Savage Urges (The Phoenix Pack, #5)(30)

“Another missing person?” Makenna rolled her eyes. “Why can’t you let this go?”

Ryan’s eyes dropped to her lower lip—a lip he couldn’t stop thinking about marking again. “I want to know your name.”

“I’m Makenna Wray, a loner who’s a gas station clerk and does volunteer work at a shelter. That’s who I am.”

“It’s who you are now. But who were you before that?”

“Your cell’s ringing.”

It was, but he ignored it. “Are you afraid that if I find out who you’re hiding from, I’ll contact them?” Midsentence, his voice faded into an offended growl. He would never betray her.

She cocked her head. “You know, if you’re not frowning, you’re growling, or both.”

“And you’re avoiding my question. You do that a lot.” Ryan leaned forward, bringing his face close to hers. She lifted her chin, refusing to be intimidated. His wolf f*cking loved that. “Why won’t you tell me, Kenna?”

The abbreviation of her name made her blink in surprise. “It’s Makenna. And we’ve talked about this, White Fang. You need to respect my boundaries.”

“Maybe. But I won’t.” The wild glint in her eyes sparked for a second. It was most likely wrong that her anger made his cock throb. But all that wildness . . . it was something that spoke to his wolf, something that Ryan would bet made her just as wild in bed. He wanted to find out, wanted to be balls deep in her with her pulse beating between his teeth.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she hissed.

“Why would I do that?”

“Look, I’m going to be straight with you. I don’t have a lot of free time, so I don’t do relationships. But I don’t do the bed-buddy thing either; bed buddies tend to want exclusivity.” Something dark and dangerous flashed in his eyes—a rare display of emotion that made her tense.

“No one but me will touch you.” His tone was even but implacable.

She cocked an impervious brow at him. “Oh? And why, pray tell, is that?”

“For the same reason I asked you to be safe for me. You’re my mate, Makenna.”

Her mind went blank for a moment. He was kidding, right? He had to be. Only . . . he didn’t look like he was. She cleared her suddenly dry throat. “Why would you think that?”

“I don’t think it, I know it. The facts are there.”

“What facts?”

“Since day one, all I’ve thought about is being balls deep in you. Your scent drives me insane. My wolf hates being apart from you. You’re an outsider, a loner, but I’d f*cking kill to protect you. And I’d kill to possess you. I’m not a possessive person, Makenna. But I’d like to string Colton up by his intestines for touching you.”

Not for a single second would Makenna have guessed that he’d been feeling that way. He was too damn good at hiding his emotions. Her wolf was uncharacteristically quiet. Surprised? Alarmed? Curious? Makenna couldn’t tell.

Returning his honesty with her own, Makenna said, “I won’t say that the attraction is only one way. I admit, I don’t like it when females are mooning over you. And I don’t like the idea of you in danger. And my wolf . . . well, she feels the same way. But if we were mates, we’d know. We’d feel the pull of the mating bond.”

“Not if the frequency is jammed by mental barriers or anxieties about mating.” Wanting—no, needing—to touch her, Ryan shackled her wrist, circling her madly beating pulse with his thumb. “What do you fear, Makenna? What about mating makes you afraid?”

Her spine snapped straight. “Who says I’m afraid of mating?”

“I’ve watched you. A lot. You’re not easy to read. Mostly because you don’t act or think normally.” Why she looked proud of that, he wasn’t sure. “You put a lot of time and effort into helping others. But you don’t let many into your life. You step into their life, but you don’t let them step into yours.”

There was more truth in that than she was comfortable with.

“Maybe it’s because you don’t want them to know your secrets. Maybe it’s because you once lost someone important to you.”

Flushing, she tried to yank her hand away; he held it tight. “You can stop analyzing me now.”

“Those sort of issues would jam a mating frequency.”

“Did you ever consider—assuming we are mates—that maybe you’re jamming it, not me? You can’t tell me you don’t have issues of your own.”

“I have issues. But I haven’t let them blind me to the truth.”

As his eyes roamed over her face with a fierce possessiveness that made her stomach clench, she said, “You’re absolutely positive about this, aren’t you?”

“We wouldn’t be having this conversation if I wasn’t.”

“How long have you believed this?”

“Since yesterday.”

Well that explained the odd behavior he’d displayed. He’d probably felt as shocked as she was feeling right now. Honestly, Makenna had never imagined herself mating. Ryan was right; she didn’t know how to be open with people. A part of her had shut down after her mother died. For as long as she could remember, it had always been the two of them against the world—Fiona Wray had been everything to Makenna, her rock, her safe place.