11. Eyes Don't Glow, Do They?

**MAEVE**

Between outraged, shocked and incredulous, I couldn’t think straight. How could I get drugged and end up in Xander's bedroom? A little part of me was thankful for the clothes I was still wearing, but having my ass warmed was the last thing on earth I’d ever imagine with a hot guy.
"Ow!"
"Do you have any idea what could have been if he had tried to take you someplace else?" Xander fumed, cracking a few more stinging slaps as I wriggled over his hard knees. And if that wasn’t bad enough, his hard member was pretty evident under my stomach.
Whoever said spanks were kinky, got nothing on me.
It stung and flared under his capable palm that descended way too hard to drive his message home.
"You are no less than a jerk!" I yelled back, unable to put a lid on my temper. I have never considered myself to be hot tempered, but right now, I didn’t even know what I was.
A husky chuckle echoed as his palm rested over my ass. "Girl, you have a funny way of lashing out."
"Let me up, Xander!"
"Is that a request or a warning?" He continued with his playful tone while his palm circled over my globes.
I would be lying if I’d say that it didn’t feel so good in the longest of time. His touch was as good as his mouth over me, except all of this was too good to be true. An odd sensation began to spread and scatter, raising goosebumps against my flesh.
Clamping down my lips to hide the moan, I squirmed around to push off from his knees. To my surprise, he actually let me up as I sat back down on the bed and instantly winced.
"Already tender?" Xander smirked, capturing my wrists in one of his huge hands to prevent me from rubbing.
"I swear I will get a restraining order against you," I glared.
He jerked my wrists and pulled me closer while his narrowed eyes glazed over my lips. With his free hand, he mindlessly stroked the soft skin, murmuring, "I have a feeling it’s not going to work on me."
"Really? Are you above law and order now?"
Xander's gaze slid up, meeting my orbs. "Something like that." The way he said those words struck something with me. Nobody was above law and order, but the clarity of his sentence was almost haunting.
I cleared my throat, quickly breaking the spell between us. "Listen, I appreciate that you saved me from that man. I am generally not like that, I mean, coming up with a stranger in a bar. But it was just a bad day and that’s it." A bad day where I was done having visions and trying to forget how amazing that kiss was.
A small sigh passed between us as his hold over my captured wrists loosened. "So as long as you are telling the truth. Tell me, Maeve, did you really feel nothing about the kiss?"


**XANDER**

My heartbeat picked up with hers as I felt her stiffen at my question. Everything about the kiss we had shared was mutual and heating, a primal sensation for wolves and humans alike. Then how could she remain so unaffected by it?
"Xander, I have already told you." Maeve averted her eyes, trying to hide away the obvious. "I need to go back to my place."
The hell she was.
I caught her chin between my fingers and captured her eyes. For the first time, the wolf in me fed on her trepidation. "You are not going anywhere until you answer me and truthfully. How are you okay with risking an evening with a stranger and not chase what you actually want?" I demanded.
"You think I want you?" No matter how hard she tried, Maeve was a terrible liar.
"I know how don’t hate me," I countered; the truth stretching as far as it went.
Trying to shut herself out, Maeve closed her eyes and pressed her lips into a thin line. When I pinched her chin tighter, her eyelids flew open in frustration. "Goddammit, Xander, why can’t you see it?"
"See what?"
"I am...weird." The annoyance slipped into desperation as she swatted away at my hand. "And you are clearly something far more sorted than I am."
"Do you realise what a ridiculous excuse is this?"
Like she was trying to convince herself of the conjured lie of her mind, Maeve sighed into the thick saturated air of my bedroom and slowly shook her head. "I am not the conventional girl you think. And yes, that kiss meant something. I don’t know what, but it was special. But that’s about it, okay? I don’t want anything more."
This girl, this mate of mine, was wrong on so many fucking levels that I couldn’t even begin. I have never been the one with talented words nor did I want to hone the skill. So I decided to make her understand in the ways only I knew how.
Capturing her face into my hands, I pierced my gaze into hers. "Tell me, you don’t feel anything right now," I rasped, almost imploring and baring my soul to hers. Even being an alpha, offering my heart and soul to your mate who has been chosen by the goddess, meant nothing less than an eternal benediction.
Her heart picked up, beating with the same passion as mine.
Bringing my lips against hers, I breathed, "I am going to kiss now and make you forget everything you could possibly conjure in your little delusional mind. Tell me no, and I will stop."
*Did I want to stop? Fates! I didn’t know, but I had to risk it.*
"Xander, please…"
"No, that’s not what I want to hear, Maeve. I want to hear a definitive no or nothing," I pressed. "I will not let you hide behind your lies anymore."
There was a pained expression etched all over her features, like she was fighting a battle of her own. "I am not lying. I am just..."
"I didn’t hear no."
Wasting no breath, my tongue plundered into her mouth and lost into the swirl of her soft, wet tongue. My hand closed against her nape and angled her head, granting more access than she would let. Every primal and guttural instinct wanted to leap out of my human skin and claim her like a beast that I was.
Maeve wasn’t the first human I had kissed, but the intensity had never felt so strong. The urge to ravage and kiss her some more was as akin to the need to hunt and howl.
It was only when her human body sagged against my arms and the air in her lungs spent, I pulled myself away and broke the vibrant connection.
"I am not what you think," she spoke after a stretched silence, still clutching onto my arms.
It made me chuckle. "Are you not human?"
"If that was a joke, it wasn’t funny."
"Then tell me."
Her nimble fingers drummed against the muscles of my forearms as her teeth sawed over her lower lip. I couldn’t read her very well yet, but the restlessness was acutely obvious. What secret could she possibly have that was bigger and deadlier than mine?
At last, she sighed. "I am awkward, and I don’t like crowds," she ranted on. "It makes me nervous. I don’t know how long I have been like this, but I am an introvert in that way. And we barely know each other for like a week."
I wish I could tell her that among us, the shapeshifters, a week was an eternity and that our heart and fate were sealed through cosmic powers. And one day she would know that as well. For now, I only beamed down at her.
"A week is enough, but humour me anyway. I know your name, where you live and that you are a nurse practitioner. Ask me what you want to know about me."
Maeve shifted a little and crossed her arms challengingly. "Your last name. I don’t even know that."
Shit. Why do these frivolous things matter for a human though? "Pride," I improvised. "Xander Pride."
Her eyebrows scrunched. "That’s not a very common name."
"In these parts, it is," I countered.
"What do you do for a living?"
That’s easy. "I own Club Fever along with my brother, Blaize. And that’s how I found you."
"Okay."
She continued to stare at me, contemplating.
"Anything else?"
To my dismay, she nodded with a little scepticism. "I don’t know how to ask this without sounding crazy. But before I fainted, I saw your eyes and they were glowing. " Shit! Her defences rose as she quickly stopped me with a raised palm. "And before you say that I was drunk, I saw them before as well. So there was no way I was wrong about it. So, tell me, Xander, why does your eyes glow?"

***Well, it will be nice to see Xander squirm a little bit, right?***