Lion's Heat

by Lora Leigh

  here, ached to feel it there.

  "Jonas." She whispered his name, knowing he was nowhere close to losing his remarkable control.

  Should she break it? Could she break it?

  She stared down at his dark head, dazed, nearly ready to beg for more.

  "Do you think this is enough?" she whispered as his head lifted.

  "No, it's never enough." His lips rubbed against her nipple again.

  God, it was incredible, just that much.

  His hand flattened against her stomach, his fingers edging down, lower, pushing into the curls between her thighs as Rachel felt her juices spilling from her pussy.

  She was beginning to lose the train of thought, the determination to make him lose control. Probably because his fingers were working around her clit, stroking her into insanity.

  "I want more." Her hands moved from his chest to his abdomen, to the low band of the sweatpants he wore.

  She wanted them off. She wanted to feel every inch of his body bare against her. She wanted the feel of his cock, hard and thick, pressing against her, inside her.

  First. Oh God, first she wanted the feel of it in her hands, against her lips.

  Could she do it?

  She'd never done it before because she'd been too embarrassed. Because she'd never understood why she would want to--until now. Now she knew why she wanted to do it. She wanted to make him feel so good. She wanted to hear him growl, snarl. She wanted to know what it would take to make him purr.

  The elastic band slipped down his thighs, over the heavy flesh of the shaft as Jonas jerked, groaned and pulled her against him.

  His hands were locked on her hips, his head thrown back as he lifted her to him, his cock pressed tight and hard against the mound of her pussy as she heard that hard rumble in his chest once again.

  She felt her feet leave the floor and a second later he was laying her back on the bed, coming over her, his lips drawn back in a grimace of hunger.

  Incisors flashed, strong and sharp at the sides of his mouth.

  She felt his knee press between hers, parting her thighs, moving over her.

  "This isn't fair." Weak, shaking, her hands pressed against his chest as he came over her.

  She wanted to pleasure him, needed to take him.

  "What isn't fair? I'll make it fair. I promise, whatever it takes to make it fair, just sweet God, let me feel you."

  "Let me feel you first." She pushed at his shoulders.

  His eyes narrowed. "Don't do this, Rachel."

  "Do what?" She shifted against him, her leg stroking over his, feeling the nearly invisible, very fine hairs that covered it like the softest down.

  Heat prickled the skin where they touched, warmed her flesh.

  "Let me control this, Rachel," he breathed out roughly. "I promise, it will be so good."

  "Maybe it will be so good if I get to touch too," she suggested, her tone throaty, surprising her, a sense of fun building inside her.

  He made her want to have fun. It was as though he challenged her to challenge him. It was that self-control he had. It made a woman just want to crush it.

  "I have no doubt it would be." A slow smile curled his lips, one of the rare, true smiles she had seen from him. "But let's see how this feels first."

  He licked her.

  Rachel froze as his tongue stroked, light as air, over her shoulder, spreading that same sense of heat that feathered over her legs when his had stroked against them.

  His tongue rasped, just a little bit. Just enough to feel dark and wildly primal. Enough to send a forbidden thrill racing through her mind.

  He was good at keeping the upper hand: the stroke of his tongue, the twist of his body, the way he pulled her against him, his hand curving around a soft mound of her rear to tuck her hips against his.

  His teeth nipped the lobe of her ear. Lightly. So very lightly. His hands stroked over her, the pad of one finger rubbing against her nipple as she felt the slightest pinch.

  A scrape, like his nail against the areola, sent a bolt of heat racing across her nipple to her clit.

  She twisted beneath him. She wanted so much more. Heat was building between her thighs, washing through her body. The feel of his cock pressing against the mound, blazing against her clit, was making her insane.

  His hips rolled, thrust, slid from side to side, stroking the hard, heated shaft through the heavy, slick moisture. The folds of her pussy, swollen and sensitive, parted beneath the pressure. Her clit was in agony, release held just out of reach as she arched beneath him.

  She had to see him, watch him.

  Opening her eyes, she stared above her. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his shoulders. A rivulet ran down his chest, slow and easy, rolling with lazy sensuality as her lips parted, her head lifting as her tongue peaked out to catch the little droplet of moisture.

  Cinnamon and cloves. A rich, dark storm. Midnight and madness. The tastes infused her senses as she felt him move. Her thighs were parted farther, a hesitation as he rolled a condom over the hard length of his cock. There was something wrong with that. She knew she should protest it, but before she could form the words, before she could remember why, he was pressing inside her.

  Fiery, intense, pleasure-pain washed through her. The stretching of delicate, tender muscles, the stroke of his thick, hard flesh easing inside her. It was exquisite. It was like burning alive inside a fiery storm that she couldn't control or escape.

  For the first time, he wasn't behind her as he gave her pleasure. He was staring down at her, his silver eyes darkening, turning into a storm of mercury, a heated conflagration that matched the wildfire surging through her senses now.

  Bit by bit, one agonizing inch at a time, his hips rolled, pressed and worked the hardened flesh deeper inside her.

  She had to look. To watch. Staring between her thighs, she could see the latex-sheathed erection glistening from the dampness that he was pushing through. It was broad, dark, parting the folds of her flesh and disappearing inside her.

  He was taking her.

  Her head flung back as he pushed in deeper, a hard, demanding thrust followed by a groan of pleasure as she arched beneath him and the length of his cock disappeared fully inside her.

  Heat, ecstasy, the feeling of complete surrender, total freedom, infused her. She felt as though she were flying, as though they were locked in a flight of complete rapture, racing toward the sun.

  Light and color exploded behind her closed eyes as Jonas began to move. He fucked her as though each stroke were to be relished, remembered, forever imprinted in both their minds.

  His hips thrust, rolled, shifted from side to side, causing his erection to stretch her farther, to reveal previously hidden nerve endings and erogenous zones in their climb to release.

  She couldn't breathe. She was gasping for air, certain she was going to pass out. The pleasure was so intense, hunger so deep and strong inside her, she couldn't get enough. She would never get enough. She would always need more.

  No wonder his lovers were so hard to get rid of in the past, she thought hazily. This was why. Because he fucked like a dream, like a dark fantasy come to life to possess her very soul with no more than this. This possession.

  Lifting her legs, she wrapped them around his waist and fought to hold on to him as the pleasure began to spiral out of control.

  Control was lost. Above her, Jonas's thrusts were becoming harder, faster. She could hear the growls coming from his chest, animalistic, feral, as his cock plunged inside her, fucking her with a furious pace as she began to tighten beneath him.

  Sensations raced through her system, poured through her bloodstream. The brush of the air against her flesh was exquisite; the feel of his body thrusting inside hers was rapture.

  Her hips lifted, her head arched back into the blankets and the cry that spilled from her lips was barely muffled by the hard, calloused palm that suddenly clamped over her lips.

  Rachel exploded. Her orgasm tore through he
r mind and body, reaching clear to her soul as she pierced the blazing, white-hot center of fire awaiting her.

  She was dying in his arms. She lost her breath, her will, the very heart of who and what she was, as ecstasy climbed inside her, exploding over and over again, pulsing in fiery bursts through her body.

  Above her, Jonas thrust in one last time, hard, deep, holding still as she felt his erection throb and pound with such fierce motions that a part of her wondered if he felt pleasure or pain from his own release.

  That part was distant though, shielded by light and color, by sensations that never seemed willing to stop but vibrated inside her again and again.

  She couldn't stop coming. Each time he moved, each time his cock throbbed, another explosion detonated, another pulse of pleasure tore through her.

  Until finally, he was jerking free of her, still hard, his breathing still rough as he collapsed beside her and pulled her gently into his arms.

  Soothingly, with the utmost gentleness, his hand stroked down her back, easing her until her breathing finally slowed and a measure of normalcy returned to her limbs. She no longer felt too weak to move, too weak to breathe.

  Her hand lay against his chest, feeling his heartbeat as the fierce, hard pounding eased to a measured beat and assured her that they would both survive the experience.

  For long moments, Rachel had feared that wasn't going to happen.

  "Sleep with me," he murmured, his voice drowsy as he shifted them both against the pillows and pulled the sheet over their bodies. "Right here, Rachel. Let me feel you against me through the night."

  She didn't have a problem with that. Settling against his chest, she exhaled tiredly and slipped into sleep.

  When he was certain she slept, Jonas slipped slowly from the bed, pulled the blankets around her body, then rolled the broken condom from his cock before pulling a sterilized baggie from the drawer by his bed and dropping it in. It was a damned good thing Ely had thought to supply him with them, just in case something unusual happened. Something had damned sure happened, just as something else hadn't: He hadn't come.

  He was as hard as forged iron.

  His mouth burned from the taste of the hormone in his mouth, its properties obviously intensifying as he defied the demand that he share its taste with his mate.

  He was losing control. He had never bitten her. It would have taken no more than the slightest break of her skin to give the hormone the chance to mark her, to throw her into the mating heat. And nature was damned determined to do it too. Lust was an insanity pounding through his blood now, raking sharpened claws over exposed nerve endings. Wanting her was hell. It was destroying his mind, because he couldn't take her. Not yet.

  Holding back was his only option. It was the only way to ensure that she fell in love with him. He couldn't bear to feel as though she were being forced into his arms and into his bed.

  Striding through the living room, he pulled the sat phone from the charger on the kitchen counter and moved to the far end of the room.

  "Jonas, what's wrong?" Ely was on the line instantly.

  "The barb breeched the condom." It was unheard of for a mated Breed to use a condom. Just as it was unheard of for the barb to extend without a mutual mating. Not that anyone had tried it as of yet.

  "I need the condom," Ely stated brusquely. "The barb has minute hormonal properties. If we're very lucky, then the condom might have caught some of it."

  "Quite a bit of it." He grimaced. "I didn't release, but the barb did."

  "What the hell is going on with you?" Ely snapped. "Mate her already."

  "Not yet, Ely." He shook his head as he rubbed at the back of his neck. "I want her love. Rachel won't trust what she feels for me if she doesn't realize she loves me before she's tied to me for the rest of our unnatural lives."

  Hell, who knew how long a mated Breed could actually live?

  "Besides," he sighed, "there's still the truth to tell here. I won't mate her without it."

  Silence filled the line. He knew Ely didn't agree with him. The truth, she claimed, would only be proven if it happened; until then it was no more than a supposition.

  He'd been created to sire a creature unlike any that the scientists had created. A true animal in a man's body. How could he tie his mate to him without first warning her what she would be giving birth to when that day came?

  "I need the condom," she repeated. "And I need you in here ASAP. Leave your Enforcers to watch Rachel. I'll be waiting in the labs."

  The line disconnected. Bringing the phone down, Jonas stared at it with a sense of amusement. Damn, Ely was getting bossier than she had ever been. That wasn't a good thing.

  But she was right. She needed whatever he could give her now. Soon, there would be no chance for tests, examinations or nosy doctors. The animal inside him was raging out of control, the mating urge was tearing at his mind. And he knew, once he had Rachel, once he completed the mating cycle, he would become the most possessive son of a bitch ever known.

  He was afraid he would make her hate him.

  CHAPTER 14

  Jonas strode into his office the next morning, aware of the taut expression on his face and the tension that filled his entire body stretched tight. It was hard to miss the toll the mating heat was taking on him. And if he had missed it, then Ely was quick to point it out each morning.

  Hours in the labs with Ely hadn't produced any answers, only more questions. Questions such as what the hell was the hormone in his mating semen?

  Mating semen came from the barb only, ejaculated after the main release, and mixing with Breed semen, which held just a few human sperm. The mating semen seemed to strengthen the human sperm as well as laying in important Breed DNA and a hormone that eased the mating heat for a short period of time.

  The mating hormone Jonas had ejaculated had held all the same biological components as any other Breed mate's, but it had held a few additions as well. Additions that Ely was still frowning over when he'd left an hour before.

  Returning to the cabin, he'd found Rachel in the office, right on time, Amber in her crib in the room beside her and everything running with the same efficiency that it ran with in D.C.

  The only thing not running right was Jonas.

  "Lawe, Rule, with me," he snapped to the two Enforcers waiting in Rachel's office as he strode through it.

  Lawe and Rule followed him into his office, closed the door behind them, then stood and watched him silently. He could feel their readiness, their tense preparation for what they sensed.

  Jonas was a man running on borrowed time, because the animal inside him was growing stronger by the day.

  "I want a complete investigative profile done on Devon Marshal," he ordered. "Go deeper than we went before. I want to know who breathed the air that son of a bitch has breathed before he did. I want to know every strand of hair on his head, and who the hell is supplying his drugs. And I want to know why I smelled the scent of Brandenmore on him when he arrived yesterday evening."

  It had taken Jonas a while to figure it out. His senses were so screwed up with Rachel right now that he was dangerous.

  "Crank said the bastard stank," Lawe grunted.

  "Of Brandenmore," Jonas agreed. "My guess is the son of a bitch was in the limo. Attempts had been made to diffuse the scent, but it was there. If he was that close, it was only because they were certain they would get Amber out of Sanctuary. I want to know why he wants her, and what he's after, and I want to know now."

  Rage was eating inside him at the thought of what Brandenmore, a genius in pharmaceuticals, could have planned for such a small child. Especially a child he knew Jonas would never allow him to take.

  "Jess Warden is trying to reach you as well, Jonas," Rule informed him quietly. "The lawyers for Horace Engalls have filed a protest with Sanctuary against the Enforcers we placed on surveillance to keep him from leaving the country as well. They've demanded we stop following him and have also demanded an immediate hearing with
the ruling cabinet to hear their arguments."

  Which meant, according to Breed Law statutes, Engalls was pretty much fucked. It would first have to go to the pre-cabinet, six Breeds and three humans who would decide if the ruling cabinet needed to hear the arguments. Then, and only then, would it go to the ruling cabinet, of which Jonas was a member. Once the request was kicked back and vetoed, only then could it go to court, where at least five or more Breeds had to sit on the jury.

  Sucked to be Engalls this year.

  "Not happening," Jonas growled. "Have the Enforcers appear to back off. Let's see what he has planned. If he attempts to get on a plane, then I want them there as well. I want to know what he's doing, where he's going, and what the hell he's doing each time he goes to the men's room. And I want to know before he does it."

  Engalls would try to run next. So far, Brandenmore was having incredible luck with his little escape to the Middle East. The country that had taken him in was also providing lawyers and financial resources designed to buy Brandenmore out of his current predicament.

  "Dog's been trying to reach you as well." Lawe kept his voice low. "Seems Brandenmore has a nice little lab where he's staying. He hasn't left the royal palace yet that they can see, so there's been no chance to grab him, and Dog hasn't found a way to slip into Brandenmore's suite yet."

  Jonas lips thinned. "Tell Dog he has forty-eight hours to capture Brandenmore, get him on a plane and be headed my way. I have a feeling we don't have much longer here."

  Pulling up his email, he began to sift through it quickly, his eyes scanning each subject header as his lips thinned further.

  The Breeds were either loved, or hated, according to which story was hitting the gossip rags and who liked them at the time. At present, several of the world's largest box office draws thought it was cool to have Breeds for friends.

  Tanner Reynolds made a great movie star groupie, though his wife, Scheme, was a bit more standoffish. There were other Breeds, trained in the art of endearing trust and friendship, who were working the same angles under Tanner's careful eye.

  The groups opposing the Breeds were looking for a war though, believing there were no more than the thousand or so accounted-for Breeds that they would have to face.

  How wrong they were, and Jonas wondered the panic many governments would feel to learn just how wrong they truly were about the Breeds' actual numbers.

  "Dog will try, but I'd bet against it happening," Lawe stated as he moved closer to Jonas's desk. "Just as I'd bet for Engalls attempting to run in the next forty-eight hours. The protest and filing with pre-cabinet is just an attempt to divert your attention and force you to travel to D.C. to handle it yourself. Which would either leave Amber and Rachel here, where a spy could get to them; or in D.C., where they would be more accessible to a well-planned abduction attempt."

  Mates rarely traveled alone. If Jonas went to D.C., Rachel, and possibly Amber, would be accompanying him. And there was no way that would happen without a full unit of Enforcers covering them.

  Jonas would have to pull back the unit covering Engalls, pull a team from a mission, or pull in one of the units he kept in the shadows, revealing there were still more Breeds who had remained hidden thus far.

  A straggler here and there didn't hurt the society one way or the other. But if units started popping up, they were going to be in trouble.

  "Keep Alpha Team One on standby," he ordered Lawe. "Inform mission control they're at my command."

  Lawe nodded quickly. As a member of Alpha Team One, he knew exactly how often they were needed and how many missions they could be sent out on in any given week.

  "Rule, I want you talk to Sherra. Pull in the two female units we have here at Sanctuary. No one is used to seeing us use the female units. Let's see how pretty and defenseless we can make them look, if you don't mind. I'd prefer they not be seen as a threat unless we have no other choice."

  That "no other choice" was only a life-or-death situation.

  "I want more teams added to the mountain patrols as well." Jonas frowned over the map of Sanctuary that he brought up. "So far, each time we've had an attempted kidnapping from Sanctuary they've used the ravine here, where Mordecai found evidence of a watcher, or the ravines here, farther up." Jonas pointed out the weak areas. "Hidden sensors are in place now, but I want several teams patrolling each of those areas from here on out. If Kane has any problems with it, then please have him contact me."

  Kane Tyler was head of Sanctuary's security, and a damned good man for it. But Jonas could feel the edge of premonition pricking at him now. There was going to be trouble, and he had no idea from which direction it was coming. And neither did Cassie.

  "Callan and Leo have requested that you come to the main house, along with your mate and child, tonight for dinner." Lawe seemed hesitant to relay that information. "I believe it might have been the Leo's idea."

  The Leo. His father.

  Jonas rubbed at the back of his neck. They wouldn't have asked just for the hell of it.

  "Find out what time," he growled, feeling his tension ratcheting higher now.

  Lawe nodded. "By the way, congratulations."

  Jonas looked up from the computer and frowned. "For what?"

  Rule and Lawe both stared at him as though he were crazy.

  "You're mated. Congratulations. We scented the proof of it the minute Rachel opened the door and allowed us in. It's particularly strong . . ." Lawe trailed off as Jonas stared back at him in surprise.

  "There has been no mating," he told the other man.

  There hadn't been. If there had, Jonas wouldn't be in the physical hell he was in.

  Lawe scratched at the side of his cheek. "Well, there's no scent of crazy lust coming from her, I admit." He cleared his throat nervously. "But the mating scent is there, Jonas. There's no missing it."

  Unless you were the mate. His own scent was so familiar to him that he wouldn't have detected the mating scent itself on Rachel. That scent was for other males, not for the mate.

  Ely was right; he needed to get Rachel to the labs for testing as soon as possible. If he carried the mating out, then the examination would be painful, too painful. Though according to his Enforcers, the mating had already been completed.