Nalini Singh - The Magical Christmas Cat

She was hurt. She stared back at him painfully, wondering why he would want to play with her in such a way. Okay, she gave the tabloids credit, there might be a glimmer of truth to some of it. But what he was saying was unreal.

Noble stared back at her, his jaw clenching furiously, the muscle at the side ticking in a resounding rhythm of restraint.

"You want me," he growled. "I can smell it. More than you've ever wanted another man, Haley. I'm betting on it."

She pushed her fingers through her hair and fought back her embarrassment.

"I know you can smell that I want you," she said uncomfortably, feeling the flush that worked up her neck and face. "I don't expect anything from you, but you don't have to lie to me."

His expression tightened, the flesh seemed stretched over the bones and angles of his face, giving him a darker, more animal-like appearance.

"Come here." He reached out for her.

Haley stared at his hand suspiciously. It was broad, darkly tanned, strong. His fingers were powerful and graceful, and she couldn't stop the clenching of her stomach at the thought of his touching her.

"Give me your hand, Haley." His voice hardened.

She lifted her hand to him. Slowly, he took the tip of her finger and brought it to his mouth. "Let me show you."

His lips parted, the heat of his mouth flushed over the tip of her finger and seemed to wash into her flesh. Then his tongue was curling around it, and there, beneath it, she felt the small, enflamed glands. They were hard, pulsing against her finger, hot and rasping against her.

His thick, black lashes lowered, sensuality and hunger suf­fused his face. And all he was doing was suckling at her finger, licking it.

Her finger heated, and she swore she felt a tingle of something more than simple pleasure move into her flesh. When he pulled her hand back, she stared at the dampened flesh, then back to him.

"Give it an hour," he told her then, his voice rasping. "It doesn't take a kiss to make the hormone move into you, Haley. Something that simple." He nodded to her finger, and in his expression she could see a need for more of her. "A kiss to your neck. A gentle taste of your flesh, and it will burn inside you, it will warm your desire more than ever before. And the sweet, sensual smell of your cream will make me crazier." His hands clenched into fists at his side. "I want you. I've wanted you since the moment I laid eyes on you a year ago. Want you until the need for you overwhelms everything else. That's why your security team is so large. Why you have six breeds rather than two working to make certain you're safe. Because here, in this house, the world outside isn't going to exist for either of us soon. Soon, nothing is going to exist except the hunger."

She stared at her finger and back to him. She licked her lips ner­vously, her breath catching as his gaze sliced to the action.

"I want to lick your lips, too." His voice sounded torn from his throat. "I want to lick your lips, your breasts, and the sweet wet heat between your thighs. I want to take you until you can't deny me, or deny the hunger feeding us both. And it's going to happen, Haley. Very very soon. The only question is, can you accept it?" Could she accept it?

She stared back at him. "I'm not in love with you."

She wanted him. She had wanted him for a year. She was fasci­nated with him, fantasized about him constantly, but that wasn't love.

"Then we're in for a rocky ride, Haley." He sighed regretfully. "But it's very possible that I am in love with you. And I've never in my life had anything or anyone that belonged to me. Knowing you're my mate makes it damned hard to give you a warning, or a choice. But I'm trying to do that. In the next few hours, I want you to remember that. I'm trying, and for me, that's a hell of a concession."

He turned and walked away from her then, his broad shoul­ders straight, his head held high as he moved back into the living room.

There was so much pride in every movement of his body. Strength and determination, confidence definitely.

Haley collapsed into one of the kitchen chairs beside her and stared at her finger.

Was it a virus? Whatever that mating thing was? Just a hor­mone surely couldn't do what he said it could. She turned her gaze to the vial of pills on the table. There weren't a lot of them. One a day he had said. To help minimize the effects?

There were so many questions pouring through her mind now. And so many sensations filling her. It wasn't the hormone he had licked onto her finger that had her heart racing. And it couldn't be causing her thighs to tingle. It was a mind game. And she wasn't so simple that she was going to allow herself to be played so easily.

She rose from the table and moved quickly, angrily into the liv­ing room. He wasn't there. His bedroom door was open, and she moved there, determined to question him, to get the answers she needed. She stepped into the bedroom, where she came to a halt just inside the doorway.

For some reason, he had pulled his shirt off. God, why had he pulled his shirt off? Because before he could turn to face her, she had glimpsed his back. There, across his shoulders, were spots. Not freckles. Not scarring, but a unique, fascinating pattern of dark rings, rather like the spots of the Jaguar whose DNA she knew he shared.

She stepped forward. Her hands were tingling again, more strongly, the need to touch him almost driving her past common sense.

"I need a shower." He faced her, and across his shoulders and up­per chest those spots continued. They were faint, patterned across his chest and arrowing down into his jeans.

She stepped forward and stopped. Then moved again. She had to touch them.

As she got closer, she could see that it was more than just spots. It was a pattern of the fine, almost invisible hairs she knew covered the breed bodies. But they were darker in areas, creating the pat­tern of spots.

Breeds appeared hairless, except for their eyebrows and the hair on their heads. Actually, according to her research they were cov­ered in a thin, fine pelt almost undetectable, even to touch.

"Haley, you don't want to touch me right now," he told her softly.

She couldn't help it. She touched. She reached out, letting her palm smooth over his chest and feeling her breath catching in her chest as she felt the heat, the hard muscle rippling beneath his tough skin, and the ultrasoft feel of that darker pelt against her flesh.

"It's beautiful," she whispered, lifting her gaze to his as she lifted her other hand and touched him more.

"Don't. Haley, please." His hands gripped her wrists, but he held her in place, he didn't move her, didn't pull her from him. "You don't understand what that hormone does to me. You don't know how I burn for you."

"Why me?" she whispered. "Why did you choose me?"

His gaze was heavy, black eyes that swirled with dark color and hints of emotion. They gleamed with life, with hunger, and with more than lust.

"I saw you," he said. "A smile on your face, your pretty eyes lit with laughter and hope and joy. And you dazzled me, Haley. You always dazzle me. Confuse me. Draw me. It doesn't take love for mating heat to begin, but if love truly does exist, then I knew that feeling the first moment I saw your smile. I claimed you, when I never meant to claim anything or anyone that could be taken from me. I claimed you, Haley. Now if you don't get the hell away from me, all choice I would have given you is going to be taken from you."

Noble never would have believed that he had the strength to hold back as he did. To allow Haley to touch him, despite his hold on her wrists, to allow her to pet him.

And she was petting him. Stroking her palms over his flesh, feeling the slight rasp of the darker hairs that made the spots cover­ing his chest and arrowing down his abdomen before spreading out over his thighs.