Lion's Heat (21 page)

His expression hardened, became more stony than before.

"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.

"You don't make sense to me, Jonas," she whispered. "What are you trying to do to me?"

"Complete you. Protect you." His voice deepened as it speared through her heart.

Rachel kissed Amber's forehead gently, smiled as the baby pursed her lips as though to kiss her back, then laid her back amid the incredibly soft blankets that covered the mattress.

Turning to Jonas, she passed him, moved back into the office and felt his presence as he followed.

"I have to return to D.C. tonight," he told her as she moved back to her desk.

"Running away?" She stopped at her chair and turned back to face him. "Isn't that what you accused me of, Jonas?"

"My running is the only thing that will save you," he informed her, his voice turning to ice once more. "Never doubt that, Rachel. If I stay here tonight, I won't have the control not to take you. Now get everything ready--"

"No." Adrenaline raced through her as though she were facing losing something, someone. Jonas would be back, she knew he would, but something inside her couldn't bear to see him go.

Reaching out, she gripped his arm and held on tight. "You wouldn't let me run, you won't let me hide. Why should you be able to?"

"Because of this." His finger touched the mark he had left on her: the small scratch his incisors had left on her neck. "I drew blood, and for a second, love, I nearly licked over the wound. Do you know what would have happened, what I would have done to you, had I done that?"

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."