His fingers were still buried inside her, locking her into the pleasure swirling through her as it slowly, so very slowly and yet too quickly, began to ease inside her.
"I have to get away from you." He kissed her shoulder gently. "If I don't, Rachel, one day, my control will snap. The animal that wants nothing more than the promise of what it knows belongs to it will accept nothing less. I'm not just a man, baby. I'm a Breed. Animal and man, and the animal isn't nearly as patient as the man wishes he were."
He was going to break behind her, his body was drawn so tight.
"It hurts," she whispered. "Ely said it hurts."
"Ely has a big mouth." He drew his fingers from her, released her slowly.
A second later, Rachel opened her eyes, stared up at him and watched as his gaze held hers while he tasted the fingers that glistened with her juices.
His silver eyes turned nearly colorless. His face tightened until his cheekbones seemed to push against his flesh, his lips tightening, his brows lowering.
The animal was there, close to the skin, fighting to be free as he tasted the release that had poured from her body.
"If you need anything, Harmony will be here for a while." He pulled from her as though he had to force himself to do so.
Then he was gone.
He didn't go to his office. He left the cabin entirely. The door slammed behind him, something that had only happened once before in all the months she had known him. Jonas didn't make noise, until now. And he'd nearly slammed the door off its hinges.
Stumbling to the bathroom, Rachel cleaned herself, repaired her clothing, then stared at the woman gazing back at her from the mirror.
Who was she?
She touched her perspiration-damp hair back from her face and stared at the stranger she had suddenly become. The stranger who was suddenly wondering what in the hell she was allowing to happen here.
She shook her head. Jonas wouldn't be gone long, and she knew it. She rather doubted he would make it to D.C., despite his claim to be heading there.
He was too protective. He had claimed her, even without the mating. She was his mate, despite the fact that he hadn't possessed her.
He wouldn't leave without her, and he had no intentions of risking her by taking her and Amber from Sanctuary until he managed to capture Brandenmore.
Moving back to her desk, she sat down and stared at the computer. They needed information against Racert. Something that would force him to back off and to stop his attempts to destroy the Breeds.
She pulled up her email, located an address and typed in the message she knew would produce results.
Racert is a threat. Diana would know what she meant, and she would know what to do. If there was information to find, then Diana would find it. If there was a weapon they could use against the senator, then her sister would ensure that Rachel had it.
Rachel had never asked Diana to help her. The one time she had tried, her sister had been impossible to locate. Diana had sworn she would make up for it. That all Rachel had to do was ask.
She would have never asked for herself.
For this, for Jonas, for Merinus, for the Breeds who now stood between her and whatever plans Brandenmore had had in store for her and Amber, she would make the request.
Jonas strode into the estate house and moved directly to the labs below and Ely's office.
Pushing into her office, he watched as she lifted her attention from the samples she was studying, her gaze clearing as she watched him enter the room.
"Damn, she's killing you." She moved back from the bio-scope, a computerized biological scanning machine that she used to detect anomalies in Breed fluid samples, and crossed her arms over her breasts as she glared at him. "You touched her again, didn't you?"
"Give me a break, Ely," he growled before staring around the room. "Where the fuck is Jackal?"
He'd assigned Jackal to her security months ago. The other man was only to leave her side in the most extreme emergencies.
"The man has to sleep sometime, Jonas." She rolled her eyes at the question. "He has someone else on duty outside." She waved her hand to the door. "I don't want them in here."
She had been endangered. The protection he'd arranged for her hadn't been good enough; her assistants had nearly killed her, slowly poisoning her body and her mind in their attempts to betray the Breeds. It had nearly destroyed her.