She licked her lips nervously. “Come in with me.”
The fact that she had made the decision, that she was actually considering having sex with him at this point shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did. This arousal wasn’t painful, not in the sense of levels or degrees of pain. Instead, it was imperative, desperate; her skin was crawling with the need to be touched, her mouth watering for the taste of him.
“Go in,” he said tightly. “I’ll bring the food back in and come to you.”
She shook her head.
“Get away from me, Natalie,” he snarled, jerking to his feet, surprising her with his vehemence. “Go inside. Five minutes. Give yourself five minutes away from me, make certain without me that your wisest choice isn’t to call Ely first.”
“You started this.” She jumped from the chair and faced him, anger rising inside her, pounding through her blood and spearing through her senses as it strengthened along with the lust. “You shot this freaky hormone into my system; now you can take care of it.”
If she could just get past the need, just for a few minutes, just long enough to think again, then she could figure it out. But she knew, until he touched her, until he took her, there wasn’t going to be a clear thought in her head.
A growl rumbled in his throat. “It’s too strong right now,” he grated. “I won’t take you easy.”
“If you tried to take me easy, I might have to kill you,” she raged back, her hands fisting in his shirt as she felt the flames of need licking over her flesh. “Saban, please, just touch me. Do something, anything so I can think.”
“So you can figure a way out of this?” Bitterness filled his voice, but he was touching her, easing her backward into the house, the steaks forgotten.
“So I can figure out how to handle this.” Maybe she was accepting there was no way out of it, but she didn’t accept what she knew was coming from it.
She liked Saban. She hadn’t realized how much she liked him until she had to think about it, had to categorize the relationship that had developed. She cared for him. She would miss him, God, miss him so bad if he wasn’t here, but she didn’t love him. She didn’t want to love him. And she didn’t want to be controlled by him or some damned hormonal aphrodisiac.
The door locked behind him, and Natalie found herself lifted against him, his arms like steel bands around her as his kiss became a tease. He licked and nibbled at her lips, giving her just a taste of the spicy, storm-laden essence of his kiss. He made her crave more. Made her moan, her arms tighten around his neck, her tongue dip past his lips to taste more of him.
“We won’t make it to the bedroom if you keep this up,” he warned her, his voice dark, rough, a growling rasp that sent a shiver racing through her as one hand pushed beneath the elastic band of her pants to cup the curve of her cheek.
“So?” She didn’t care.
As he held her against him, her hands slid from around his neck to the buttons of his shirt. She wanted to feel him, wanted to touch him. The weeks he had followed her through the house that image had played out in her mind. Turning, ripping the buttons free and jerking the material from his body before rubbing against him like a cat. Like he had a habit of rubbing against her every chance he had.
She wanted him. She didn’t have to fight that want now; something had forced her into it, taken the choice out of her hands, and she suddenly wondered if that wasn’t a good thing. Would she have ever gone after the powerful, sexual beast this man was on her own?
Natalie tore her lips back from him, the teasing little tastes driving her insane. Her hands locked in the front of his shirt, and she ripped. Buttons scattered as a snarl left his lips, savage, animalistic, but his chest was finally bare. Sun-bronzed, hard, and tough, and free of hair except the nearly invisible, incredibly fine pelt that covered him.
“Oh, God.” This was better than chest hair. Perspiration gleamed on it now, making the soft hairs easier to see, and Natalie realized nothing could be more sensual. The thought of it rubbing against her sensitive nipples made her pussy clench, her juices spilling between the swollen folds between her thighs.
She had to taste him. As he carried her through the kitchen to the short hallway and the stairs, she licked his chest. His muscles jumped beneath the caress, his arms tightening as he stumbled against the wall.
The taste was there, and she lapped at it, kissing and licking her way to the flat, hard disc of his male nipple. Her teeth raked it, nipped at it. Natalie wondered vaguely if she had needed the hormone to become addicted to him, to hunger, to ache for his touch until she thought she’d die without it. Saban could be addictive on his own, she decided.
“Yes. Sweet mercy, cher.” He pressed her against the wall, his head falling back as she tongued the hard disc, licking at the stormy taste of perspiration, the heat and hardness of tough male flesh.
“You taste like your kiss,” she whimpered, licking over his chest again, little small laps that tasted his flesh and fired her blood. “Kiss me, Saban. I need your taste.”
The growl that came from his lips should have been frightening; it should have caused at least an edge of wariness to cool the lust burning inside her. Instead, it tightened her stomach, caused wet heat to spill from her vagina again. And when his lips covered hers, his tongue pushing inside, there was no room for wariness or for thought, only for hunger, only the desperate need inside her to replace the shadows in his eyes with light.
That thought pierced her as she felt him stumble up the stairs. She had seen those shadows when she first met him, wondered at them, ached for them.
She stroked her hands over his bare shoulders as her head bent, her lips suckling at the storm-ridden taste of his kiss. She loved storms. The smack of thunder, the flare of lightning, and it was all there in his kiss, in the desperate hunger she knew no other man had felt for her.
“Not gonna make it to the bed,” he groaned, tearing his lips from hers to pull at her shirt. “Take it off.”
She took it off and flung it behind them as he shed the scraps of his shirt and went to his knee on one step.
Natalie’s eyes widened as she straddled his thigh, the heated muscle pressing into her pussy, the force of her weight against him applying a teasing pressure against her clit. And when he moved her—oh Lord, his hands rocked her on his thigh, stroking her clit as his lips covered an inflamed nipple.
“Yes!” She hissed the word, her head falling back as she rode him in slow, undulating movements.
The rasp against her clit was exquisite, if she could just get the right pressure, the right position.
It was shockingly ecstatic, poised on the pinnacle of orgasm, certain when it came, it would take the top of her head off.
“Not like this.” Hard hands gripped her hips. “Inside you. I’ll be inside you when you come for me, cher. I’ll be damned if you’ll go without me.”
FIVE
He had to make it to the bed. God, he couldn’t take her here on the stairs. He had promised himself, the first time, when he completed his claim on her he would do so in the bed he had made for her. The one he’d made certain was in place before she came to this house.
The king-size bed made of heavy cypress posts, carved and detailed, made especially for the woman who would one day hold his soul.
He dreamed of claiming her there. Not here, not on stairs where she couldn’t possibly know the comfort of soft sheets and the finest mattress he could provide.
Growling, his lips still holding the tight, sweetly succulent flesh of her nipple captive, he forced himself to his feet then nearly lost all strength he possessed as her legs wrapped around his hips and the heat of her pussy seeped through his jeans to his cock.