“I have to get out of here.” She shook her head. “I have to get away from you before you drive me completely crazy.”
“Until your ex-husband showed up, you had no problems with me.” He felt like snarling, like roaring in his own frustration as the thought hit his mind. “Does he mean so much to you that now you have to run from me?”
The look she cast him was so filled with disdain that had he been a lesser man, he may have flinched.
“Don’t pretend to be stupid, Saban; you just don’t pull it off well,” she informed him caustically. “I don’t know what your Breed rule book says, but common decency should keep you from acting like a complete moron just because it suits your purposes to do so. You threatened Mike. You nearly killed him. And you shouldn’t be standing in front of me as though this mating heat bullshit makes it all right.”
“I will protect you.” He stepped closer, glowering down at her as the animal part of his brain demanded that he show her, again, just how much she was his woman. “Claxton wasn’t being reasonable, Natalie, you know that.”
“And you were?” She crossed her arms over her br**sts and glared at him. “You were choking him to death. One-handed.”
“Would you have preferred I used two hands? I thought it sporting to give him a handicap at least, but next time I’ll make certain I do the job right.” The next time he would just kill the bastard and have done with it.
The look she flashed him spoke volumes of her fury and her opinion of that statement. He watched, fascinated, as she restrained her rage. Her arms unfolded, her body tightened, until he wondered if her spine would snap.
“I have things to do today,” she informed him then. “Things that do not include you. Excuse me.”
She headed for the stairs, dismissing him as though the argument were over, simply because she deemed it over?
“Not so fast, mate,” he bit out, moving quickly to slide between her and her destination. “This argument has not yet finished.”
“Why? Because you haven’t gotten f**ked yet?” She flicked a glance at the evidence of his erection beneath his jeans. “I’m not in the mood.”
He growled at that. “You damned sure are ready to f**k, but that wasn’t on the agenda quite yet. Your anger at the moment is, because it’s completely illogical. Claxton was gearing himself up for violence, Natalie, and you know it. Better he found that outlet with me than with you. It ensured his survival.”
“Mike wouldn’t hurt me.” A frown flashed between her brows. “I was married to him for years, Saban, he never touched me in violence.”
It was the way she said it, the telltale flicker of her lashes, the scent of deceit. She wasn’t lying to him, but she wasn’t telling him the entire truth either.
“What did he do then?” he asked her carefully.
The sudden evasion in her eyes was proof that he had done something.
“He never hit me, and do you know what else he never did, Saban? He never started fights with men over something so asinine either.”
“No, he likely started them with you.” Saban could feel the renewed need to rip the man to shreds, one limb at a time. “Is that why you divorced him, Natalie? Why you fight the mating with me so hard? Did he attempt to control all that wild, beautiful fire inside you? Or did he attempt to douse it?”
“Conversation is over.” She said it calmly, but he could sense, smell the hurt and the anger raging inside her.
Like those flames Claxton had wanted to control, she pushed it back, buried it, hid it beneath that mask of calm self-control. She could teach a Breed about self-possession. She could definitely give him lessons in it, because he wasn’t handling this nearly as well as she was, but also, he knew, he had already accepted what she was to him. She still had that journey to make.
“This conversation is not over.” He bared his teeth in frustration; he could feel that frustration rising inside him now, threatening the boundaries of his control. “Hear me well, Natalie. It doesn’t matter who it is, man or woman; any threat to you will be dealt with. Any strike against you will be retaliated against. So much as a thought, a flicker of threat, and I will be there. Whether you like it or not, whether you want it or not.”
“Whether I want it or not.” Her voice was bitter, cutting like acid into his soul. “Because you decree it. Stand wherever the hell you want to stand, Saban. As long as it’s well away from me.”
EIGHT
I t hurt. Natalie couldn’t stem the hurt rising inside her, the fear, the certainty that the loss of control where Saban was concerned would be her undoing.
“I don’t need you to fight my battles.” She needed to fight her own battles, dammit. “Especially where Mike is concerned.”
She turned to move away from him, only to be confronted by his broad chest once again.
“Get out of my way, Saban.”
“So you can run and hide?” he bit out. “Rather than facing this problem and fixing it, you’re going to run away.”
“There’s no fixing it,” she pushed between gritted teeth as her fingers clenched at her side. “You think you’re right. You always think you’re right. Big, bad Breed knows it all.”