by Lora Leigh
“But you read them?” Natalie pushed her hair back from her head and tried to breathe through the flash of heat that suddenly tore from her.
And he knew. His head jerked around, a frown pulling at his brows as his eyes suddenly flashed with primal awareness.
“I read them.” His voice was harder, thicker. “If you were going to arrive in my life, then I wanted to be ready.”
The heat tore through her vagina then, causing her to tighten her thighs and hold her breath against it.
Saban’s fists clenched on the counter as his body tightened.
“Saban, I need to go upstairs.”
She moved to rise from the table.
“You need me.” He kept his back to her, but he snarled the words, a declaration, an agonized certainty.
“Not like this.” She breathed out roughly, then tried to draw enough breath into her lungs to breathe through the building contraction of heat tightening in her abdomen. “I trusted you enough to allow you to stay in my home. I trusted Lyons and Wyatt enough to make certain nothing happened to me. You’ve forced me into this.”
He shook his head slowly.
“You know you did,” she whispered, tears finally thickening her voice. “You knew when you kissed me what you were doing.”
“You belong to me.” He turned then, his eyes glowing in his face, hunger and need tightening his features into savagely hewn lines. “You’ve had one day to feel what has grown inside me for weeks. One fucking day, Natalie. I’ve burned for you through the days and the nights. I’ve ached for your touch, and even that you would not give me. I flirted, I teased. I did everything those fucking books said a man should do, and nothing worked.”
Natalie stared back at him, confused, uncertain. “And you thought throwing me into this would?” she finally asked bitterly. “That forcing my compliance was the only step left? You forced this on me, Saban. How is it any different from rape?”
How was it different? His lips opened, fury pounded in his head that she would think such a thing, that she could ever believe he would force such a choice from—
Saban felt it then, the knowledge, the certainty, from her point of view, that it was exactly what he had done. He had given in to his own frustration, his anger at her defiance, his hunger, and he had unleashed it on her in a way she could never fight, one she could never escape.
He had never raped a woman in his life. The Cajun swamp rat who had raised him would have been horrified that the young man he had such pride in at his death, had done something so vile.
The sickness of it clogged his throat, tore at his conscience.
“Ely gave you the hormonal treatment, didn’t she?” he finally asked.
“That injection? Yeah, she shoved something up my veins and slapped a bottle of pills in my hand before we left. Wyatt didn’t give her much of a chance to explain them though.”
He nodded quickly. That sounded like Jonas. Jonas would do that for him, but he had done Saban no favors, no matter what he thought.
“They ease the heat.” His throat was so tight he could barely speak now. “They adjust the hormones during this phase, allow you some ease.” He grabbed the steaks and stalked to the door. “I’ll fix your dinner. Take them. Bath, shower, whatever you need.”
He slammed the door behind him and took a hard breath of fresh air, fighting to push the scent of her need and her anger from his head.
God help him, it was the same as rape.
He slapped the steaks in their protective containers on the narrow table beside the new grill before bracing his hands on the wood and staring along the forests that bordered the house.
He needed to run. He needed the mountains and the silence, he needed the peace that came with it to clear his mind, to think.
God in heaven, he hadn’t meant to do this to her. To make her feel this way. She was everything he had dreamed of for so long. Gentleness, sweetness, intelligence, and determination—and his. Something meant just for him. A gift, an affirmation that he wasn’t a freak of science but instead a product of nature and God’s mercy.
He had waited for her for so long.
Deep into the darkness of night his arms ached for her, even when another woman had lain within them. His heart had beat for her, his soul had burned for her. He hadn’t known who she was, where to find her, but he had known she was there. Known that she belonged to him.
And what had he done to this gift he had so wanted to cherish?
He had taken her will, her control, with a kiss that he still remembered with the greatest of pleasure. A kiss she had met with equal force. One she had been waiting for; he knew she had been waiting for that kiss. But it didn’t excuse it. He had known what he was doing, what would happen; she hadn’t.
“I’m sorry.” The back door opened, and the scent of her wrapped around him then.
“For what?” Rather than looking at her, he lifted the lid to the grill and ignited the flames that curled over the ceramic briquettes inside.
“It’s not the same as rape.”
Saban clenched his teeth and fought the need to fist his hands.
“You decided this for what reason?” He lowered the grill lid and watched it, as though in watching it he could make it heat and burn away the shame inside him.
“Because I already suspected the truth of it,” she finally said. “I knew it existed, and I pushed anyway because you were frustrating the hell out of me. It wasn’t rape, Saban, but neither was it right. And now we’ll both have to deal with this. But I won’t deal with it with lies between us. Not from either side.”
• CHAPTER 4 •
How could she have said something so vile to him?
Natalie felt everything inside her cringing, searing from the knowledge that she had struck out in the most unacceptable way and accused him of something so vicious.
This man, who had set aside his pride to read those stupid dating books, who had tried to charm her, tried to ease her into his arms rather than taking what he wanted.
And it had almost worked. Hell, it was working, and she had known it; it was the reason she had been confrontational. It was the reason she had fought each overture he made so fiercely. Because he was making her feel, making her want things she told herself didn’t exist.
She had suspected, in some ways she had known after she met Callan Lyons and his mate/wife, Merinus, that the rumors of a strange mating hormone/bond, and the deceleration of aging that the tabloids ran such stories around, were true.
Neither Callan nor Merinus had aged so much as a year in the past ten years; the same went for the others who had played prominent roles in the Breed freedoms and had married. Or mated, as the Breeds referred to it.
He stood stiff, still, in front of that grill, struggling, she knew, with his own emotions. She had seen the struggle in his expression before and saw it now in the tense set of his shoulders.
She wanted to touch him, ease him, and yet the fear of pushing her own arousal to that point terrified her. But she couldn’t leave him hurting, believing she felt that. She moved to him, laid her head against his back, and felt his hard indrawn breath, the minute easing of the tension.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered again.
His nod, a hard jerk of his head, was enough.
Moving back, Natalie sat down in the padded chair that was next to the patio table. Saban’s back was to her, his arms spread until his hands rested on the wooden table sides of the large grill. The muscles of his back were tense, his head lifted as he stared into the forest. She could almost feel his need to run.
Just as she had felt it before over the past month. A unique tension that gripped him despite his usual teasing manner. She wondered how much of it was an act and how much was truly a part of Saban Broussard.
“Most of what you know of me is a lie then.” He shrugged, his back still to her. “I’m snarly, I’m arrogant, I hate jokes, and baseball fascinates me.” He glanced down then. “I do like to cook.”
“I’m not much of a lady’s man, cher,” he grunted. “I’m a killer. I was created a killer, raised as one, and once I escaped, I killed to stay free.”
Natalie watched as he turned to her, his expression still and composed; only his eyes raged with emotion.
“I know what the Breeds are, Saban,” she murmured. “And now I know why you tried to be something you weren’t.” She shook her head stiffly.
God, this arousal stuff was killing her. It was bad enough before that kiss, but now it was tearing through her system, nearly making her ill.
And he knew it, he could smell it, he could feel it.
“Natalie, take the hormones,” he said, his voice gravelly as she watched his fingers form fists against the wood. “Go inside. I’ll fix the steaks, and I’ll be in in a bit.”
“Has it been like this for you since the beginning?” She needed to know what she was dealing with, who she was dealing with.
“A week before I came to your door and introduced myself, I watched you.” She jerked in surprise, watching as his head lifted to the soft breeze that fell from the mountains around them. “You were alone in the house, your bedroom window was open, and the scent of your arousal drifted down to me. You were masturbating.”
Natalie felt her face flame and had no chance to hide her embarrassment as he swung around and crouched in front of her chair.
“I could taste your sweet scent on the air,” he growled, his face only inches from hers. “Needy, aching, your pussy throbbed for satisfaction, and you found none.” His lips pulled back from his teeth in hunger, his eyes burned with it as his voice lowered. “And I knew I could ease you. I knew I longed to ease you with a strength that overcame even my need to kill the bastards who hunted us for so many years. And I knew, tasting the scent of your juices in the air, that you were my mate.”
“How?” Desperation filled her, longing, fear, so many emotions, so many needs she couldn’t make sense of. “How could you have known, Saban?”
He took her hand before she could draw back and flatted her palm over his heart. “That night was the first time in my life that I realized my heart beat. In my life I have never known fear, nor excitement, or nerves. I was always calm. Always steady. But that night, Natalie. That night, I felt all those things, cher. I felt them rip inside me, tear through my soul, and fill me. Without control. Without volition. I had no choice, because you’re the other part of me. My soul, boo. My mate.”
He should have looked ridiculous, kneeling there in front of her, her hand pressed into his chest, unfortunately, he looked anything but ridiculous. He looked arrogant; he looked like a man determined to claim his woman.
Sexy, savage, hungry. He wasn’t pleading, he wasn’t asking permission for her heart. He was claiming it, and as far as he was concerned, it was that simple.
“It doesn’t work that way.” She could feel his heart beneath her hand, strong and steady. “Just because you want it—”
“Doesn’t make it so.” His lips twisted with an edge of bitterness. “But the mating heat does make it so, Natalie. What you said, about the choice being taken from you, may be true from your perspective, at this moment. But it isn’t true of mine. If you weren’t meant to be my heart, and I yours, then it would not have happened.”
“Saban, there are no guarantees in life,” she snapped, frustrated, feeling the pressure his certainty brought her. “I just walked out of a marriage that nearly destroyed me with one controlling man. I don’t need to jump out of the frying pan into the fire.”
As the last word left her lips, heat bloomed in her womb, between her thighs. Her teeth clenched on the agonizing pleasure. It wasn’t pain. It was a need for pleasure, and it was sharp, intense, destructive to her self-control.
“I took the damned pills,” she groaned, wrapping her arms around her stomach, pressing, fighting against the clenching, spasming need that tore through it.
“The hormone in the kiss raises the arousal level,” he said softly. “The hormone in the male semen eases it somewhat.”
He pushed her hair back from her face, his hard hands stroking pure pleasure along the sides of her face.
“I suspected.” She shook her head. “The tabloid stories, all those silly articles. When I came to Sanctuary and met Callan and Merinus, I suspected parts of them were true.”
And she had been intrigued, curious about the Breed who watched her with hungry eyes and pretended to be something, someone he wasn’t.
“Parts of them are true,” he agreed. “Let me ease you, Natalie. Let me take away the pain.”
His lips touched hers, a butterfly kiss that had her own lips parting and a breath of need escaping her lips.
“I’m going to regret this.” She knew she was.
Natalie opened her eyes and stared back at him, desperation, need, and fear roiling together inside her. “I can’t handle shackles, Saban. I can’t be controlled.” The fear of it was ripping through her mind, destroying the balance she had found after her divorce.
Because she was being controlled. By the mating hormone he had spilled into her system, by her own body, by needs she couldn’t deny because everything inside her was demanding his touch.
“I’ll call Ely,” he growled. “She can strengthen the pills.”
Natalie shook her head, her hands jerking up to cover his as he moved to straighten away from her.
“Touch me. Just touch me.” She could feel the perspiration pouring from her face now, the weakness invading her body. “Saban, this is worse than she predicted. Oh God, this is bad.”
Dr. Ely Morrey had explained what she could expect in the first stage of the mating heat. But she’d said it only got worse after mates had sex that first time. Before that, the arousal would stay steady, a little uncomfortable, until she and Saban actually had sex.
If it was worse than this later, then she didn’t know if she would survive it.
She stared back at Saban, seeing the agony in his eyes, the knowledge that he hadn’t expected this either.
“Cher, Natalie.” His thumbs smoothed over her cheeks. “Go inside, away from me. I’ll finish this meal for you. You can eat.”
She shook her head.
“If we stay out here, bébé, we’ll end up fucking out here.” He was breathing hard, his chest moving fast and hard as his hands tightened around her face. “The scent of your arousal is making me insane. My control is thin enough as it is.”
She licked her lips nervously. “Come in with me.”
The fact that she had made the decision, that she was actually considering having sex with him at this point shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did. This arousal wasn’t painful, not in the sense of levels or degrees of pain. Instead, it was imperative, desperate; her skin was crawling with the need to be touched, her mouth watering for the taste of him.
“Go in,” he said tightly. “I’ll bring the food back in and come to you.”
She shook her head.
“Get away from me, Natalie,” he snarled, jerking to his feet, surprising her with his vehemence. “Go inside. Five minutes. Give yourself five minutes away from me, make certain without me that your wisest choice isn’t to call Ely first.”
“You started this.” She jumped from the chair and faced him, anger rising inside her, pounding through her blood and spearing through her senses as it strengthened along with the lust. “You shot this freaky hormone into my system; now you can take care of it.”
If she could just get past the need, just for a few minutes, just long enough to think again, then she could figure it out. But she knew, until he touched her, until he took her, there wasn’t going to be a clear thought in her head.
A growl rumbled in his throat. “It’s too strong right now,” he grated. “I won’t take you easy.”
“If you tried to take me easy, I might have to kill you,” she r
aged back, her hands fisting in his shirt as she felt the flames of need licking over her flesh. “Saban, please, just touch me. Do something, anything so I can think.”
“So you can figure a way out of this?” Bitterness filled his voice, but he was touching her, easing her backward into the house, the steaks forgotten.
“So I can figure out how to handle this.” Maybe she was accepting there was no way out of it, but she didn’t accept what she knew was coming from it.
She liked Saban. She hadn’t realized how much she liked him until she had to think about it, had to categorize the relationship that had developed. She cared for him. She would miss him, God, miss him so bad if he wasn’t here, but she didn’t love him. She didn’t want to love him. And she didn’t want to be controlled by him or some damned hormonal aphrodisiac.
The door locked behind him, and Natalie found herself lifted against him, his arms like steel bands around her as his kiss became a tease. He licked and nibbled at her lips, giving her just a taste of the spicy, storm-laden essence of his kiss. He made her crave more. Made her moan, her arms tighten around his neck, her tongue dip past his lips to taste more of him.
“We won’t make it to the bedroom if you keep this up,” he warned her, his voice dark, rough, a growling rasp that sent a shiver racing through her as one hand pushed beneath the elastic band of her pants to cup the curve of her cheek.
“So?” She didn’t care.
As he held her against him, her hands slid from around his neck to the buttons of his shirt. She wanted to feel him, wanted to touch him. The weeks he had followed her through the house that image had played out in her mind. Turning, ripping the buttons free and jerking the material from his body before rubbing against him like a cat. Like he had a habit of rubbing against her every chance he had.