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“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.
