His mouth watered.
Rein it in, asshole.
The lids of her eyes moved, and she fisted one hand and moaned.
Xavier leaned in and brushed a strand of hair off her pale cheek. Trying not to focus on how soft her skin felt under the rough pads of his fingers, he whispered soothingly, “Everything’s okay, Amalie. You’re home. In your bed.”
Her eyes fluttered open, and for a moment those smoky green orbs displayed extreme confusion. But in seconds, the haze dissipated, and she blinked, her teeth grazing her bottom lip. An action that once again had Xavier’s skin tightening over his muscles.
“Xavier?”
He nodded. “How you feeling?”
She didn’t answer him. Her eyes were pinned to his and her breathing grew labored.
“What?” he asked, concern moving through him. When she’d fallen, had he not caught her in time? Had she hurt herself? “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not a cub.”
Relief moved through him. This wasn’t pain he was seeing in her eyes, but frustration. “I know you’re not,” he said.
“You all treat me like I am.”
“No,” he amended, his voice dark, quiet. “We treat you like you’re special.”
She flinched, then huffed out a breath and looked away, past him. “So I was the last cub born to the Pantera. Who cares? Why does that mean anything different than the second-to-last cub? Or the third? It doesn’t make me special. It just makes me lucky.”
Xavier didn’t want to do this. Have this conversation. Especially not in her moonlit room, sitting on her bed. Granted, he understood the Pantera’s affections and protective ways regarding Amalie, but his actions and reactions were less about her ‘last born’ status and more about his own barely controlled attraction. Truthfully, if she wasn’t Aristide’s sister, he wasn’t all that sure he’d give a good goddamn about the Pantera’s need to keep her sheltered.
“You should sleep now,” he told her.
“I don’t want to sleep.” With a frustrated sigh, she came up on her elbows. “I want to be free. I want to live my own life. I want to be treated like something that can’t be broken with just a simple touch.”
“No touch is simple,” Xavier said quietly. “Trust me.”
“I don’t want to trust you!” she suddenly exploded, sitting all the way up, tears welling in her eyes. “Goddamit!” She threw up her hands. “I want to know it myself! I want to feel it myself!”
“Amalie—”
“I’m a fucking grown female!” she cried, looking down.
“I know.”
Her eyes snapped up to meet his. “Do you?”
His breath caught in his lungs. As much as she was beautiful when she was docile and flirtatious, she was nearly irresistible like this. So impassioned, so vicious, like she wanted to kiss the shit out of him, then knee him in the balls.
His gaze moved over her face, down the smooth column of her neck, then into her spectacular cleavage. Did he know she was a grown female?
Fuck yeah.
“Listen to me, Xavier,” she fairly growled. “If I don’t get broken soon, I’m going to lose my mind.”
“Don’t talk like that,” he growled back, giving her a fierce look, his cock twitching.
“Why not? It’s true. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be touched, wanting to go out and have a good time. Wanting sex.”
Christ, she was killing him. “I’m warning you, Amalie—”
“Just because you don’t see me as a grown female doesn’t mean other males don’t.”
“No males will be getting within ten feet of you,” he declared roughly.
“You can’t say shit like that.”
“I just did.” He stood up. He had to rearrange. He had to get the hell out of this room, out of her airspace before he did something regrettable.
She looked up at him, her eyes deep and dark, her hair wild and falling over her shoulders and between her breasts. “Go home, Xavier.”
He should. He really should.
In fact, he should walk out of this house and never come back. From now on, he and Aristide would meet somewhere else, anywhere else. And when Amalie’s name was brought up, he’d pray for deafness.
Instead, he narrowed his eyes on the half-naked vixen sitting in a pool of white softness before him and said with deadly calm, “I’m not going anywhere.”
One dark eyebrow raised. “Pardonnez-moi?”
“Clearly you can’t be trusted on your own.” He turned and headed for the door, calling over his shoulder, “While Aristide is gone, I’ll be taking care of you.”
CHAPTER THREE
Bastard.
Asshole.
God, she wanted to jump him.
Mal stared, watched Xavier’s exit with hungry, greedy eyes. He looked so good from behind. Even if he was walking away from her.
With a sigh of self-disgust, she dropped back on the pillow and closed her eyes. Truly, it stung that Xavier was staying with her out of obligation—not out of want. Or desire. She’d thought, fantasized, about being alone with him for so long, and now here they were. Not making out as she’d hoped, but residing in two separate rooms, both clothed, both breathing normally, skin not coated in a thin layer of sweat…
She groaned and turned on her side.
And yet, no matter the reason, he was staying.
For three days and three nights.
She wrapped herself around her extra-long pillow and squeezed, a glimmer of something akin to hope and wonder moving through her blood. In her mind, she saw him. Emerging from the bayou, his beautiful brown skin wet, his muscles flexing, his dangerous blue eyes catching hers as he stepped onto the bank.
Naked.
Her skin hummed, and she grinned as old memories and new fantasies collided. She wanted to release this long-held need she had for him, but it just clung so tightly to her. He was perfect. The body of a Hunter, the heart of a Nurturer and the brains of a Geek. He was everything she’d ever wanted.
Well, with one exception.
He refused to see her as grown or sexual or even female.
I’ll be taking care of you.
Her breasts tightened at just the memory of his deep, husky promise, and between her thighs, heat radiated. She was a strong female, passionate, and a truly capable Hunter. Rarely did she lose the prey she sought. And damn, she sought Xavier something fierce. She wanted his touch to be her first. Obligation or not, she’d already ‘captured’ him. Now she just had to make her gorgeous prey see what was right in front of him.
Hugging her pillow close, she drifted off to sleep with a confident, hungry smile.
I’m @ clinic. Quarantined w/Ashe’s sister. Her blood being tested. Take care of Mal 4 me. 3-4 days, they think. Thx, mon ami. I owe u.
Seated on the couch in Aristide and Amalie’s living room, two of his laptops open on the coffee table in front of him, Xavier read the text from his best friend again. The text he hadn’t even known he’d gotten until one of his Geeks dropped off his phone, along with his laptops, at the house a few hours ago. The thing screamed at him. Gave him the finger. Threatened him with pitchforks, torches and the sharpened claws of a pissed off puma brother.
Goddammit.
Take care of her? Shit, it was like asking a forest fire to take care of a pile of dry brush. But he’d do it. Hell yes, he’d do it. Aristide was his best friend, true, but he was also family. It was Aristide and Amalie’s parents who had helped Xavier’s mother find her smile again after his father’s death. The two Nurturers had always been there for him. For advice, a meal, a place to crash when he was being a hardheaded cub and his mom couldn’t handle him. And he wouldn’t betray them. Not with their own daughter, for fuck’s sake.