by Lora Leigh
The effects were different, the agonizing heat not nearly as uncomfortable. Or perhaps it wasn’t as noticeable as pain. Saban had known pain. Pain so agonizing, so brutal that the need to fuck, no matter how vicious, was more pleasure than agony.
But it was bordering on intensely irritating as he checked out the house. He went over the security diagnostics and then ran the secondary sensors for electronic listening devices, explosives, and a variety of threats.
His dick was spike hard and threatening to rip his zipper from his jeans, but if he was going to fuck in peace, then he had to make damned sure the house was safe first.
Moving back to the living room, his gaze moved instinctively to his mate. She was curled in the corner of the couch, watching him, molasses eyes dark and hot, her body vibrating with arousal.
She was perfection to him. It didn’t matter that another had taken her, that she had loved another, he told himself. But did she still love him? Were there emotions that had carried over from her marriage that now hampered her ability to see her ex-husband as he was?
“You’re watching me with that predatory look in your eyes again,” she announced, her voice husky, edging into passion.
God, he loved the sound of her voice when she desired him. When the heat was building and her pussy was creaming.
“Perhaps I’m considering dessert.” He moved closer to her, his teeth clenching at the needs suddenly rocking through him.
The heat building in her wrapped around his senses, intoxicated him, made his blood boil. It had been like that the moment he had laid eyes on her, watching her from afar. She had been an assignment when he landed in Nashville, where she had worked in a small public school as a teacher. Within hours she had become the most important thing in his life. In the weeks since, she had become even more. She had become his soul.
That knowledge made his need for her harder, sharper. It made him all too aware that his position in her life was precarious, despite the mating heat. As much as he hated it—and he did hate it—there had been another male in her life at one time, and that male was encroaching on his territory.
Saban had been created and trained to deal with such irritations with maximum force. He had been raised by an old man he called Broussard to know compassion and to follow something far greater than death.
As he stood there, staring at his mate, he wondered which would win. The training or the upbringing, because at this moment he wanted nothing more than to shed blood and to protect his mate. Because something inside him—that primal, primitive part of him—warned him that his mate needed protecting against Mike Claxton.
“You don’t look like a man considering dessert.” She unfolded herself from the couch, a sinuous, sexy move that had his nostrils flaring to both draw the scent of her into his head and to maintain control. The scent tested the control, but he resisted for the moment.
“I’m a man considering many things.” Foremost, he was considering the best way to maneuver his very intelligent, very confrontational little mate.
Her low laugh was knowing, sexy. The scent of her was like sunrise, like spring and innocence, and like a woman moving slowly, confidently into her place in her mate’s life.
He liked that scent. He liked all the feels and the textures of watching her claim what was hers alone.
Perhaps Claxton wouldn’t be such an issue. Not that he would ever let her confront the man herself, but perhaps he could not shed blood. And maybe he didn’t have to worry about securing her heart. She was coming to him, the scent of her was mixing with his, his scent was mixing with hers.
Her fingers slid under his belt.
Saban’s head jerked down. His gaze slashed to those graceful fingers, curled as they were between his jeans and the shirt tucked into them.
The heat of her fingers branded his flesh through the shirt and flashed to his balls, drawing them tight.
It was a first for them. The first time she had come to him. He lifted his head back to her, saw the flash of vulnerability in her eyes, and took a firm hold on the hunger tearing through him.
“I’m yours,” he told her. “Do as you will, mate.”
“Mate,” she whispered the word almost questioningly.
“Much more than a wife.” He kept his arms still at his sides rather than touch her as he wanted to. “The most important part of who I am.”
Her expression softened, though her gaze gleamed with nervousness and with a twinge of uncertainty. It didn’t stop her need, though, and it didn’t stop that small step into awareness of her power over him.
And she had a great amount of power over him. He would do more than kill for her—he would die for her. But even more, he would fight to the very limits of his training to live for her.
“I want you.” She said it simply, and with that she stole any remaining part of him that he may have held separately from her.
The breath literally stalled in his throat as she worked at the buckle of his belt. Slow, sure movements, her slender fingers easing the belt loose then slipping the metal button free to slide the zipper down, over the heavy ridge of flesh throbbing beneath.
He growled involuntarily, the muscles of his abdomen flexing violently as her fingers gripped the hem of his shirt and pulled it up his torso.
Saban lifted his arms, bent enough to allow her to pull the shirt free, then nearly roared out his pleasure as her head bent and her sharp little teeth raked his chest.
“Mercy, my cher,” he growled, forcing his hands to merely skim along her back.
She was fully dressed. He wanted her naked, and he wanted her naked now.
He gripped the hem of her shirt and drew it off when he wanted to rip it off. He forced back a hungry snarl as he felt her satiny flesh, and then a roar as her hot lips moved down his chest to his abdomen, then to the straining length of his cock.
He stared down at her in amazement as she went to her knees. Her breasts were framed in black lace, pale and swollen and pretty as hell. Nothing could be as pretty as those pale pink, luscious lips surrounding and consuming the head of his cock though.
Damn. Nothing could be as good.
His fingers slid into her hair. The warm strands tangled around his fingers like living silk. She sucked the head of his cock deep inside her mouth. She sent his senses exploding.
Saban felt his head fall back on his shoulders then forced himself steady to stare down at her. He felt the rumbling growls that came from his chest, and he growled her name. He snarled his need for her, and he fought for control. He prayed for control, because he wanted this to last. He wanted this touch, the way her eyes blazed up at him, the sight of his flesh held intimately in her mouth seared into his memory.
A shattered groan ripped from his chest as her tongue swirled around the head, caressing the swollen crest with wicked licks. And there, just beneath the crest, her curious little tongue probed at the flesh that covered the barb. The extension wasn’t erect, but it throbbed beneath the flesh, ached with the need for release.
“I’ll not stand much more,” he groaned as she sucked the head back into her mouth and whispered a moan over the thick crest.
“Natalie, cher.” His thighs tightened against the need to come, his balls drew up in agony.
With one last, slow lick, she pulled back slowly.
“I want to take you.”
Saban stared down, dazed, sweat forming on his forehead as she rose to her feet, her slender fingers stroking over his erection.
“I want to take you right here.” She toed off her shoes as she unsnapped her jeans.
“Here?” He swallowed tightly, watching as she wiggled from the snug denim like a fantasy present, unwrapped one slow inch at a time.
“Here.” Her smile was pure sex, pure need. “Do you have a problem with here?” She kicked her jeans free before reaching behind her and unclipping the bra.
The cups fell away from the firm, sweet flesh of her breasts, and control was suddenly the last thing on his mind
. Sweet, succulent nipples topped the flushed mounds, and he was lost.
“Here works.”
Hell, he didn’t care where it was, as long as he was inside her, holding her, her holding him, a part of each other.
Saban sat back on the couch, watched in wonder and pleasure as she straddled his thighs and came to him.
His hands shackled her hips as he reclined into the back of the couch.
She flowed over him like hot honey. Soft, saturated, slick flesh enclosed his cock head, then by slow, agonizing inches took the shaft of his erection. Tiny, whimpering cries left her lips. Her sharp nails bit into his shoulders, and her dark eyes were nearly black in her pleasure.
“I’ll not last long. I’ll make up for it.” He was fighting to breathe.
He could feel the sweat beading on his flesh, feel the wildness invading both of them.
“You can make it up all night.” She leaned into his chest, her hips lifting, dragging the tight, clenching flesh of her pussy over his cock, and he lost it.
Who cared about control? This pleasure, the touch of her, the taste of her, the feel of her was all that mattered. Gripping her hips, Saban shifted and began to move inside her with hard, desperate thrusts. Nothing mattered but fucking her now. Fucking her so hard and deep, with such pleasure that she never forgot what it meant to belong to him.
Natalie was wild above him, meeting him thrust for thrust. Sharp little nails pierced his back as her teeth bit into his shoulder.
The tiny pinpricks of pain were nothing, more pleasure than anything else, but enough to tear away that last strip of control he had kept reined in. He gripped her hips harder, his cock shafting into her with furious strokes as he felt her orgasm rip through her body.
He laid his mouth over the mark he had given her, his teeth scraping it as he gripped her flesh and let go his own release. The barb beneath the head of his cock thickened, hardened, the pleasure-pain of it drawing a snarl from his throat as ecstasy poured through him. Sweet heaven, the pleasure of it. The feel of her pussy against flesh so sensitive the agony was too much for him. He felt it pulse, throb, spilling more of the hormone into her even as he spilled his seed inside her.
The barb locked his cock in place, caressed hidden flesh, and sent them both hurtling into a brilliant, burning sphere of pure pleasure.
He would figure the rest of it out later, he promised himself as he bore her back against the couch cushions and came above her. As his release spilled inside her and the aftershocks of rapture tore through them both, he swore he would hold onto her, no matter the cost. Jealousy be damned, it wasn’t worth losing the faith she was finding in him. And it wasn’t worth losing the loyalty he could feel growing between them, a loyalty born of emotion and, he prayed, of love.
He didn’t want to shackle her to him with sex. He wanted to hold her to him with love. Nothing more.
• CHAPTER 11 •
Natalie had tried desperately not to think about Saban or the emotions twisting inside her where he was concerned. She’d used frustration and aggravation, she’d tried to hide, and she’d tried to deny them. She’d wanted to deny feeling anything for him, because otherwise she would have had to face the fact that within a matter of weeks, less than two months, she had let a man steal a part of her heart that even her ex-husband hadn’t possessed.
And here she had been the one to promise herself she would never let another man affect her again.
She almost snorted at the thought the next morning as she put on coffee and began preparing breakfast. Saban sat at the small kitchen table, dressed in his Breed Enforcer uniform.
Strapped to his side in a shoulder holster was his weapon, to his left thigh a sheathed dagger. He would have more weapons hidden on him, she knew. Weapons she couldn’t see, weapons he knew how to use with deadly efficiency.
And why that brought her comfort rather than freaking her out, she wasn’t certain. She should have been frightened of Saban from the day she learned he’d be living in her home with her, following her, protecting her.
It was one of the reasons she had fought him so far, she realized as she finished the bacon, eggs, and toast. It was why she hadn’t wanted him here. Why she hadn’t wanted him to be a part of her life. Because she had known he would become a part of her heart.
And he was. Right there in living color, bronze muscle covered by the military-type black uniform with the Jaguar insignia on his shoulder.
She almost shook her head at herself as she poured two mugs of coffee and moved to set his on the table. Turning away from him, she couldn’t help it, she just couldn’t help but to let her fingers skim over the thick, black silk of his hair.
“Hey.” He caught her hand, his head jerking up, his gaze connecting with her in lazy awareness of her. “You don’t have to try to sneak and touch me.”
He placed her palm against his cheek, turned a kiss into it, then went back to work on the small electronice notepad he had attached to the palm Internet link he carried.
Natalie threaded her fingers through his hair, a smile twitching at her lips as he leaned into the caress, even though his brow was furrowed with concentration.
He didn’t mind being touched. And he didn’t think a light caress meant running straight to the bed as well. Mike hadn’t wanted to be touched unless he was ready for sex.
She let her fingers linger a moment longer then moved back to the stove and breakfast.
Strange, how easily Saban has slipped into her heart. She hadn’t wanted it, she had given it the good fight, but he was there.
She paused at the stove, felt the sharp blow to her heart, and realized she loved it. It stole her breath, when she knew it shouldn’t have. It shook her to the core, even though she realized she should have known all along what was happening.
She had fallen in love with a man a hundred times more dominant than her ex-husband had been, and he had managed to slip so much deeper inside her soul than Mike ever could have.
She stared sightless down at the bacon and felt the anger that began to build inside her. It wasn’t an anger toward herself or toward Saban. But toward Mike.
He had come to Buffalo Gap to destroy not just her independence but what she had found with Saban. He had left his bimbo, his job, and the home he had stolen from her to make certain she lost anything she could have found in this small community.
He would do it, too, she realized. He wouldn’t physically hurt her, but he would destroy the respect and the good standing she was building here. He would make it impossible for her to teach the Breed children before he would make himself appear as a threat to her and to them.
And he knew what he was doing. And she knew she was going to have to stop him before he destroyed this chance she had at happiness.
“I need to check a few things in the truck.” Saban rose from his chair as she turned to him. “I’ll be right back.”
He strode quickly from the room as she drew in a slow, hard breath. As she heard the front door close, she jerked the phone from the wall and punched in Mike’s cell phone number.
She was going to take care of this between her and Mike. She wouldn’t have Saban’s hands bloodied because of her ex-husband’s stupidity, and she wasn’t giving him the chance to nearly destroy her career again.
“Natalie, thank God you called.” He answered on the first ring. “Are you okay?”
The pseudo concern in his voice was nearly too much.
“Go home, Mike,” she snapped. “I divorced you for a reason. To get you out of my life. Don’t make me get another restraining order on you. You know how bad that’s going to look if you have to actually get another job.”
“You didn’t used to be so hard, Natalie.” There was a wealth of sorrow in his voice. God, didn’t he ever see what he was doing to himself?
“You didn’t used to be so stupid,” she hissed. “I left Tennessee to get away from you. I’m happy here, Mike. Happier than I ever was in our marriage. Go back to your bimbo and leave me
the hell alone.”
Silence filled the line for long moments.
“I just want to see you first,” he finally said, his voice soft, regretful. “Is that so much to ask?”
“Yes, it is.” Way too much to ask, because she couldn’t blame Saban for being concerned, and there wasn’t a chance in hell he was going to agree to this.
“Five minutes, Natalie. Anywhere. I don’t care. Just give me five minutes to say good-bye.”
“And you’ll leave?”
“I swear, I’ll leave.”
“Five minutes,” she retorted. “I’ll be at the mall later today sometime around four. I’ll meet you at the outside entrance to Sally J’s.” Sally J’s was one of the women’s-only clothing stores in the large mall just outside town. “You’ll have five minutes. I’ll call you right before I step outside.”
“Will your furry friend be with you?” he asked bitterly.
“He’ll be around,” she finally sighed. “But I’ll talk to you alone. Be there at four, Mike. And remember, five minutes. That’s it.”
“Five minutes. That’s all I need, Nat.”
She hung the phone up and moved back to the stove as the front door opened once again, and seconds later Saban strode back into the kitchen.
As Saban sat back down at the kitchen table and took a healthy sip of the decaffeinated coffee he’d slipped into the canister days ago, he drew in a slow breath.
Sometimes his sense of smell was a curse rather than a blessing. Times such as moments before, when he had smelled the emotion pouring from Natalie. Rich and saturated with arousal, tempestuous with need, and overlaying it all, the deep, heady scent of love.
Love had a scent, though it varied from person to person and couple to couple. It wasn’t easy to detect and often wasn’t even apparent except in high-stress, personal moments.
What was she thinking of? he wondered. What had caused that well of emotion to open inside her and break free and then to touch him. To touch him of her own volition, as though testing her ability to do so or his patience in allowing it.