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She breathed in deeply and prayed for patience.
“I think you’re going to take the sheriff to the kitchen for coffee, and you’re going to do it without growling like a temperamental five-year-old.” She smiled back at him, a thin, furious curve of her lips. “Don’t make me think of an ‘or else.’ That’s just so tacky, and I do hate appearing tacky.”
Sheriff Randolph cleared his throat, obviously fighting a chuckle as Saban glowered back at her, one side of his lips curling back to display those wicked canines.
Canines that had pierced her shoulder, holding her in place more than once through the night as his tongue laved, and the hormone burned the wound.
He was a part of her. In a way no man could ever be a part of her. He was in her head, her blood, and she very much feared he might be a part of her heart. A part that would be destroyed if he continued to try to smother her.
“I don’t like this,” he growled. “He’s not stable.”
“I’m not stable?” Mike burst out, his eyes glittering with rage as he pinned her with his gaze. “For God’s sake, Natalie, look at what you’re shacked up with and tell me anything about that is logical. He’s an animal.”
“Enough!” Natalie swung to him, instinctive, heated anger filling her at the accusation. “If you want to discuss anything, Mike, then keep a civil tongue in your head.”
His lips flattened as the sheriff watched both of them with flat, hard eyes. He had his own agenda, Natalie thought. Questions he couldn’t ask, so instead he watched.
“And I’m to leave you in the same room alone with this man?” Saban questioned her with an edge of disgust.
“Listen to me, you rabid bastard!” Mike tried to push into the house, rage burning in his face now, splotching his cheeks as the sheriff grabbed his arm and Saban blocked the doorway. “Let me in there. You’ve done something to her, and I know it. Look at her. She’s pale and scared. Look at her, Sheriff. He’s done something to her. He’s a fucking animal. He shouldn’t be here with her. He shouldn’t be around her.”
Natalie stepped back from the doorway as Saban’s hard body blocked Mike’s furious attempts to get past the door. She had never seen him like this, so enraged that his own personal safety wasn’t uppermost. Surely he knew Saban could break him like a matchstick if that was what he wanted.
“Mike, that’s enough!” She snapped out the order, firming her voice, hardening it. “For God’s sake, have you lost your mind?”
Saban was struggling not to hurt him, Natalie could see that. He was blocking the doorway with his own body, holding Mike back as the sheriff gripped his arm and dragged him forcibly away from the door.
“Get him out of here, Ted. Jonas will be in your office within the hour to file a complaint. I want him kept away from her.”
“Fucking animal! You don’t make that decision.” Mike struggled against the sheriff. “That’s my wife in there. You don’t touch my damned wife.”
Mike fell back as Saban snarled, a primal, dangerous, feline sound unlike anything Natalie had heard as he rasped. “Ex-wife, bastard.”
“My God, this is insane.” Natalie pushed past Saban, slapping at his hard stomach as he tried to hold her back. “Take your hands off me and stop this crap. Are all of you insane?”
“Natalie, listen to me.” Mike reached for her, his hands closing around her arm, his fingers biting into her flesh.
The sensation of his touch caused an immediate reaction, one she didn’t understand, couldn’t make sense of. Her skin felt as though it were shrinking, physically trying to draw away from his touch as shards of brittle, sharp distaste filled her brain.
A shocked, hoarse cry came from her lips as she tried to jerk away from him, staring at where his fingers wrapped around her flesh just below the elbow.
A vicious snarl sounded behind her, and before Natalie could process the lightning-fast events, Mike’s neck was gripped in Saban’s powerful hand, his fingers loosened from her arm, and he was tossed, physically, through the air into the yard beyond the porch.
She stared down at her arm, then back to Mike before she rubbed at her skin slowly, trying to wipe away the feel of his touch. It was still there, the sensation of his skin on her, causing a sickness to roil in her stomach as nausea rose in her throat. She felt invaded, molested, as though Mike had touched an intimate part of her flesh rather than merely gripping her arm. The sensations had bordered on agony, unlike the mere feeling of distasteful discomfort when the Breed doctor had examined her.
Shock slowed reality, had her head lifting, watching as Saban jumped to the ground, lifted Mike from the lawn, and nose to nose snarled furiously, flashing the sharp canines in his mouth as his fist struck with lightning quickness into the soft padding of Mike’s belly.
The sheriff tried to tear them apart, tried to force himself between the two men, but Saban was too enraged.
She heard her own voice screaming his name as she jumped to the ground, rushing to the fray and gripping Saban’s arm as it came back for another round.
Mike’s eyes had rolled back in his head, his body slumped as Saban stilled, his head whipping around to Natalie, his eyes slicing to where she touched him.
“Let him go.” Thin and reedy, she had to force her voice to work, force herself to think. “Let him go now.”
She stared back at him, shaking, shuddering with the force of the knowledge tearing through her now. Whatever he had done to her had more far-reaching effects than an arousal gone haywire.
“Let him go.” She lifted her other hand, wrapped it around the wrist where his fingers were still clenching Mike’s neck. “Please.”
