A Jaguar's Kiss

ELEVEN

Natalie had tried desperately not to think about Saban or the emotions twisting inside her where he was concerned. She’d used frustration and aggravation, she’d tried to hide, and she’d tried to deny them. She’d wanted to deny feeling anything for him, because otherwise she would have had to face the fact that within a matter of weeks, less than two months, she had let a man steal a part of her heart that even her ex-husband hadn’t possessed.

And here she had been the one to promise herself she would never let another man affect her again.

She almost snorted at the thought the next morning as she put on coffee and began preparing breakfast. Saban sat at the small kitchen table, dressed in his Breed Enforcer uniform.

Strapped to his side in a shoulder holster was his weapon, to his left thigh a sheathed dagger. He would have more weapons hidden on him, she knew. Weapons she couldn’t see, weapons he knew how to use with deadly efficiency.

And why that brought her comfort rather than freaking her out, she wasn’t certain. She should have been frightened of Saban from the day she learned he’d be living in her home with her, following her, protecting her.

It was one of the reasons she had fought him so far, she realized as she finished the bacon, eggs, and toast. It was why she hadn’t wanted him here. Why she hadn’t wanted him to be a part of her life. Because she had known he would become a part of her heart.

And he was. Right there in living color, bronze muscle covered by the military-type black uniform with the Jaguar insignia on his shoulder.

She almost shook her head at herself as she poured two mugs of coffee and moved to set his on the table. Turning away from him, she couldn’t help it, she just couldn’t help but to let her fingers skim over the thick, black silk of his hair.

“Hey.” He caught her hand, his head jerking up, his gaze connecting with her in lazy awareness of her. “You don’t have to try to sneak and touch me.”

He placed her palm against his cheek, turned a kiss into it, then went back to work on the small electronice notepad he had attached to the palm Internet link he carried.

Natalie threaded her fingers through his hair, a smile twitching at her lips as he leaned into the caress, even though his brow was furrowed with concentration.

He didn’t mind being touched. And he didn’t think a light caress meant running straight to the bed as well. Mike hadn’t wanted to be touched unless he was ready for sex.

She let her fingers linger a moment longer then moved back to the stove and breakfast.

Strange, how easily Saban has slipped into her heart. She hadn’t wanted it, she had given it the good fight, but he was there.

She paused at the stove, felt the sharp blow to her heart, and realized she loved it. It stole her breath, when she knew it shouldn’t have. It shook her to the core, even though she realized she should have known all along what was happening.

She had fallen in love with a man a hundred times more dominant than her ex-husband had been, and he had managed to slip so much deeper inside her soul than Mike ever could have.

She stared sightless down at the bacon and felt the anger that began to build inside her. It wasn’t an anger toward herself or toward Saban. But toward Mike.

He had come to Buffalo Gap to destroy not just her independence but what she had found with Saban. He had left his bimbo, his job, and the home he had stolen from her to make certain she lost anything she could have found in this small community.

He would do it, too, she realized. He wouldn’t physically hurt her, but he would destroy the respect and the good standing she was building here. He would make it impossible for her to teach the Breed children before he would make himself appear as a threat to her and to them.

And he knew what he was doing. And she knew she was going to have to stop him before he destroyed this chance she had at happiness.

“I need to check a few things in the truck.” Saban rose from his chair as she turned to him. “I’ll be right back.”

He strode quickly from the room as she drew in a slow, hard breath. As she heard the front door close, she jerked the phone from the wall and punched in Mike’s cell phone number.

She was going to take care of this between her and Mike. She wouldn’t have Saban’s hands bloodied because of her ex-husband’s stupidity, and she wasn’t giving him the chance to nearly destroy her career again.

“Natalie, thank God you called.” He answered on the first ring. “Are you okay?”

The pseudo concern in his voice was nearly too much.

“Go home, Mike,” she snapped. “I divorced you for a reason. To get you out of my life. Don’t make me get another restraining order on you. You know how bad that’s going to look if you have to actually get another job.”

“You didn’t used to be so hard, Natalie.” There was a wealth of sorrow in his voice. God, didn’t he ever see what he was doing to himself?

“You didn’t used to be so stupid,” she hissed. “I left Tennessee to get away from you. I’m happy here, Mike. Happier than I ever was in our marriage. Go back to your bimbo and leave me the hell alone.”

Silence filled the line for long moments.

“I just want to see you first,” he finally said, his voice soft, regretful. “Is that so much to ask?”

“Yes, it is.” Way too much to ask, because she couldn’t blame Saban for being concerned, and there wasn’t a chance in hell he was going to agree to this.

“Five minutes, Natalie. Anywhere. I don’t care. Just give me five minutes to say good-bye.”

“And you’ll leave?”

“I swear, I’ll leave.”

“Five minutes,” she retorted. “I’ll be at the mall later today sometime around four. I’ll meet you at the outside entrance to Sally J’s.” Sally J’s was one of the women’s-only clothing stores in the large mall just outside town. “You’ll have five minutes. I’ll call you right before I step outside.”

“Will your furry friend be with you?” he asked bitterly.

“He’ll be around,” she finally sighed. “But I’ll talk to you alone. Be there at four, Mike. And remember, five minutes. That’s it.”

“Five minutes. That’s all I need, Nat.”

She hung the phone up and moved back to the stove as the front door opened once again, and seconds later Saban strode back into the kitchen.

As Saban sat back down at the kitchen table and took a healthy sip of the decaffeinated coffee he’d slipped into the canister days ago, he drew in a slow breath.

Sometimes his sense of smell was a curse rather than a blessing. Times such as moments before, when he had smelled the emotion pouring from Natalie. Rich and saturated with arousal, tempestuous with need, and overlaying it all, the deep, heady scent of love.

Love had a scent, though it varied from person to person and couple to couple. It wasn’t easy to detect and often wasn’t even apparent except in high-stress, personal moments.

What was she thinking of? he wondered. What had caused that well of emotion to open inside her and break free and then to touch him. To touch him of her own volition, as though testing her ability to do so or his patience in allowing it.

God help them both—he would lie at her feet until hell froze over to feel again what he had felt when she had touched him so timidly. Sensation, like an electrical current had run over his scalp and sizzled down his spine. He’d barely restrained a weakening shiver, and he cursed himself for it. For a second, he’d been like the pitiful cub he remembered himself as, so long ago. Staring at the scientists from his metal pen, hungry for something that went beyond the need for food. And now he knew what that hunger was, not for just a touch, but for one filled with emotion.

That touch had set his nerve endings on fire, and now, long moments later, it had him on edge, off balance, and filled with his own emotions.

“I’d like to postpone the trip to the mall that you planned for today,” he told her, keeping his voice level as she set the plate of food in front of him. “There are still some safety issues I’d like to have taken care of first.”

His control not withstanding, the report Jonas had sent out via the eLink wasn’t happy news.

“I can’t postpone it.”

Saban’s head snapped up. Her voice was carefully bland, non-confrontational, but he heard the nervousness behind it. The same nervousness he sensed every damned time she disagreed with him. Did she think he was going to beat her for disagreeing with him? That son of a bitch, Claxton, had a lot to answer for; unfortunately, Saban had already come to the conclusion that he would have to allow Jonas and his team to take care of getting the bastard out of town, rather than taking care of it himself.

Natalie might not like his methods.

As he watched her, he noticed that she didn’t meet his eyes. She took her seat, salted and peppered her food, sipped her coffee, and said nothing more.

He could see the pulse beating a ragged rhythm in her throat though, and he could smell her trepidation.

“Very well.” He lowered his gaze to his own breakfast and dug in. “I’ll contact Jonas and have a few extra men assigned around the mall just to be on the safe side. An enforcer caught sight of a suspected Council soldier in town last night. The Council has been attempting to capture Breed mates for years, so we need to be careful.”

“Why?” She lifted her head then, suspicion flickering in her gaze.

Did she believe he would lie to her? Saban wanted to growl, he wanted to throw something, wanted to beat her ex-husband until he was nothing but bloody pulp.

“Why are they attempting to capture our mates? Or why do we need to be careful?”

Her lips pursed as mocking patience filled her expression. “What do you think?”

Saban smiled, making certain to add just enough wicked sensuality to the look. “Many things, but I’ll concentrate on your question. They want our mates to experiment on the phenomenon, which by the way, they saw as early as the first Breed’s creation more than a century ago. Unfortunately for them, that first Leo escaped in his twenty-seventh year of creation. The mating hormone and the genetic viruslike condition it creates is of interest to them.”

“What sort of interest?” She was eating, but her attention was caught, he could see.

Natalie was a curious little thing, and that curiosity was rarely a problem. Until now.

He finished his breakfast, pushed back his plate, and stared back at her coolly. “It creates a condition that decreases aging in both the Breed and his or her mate. In ten years, Merinus and Callan have aged perhaps a year. There are rumors the first Leo, who should be nearing the age of one hundred and thirty, is still alive and still in his prime. And that, my dear, is the reason the Council scientists would do anything to capture our mates.”