“This conversation is not over.” He bared his teeth in frustration; he could feel that frustration rising inside him now, threatening the boundaries of his control. “Hear me well, Natalie. It doesn’t matter who it is, man or woman; any threat to you will be dealt with. Any strike against you will be retaliated against. So much as a thought, a flicker of threat, and I will be there. Whether you like it or not, whether you want it or not.”
“Whether I want it or not.” Her voice was bitter, cutting like acid into his soul. “Because you decree it. Stand wherever the hell you want to stand, Saban. As long as it’s well away from me.”
EIGHT
It hurt. Natalie couldn’t stem the hurt rising inside her, the fear, the certainty that the loss of control where Saban was concerned would be her undoing.
“I don’t need you to fight my battles.” She needed to fight her own battles, dammit. “Especially where Mike is concerned.”
She turned to move away from him, only to be confronted by his broad chest once again.
“Get out of my way, Saban.”
“So you can run and hide?” he bit out. “Rather than facing this problem and fixing it, you’re going to run away.”
“There’s no fixing it,” she pushed between gritted teeth as her fingers clenched at her side. “You think you’re right. You always think you’re right. Big, bad Breed knows it all.”
Silence met her accusation. Natalie lifted her gaze then, met his, and had to fight the thickening in her throat as she saw not anger as she thought she would find, though there was a little of that there. Instead, he watched her broodingly, as though searching for an answer or trying to find the question that eluded him.
“You didn’t smell what I smelled,” he finally said gently. “The rage, the need for violence that was filling him. You divorced him, Natalie, for a reason, and you know this. Just as you knew that violence was brewing within him before you forced him out of the home.”
She wasn’t going to let him be right about this. She couldn’t. If she did, how could she ever stand up to him later? Mike had done this at first, used logic, used a shield of understanding and patience to tear down her self-confidence.
“How my marriage ended in a divorce is my business. How I deal with Mike now is my business. Not yours.”
“You don’t truly believe that, Natalie.” He shook his head as he shoved his hands in his back pockets, obviously restraining the need to touch her.
Unlike Mike.
Not that Mike had ever hit her, but it came close too many times. His temper could be ugly, hands bruising, his tongue sharp and cutting.
“I said it, didn’t I?” She forced past clenched teeth as the irritation and the arousal combined into some funky kind of tingles that radiated from her womb outward to the rest of her body.
She was certain that in another place and time, in any other situation, this could have been amusing. If it was happening to someone else maybe.
“Why can’t you do just one thing like a normal, everyday person?” she snapped, wanting to pull at her own hair as frustration began to build in her.
The anger was bad enough. But being angry and dying to fuck that hard body? No woman should have to deal with this.
His expression eased slightly from the predatory determination, and sensual amusement darkened his eyes, lowered his lashes as he bent his head closer to her.
“Cher, if you haven’t noticed yet, normal is not a part of my genetics. Should I give you another example of this?”
She backed up as his hands came out of his pockets and rested comfortably at his sides instead.
“Sex is not going to get you out of this,” she hissed. “There’s not enough sex to make up for deliberately attacking someone who hadn’t attacked you.”
“He touched you. He caused you pain.” Saban shrugged, though his expression tightened. “That is all the reason I need.”
Then he turned away. He turned away as though it didn’t matter, as though his decisions were all that mattered and were all that was important.
“Don’t you do that.” Natalie could feel herself shaking inside and out.
“Do what? Drop this little spat we’re having?” He turned back to her, a smooth, powerful flex of muscle as he faced her once again. “We won’t agree on this, Natalie. Whether you want to believe it or not, Mike Claxton means you harm, and I won’t allow it to happen. You disagree, and that’s fine. That doesn’t mean that I’ll not put a stop to it. Now, if you’re not willing to cool off that heat building inside you with a little therapeutic sex, then I could use a snack. Are you hungry?”
Was she hungry?
Her lips parted in shock. He didn’t want to argue? He wasn’t going to fight over it?
“Since when?” She followed him rapidly. “Since when do you not want to fight? You’re male, right?”
He flashed her a wicked grin over his shoulder. “You should know by now.”
Oh God yes, she knew. She knew his hard, calloused hands holding her to him, the feel of his mouth devouring her, his cock destroying her. And she knew the cold, icy fury in his face when he had held Mike’s neck in his grip, slowly choking him to death.
“You can’t just attack people who piss you off, Saban. Especially men. I have to deal with men daily at work, I can’t afford this.”
“Then they’d best have the good sense to keep their hands off you.” He opened the door of the fridge, bent, and looked inside before pulling free a gallon of milk.
Natalie stood and stared at him, anger shuddering through her body.
“It doesn’t work that way, dammit,” she cursed.
He set a glass on the counter, poured it full of milk, then, lifting the glass, turned and faced her.
“Bet me.” His eyes gleamed in amusement as he lifted the glass and drank.
A man drinking whiskey was sexy. A man with a bottle of beer could be sexy. But a man drinking a glass of milk should not have been sexy. Unfortunately, Saban could make it erotic, especially when he lowered the glass and licked over his lower lip with sensual male awareness.
Natalie felt her stomach tighten, felt her pussy cream furiously as she remembered the enjoyment on his face as he licked her just like that.
“You’re being unreasonable.” She forced her fingers to uncurl from the fists they were making, to stretch as she strove to make sense of this attitude. He’d been ready to kill Mike. Now he was watching her with amused playfulness.
“You do not attack anyone for something so insane as touching me when they aren’t aware of this stupid mating heat,” she retorted, feeling off center, uncertain of her own anger now. It was damned hard for a woman to fight with a man when he was watching her like a piece of candy that he was dying to taste.
“We’ll see.” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“We’ll see?” she pushed through her teeth, that anger rising again, along with the need, the hunger. She hated this. It was insane. The madder she got at him, the hornier she got, and that wasn’t a good combination. “The next time you attack someone, I’ll have you arrested myself,” she threw out rashly. “I won’t allow it.”
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.