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undercurrents. I’d torn my eyes away. I’d accepted his
authority over me.
    Definitely a predator.
    I’d grown up in a neighborhood that ranked us
at the bottom of the social food chain. Lashan may have had all that money, but
I still didn’t have the confidence to challenge someone for dominance. I was a
woman. I was a vampire. There were a lot of creatures out there much stronger
than me.
    The meeting adjourned. Charlene and I waited
for the others to filter out of the office before we walked to the door.
    “Oh my god,” I breathed.
    “I know, right?” she answered. She knew I
meant Donald Crowe. “He’s a force of nature, if I’ve ever seen one. And Ring
travels in big circles. I’ve seen a couple.”
    She slipped through the glass door and down
the hall to Ring’s office. He would need her for his morning coffee and bagel.
I dropped a file. When I picked it up, and straightened myself up, I was chest
to chest with Donald Crowe.
    His presence took my breath away. His dark
eyes bore into mine, and it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the
room.
    “Excuse me,” I said and my voice sounded much
thinner. I forced my eyes away from his. I didn’t want him to think this was a
challenge.
    The human world, which we worked in, was a
strange place for our animal behavior to exist.
    Donald didn’t move. Instead he leaned in
closer to me, closed his eyes, and breathed in. It was as if he smelled my
scent. It made me uncomfortable. I wasn’t available.
    “I have a mate,” I whispered. Lashan was
protective. If he knew I spent a lot of my time in rooms full of males without
him around to claim me, he would be livid. This would send him right over the
edge.
    “You’re not wearing a ring,” he said, his
voice so deep it was almost a growl.
    I couldn’t answer him. Not because I didn’t
know how to explain why I didn’t, but because there was something about him
that was ridiculously attractive. I didn’t want to step away from him, or leave
the room behind with him in it. My skin suddenly burned with a yearning for him
to touch me.
    I realized that he had the power to do that to
me. Some shifters had the ability to use magic beyond changing appearance. And
Donald had it bad.
    “Please,” I said again, my eyes on the ground.
    “I like you like this,” he said. That riled me
up.
    “I’m a vampire,” I said, snapping my eyes to
his and locking them. I wouldn’t challenge him, but this was about my rights.
“I don’t submit to anyone. Only… my mate.” I didn’t know why it was so hard to
say the last bit. Because the truth was that I didn’t even submit to him. He
didn’t demand it anymore, which made it easier for me not to. But if he did,
I’d fight it.
    “I didn’t mean submissive,” he said. His glaze
slid over me, and it felt like he was physically touching me everywhere his
eyes rested. My breath caught in my throat. “I meant the ache you have burning
inside of you.”
    I took a step back.
    “What do you know? You don’t know me.”
    He only looked at me, his eyes smiling even
when his mouth didn’t. I wished he would reach out and touch me. But he didn’t,
and I scolded myself for being like a love-struck teenager. Instead he walked
away. I was left in the board room, unbalanced, disheveled, and wondering what
the hell was wrong with me.

2
    It took half a day for the sensation to
finally leave my body. I felt like a live wire. I struggled to focus on my
work, and the day rolled by in a jagged line. By three I was only halfway with
the deadline memos that I had to get out to the board. I knew I had to finish
it up, but I had to get home if I wanted to be there before Lashan. I couldn’t
afford being late.
    I knocked on the door that led to Mr. Ring’s
office. Charlene beckoned me in. The office was divided up so she had an area
that she could call her own, and it doubled as a waiting are for his clients.
    “I have to get going, and I’m not nearly
finished with