Page 54 of Rock Hard

“How can you say that?” he roared.

“Because”—her voice cracked—“I was always right there. Always beside you. And yet you never saw me. Do you have any idea what that was like? What that did to me? Watching you with them, wishing ...”

“Wishing what, Alice?”

“That it was me,” she whispered.

“You could have had me any time you wanted,” he growled. “All you had to do was say the word.”

Alice’s lioness rose to the surface, too, roughening her voice to a feline growl. “And then what, Rex? Share you with them?Never.” She shook her head, suddenly exhausted. “Knowing you didn’t feel the same ... I just couldn’t.”

Rex stopped pacing and sat down on the bed, head in hands. “That’s why you didn’t tell me you were a lioness, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I thought, if you knew of my true nature, you’d use it to force me to submit.”

His entire body tensed, and his eyes blazed. “Fuck, Alice. Do you really think I would have forced you to do something you didn’t want to do? That I’d ever forceanyfemale?”

“No,” she said softly. “That’s just it, you see. Ididwant to, more than you can possibly imagine. But ... it would have destroyed me.”