Nalini Singh - The Magical Christmas Cat

They weren't large spots. Some were oddly shaped, some smaller than others. They were not human, a glaring reminder of what he was. Part animal. Bred from the DNA of the jaguar.

And at the moment he had never felt more like an animal. His cock was swollen in his jeans, thick and hard, throbbing in a hunger unlike anything he had known before he hungered for Haley.

His fingers circled her wrists as he forced himself to watch her, to stare down at her. Watching the latent sensuality in her expres­sion as she touched him. She was enjoying it. Touching him with stark innocence, discovery, and joy.

"You're so warm," she whispered.

"Haley, I'm burning," he warned her roughly.

He didn't want her to stop touching him. He wanted it to continue forever. But he knew that wasn't possible. Not yet. He couldn't let her strip his control, because if she did, then he would take the choice from her. He would mate her, even knowing it was possible she didn't love him.

She said she didn't. But he could smell her. He had smelled the emotions, the pheromones breeds and mates created together, and he could smell the subtle scent of it on her. It made him crazy, smelling it, knowing he couldn't have her, that she wouldn't un­derstand the animal he was and that he couldn't force her into the mating.

The animal that stretched inside him didn't care though. It wanted. It ached. It snarled relentlessly for the taste of her.

"If you keep stroking me, you know what's going to happen," he told her.

"Maybe I don't believe you." She looked up at him through her lashes, her gray eyes nearly blue as her features flushed with arousal.

With true, pure arousal. This wasn't heat-induced. It wasn't hormone-induced. It was her hunger for him. Pure and sweet and filling his senses.

"You believe me, Haley." He could see it in her eyes, in her ex­pression. She didn't want to believe him, but she knew it was there. "You think I'll hold back. That I'll let you pet and stroke me and keep the need I have for you under control. What happens when I break? When I take that choice from you?"

And he didn't want to. He wanted to luxuriate in the sensations of her hands on his flesh, touching him, stroking him. If only this.

She stared up at him. "Is it that bad?" Worry filled her eyes and he saw her intentions to draw back, to move from him, to leave him.

"I'll warn you when it gets that bad." Ah hell. He was insane. He had passed that point minutes ago, and he was encouraging her to go further?

"Are you sure?" Hesitation filled her now, and he didn't want her hesitation.

"I'm sure." He was crazy. That was exactly what he was, insane. The need for her touch outweighed everything else and made him insane to think he could control his response.

"I've been dying to touch you," she whispered as he released her hands and reached behind him to the footboard of the bed, grip­ping the wood tightly with desperate fingers.

He tipped his head back. He wasn't going to watch. He couldn't watch her.

"Touch me then." He could feel the sweat gathering on his back.

Her touch was like electric pleasure. It shimmered over his flesh, dug talons of exquisite need beneath if, and left him tight, tense, torn between stopping her and begging her for more. He would probably end up begging her for more, that was how damned crazy he was, a true glutton for punishment. Or for pleasure.

"Tell me when it's too much," she whispered.

"Gotcha." He gave her a sharp nod.

Too much had already been done and gone. Too much was the feel of his balls drawn excruciatingly tight and the head of his cock flaring thick and hard, and throbbing like a damned wound.

Too much was when he felt her lips touch his chest and her hot little tongue licking over a spot. That was too damned much.

Haley let her senses become immersed in the need to just touch him. Touching should be okay, she told herself. It wasn't a kiss, at least, not his kiss. It was just his flesh, just those intriguing little spots and the dampness of his flesh as she felt his flesh heat.

It was moving slowly, hesitantly into the desires that had never made sense where he was concerned. As though without even try­ing he touched a hidden part of her, drawing it free, and teasing it to be wild with him.

Without saying a word. Without touching her, without tempt­ing her with anything more than a look or the quirk of his lips. He tempted that unknown something inside her.

"I love how you feel." She touched his hard, rippling abs with her hands, smoothed over them to the band of his jeans and back up.

She tasted him. She kissed his chest, licked at several spots, feel­ing the ultrasoftness of the tiny hairs against her tongue. Then, in a move more daring than she had ever considered, she raked her teeth over the flesh beside a stiff, hard male nipple.

As though she had flayed him with fire he jerked, a hard, primal growl tearing from his chest as his head jerked up, and he stared down at her.

His eyes were like black velvet, studded with even darker glim­mer of lights. How could anything be darker than black? But something was, and it flickered in his eyes, the color overtaking the pupil and giving him a primal, primitive look.

As though the animal were so close to the surface that it would be hard to tell where human and jaguar separated. And she was tempting it. She knew she was.

"Is it too much?" She didn't want to torture him. She just needed to touch him.

"No." The word was short, the rasp in his voice was deep as his hands moved from behind him. "But if you can bite, then I can touch you as well."

She hadn't counted on that. Just as she hadn't counted on the throbbing growl in his voice as he said the words.

"How?" She needed to know. "No kisses."

"No kisses. No little bites." He bared his teeth, and she should have been frightened of those canines, which flashed at the sides of his mouth. Instead, they intrigued her.

How would they feel on her flesh? Raking over it, creating a flash point of pleasure and heat?

She swallowed tightly as he gripped the hem of her shirt.

"Let me take it off."

Her breath caught in her throat. "Is that a good idea?"

"Is any of it?" He tugged the hem upward. "Take it off or walk out of here. I can't stand here and not touch you as well, Haley. That's asking too much."

"No kisses?" She was almost whimpering with the need for his kiss though. Her lips tingled, her tongue ached to twine with his.

"No kisses," he promised.

She lifted her hands from his chest and raised her arms slowly, allowing him to draw the shirt from her. Sensuality wrapped around them heavily, saturating the air with lust and hunger as he tossed the material aside and stared down at her.

The white lace camisole she wore-in place of a bra adequately covered her, sort of.

"That's cheating." There was no grin, there was only need in his eyes to see her. "Let me take it off, too."

She could feel her nipples rasping against the lace, urging him to do just that. She licked her lips nervously and lifted her arms for him again.

He drew the lace covering from her, the material stroking over her nipples drawing a ragged groan from her. As he tossed the ma­terial aside, his hands caught her wrists, holding them over her head as he stared down at her.

"I want to suck your nipples." The blunt, blatant hunger in the words caused her womb to clench in response. Like a punch to her stomach, firing her nerve endings and sending pleasure streaking through her body.

She wanted him to suck her nipples. Her nipples wanted his mouth on them. She ached for it. The flesh between her thighs heated for it. She felt weak, dazed, arousal pouring into every cell and whipping over her nerve endings.

"If I weren't a breed," he told her then, "if I were just a man, I'd lay you down and tempt you with my mouth. I'd suck your pretty nipples until the dark pink blushed a pretty rose. Then I'd go between your thighs and lick the sweetest cream, and know your arousal is just for the pleasure I can give you."