The effects were different, the agonizing heat not nearly as uncomfortable. Or perhaps it wasn’t as noticeable as pain. Saban had known pain. Pain so agonizing, so brutal that the need to f**k, no matter how vicious, was more pleasure than agony.
But it was bordering on intensely irritating as he checked out the house. He went over the security diagnostics and then ran the secondary sensors for electronic listening devices, explosives, and a variety of threats.
His dick was spike hard and threatening to rip his zipper from his jeans, but if he was going to f**k in peace, then he had to make damned sure the house was safe first. Moving back to the living room, his gaze moved instinctively to his mate. She was curled in the corner of the couch, watching him, molasses eyes dark and hot, her body vibrating with arousal. She was perfection to him. It didn’t matter that another had taken her, that she had loved another, he told himself. But did she still love him? Were there emotions that had carried over from her marriage that now hampered her ability to see her ex-husband as he was?
“You’re watching me with that predatory look in your eyes again,” she announced, her voice husky, edging into passion.
God, he loved the sound of her voice when she desired him. When the heat was building and her pu**y was creaming.
“Perhaps I’m considering dessert.” He moved closer to her, his teeth clenching at the needs suddenly rocking through him.
The heat building in her wrapped around his senses, intoxicated him, made his blood boil. It had been like that the moment he had laid eyes on her, watching her from afar. She had been an assignment when he landed in Nashville, where she had worked in a small public school as a teacher. Within hours she had become the most important thing in his life. In the weeks since, she had become even more. She had become his soul.
That knowledge made his need for her harder, sharper. It made him all too aware that his position in her life was precarious, despite the mating heat. As much as he hated it—and he did hate it—there had been another male in her life at one time, and that male was encroaching on his territory. Saban had been created and trained to deal with such irritations with maximum force. He had been raised by an old man he called Broussard to know compassion and to follow something far greater than death.
As he stood there, staring at his mate, he wondered which would win. The training or the upbringing, because at this moment he wanted nothing more than to shed blood and to protect his mate. Because something inside him—that primal, primitive part of him—warned him that his mate needed protecting against Mike Claxton.
“You don’t look like a man considering dessert.” She unfolded herself from the couch, a sinuous, sexy move that had his nostrils flaring to both draw the scent of her into his head and to maintain control. The scent tested the control, but he resisted for the moment.
“I’m a man considering many things.” Foremost, he was considering the best way to maneuver his very intelligent, very confrontational little mate.
Her low laugh was knowing, sexy. The scent of her was like sunrise, like spring and innocence, and like
a woman moving slowly, confidently into her place in her mate’s life. He liked that scent. He liked all the feels and the textures of watching her claim what was hers alone. Perhaps Claxton wouldn’t be such an issue. Not that he would ever let her confront the man herself, but perhaps he could not shed blood. And maybe he didn’t have to worry about securing her heart. She was coming to him, the scent of her was mixing with his, his scent was mixing with hers. Her fingers slid under his belt.
Saban’s head jerked down. His gaze slashed to those graceful fingers, curled as they were between his jeans and the shirt tucked into them.
The heat of her fingers branded his flesh through the shirt and flashed to his balls, drawing them tight. It was a first for them. The first time she had come to him. He lifted his head back to her, saw the flash of vulnerability in her eyes, and took a firm hold on the hunger tearing through him.
“I’m yours,” he told her. “Do as you will, mate.”
“Mate,” she whispered the word almost questioningly.
“Much more than a wife.” He kept his arms still at his sides rather than touch her as he wanted to. “The most important part of who I am.”
Her expression softened, though her gaze gleamed with nervousness and with a twinge of uncertainty. It didn’t stop her need, though, and it didn’t stop that small step into awareness of her power over him. And she had a great amount of power over him. He would do more than kill for her—he would die for her. But even more, he would fight to the very limits of his training to live for her.
“I want you.” She said it simply, and with that she stole any remaining part of him that he may have held separately from her.
The breath literally stalled in his throat as she worked at the buckle of his belt. Slow, sure movements, her slender fingers easing the belt loose then slipping the metal button free to slide the zipper down, over the heavy ridge of flesh throbbing beneath.
He growled involuntarily, the muscles of his abdomen flexing violently as her fingers gripped the hem of his shirt and pulled it up his torso.
Saban lifted his arms, bent enough to allow her to pull the shirt free, then nearly roared out his pleasure as her head bent and her sharp little teeth raked his chest.
“ Mercy , my cher ,” he growled, forcing his hands to merely skim along her back. She was fully dressed. He wanted her naked, and he wanted her naked now. He gripped the hem of her shirt and drew it off when he wanted to rip it off. He forced back a hungry snarl as he felt her satiny flesh, and then a roar as her hot lips moved down his chest to his abdomen, then to the straining length of his cock.
He stared down at her in amazement as she went to her knees. Her br**sts were framed in black lace, pale and swollen and pretty as hell. Nothing could be as pretty as those pale pink, luscious lips surrounding and consuming the head of his c**k though.
Damn. Nothing could be as good.
His fingers slid into her hair. The warm strands tangled around his fingers like living silk. She sucked the head of his c**k deep inside her mouth. She sent his senses exploding. Saban felt his head fall back on his shoulders then forced himself steady to stare down at her. He felt the rumbling growls that came from his chest, and he growled her name. He snarled his need for her, and he fought for control. He prayed for control, because he wanted this to last. He wanted this touch, the way her eyes blazed up at him, the sight of his flesh held intimately in her mouth seared into his memory. A shattered groan ripped from his chest as her tongue swirled around the head, caressing the swollen crest with wicked licks. And there, just beneath the crest, her curious little tongue probed at the flesh that covered the barb. The extension wasn’t erect, but it throbbed beneath the flesh, ached with the need for release.