His fingers gently stroked the baby's arm, her tiny fingers. Amber looked so tiny next to him that Rachel wondered that he wasn't frightened to touch her. At times, Rachel was terrified of breaking her.
"She looks like you," Jonas said, his voice still soft. "A living beauty."
Rachel's breath caught as his gaze lifted from the child, to her. For once, the living mercury of his eyes wasn't raging. They were calm, glowing in his dark face with power and promise.
She couldn't speak. The words felt locked in her throat, the power to pull them free lacking inside her. He stared at her as though he truly adored her, as though she was perhaps perfect, beautiful, a woman well worth desiring.
No man had ever stared at her in such a manner before. No man had ever made her feel as though she was the center of his hunger, and only she could relieve it.
Jonas rose to his knees then, picked the baby up and straightened before moving across the living room to the smaller crib, which he must have placed there while she was showering.
Rachel closed the bedroom door and stepped into the living room.
He was putting the baby closer to them so they could hear her from his room, separated by the open fireplace. Private, yet accessible should Amber need them.
"I thought you would want to hear her if she fussed tonight." He laid Amber in the crib so she could continue to watch the flames, before drawing a light blanket decorated with tiny pink teddy bears over her tiny body.
"I don't understand this," she whispered as she paused before the fireplace and watched as he turned back to her. "And I'm frightened of it."
"Frightened of what?" He moved to her, his long legs eating the distance despite the fact that he was moving slowly. "What's there to be frightened of, sweetheart? More pleasure than you can imagine? A man who would die for you?"
Things women swore they would die for. It wasn't the love, or the devotion, that frightened her, though.
"Of the mating heat." She swallowed tightly. "I don't like not having control, Jonas. I don't know how to live and not be certain of what tomorrow will bring, or how not to control what my own destiny is."
"Did you know what tomorrow would bring when you were with Marshal? And sweetheart, I hate to tell you this, but you have all the control," he told her softly, his hands moving to her shoulders, his fingers caressing the flesh revealed by the loose neckline of the gown. "Whatever you want, I'm here to provide, Rachel," he promised. "Whatever keeps you safe, happy and in my arms, I'm here to give you. Just tell me what you want."
His head lowered, but he didn't kiss her lips. He didn't share the mating hormone that Ely had stated made each breath torturous, the hunger was so intense. Instead, his lips touched the skin just below her ear, where sensations were magnified, where heat built and spread along her nerve endings like wildfire.
Rachel felt her lashes drifting closed as sensual weakness and an emotional overload assailed her. What he did to her, she could barely make sense of. He could break her heart, he could make her want to shoot him, but through it all, she didn't want to miss this chance.
"What are you doing?" Breathing was becoming harder by the second as she felt arousal burning through her, marking her with the need for his touch.
His lips were warm velvet, his tongue, with its slight rasp, a heated roughness that had her eyes closing and her knees weakening, and the hunger to feel more, to feel all of him, nearly overwhelmed her.
"Jonas." She whispered his name, the need building inside her now, tearing through her and laying waste to any thought she may have been harboring about thinking this step through any longer.
Lifting her hands, she pressed her fingers to his hard, heated abdomen, feeling it flex beneath her fingers as her own stomach clenched in hunger. She loved how readily he responded to her touch. There were no games with it. She gave him pleasure just as well as he gave her.
"Come to bed with me, Rachel," he breathed against her ear. "I promise, there will be no heat tonight. You have all the time you need to become accustomed the idea of it. To decide if the loss of control is worth it."
She lifted her head, staring back at him, wondering at the incredible gentleness in his voice.
"It hurts you," she whispered.
"Like it would hurt any other man not to have you." He cupped her cheek, his thumb running over her lips. "You are an addiction to me, love. But it's not as though I'm going into withdrawal quite yet."
He looked amused, patient. He didn't look like a man in the throes of agony.
"Ely thinks . . ."
"Ely is sometimes a bit overprotective when it comes to mated Breeds, and a whole lot too nosy about the biology of the phenomena," he stated as his hand stroked down her arm, his fingers finding hers as he moved back to draw her to his bedroom. "Don't worry about what Ely says, Rachel. Worry about what you need."
He was lying to her. She could see the lie in his eyes, in the fine film of perspiration glistening along his forehead. He was in pain, and the knowledge of how he held back, to give her the time she needed, had her wondering if holding back was truly what she wanted to do.
He needed to kiss her. The glands beneath his tongue, as Merinus had explained it, could become agonizingly sensitive unless the hormone was shared.
He was protecting her.