They wanted to kill him, and they often tried, but they never tried to piss him off. They knew better.
She watched as he stepped closer, suddenly more nervous where he was concerned than she had ever been.
"Don't touch me, Jonas." She stepped back quickly, knowing the few rumors, the whispered warnings she'd heard about Breeds when they took their mates.
He stopped quickly. His brow furrowed, the silver color in his eyes flickering and roiling like a storm coming to a head.
"Do you think I'd harm you?" His voice deepened and rumbled as she watched him nervously.
"I think you'd do whatever you needed to achieve your own end, but I don't think you'd harm me." She couldn't allow him to think otherwise; her sense of fair play went too deep. "That doesn't mean I want to tempt that hormonal funky stuff you have going on."
"Hormonal funky stuff?" There was a note of surprise in his voice though his expression became more brooding. "It's called heat, baby, and we call it that for a reason."
She gave a small snort, curiously ladylike, and so damned hot his cock throbbed with a hunger he had never experienced before.
Jonas could feel his teeth grinding together as he fought to pull back, not to touch her, to force her to admit that she was burning for him.
Curiously, she wasn't. There was desire, strong, heated desire. But it wasn't heat. He hadn't touched her. He hadn't kissed or marked her. She was saved from the torturous need that was suddenly afflicting him.
The glands in his tongue were swollen to the point that the tongue itself was thick and heavy. A slight taste of cinnamon and cloves tempted his taste buds and urged him to share.
God, he wanted her lips wrapped around his tongue. First his tongue, then his dick. His eyes narrowed on the luscious curves of her mouth as he fought to hold back the hunger, the absolute craving to fill her mouth with the same tastes that filled his. Her body with the same lusts that were tearing him apart.
"It's called a woman's nightmare," she informed him tartly. "I can't imagine anything worse than being so tied to a man that you can't exist without him."
His gaze slipped to hers as she turned from him.
Merinus had told her about mating heat. In that moment, Jonas knew that the Prima had broken the strictest law of the Breed society. Mates were forbidden to reveal the mating heat to any unmated Breed or human. It was the only protection they had.
"I've yet to see a mate who considers it a nightmare," he snapped as he forced himself to turn from her. "But the subject is moot. If I had intended to follow that path and tie you to me, then trust me, sweetheart," he turned back long enough to spear a hard, cool look in her direction, "you would be tied."
He didn't wait around for her reaction. At that moment, the sound of Amber's protest that she had waited too long for her breakfast echoed through the house as Jonas stalked to his room and closed the door softly.
He felt as though he was going to break apart. Parts of him were shattering on the inside as the animal part of his psyche clawed and roared in protest at being jerked from his mate.
Mark her, it urged.
Tie her.
God help him, that was the last thing he should do.
He'd seen his Enforcers locked in mating heat. He'd seen how it compromised their abilities to maintain control and focus on their assigned missions.
There was something about the hormonal, super-charged aphrodisiac that spilled from a Breed's tongue that made that tie impossible to deny.
It formed a tie that bound him to her, despite her unwillingness to be bound in return.
But wasn't this what he wanted? he reminded himself. He had denied the heat for months. He had forced himself to hold back, deny the instinctive need that ripped through his senses.
Now, in a matter
of hours, he was ready to bed her for a single touch.
He was screwed. It was that simple, and he knew it. Just as he knew that there wasn't a damned thing he could do to stop it.
Rachel stared at her shaking hands before breathing in roughly, collecting the items she needed and moving back to the bedroom and to Amber, who fussed for her bottle.
She checked Amber's diaper, changed it quickly and all the while reminded herself, more than once, of all the reasons why she wasn't going to allow herself to touch the man. He was such a fascination to her that she could barely keep her mind, let alone her hands, off him.