Mine to Possess by Nalini Singh Read Free Book Online Page B

until you went back inside.” She gave him a shaky smile. “I knew you had to hate the fences but there you were, surviving. I thought if you could do that for me, I could do the same…for you.”
    Clay’s hands clenched into fists. Damn her. His anger was a whole lot easier to hang on to when she didn’t remind him of the girl she’d been. “How did you do?” he asked, giving in to the compulsion to know everything about her.
    She took a breath to answer but someone chose to boot up the jukebox at that second. Loud music crashed into the room. It was modulated so as not to damage keen changeling hearing, but it wasn’t exactly conducive to talk.
    He ran his debit card over the reader built into the table and rose. “Let’s go.”
    Nodding, she took a quick sip of water, then followed, staying close to him. They met Dorian just outside. The blond sentinel was in the process of getting off his sleek black motorcycle. “That your rabbit?” Hanging up his helmet, he smiled at Talin and it was a charming smile with a hint of the feral. Clay had seen women throw themselves at Dorian after being on the receiving end of that smile. “She’s kind of bitesized for you. Why don’t you give her to me?”
    Clay waited to see what Talin would do, well aware the other sentinel was simply messing with her. According to Pack law, Talin was Clay’s because she had come to him. Until and unless she wanted out—Clay’s hands fisted again—no packmate would touch her.
    â€œWhat do you say, little rabbit?”
    â€œI’m sorry,” Talin replied, sweet as honey. “I don’t do pretty boys. In fact, I don’t do boys at all.”
    Dorian choked on a laugh, then glanced at Clay’s shocked face. “Well, shit. She’s all yours, buddy.”
    Clay hustled Talin to her Jeep and pinned her to the passenger door with his hands on either side of her body. Her fear was a live thing between them, a slimy intruder that had no place being there. He fought to contain the leopard’s corresponding rage and knew from the look in her eyes that he’d only been partially successful.
    â€œYou like girls?” he asked very, very quietly.
    She shook her head, eyes big.
    â€œI can still tell when you’re lying and you weren’t lying to Dorian.”
    â€œNo, I wasn’t.” She bit her lower lip. “I was jerking his chain ’cause he was jerking mine. I said I don’t like pretty boys.”
    The leopard was too wound up to see the logic. “What do you like?”
    â€œMen.”
    Time stopped as he digested the knowledge in her eyes. “You’ve been with men.” He felt as if she’d cut him off at the knees and he shouldn’t have. Leopard changelings were sensual creatures—regular sexual contact was considered healthy and natural. He had never before judged a woman for who or how many others she’d been with.
    â€œYes.” Her skin paled. “Lots of men. So many I can’t remember their faces, much less their names. Too many for even my memory to handle.”
    Was she trying to hurt him on purpose? That she had the ability to do so enraged the leopard. Keeping that anger at bay only by dint of years of experience, he pushed off the car. “Why? You weren’t like that.”
    â€œYou knew me before puberty hit,” she said, a tight bitterness to her tone. “Can we go now or would you like a blow-by-blow?”
    â€œGet the hell in!”
    Talin got in, conscious of a deep sense of self-loathing. She’d never intended for Clay to know the depths to which she had sunk, but it had been like someone else was controlling her mouth, as if some defiant part of her wanted him to know. Now he did. And whatever chance they had had, it was gone.
    Talin couldn’t blame him for his reaction. The counselor she had finally gone to for a short period after