Who cared about control? This pleasure, the touch of her, the taste of her, the feel of her was all that mattered. Gripping her hips, Saban shifted and began to move inside her with hard, desperate thrusts. Nothing mattered but fucking her now. Fucking her so hard and deep, with such pleasure that she never forgot what it meant to belong to him.
Natalie was wild above him, meeting him thrust for thrust. Sharp little nails pierced his back as her teeth bit into his shoulder.
The tiny pinpricks of pain were nothing, more pleasure than anything else, but enough to tear away that last strip of control he had kept reined in. He gripped her hips harder, his cock shafting into her with furious strokes as he felt her orgasm rip through her body.
He laid his mouth over the mark he had given her, his teeth scraping it as he gripped her flesh and let go his own release. The barb beneath the head of his cock thickened, hardened, the pleasure-pain of it drawing a snarl from his throat as ecstasy poured through him. Sweet heaven, the pleasure of it. The feel of her pussy against flesh so sensitive the agony was too much for him. He felt it pulse, throb, spilling more of the hormone into her even as he spilled his seed inside her.
The barb locked his cock in place, caressed hidden flesh, and sent them both hurtling into a brilliant, burning sphere of pure pleasure.
He would figure the rest of it out later, he promised himself as he bore her back against the couch cushions and came above her. As his release spilled inside her and the aftershocks of rapture tore through them both, he swore he would hold onto her, no matter the cost. Jealousy be damned, it wasn’t worth losing the faith she was finding in him. And it wasn’t worth losing the loyalty he could feel growing between them, a loyalty born of emotion and, he prayed, of love.
He didn’t want to shackle her to him with sex. He wanted to hold her to him with love. Nothing more.
ELEVEN
Natalie had tried desperately not to think about Saban or the emotions twisting inside her where he was concerned. She’d used frustration and aggravation, she’d tried to hide, and she’d tried to deny them. She’d wanted to deny feeling anything for him, because otherwise she would have had to face the fact that within a matter of weeks, less than two months, she had let a man steal a part of her heart that even her ex-husband hadn’t possessed.
And here she had been the one to promise herself she would never let another man affect her again.
She almost snorted at the thought the next morning as she put on coffee and began preparing breakfast. Saban sat at the small kitchen table, dressed in his Breed Enforcer uniform.
Strapped to his side in a shoulder holster was his weapon, to his left thigh a sheathed dagger. He would have more weapons hidden on him, she knew. Weapons she couldn’t see, weapons he knew how to use with deadly efficiency.
And why that brought her comfort rather than freaking her out, she wasn’t certain. She should have been frightened of Saban from the day she learned he’d be living in her home with her, following her, protecting her.
It was one of the reasons she had fought him so far, she realized as she finished the bacon, eggs, and toast. It was why she hadn’t wanted him here. Why she hadn’t wanted him to be a part of her life. Because she had known he would become a part of her heart.
And he was. Right there in living color, bronze muscle covered by the military-type black uniform with the Jaguar insignia on his shoulder.
She almost shook her head at herself as she poured two mugs of coffee and moved to set his on the table. Turning away from him, she couldn’t help it, she just couldn’t help but to let her fingers skim over the thick, black silk of his hair.
“Hey.” He caught her hand, his head jerking up, his gaze connecting with her in lazy awareness of her. “You don’t have to try to sneak and touch me.”
He placed her palm against his cheek, turned a kiss into it, then went back to work on the small electronice notepad he had attached to the palm Internet link he carried.
Natalie threaded her fingers through his hair, a smile twitching at her lips as he leaned into the caress, even though his brow was furrowed with concentration.
He didn’t mind being touched. And he didn’t think a light caress meant running straight to the bed as well. Mike hadn’t wanted to be touched unless he was ready for sex.
She let her fingers linger a moment longer then moved back to the stove and breakfast.
Strange, how easily Saban has slipped into her heart. She hadn’t wanted it, she had given it the good fight, but he was there.
She paused at the stove, felt the sharp blow to her heart, and realized she loved it. It stole her breath, when she knew it shouldn’t have. It shook her to the core, even though she realized she should have known all along what was happening.
She had fallen in love with a man a hundred times more dominant than her ex-husband had been, and he had managed to slip so much deeper inside her soul than Mike ever could have.
She stared sightless down at the bacon and felt the anger that began to build inside her. It wasn’t an anger toward herself or toward Saban. But toward Mike.
He had come to Buffalo Gap to destroy not just her independence but what she had found with Saban. He had left his bimbo, his job, and the home he had stolen from her to make certain she lost anything she could have found in this small community.
He would do it, too, she realized. He wouldn’t physically hurt her, but he would destroy the respect and the good standing she was building here. He would make it impossible for her to teach the Breed children before he would make himself appear as a threat to her and to them.
And he knew what he was doing. And she knew she was going to have to stop him before he destroyed this chance she had at happiness.
“I need to check a few things in the truck.” Saban rose from his chair as she turned to him. “I’ll be right back.”
He strode quickly from the room as she drew in a slow, hard breath. As she heard the front door close, she jerked the phone from the wall and punched in Mike’s cell phone number.
She was going to take care of this between her and Mike. She wouldn’t have Saban’s hands bloodied because of her ex-husband’s stupidity, and she wasn’t giving him the chance to nearly destroy her career again.
“Natalie, thank God you called.” He answered on the first ring. “Are you okay?”
The pseudo concern in his voice was nearly too much.
“Go home, Mike,” she snapped. “I divorced you for a reason. To get you out of my life. Don’t make me get another restraining order on you. You know how bad that’s going to look if you have to actually get another job.”
“You didn’t used to be so hard, Natalie.” There was a wealth of sorrow in his voice. God, didn’t he ever see what he was doing to himself?
“You didn’t used to be so stupid,” she hissed. “I left Tennessee to get away from you. I’m happy here, Mike. Happier than I ever was in our marriage. Go back to your bimbo and leave me the hell alone.”
Silence filled the line for long moments.
“I just want to see you first,” he finally said, his voice soft, regretful. “Is that so much to ask?”
“Yes, it is.” Way too much to ask, because she couldn’t blame Saban for being concerned, and there wasn’t a chance in hell he was going to agree to this.
“Five minutes, Natalie. Anywhere. I don’t care. Just give me five minutes to say good-bye.”
“And you’ll leave?”
“I swear, I’ll leave.”
“Five minutes,” she retorted. “I’ll be at the mall later today sometime around four. I’ll meet you at the outside entrance to Sally J’s.” Sally J’s was one of the women’s-only clothing stores in the large mall just outside town. “You’ll have five minutes. I’ll call you right before I step outside.”