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His expression changed then. Predatory, arrogant. This was the Jaguar Breed, the frightening, sensual animal she always felt lurking beneath the surface.
“You won’t allow it?” His voice rumbled with a growl, slurring the words with just enough primal power that it sent a chill racing down her spine.
“I won’t allow it.” She felt the shudder that tore through her body as the amusement fled his gaze, and savage arousal filled it instead.
He moved toward her.
Natalie wasn’t retreating. She wasn’t backing down on this, and she was not going to allow him to railroad her into agreeing that he could attack whenever and wherever he chose. If she didn’t put her foot down now, if she didn’t stop it now, then there would be no end to it. He would believe he could run over her anytime he wanted, however he wanted.
Start as you mean to go on, her mother had always warned her. She had tried doing that with Mike, tried to stay firm, and he had run over her. He had frightened her, her love for him had excused him, and she had spent three miserable years trying to make a marriage work that was doomed from the start.
“I pulled back for you,” he rumbled as he came closer. “I let the bastard go, because you said ‘please,’ because the pain in your voice for that piece of shit was more than I could bear. Did you see the look on his face when he gripped your arm, when he saw the pain it caused you?”
Natalie shook her head, denying the question.
“Oh, you saw all right, boo.” His lip curled in anger. “You saw the satisfaction, the glee in his eyes, and I smelled it. I smelled it, and I swore I would kill him for it.”
“You can’t just go killing people over something like that.” She smacked her hands against his chest, tried to push him back.
His hands lifted then, smoothed down her arms, and a shiver raced across her flesh.
“He still breathes,” Saban snarled.
“Barely!” she bit out. “Do you think that makes what you did okay?”
“I think it made it very dissatisfying,” he said softly, dangerously. “Killing him would have been preferable at that time, but losing you over it wouldn’t have been worth it. That doesn’t mean I’ll allow him to get away with it. He’ll be more careful in the future, and so, mate, will you be more careful. The next man that comes at you in anger, get the hell out of my way. Because the more harm he causes you, the greate
r his chances of meeting his eternal maker.” Each word shortened, roughened, until he finished with a harsh, furious growl.
Natalie opened her lips to blast him, to argue further, though the words tumbling in her head refused to find coherency. Before she could speak, his head lowered, his hands jerked her to his body, and he nipped at her lips.
It wasn’t even a kiss. He nipped at them, then licked them, watching her through narrowed eyes as her tongue jumped to the lower curve of her lips to taste him. To savor the spicy, stormy essence that lingered there from the hormone that infused it.
A broken little groan came from her throat.
“You taste me.” He licked her again. “You feel me, Natalie. Tell me, tell me you know I’d do nothing to harm you. Including killing that miserable little bastard unless he actually endangered your life.”
“You’d hurt him.” She tried to shake her head, tried to fight the need beginning to burn in her blood.
“Oh, boo, for sure I would. I’d hurt him bad.” The Cajun slipped free, lazy, guttural, spiked with hunger and dangerous intent. “I’d make him run crying to his momma for daring to harm, to believe he could ever take what is mine alone. And you know, cher, you are mine alone.”
His.
Her lips parted, and his covered them, a weak, whimpering little moan leaving her lips as she tasted him fully. As he sucked her tongue into his mouth and then gave her leave to play. To lick at him, to tease until his tongue came to her, until she could suckle it, sweeping her tongue over it, drawing the taste of him into her mouth.
“No!”
Natalie jumped around him, ignoring the little growl that sounded behind her.
“Don’t tell me no, mate,” he retorted heatedly. “I smell your need, and even more, I smell the fact that you know I’m right. You’ll not run from this or from me.”
“I’ll run whenever or however I want to.” She pushed her fingers through her hair and backed out of the kitchen. “Leave me alone, Saban. Just leave me the hell alone.”
She turned and stalked to the steps. She had to make sense of this; she had to find a way to balance the things she was learning about him.
He couldn’t just attack people. This mating heat stuff was bad enough. How would either of them survive it without some control? Without one of them thinking sensibly, and it was real damned clear that the one thinking clearly wasn’t going to be him.
All she had to do was get away from him, just for a little while. Away from the sight of him, the remembered taste of him, the aching need for him.
