner who wasn’t afraid to go toe-to-toe with him every now and then.
Not that he was looking for a partner to keep.
“You, little witch, are far more trouble than you’re worth.”
She pushed him back with a hand on his chest. “And you don’t do trouble,” she said, her voice dull. “I told you I was the wrong choice.”
The idea of having Aoife in his arms, or any of the other candidates she’d paraded before him, was inconceivable.
“Wrong choice,” he mused, the words leaving him before he’d even thought them through. “That is getting less and less true with every hour I spend in your company.”
Her jaw dropped at the unexpected praise, and Kieran was ready to take full advantage of her surprise.
His lips crashed down on hers. One hand glided up to her waist, the thin silk a weak barrier at best.
Chloe made no protest as he threaded one leg between hers, angling her until she lay spread across the seat under him.
Another man would have found their positioning too awkward to work smoothly. Not so Kieran. Not once did he release her lips as he pulled her into the exact position he wanted—open and willing beneath him.
Her skirt rode up, caught beneath her so it pulled high on her thighs. Her first thought was she wasn’t wearing any hose to smooth out her curves. But when his mouth slanted over hers, the thoughts were jettisoned from her mind. Kieran didn’t strike her as a man who’d care about such things with an eager partner lying beneath him.
A gasp escaped her as his fingers brushed the naked skin of her upper thigh. This was too much. Too revealing. Too close to being something she’d never be able to forget.