“I’m sorry.” The back door opened, and the scent of her wrapped around him then.
“For what?” Rather than looking at her, he lifted the lid to the grill and ignited the flames that curled over the ceramic briquettes inside.
“It’s not the same as rape.”
Saban clenched his teeth and fought the need to fist his hands.
“You decided this for what reason?” He lowered the grill lid and watched it, as though in watching it he could make it heat and burn away the shame inside him.
“Because I already suspected the truth of it,” she finally said. “I knew it existed, and I pushed anyway because you were frustrating the hell out of me. It wasn’t rape, Saban, but neither was it right. And now we’ll both have to deal with this. But I won’t deal with it with lies between us. Not from either side.”
FOUR
How could she have said something so vile to him?
Natalie felt everything inside her cringing, searing from the knowledge that she had struck out in the most unacceptable way and accused him of something so vicious.
This man, who had set aside his pride to read those stupid dating books, who had tried to charm her, tried to ease her into his arms rather than taking what he wanted. And it had almost worked. Hell, it was working, and she had known it; it was the reason she had been confrontational. It was the reason she had fought each overture he made so fiercely. Because he was making her feel, making her want things she told herself didn’t exist. She had suspected, in some ways she had known after she met Callan Lyons and his mate/wife, Merinus, that the rumors of a strange mating hormone/bond, and the deceleration of aging that the tabloids ran such stories around, were true.
Neither Callan nor Merinus had aged so much as a year in the past ten years; the same went for the others who had played prominent roles in the Breed freedoms and had married. Or mated, as the Breeds referred to it.
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 pu**y 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.”