She shook her head as she fought to control the pain that tried to twist her expression.
"The mating hormone would have infected the wound. Within hours, it would have moved into your system. A few more hours and you would be begging me to fuck you. Screaming for it. That's what's going to happen if I stay."
Rachel jerked away from him. Raking her fingers through her hair, she fought to make sense of her emotions, her needs, her confusion.
What was he doing to her?
She remembered, so many years ago, seeing his face on a news interview. She had watched his eyes, the swirl of color, and had felt her heart clench. Over the years, nothing had changed. Each time she saw a glimpse of him in the news, she had watched, absorbed by the sight.
Meeting him had produced a stronger reaction. It hadn't been simple attraction. It hadn't been mere interest or even absorption. From that first face-to-face meeting, Jonas had inspired emotions inside her that she hadn't wanted to face.
"Rachel." His voice rasped across her senses as he moved behind her.
His hands gripped her hips, held her to him as he laid his cheek against the top of her head.
"I don't sleep because I can do nothing but hunger for you," he whispered. "I smell your scent, heavy with arousal, and it burns inside me. I see you and I want nothing more than to taste you, every inch of you. I'm a strong man, baby, but I'm not that strong."
His hands stroked up her side, moved around, cupped her breasts.
She breathed in sharply and arched into his touch.
"I sat in that office, fighting for control, and the scent of you drew me back. Do you know I can smell the wet heat of your pussy clear into that fucking room? All I can think about is spreading your legs." His fingers found her nipples, stroked them, gripped them between fingers and thumbs before rolling them firmly.
Her head fell back against his chest as her back arched in pleasure.
"I can't keep my hands off you."
Did she want him to keep his hands off her?
She didn't.
Her breathing roughened as sensation sizzled across her nerve endings. His hands moved, his fingers flipping apart the buttons that held her blouse together.
"Do you know what mating heat does?" he growled.
She shook her head. Merinus had evidently neglected to give her a lot of information.
"The pleasure is unlike anything you could imagine," he whispered at her ear as he parted her blouse, his fingers moving to the clasp of her bra between her breasts.
The pleasure was unlike anything she could have imagined. Rachel lowered her head, watched as his large hands cupped her breasts, caressed them, his fingers stroking across her nipples.
Biting her lip, she fought to hold back the whimpers of pleasure that fell from her lips, and failed.
This was incredible. It was unlike any pleasure she had known in her life.
"All it takes is a kiss," he whispered. "Or a lick. I could taste the sweet heat of your pussy, push my tongue inside the tight little muscles there, and you'd go crazy for the pleasure, Rachel. You'd beg, but you wouldn't have to beg. I'd give it to you. All night, all day. Over and over again while your body begs for more, demands more."
His hands slid from her breasts, down. He flicked open the button to her pants, slid the zipper down and pushed his hand inside the silk panties beneath.
"Is this mating heat?" she gasped.
She could feel her juices spilling over his fingers, the swollen folds of her sex parting beneath his fingers. The sensations were exquisite, heated, rife with such longing that she wanted to beg for possession.
"Not yet." He breathed out, his chest laboring at her back as they both fought for air. "Not for you."
But it was killing him. She felt it now. The tension in his body, the primal rasp of his voice. This wasn't the cool, logical, in-control Jonas that she knew.
His breathing was heavy at her ear, a groan tearing from his chest as his fingers met the swollen bud of her clit. A groan that mingled with her whimper of need.
"Then something's wrong." Her hand moved to her thighs, pressing against his as the need for a firmer touch surged through her body. "Jonas, this is killing me."
Then what was it doing to him?
According to Ely, it was thousand times worse for him.
He growled behind her. A sound so reminiscent of the animal he shared his genetics with that she shivered.
"Tell me . . ." She had to swallow tightly to continue as his fingers eased through the lush collection of heat between the folds of her sex. "Tell me, Jonas, what this does to you."
His head buried against her neck as his large body seemed to shudder behind her.
"Heaven and hell," he groaned. "I want to go to my knees and beg, Rachel. I would beg for just a taste if I knew you wouldn't hate me once you realized you were tied to me forever. And from all we know, mating is a long, long time."
The Leo was more than a century in age.
Her lips parted, her eyes closing as she tried to force herself to move away from him.
His fingers moved again. They curled, two pressed together, and a heartbeat later they were thrusting inside the tight, clenched depths of her vagina.
She went to her toes. The pleasure was so extreme, so intense, a cry tore from her lips.
He didn't stop. His fingers moved fast, hard, thrusting inside her, fucking into her with smooth, sure strokes and throwing her over the edge of completion.
Rachel clamped her thighs on his hand, her entire body tightening as ecstasy raced through her body over and over again. She didn't want it to stop. She wanted to feel this forever. She wanted to lock the sensations inside her and never let them go.
"I love feeling you come for me." His voice was barely recognizable now. "The way your pussy clenches on my fingers, sucks at them. I would die to feel it around my dick, sucking me in, pulling my release from me."
His fingers were still buried inside her, locking her into the pleasure swirling through her as it slowly, so very slowly and yet too quickly, began to ease inside her.
"I have to get away from you." He kissed her shoulder gently. "If I don't, Rachel, one day, my control will snap. The animal that wants nothing more than the promise of what it knows belongs to it will accept nothing less. I'm not just a man, baby. I'm a Breed. Animal and man, and the animal isn't nearly as patient as the man wishes he were."
He was going to break behind her, his body was drawn so tight.
"It hurts," she whispered. "Ely said it hurts."
"Ely has a big mouth." He drew his fingers from her, released her slowly.
A second later, Rachel opened her eyes, stared up at him and watched as his gaze held hers while he tasted the fingers that glistened with her juices.
His silver eyes turned nearly colorless. His face tightened until his cheekbones seemed to push against his flesh, his lips tightening, his brows lowering.
The animal was there, close to the skin, fighting to be free as he tasted the release that had poured from her body.
"If you need anything, Harmony will be here for a while." He pulled from her as though he had to force himself to do so.
Then he was gone.
He didn't go to his office. He left the cabin entirely. The door slammed behind him, something that had only happened once before in all the months she had known him. Jonas didn't make noise, until now. And he'd nearly slammed the door off its hinges.
Stumbling to the bathroom, Rachel cleaned herself, repaired her clothing, then stared at the woman gazing back at her from the mirror.
Who was she?
She touched her perspiration-damp hair back from her face and stared at the stranger she had suddenly become. The stranger who was suddenly wondering what in the hell she was allowing to happen here.
She shook her head. Jonas wouldn't be gone long, and she knew it. She rather doubted he would make it to D.C., despite his claim to be heading there.