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“It’s safe, cher.” His voice was gentle, patient, as he returned to the door.
“Someone could have shot me from the road while you were checking the place out,” she informed him, her voice so brittle she nearly winced as he closed the door behind her and locked it.
“The chances were slimmer. My senses are degraded a bit tonight; I wanted to be certain you weren’t walking into an ambush before you came in. The sensors on the heli-jet would have detected weapons in the area or hidden assassins.”
She shook her head. She didn’t want to talk about the heli-jet.
“I’m going to take a shower and go to bed.” She turned away from him and headed for the stairs.
“Cold water won’t help the heat. You won’t be able to sleep through it; you won’t be able to make sense of it or to apply logic to it. But we could discuss it.”
She turned back to him, her jaw clenching as she fought the emotions rising inside her.
Damn him, as frustrating as he was, she did like him despite her reluctance to admit it. She had liked him playful, she had liked him teasing, but this part of him, the part she had sensed he was hiding, this she doubted she would like.
He stared back at her, calm, self-possessed, determined. That determination was like a silhouette over his entire body, a shadow he could never escape.
Fortunately, he wasn’t ordering her to discuss it. It was the only thing saving his life at the moment.
Natalie met Saban’s eyes. Just for a second, she had been scared to do that, afraid of the satisfaction, the triumph she would have glimpsed there. There was none. Those dark eyes were somber, brooding. And she thought, for a second, she might have glimpsed regret.
“And what would we discuss that I haven’t already learned?” She kept her voice low, though she knew the fear inside her was throbbing through it.
Breeds were amazingly perceptive. Hiding emotions from them just didn’t work.
He breathed out deeply before raking his fingers through his hair and stepping one step closer toward her.
“I endured the tests today as well,” he said.
Natalie flinched, those tests had been more than uncomfortable; they had bordered on too painful.
“The heat has advanced further inside me, the hormone building in it.” He came closer. One step. “Weeks, from the moment I first saw you, I knew what you would be to me. Each day that the heat builds inside, the harder it is to endure another’s touch, no matter male or female, until the effects of the heat begin to ease. My flesh is sensitive, my distaste at another woman’s touch nearly violent.”
Natalie jerked her gaze from his and stared over his shoulder, fighting the tightening of her throat, the tears that wanted to rise.
“Natalie,” he drew the sound of her name out, as though he were relishing each syllable. “I can cook. The steaks are in the freezer. Let me care for you this evening and answer your questions.”
One step closer, his hand reached out, touched her cheek. “Let me care for my mate, if only briefly, if only in this small way.”
“I hate what you’re doing to me. What this is doing to me,” she muttered, feeling the defenses she had been building through the day crumble. He wasn’t demanding anything, he was asking, and it wasn’t a ruse. He wasn’t pretending.
Saban grimaced, his nostrils flaring. “In this moment, I don’t blame you for hating me, boo. Perhaps, at this moment, I hate myself as well. Let me take care of you.” He held his hand out to her. “Just a little bit.”
Natalie stared at his hand, fighting herself now as much as she was fighting him. This was a side of him she hadn’t seen. There was no teasing, no flirting, no deliberate male innocence, which hadn’t gone over well with her at all.
She wondered for a moment who this man was, this Breed whose eyes were so somber, whose expression wasn’t dominating but rather filled with quiet pride and confidence.
She lifted her hand and placed it against his, feeling the roughness of his palm, the strength of his fingers as he clasped it and led her to the kitchen.
“A young Breed teenager, the daughter of a mated pair, she knew you were coming into my life,” he said as he led her to the kitchen table and held her chair out for her.
Natalie sat, uncertain now what to say.
“She’s psychic or something.” He shrugged. “Cassie Sinclair has gifts none of us have really been able to determine, but sometimes she knows things. She told me more than a year ago that you were coming into my life.” He turned from the freezer and cast her an amused, baffled smile. “I didn’t believe her. But she pushed dozens of books off on me: How to Charm Today’s Woman, Sex and the New Generation.” He shrugged before pulling the steaks from the freezer and moving to the counter. “Asinine.”
“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.
