He stood stiff, still, in front of that grill, struggling, she knew, with his own emotions. She had seen the struggle in his expression before and saw it now in the tense set of his shoulders.
She wanted to touch him, ease him, and yet the fear of pushing her own arousal to that point terrified her. But she couldn’t leave him hurting, believing she felt that. She moved to him, laid her head against his back, and felt his hard indrawn breath, the minute easing of the tension.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered again.
His nod, a hard jerk of his head, was enough.
Moving back, Natalie sat down in the padded chair that was next to the patio table. Saban’s back was to her, his arms spread until his hands rested on the wooden table sides of the large grill. The muscles of his back were tense, his head lifted as he stared into the forest. She could almost feel his need to run.
Just as she had felt it before over the past month. A unique tension that gripped him despite his usual teasing manner. She wondered how much of it was an act and how much was truly a part of Saban Broussard.
“Most of what you know of me is a lie then.” He shrugged, his back still to her. “I’m snarly, I’m arrogant, I hate jokes, and baseball fascinates me.” He glanced down then. “I do like to cook.”
“The teasing and flirting?” Parts of it she had liked; others she realized she had somehow known were all an act.
“I’m not much of a lady’s man, cher,” he grunted. “I’m a killer. I was created a killer, raised as one, and once I escaped, I killed to stay free.”
Natalie watched as he turned to her, his expression still and composed; only his eyes raged with emotion.
“I know what the Breeds are, Saban,” she murmured. “And now I know why you tried to be something you weren’t.” She shook her head stiffly.
God, this arousal stuff was killing her. It was bad enough before that kiss, but now it was tearing through her system, nearly making her ill.
And he knew it, he could smell it, he could feel it.
“Natalie, take the hormones,” he said, his voice gravelly as she watched his fingers form fists against the wood. “Go inside. I’ll fix the steaks, and I’ll be in in a bit.”
“Has it been like this for you since the beginning?” She needed to know what she was dealing with, who she was dealing with.
“A week before I came to your door and introduced myself, I watched you.” She jerked in surprise, watching as his head lifted to the soft breeze that fell from the mountains around them. “You were alone in the house, your bedroom window was open, and the scent of your arousal drifted down to me. You were masturbating.”
Natalie felt her face flame and had no chance to hide her embarrassment as he swung around and crouched in front of her chair.
“I could taste your sweet scent on the air,” he growled, his face only inches from hers. “Needy, aching, your pussy throbbed for satisfaction, and you found none.” His lips pulled back from his teeth in hunger, his eyes burned with it as his voice lowered. “And I knew I could ease you. I knew I longed to ease you with a strength that overcame even my need to kill the bastards who hunted us for so many years. And I knew, tasting the scent of your juices in the air, that you were my mate.”
“How?” Desperation filled her, longing, fear, so many emotions, so many needs she couldn’t make sense of. “How could you have known, Saban?”
He took her hand before she could draw back and flatted her palm over his heart. “That night was the first time in my life that I realized my heart beat. In my life I have never known fear, nor excitement, or nerves. I was always calm. Always steady. But that night, Natalie. That night, I felt all those things, cher. I felt them rip inside me, tear through my soul, and fill me. Without control. Without volition. I had no choice, because you’re the other part of me. My soul, boo. My mate.”
He should have looked ridiculous, kneeling there in front of her, her hand pressed into his chest, unfortunately, he looked anything but ridiculous. He looked arrogant; he looked like a man determined to claim his woman.
Sexy, savage, hungry. He wasn’t pleading, he wasn’t asking permission for her heart. He was claiming it, and as far as he was concerned, it was that simple.
“It doesn’t work that way.” She could feel his heart beneath her hand, strong and steady. “Just because you want it—”
“Doesn’t make it so.” His lips twisted with an edge of bitterness. “But the mating heat does make it so, Natalie. What you said, about the choice being taken from you, may be true from your perspective, at this moment. But it isn’t true of mine. If you weren’t meant to be my heart, and I yours, then it would not have happened.”
“Saban, there are no guarantees in life,” she snapped, frustrated, feeling the pressure his certainty brought her. “I just walked out of a marriage that nearly destroyed me with one controlling man. I don’t need to jump out of the frying pan into the fire.”
As the last word left her lips, heat bloomed in her womb, between her thighs. Her teeth clenched on the agonizing pleasure. It wasn’t pain. It was a need for pleasure, and it was sharp, intense, destructive to her self-control.
“I took the damned pills,” she groaned, wrapping her arms around her stomach, pressing, fighting against the clenching, spasming need that tore through it.
“The hormone in the kiss raises the arousal level,” he said softly. “The hormone in the male semen eases it somewhat.”
He pushed her hair back from her face, his hard hands stroking pure pleasure along the sides of her face.
“I suspected.” She shook her head. “The tabloid stories, all those silly articles. When I came to Sanctuary and met Callan and Merinus, I suspected parts of them were true.”
And she had been intrigued, curious about the Breed who watched her with hungry eyes and pretended to be something, someone he wasn’t.
“Parts of them are true,” he agreed. “Let me ease you, Natalie. Let me take away the pain.”
His lips touched hers, a butterfly kiss that had her own lips parting and a breath of need escaping her lips.
“I’m going to regret this.” She knew she was.
Natalie opened her eyes and stared back at him, desperation, need, and fear roiling together inside her. “I can’t handle shackles, Saban. I can’t be controlled.” The fear of it was ripping through her mind, destroying the balance she had found after her divorce.
Because she was being controlled. By the mating hormone he had spilled into her system, by her own body, by needs she couldn’t deny because everything inside her was demanding his touch.
“I’ll call Ely,” he growled. “She can strengthen the pills.”
Natalie shook her head, her hands jerking up to cover his as he moved to straighten away from her.
“Touch me. Just touch me.” She could feel the perspiration pouring from her face now, the weakness invading her body. “Saban, this is worse than she predicted. Oh God, this is bad.”
Dr. Ely Morrey had explained what she could expect in the first stage of the mating heat. But she’d said it only got worse after mates had sex that first time. Before that, the arousal would stay steady, a little uncomfortable, until she and Saban actually had sex.
If it was worse than this later, then she didn’t know if she would survive it.
She stared back at Saban, seeing the agony in his eyes, the knowledge that he hadn’t expected this either.
“Cher, Natalie.” His thumbs smoothed over her cheeks. “Go inside, away from me. I’ll finish this meal for you. You can eat.”
She shook her head.
“If we stay out here, bébé, we’ll end up fucking out here.” He was breathing hard, his chest moving fast and hard as his hands tightened around her face. “The scent of your arousal is making me insane. My control is thin enough as it is.”