"Good." He crooned, his fingers stroking over her again. "So good. I want to feel your soft curls against my face. Can I do that, Haley? Can I feel your sweet damp curls against my lips? I promise, no tongue."
And she stood there. Stared down at him. And like a woman who enjoyed walking the edge of insanity, she let him draw the panties down her legs.
"You have spots, too." His voice was nearly strangled as he stared at her. And she did have. Freckles over the tops of her thighs and her hips. Not many, a few here and .there. But enough.
"I want to lick them."
She watched his jaw bunch.
"I want to taste you."
He leaned closer, both hands gripping her hips now as he neared the dark red curls between her thighs. Haley had forgotten how to breathe, she was certain of it. Why else did she feel so light-headed, so dazed? So aroused. It was like a fire burning beneath her flesh now, searing her, destroying her senses.
"Haley," he breathed her name against the damp curls, against the engorged bud of her clit, and she jerked, much as he had when she rasped her teeth over his chest.
She knew that pleasure now. Like a strike of brilliant, white-hot heat tearing through her.
"Haley," he breathed again. "Get the hell out of here."
It took long, disbelieving seconds to understand what he was saying.
"What?"
"Go," he growled, his eyes still on her as he licked his lips, his tongue swiping over them. "Get away from me, Haley."
"Noble."
"I'm going to lick that sweet cream. I'm going to bury my tongue inside your pussy and to hell with your anger or your hatred later. Get the fuck away from me."
She shuddered, shaking with the need she couldn't seem to control. She couldn't move. How the hell was she supposed to get away from him?
"Go!" His voice hardened.
The deliberate control in his movements as he released his hands from her hips was frightening. His expression, his eyes as he stared up at her, sent her stumbling back from him.
There was lust and hunger, then there was the pure, unbridled desperation she saw in his face. He would do it. And he was close, so close.
What had she done to him?
She jerked back farther, bending to snatch her clothes when he crouched over them, his gaze brimming with fiery, intent lust.
At that point, Haley all but ran from his bedroom. As she glanced back at the doorway, she nearly changed her mind. Nearly went to her knees in front of him and took everything he had to give her.
In one hand he held her lace panties to his mouth and nose, his eyes were closed, and his expression, his expression was pure, wicked pleasure.
She had to force herself to turn and go to her own room. Had to force herself away from him. And she had a feeling running was only delaying the inevitable. He was going to end up in her bed. And he was going to be there soon.
Chapter 7
The night was hell. The next morning was an exercise in restraint that had Noble's control stretched to its limits. The day was gray, the clouds lying heavy as more snow drifted over the mountains.
There was more than two feet out there, and the city was struggling to keep up as more snow was forecast. Winter was driving in hard and heavy, unlike anything they had seen in years. The winds swirled and moaned as the icy cold tried to penetrate every crack and pore of the house.
Haley had lit the fire that morning. Noble had carried in the firewood from the back porch and watched as she efficiently set fire to the tinder, building the coal bed with the smallest logs before placing the larger ones on it.
She did it the old-fashioned way. She used untreated firewood, preferring, she said, the scent of the wood over the fumes of the chemicals.
And as the afternoon progressed, he found her more and more often in front of the fire, her legs curled beside her as she sat on the thick, heavy rug before the hearth and leaned into the fat, fluffy pillows she'd had stored beside the couch.
She watched the fire as though it held the answers to every question she had ever asked.
Behind her, the Christmas tree twinkled with a million lights, the gaily wrapped presents beneath it gleaming with brilliant colors.
He'd never experienced Christmas. He'd been out of the labs for ten years, but it had been ten years struggling to aid the survival of the breed communities. The feline compound of Sanctuary as well as the Colorado-based wolf breed compound, Haven.
Christmas had been just another day for him, until now. Until he saw all the careful planning and the joy that would have gone into it for Haley.
Decorations filled the kitchen and living room as well as the outside of the house. From the groceries that were delivered that morning, he knew she planned to bake. He knew she was praying the danger would all be over before her family arrived on the twenty-third. He knew there were more presents in her bedroom to be wrapped. A pile of them. And he knew she was fighting the same needs, the same hungers he was fighting.
He stood just inside the living room, having just finished a call from Jonas. They were moving in on the person responsible for the leak in Haley's identity. The information they were tracking through their own servers as well as spyware slipped into Brackenmore's and Engalls's computers was turning up some interesting information.
Information that might end this sooner than any of them imagined.
There was a reason why Uriel had been so erratic in the past years. A reason why Brackenmore and Engalls had found the information about mating heat and ultimately the aging decrease. Mating heat always slowed aging in mates. Because Uriel was definitely a breed, and obviously in mating heat. That damned phenomenon was enough to make any breed slightly off center, but for a hired killer, it could be more dangerous than to most.
"They've had a break in the investigation." He kept his voice low, kept a careful distance between them. "Jonas is certain he'll have the identity of the person behind this within days."
She tensed. The fiery scent of her arousal seemed to intensify as he spoke to her.
As she turned, her hair fell over her shoulder, the flames gleaming over it, turning it to fire as well. The sight of it was nearly mesmerizing. Dazzling.
"Within days," she said softly. "That's pretty fast."
Jonas was pushing. He was breaking mandates and laws and working silently to identify Uriel, the hired assassin who had attempted to kill her. Not that he would get caught, even if the spy-ware was eventually detected.
"Jonas made you a promise to protect you, Haley. He'll keep it."
She lowered her head, staring down at her fingers as she twined them together.
"And when it's over?" She lifted her head and stared back at him somberly. "What then?"
"Sanctuary and its backers rebuild the library, restock it, and you get your life back," he told her.
"The way it was?"
He inhaled heavily, staring back at her, uncertain how to ease the pain he could sense inside her.
"That's up to you," he finally told her.
The memory of her touching him seared him then—a flash of heat hotter than the flames as the glands beneath his tongue made it feel thick, unruly. The hormone was growing more potent, torturing him. The arousal was building inside him, and he knew he had only a short amount of time before he was forced to walk away from her or risk destroying her trust in him.
Trust was such a fragile commodity, especially for a woman. He'd known of matings that had worked when that choice was removed. Love had grown, and it had thrived. But he had sworn he would never take that choice from his mate. That he would never take that choice from Haley. But time was running out for him.
The choice had been taken from him a year before, when he first saw that smile. When he first scented her, first felt the glands swelling beneath his tongue and realized what was going on. And he hadn't left. He had stayed. If he had left, he might have had a choice.
"My choice," she whispered before shaking her head and l
owering it again. "You don't make things easy do you, Noble."
"Was I supposed to make it easy?" he asked her, feeling the growing tension rising inside him. "Did you want me to take the choice from you, Haley? Would you have hated me for it?"
Haley stared back at him, having no-answers. All she knew was the need that didn't go away, the knowledge it was never going to go away. She had somehow always sensed that. That Noble would be the one man she would never be able to forget, never be able to get over if she fell in love with him.
And that had been what had held her back.
"I wouldn't have hated you," she finally whispered. "But it's too late for that, anyway. I do know. And knowing changes things."
"It didn't change anything last night," he bit out. "You loved touching me, Haley. Tasting me. I saw it in your face."
And she had seen it in his as well. The pure pleasure, the hunger and the overriding primal lust that had filled him. A part of her was drawn to it. A part of her was terrified by it. And she knew, she couldn't walk away from it again.
He pushed his fingers through his hair before gripping his neck and glaring over at her. She stared at him with those solemn, stormy eyes, and he knew that the same torments plagued her. Not as intently, not as strong. But she needed him, she ached for him.
"I want you until I don't know how to breathe without thinking of it anymore," she finally whispered, her voice echoing with the ache he felt inside his chest. "And I don't know what to do, Noble. I never expected this. And now, I don't know how to handle it."
"I'm not asking you to handle anything," he stated harshly. "Look, don't worry about it." He forced a tight, hard smile to his lips. "I've lived with it for a year now and survived. It won't kill me."
Maybe.
He moved through the living room into the spare bedroom he used. The communications and sensor equipment was set up there. Thankfully, the snow wasn't interfering with it too severely.
The satellite imagery was a little corrupted, but it still pinpointed his team's position. Three breeds on twelve-hour shifts, three resting but prepared for backup. Mordecai's coyote paced the grounds, and there was nothing in the immediate vicinity to cause any alarms.
Even more, whoever the breed was that had targeted her for Brackenmore and Engalls, they had no idea that Jonas was moving in. That would make it easier. And none besides himself, Jonas, and Callan were aware that there was a six-man force on constant detail.
The mission rosters were listed and Blake, Shiloh, and Flint were listed as operational and out of country. Mordecai was listed as patrolling Buffalo Gap, which he did, sometimes. And John Talon and Micah Jones were listed as Noble's outside security team only.
The careful deception wouldn't last for long, but perhaps long enough for the assassin to feel safe and confident enough to move in for the kill. Because Noble was also listed as "compromised," the term used for a breed entering mating heat.
Mating heat was known to compromise a breed's ability to detect more subtle scents. The senses were so involved with the scent, the taste, and the need for the mate, that most breeds weren't even operational during the first months of the phenomenon. Only after the mating heat had leveled off, allowing both mates to function without the near-constant need for sex, were mated breeds returned to operational status.
They had laid the groundwork, and the opportunity for the assassin to show up. And he would, soon. Noble could feel it. And when the bastard made the move, they would be ready for it.
"How bad is it for you?"
He tensed as she stepped into the bedroom. He had been aware of her movement through the house, the scent of her, like summer in the mountains, flowing toward him.
"Like I said, I'll survive." He shrugged.
"Can I touch you then?"
Agony ripped through him.
"No." He had to force the word out. "Not yet, Haley."
"If it's not that bad, then you could stand for me to touch you," she whispered. "Why are you lying to me, Noble?" He clenched his jaw as she moved closer.
"Wrong time to push this," he growled, turning on her, glaring down at her.
There was no fear in her eyes, though he knew he must look more like an animal than the man he tried to be. The hunger was nearly out of control. As long as he kept a careful distance between them, then he survived it, but Haley wasn't keeping that distance.
She flowed toward him, dressed in soft pants and a softer sweater. She looked like an angel coming toward him, and he wanted her with a force that had nothing to do with innocence.
"The wrong time to push it?" she asked him then. "You're hurting, aren't you?"
He'd gone past hurting last night. He was to the point that if she touched him, if she pushed him, he was going to take. And he wouldn't stop taking until all the need burning inside him was sated.
"Do I look like I'm hurting?" He wanted her, not her pity.
"You look just as arrogant and as forceful as you ever have," she told him as she trailed her fingers over the footboard of the bed and stared back at him. "Maybe I'm the one hurting, and I need to know if it's the same for you."
He could smell her arousal. It wasn't yet scented with mating heat, but the alluring scent of her, the sense of her need, the pulsing tension that seemed to throb through her body snared his senses like a carefully laid trap.
"I ache to my back teeth to touch you," he snarled back at her. "Is that what you want to hear? My cock feels like someone's sliced it open I want you so damned bad. Is that hurting enough for you, Haley?"
Her stormy eyes darkened, her breathing hitched. "I need . . ." she swallowed tightly. "I need you, Noble, and that need terrifies me. I've never ached for anyone like this. I've never wanted anyone like this. And I'm scared. I'm terrified you'll walk away, be taken away, or decide later this wasn't what you wanted, despite what you say about the hormone. I'm scared of reaching out to someone who might only want me because he has to protect me, or who may grow tired of having a woman weaker than he is. I'm not a breed." She shook her head as her eyes glittered with dampness. "I'm not strong like a breed woman is, and I'm not as courageous, or as adventurous."
He jerked her to him. "Not courageous or adventurous?" he rasped. "What the hell are you then? You risked your life for Sanctuary, and now you're standing here with me, knowing what I could do to you. What is that, Haley?"
Her lips trembled. "Insanity. And I've been crazy about you since the moment you walked in the library and stared at me as though you knew me. As though you felt that same sense of knowledge that I did."
He stared back at her in shock.
"I've never wanted anything, never needed anyone like I need you," she told him, reaching up, her fingers touching his lips. "Show me, Noble. Show me how to be your mate."
Chapter 8
She had spent the day going over it. She had thought it to death, reasoned it around every corner and curve she could reason it around, and come to the same ending each time. If she walked away from this, if she let him walk away, she would never forgive herself.
Like Noble, she had feared for so long that she would never find that feeling that something or someone belonged just to her. That one heart beat for her, her heart for him.
For a year she had kept her distance, but only because Noble had kept his. It would have taken very little for her to go into his arms.
The mating heat was a frightening prospect. The tabloid stories, if they were even 80 percent true, were enough to make any woman pause. But at least she had an idea what to expect, she told herself as she stared back at him. At least she had a chance of finding that unknown something she had been waiting for so long.
"This isn't like last night, Haley," he warned her. "There's no stepping into this and pulling back. Do you understand me? Once I kiss you, it starts. I promise you, stopping won't be a part of what comes later."
"I understand that." She nodded. And she did, she hoped. Yet he still stood there, staring at her, his express
ion tight, arrogant, fierce.
She gripped the hem of her sweater and, as he watched, pulled it over her head and dropped it to the floor. She wasn't wearing a camisole today. She wasn't even wearing a bra. Her breasts were swollen with need though, her nipples standing out, hard and desperate for his touch.
She licked her lips and gripped the elastic band of her cotton pants.
"Not the panties," he growled. "Leave them on."
Her heart raced in her chest as she remembered the sight of him holding her panties to his face, inhaling the scent of her the night before.
Gripping just the waist of the pants, she eased them over her legs and stood before him in nothing but the thin silk-and-lace panties she wore now.
She shivered as the winds howled outside, and inside, the bedroom filled with steamy, erotic lust. His black eyes moved over her body as he sat down in the chair next to him slowly and lifted one booted foot to his knee.
He unlaced his boots slowly, watching her, simply staring at her, stroking her body with his gaze as she felt her breathing constrict in her chest.
No, no man had ever stared at her like Noble did.
His boots thumped to the floor.
"Do you ever touch yourself?" he asked her as he began unbuttoning his shirt, obviously forcing himself to do the chore slowly.
Haley flushed at the question. "Sometimes."
"Do you think of me?"
She licked her lips nervously. "Yes."
"You play with your nipples?"
Oh Lord, she was going to melt to the floor. Each time he spoke, his voice was thicker, rougher.
"I do," she whispered through a moan.
"Gently or rough?"
She was going to turn into one huge blush at this rate. But she answered him, her breathless, "Both," filling the room with another layer of tension.
"Show me." He shrugged the shirt from his shoulders, and she wanted to lick his spots rather than touch herself. "Let me see you touch your breasts, Haley."
She stared at his body as he slowly undressed, watching avidly as her hands lifted to her breasts. She cupped the mounds and imagined his hands. She fluttered her fingers on her nipples, rubbed against them, pinched them lightly as he loosened his belt and pulled the metal buttons of his jeans loose.
She saw his cock before he shed his pants. It eased from between the flaps of his jeans, the flesh dark, thick veins raised along the shaft as the mushroomed head throbbed fiercely.
She pinched her nipples and moaned. Between her thighs she felt her moisture gathering, saturating her flesh, dampening her panties.
She wanted that. Wanted him. She could feel the ache in her sex growing now, the heat and the need almost painful as he quickly shed his jeans and socks.
Another moan slipped past her lips as his fingers wrapped around the shaft, stroked it, once, twice.
"I want to do that." She couldn't hold back the breathless words. "I want to feel you in my hands."
The need rising inside her was unlike any other she had ever felt. She had never wanted anything as she wanted to feel Noble inside her now.
"On the mattress." He nodded to the bed. "I'm not going to take you standing up, Haley. And if I touch you before you get in that bed, then that's exactly what's going to happen."
"I want to touch you." She moved to the bed, staring at him as she eased onto the mattress. "Just for a minute, Noble. I need to touch you."
She had to be kidding. Noble stared back at her, feeling the wash of white-hot arousal tearing through his system, and prayed to God she wasn't a virgin. He couldn't handle it. Right now, he wasn't a fitting lover for a virgin.
"Have you had a lover?" he asked moving closer to the bed.
She blinked back at him. "I'm not a virgin." She frowned then. "Does that matter?"
"Thank God," he muttered. "Move onto the bed. The middle of it."
"You're not just going to take me, are you?" she whispered though she did as he asked.
"Get real, Haley," he growled. "I've"waited a year for this. Do you think I'm going to do anything but take hours loving that sweet, hot little body of yours?"
"First, I get to touch." She reached out to him, her hands touching his hard abs, feeling them tighten painfully against her palms. As he knelt beside her, she ran them to his thighs and stared at the thick, heavy length of his cock.
It only made sense that the dark flesh, fully engorged and ready for her, would be so damned sexy. He was sexy all over. He just couldn't help himself.
"Haley, the edge is close," he warned her. "Trust me, you want me to love you before I do this."
"Yeah, I do," she murmured absently, sitting up, her hands moving to touch him.
"Fuck. You're not listening to me." His voice was strangled. She couldn't breathe.
She looked up at him, opened her lips and licked over the thick cock head.