Bengal's Heart (5 page)

“You’re normally up rather late,” he stated, his voice low as his gaze flickered to her laptop. The one she hadn’t turned on all day. “I expected you to be working on whatever story you were coming up with.” There was an edge of suspicion in his voice.

Could he smell her nerves along with her arousal? Probably. But who wasn’t nervous around him?

“I don’t consider the story or my hours any of your business.” She shrugged, moved across the room and headed to the open kitchen. “I’m going to fix a pot of coffee. Interested?” In the coffee, she should have said. It was rarely a good thing to leave a question or a sentence open around a Breed.

She felt him follow her. Like a heated breath of air at her back, she could feel him behind her as she moved into the kitchen and headed for the counter.

“Nothing for me.”

No coffee, tea or me, she thought sarcastically.

She lifted her shoulder negligently. “Suit yourself.”

Silence filled the room as she programmed the coffeemaker and flipped it on. Within seconds, the scent of hot, rich coffee began to fill the room.

Cassa turned then and faced the one man, the Breed, she couldn’t seem to help but be fascinated by, despite her own best efforts.

He looked far different now than he had eleven years before, during his rescue from the labs in Germany where he was being held.

There, he had been bloodied, slashed, bruised, near death, but still fighting to survive, in a pit filled with stakes and slashing blades. His pride had fallen around him. Women, children, young men. His screams of rage still haunted her nightmares, as did the knowledge that she had played a part in the horror he had experienced. And he knew it.

Guilt seared her with a slash of pain that raced across her chest, and a sense of fear that never failed to weaken her knees. And he sensed it, just as he always did. She watched his eyes darken, his body tense as the scent of it reached him.

“I haven’t killed you yet,” he growled. “I’d imagine you could drop the fear now, Cassa.”

“Perhaps it’s just a case of feminine wariness?” She asked a question rather than making a statement. Breeds could smell a lie, and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of smelling hers.

“And arousal?” His head tilted to the side as though the knowledge of it were a curiosity to him.

“I bet a lot of women are aroused by you.” She was careful to keep her tone even, calm. No nervousness, no hint of guilt. She’d learned over the years how to cover most responses when around Breeds. They sensed too much, knew too much. And Cassa had far too many secrets.

“That doesn’t answer my question,” he stated, as he continued to watch her much too closely. “Why fear me now?”

Cassa could only shake her head. And stare. She stared at those golden flecks in his eyes, unable to break the hold they had on her. She wanted, no, she ached to touch him, and that was by far the most dangerous impulse she had ever known. And the thought of that need infuriated her. He was the last man in the world she should ache for. The last one that she should need, and she knew it.

“What do you want, Cabal?” She bit the words out as she tried to hold back her anger and her need.

His gaze narrowed. The look was a warning, and it was one that common sense suggested she heed. Unfortunately, common sense had never been her strong point.

“I hear you’ve been spending quite a bit of time with the Feline Breed doctor, Ely Morrey,” he stated. “Why?”

Why? Why, because she was afflicted, that was why. Because her body insisted on retaining some damned hormone within it that she had picked up when she had lost her sanity eleven years ago.

She remembered the moment clearly. The second she had touched her fingers to her lips and tasted Cabal’s blood on them. Such a small thing. It shouldn’t have been enough, and actually, it hadn’t been enough to begin mating heat. But it had been enough to affect her in curious ways. Ways that Dr. Morrey was still attempting to decipher.

Mating heat was the Breed curse. Some Breeds claimed it was their strength; others saw it as a weakness. Of course, it did depend on whether or not the Breed was mated.

“I’m working on a story.” That was definitely a lie, and there was no way to hide the scent of it.

A dark blond brow lifted with mocking curiosity.

“I hate it when you lie to me,” he warned her softly. “You’ve been making visits to Ely for the past several years on a regular basis. You would have written the story by now.”

Cassa’s chin lifted at the deliberate arrogance in his tone.

“Ely’s a friend of mine, Cabal, just as the other wives at Sanctuary are friends. I don’t need an excuse to visit with them any more than you need an excuse to visit with your pride leader, Callan.”

It was a deliberate attempt to get him off the subject of Ely. Everyone knew that Cabal recognized no Breed as his pride leader. He had lost his pride, his family, during a rescue that had gone to hell, and he claimed no other.

“Stop trying to distract me,” he growled as he moved closer.

Cassa could feel that nearness. She swore her body heated by several degrees when he moved closer.

“I wouldn’t dare attempt to distract you.” She shoved her hands into the pockets of her robe as she glared at him. “Don’t you have better things to do than to harass me? Shouldn’t you be out shooting at Breed enemies or lurking in the shadows for some reason?”

His jaw tightened. To say he was displeased would be putting it mildly. But she had never pleased this particular Breed in any manner. She doubted she would begin tonight.

“Are you in mating heat?”

The question had her staring at him in shock. Excitement raced through her now, just as it always did anytime they came anywhere close to a confrontation. She could feel her body flushing with heat, her heart racing furiously.

“If I were, would I be here arguing with you?” she snapped back. “I’d be with my mate, wouldn’t I?”

Unfortunately not. Her mate was standing in front of her, and he was known as the Breed poster boy for sexual excess. The son of a bitch had had more women under his belt in the past eleven years than most men could achieve in two lifetimes. He was a tomcat, plain and simple.

She watched as his jaw tightened further, as his nostrils flared in his attempt to catch the scent of mating heat.

Cassa wondered how the mates of Breeds could stand knowing that any Breed in the vicinity could tell when they were in heat and aroused. It had to be horribly discomforting. She knew for a fact that the physical discomfort could become excessively painful, and in some cases, dangerous.

She would have preferred to have stayed as far away from mating heat as possible.

“You’re up to something.” His lip lifted in irritation. It was incredibly sexy the way he flashed a single canine while glaring at her.

She scoffed at him in reminder. “I’m a television investigative reporter. We’re always up to something, Cabal. It’s part of our job description.”

For some reason, he liked to forget that little fact. Then she forgot it as well, as he moved closer. Just that quickly, his harder, stronger body was flush against hers, as she backed herself right into the wall.

She stared up at him in shock. A distant part of her brain quickly analyzed the strange sensations that shot through her. Flames seemed to scorch her flesh; she swore she broke out in a sweat, and her nerve endings became so sensitive that even the whisper of his breath against her cheek was a stroke of pleasure.

Sweet Lord have mercy, she thought. She was throbbing from head to toe, and so ready to throw him to the floor and fuck him that it was pathetic. She wanted to ride him. She wanted to feel all that male power and sleek, hard muscle brushing against her naked flesh, driving inside her.

Her vagina clenched, her womb spasmed and the liquid heat that trickled between her thighs should have been embarrassing. She was so ready for him her knees were weak.

But if she was ready for him, it was nothing compared to how ready he was. His cock pressed into her lower stomach through their layers of clothes, his expression gone enigmatic, but his eyes, the gold flecks in his eyes, were richer, deeper than ever before.

“This is your warning,” he growled, as his hands clenched against the wall by her head. “Keep pushing me, Cassa, and I won’t stop next time.”

“You’ll stop.” She could barely speak. Excitement churned through her system, making her voice as weak as her knees. “You won’t rape me.”

“I won’t,” he agreed as his gaze flickered over her face. “But we both know mating heat will. Don’t we, mate?”

Her lips parted in surprise. She had known, but she hadn’t realized he had. How long had he known? For how many years had he been screwing everything in skirts when he had known all along what was building between them?

Before she could blast him, deny him or spurt out a protest, he pushed away from her, turned his back and strode from the kitchen. The only sound in the house after he opened the front door was the sound of that plate shattering on the door where his head should have been.

“You bastard!” she yelled furiously, anger churning inside her now. “You tomcatting, whore-mongering snake.” Another plate flew for emphasis and shattered against the wall. “Your mate my ass!” She kicked an end table. “Not in this lifetime.” Would she ever admit it? she finished to herself silently.

Because to admit that, she would have to admit so much more. To needs that haunted her through the night, and truths that dogged her through the day. She would have to admit she loved him. And that was something Cassa refused to do.

◆ CHAPTER 2
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