AllFreeNovel
Share Us
TEN
She was up to something. As the day went by, Saban could watch the gears working in her mind. It was fascinating, watching her, sensing her turning the problem of her ex-husband over in her mind until he wanted to snarl in jealous fury at the knowledge that she was thinking about him.
He didn’t want her thinking about another man. He wanted to wipe Mike Claxton with his smarmy smile and avaricious gaze completely out of her memory.
Knowing he couldn’t grated at his temper. Knowing she was trying to figure out how to do his job and get rid of the bastard only made things worse.
He watched the process, though, and cataloged each shift of expression, each changing scent of emotion as she worked in the schoolroom, and later as they ate dinner at one of Buffalo Gap’s better restaurants.
The hormonal adjustment Ely had given her the day before, as well as the adjusted capsule she took that morning had eased the heat enough to allow Natalie to think rather than to fuck with instinctive abandon. He would have preferred the abandon, he had to admit, because there was no hormonal treatment for the males.
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.
