"I love you." As though the words were torn from him, ripped from the very center of his being.
"You so obviously didn't want to admit to that," she said painfully. "Why did you?"
His lips tightened, the muscles at his jaw clenched furiously. "You deserve the truth, whether I want to tell you or not," he stated.
"Why?" He was such an enigma sometimes, and at others, she felt as though she had known him forever.
"You're my mate," he growled. "The same as my wife, the other half of me. I won't lie to you, Rachel. You are what I never thought I would have in my life. I don't lie to myself; I won't lie to you."
Nothing could be so simple. So easy.
Shaking her head, she rose from her chair, desperate now to get away from him, to think without him staring back at her with that icy gaze.
"The world was simple to you once, wasn't it, Rachel?" he asked her as she headed for the door. "You had your parents, your sister, the little house in the country, a pet dog named Ruffy, a cat named Kitty."
She stopped, closed her eyes and fought not to remember those days. She didn't want to remember what had been, because it was so different from what it had become.
"Then it was taken from you."
"And your point?" she asked painfully.
"You've run ever since," he stated. "You and your sister both have run from what you lost. A senseless accident, a lack of foresight by your parents to ensure you were cared for if they were taken away and the loss of everything you knew."
Even the dog and the cat had been wrenched from her arms.
"I didn't have to run," she said, holding the pain of the past deep inside her.
"You've run." He stepped closer, blocked the doorway and reached out until his fingers held a thick curl of hair, rubbing against it sensually. "You've made certain nothing could be taken from you again, until you had Amber. And now you hold on to her with everything you have, don't you baby." His voice dropped, softened.
"She's my daughter."
"She's your life."
She stared back at him, not certain where he was going now.
"She's my life," she agreed.
"You live for her. You would die for her."
And she would, so easily.
"Where are you going with this, Jonas?"
"I'm making a point, love," he stated gently. "Imagine the love you feel for your child, and then multiply that by a thousand. Imagine what you felt the first time you gazed upon her, and knew that God had given you the most perfect gift to complete your life, and multiply that again. That is what you are to me. That is what I felt the first moment I saw you. Unlike humans, Breeds live for the small gifts, the little kindnesses fate would hand to us. We search for them. We cherish them. The moment I saw you, the animal inside me roared in triumph, the man melted in the face of the woman who stared back at him.
"That was love, Rachel. It was the acceptance, the knowledge that what I feared the most, what I ached for the most, was now standing before me, and reaching out for it, claiming it, could destroy everything I am."
She shook her head desperately. "Love doesn't happen like that. It takes time. It builds."
He nodded slowly. "It can happen like that. It can build slowly. It can come like a gentle rainfall, or it can slam into you like a tsunami. You are my tsunami, love."
She couldn't accept that. Staring back at him, she saw his understanding that she refused to accept his logic.
"Racert left a message while I was in my office." He changed the subject coolly. "He's decided that the decision the appropriations committee made needs to be reviewed. He believes the amount awarded initially to Sanctuary and Haven were well above what we deserve. He's moving to have the funds reduced."
"Stop." She lifted her hand in refusal. "You can't just switch that way."
"Of course I can." He shrugged as he moved away from her, dropping the curl he had been caressing. "As you stated, you refuse the mating. My control isn't inexhaustible. I have my limits. And I'm drawing close to that limit. I need you to pull the information we have on Racert and bring it to me. We need to find a weakness."
She inhaled slowly. "Jonas."
"Do it." His voice was like a lash of ice now. "Questions are for later, when I can handle what you do to me. That isn't something I can do at the moment."
He turned and stalked back to his office. The way his body moved had little to do with simply walking. The Lion his genetics came from was too close to the surface now, too much a part of him.
She had seen that before, she realized. In Callan, in Sherra, and in Taber and Tanner. Merinus's family, the ruling Pride. The animals that were so much a part of them were often close to the surface in the presence of their mates, when they were forced to control more than simple arousal.
Turning away, she moved to the computer and began pulling together the information they had on the senator.
Unfortunately, from what she remembered, there was very little they could use against him. Racert had kept his nose clean. He hadn't done drugs; he had conducted his shadier dealings under the auspices of legitimate actions. There was no way to prove he had done anything illegal. He had a wife, no mistress. One child, a daughter, widowed. A granddaughter still in high school.
She finished the file, sent it to Jonas's computer, then left her desk to check on Amber.
She was still sleeping. At three months old, she was only now beginning to fill out. She smiled and laughed often. She was the greatest joy in Rachel's life.
Rachel couldn't imagine that Jonas could take one look at her and feel more, love more, than she had felt or loved the first time she'd held her child.
Lifting her from the crib, Rachel cuddled Amber close to her heart, reached out and stroked the tiny strands of red-gold hair from her brow.
The soft blue dress and little stockings she wore had been bought by Jonas. The clothes, tiny shoes, everything Amber now possessed had been provided for by Jonas. Everything Rachel now owned, Jonas had given her. He provided everything. And he did so without demanding payment. Without asking for the slightest thing in return.
Had anyone besides her sister ever done that?
"You were born to be a mother."
Jonas was behind her again. She had felt him before he spoke, and that amazed her.