“I was minding my own business in my own house. You’re the one who decided to intrude.” She slapped some butter onto a slice of bread and shoved it in his direction.
He decided not to ask for jam. “Bad night?”
“Nate,” she said very quietly, gripping the edge of the counter with her hands. “Did you come here to gloat?”
He put down the half-eaten piece of bread. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about!” She turned and poked at his chest with a sharp finger. “Look, I can make stupid, virginal Tammy Mahaire so hot she doesn’t know which way is up. I can leave her gasping for me and walk away as if it doesn’t matter!”
“Hey.” He grabbed at her hand, but she pulled away. “I didn’t mean anything like that. I didn’t have a good night’s sleep, either.”
“Oh, that makes it all right!” She threw up her arms. “We were both miserable. Whoop-de-frickin’-do!”
There was no missing the sarcasm. It dripped from every word. “What the hell is it with you lately?” He succeeded in trapping her against the counter.
“Nothing!” She shoved at him but he was far stronger. “Go away. Go away and leave me alone. Don’t you get that? How many times do I have to tell you?”
“You don’t get to do that—I’m your mate.”
She stopped fighting, her chest heaving. “No, Nate, like I told you before, you don’t get to pick and choose which parts of the mating bond you want to accept. As far as your treatment of me goes, I’m not your mate. I’m simply another young, uninteresting female.”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
“I’m not. I’m sexually frustrated.” She narrowed her eyes. “But as we discussed last night, that can be easily fixed.”
He snapped. How could she possibly think to replace him with some mechanical object? Masculine pride, pure need, and raw heat made for a volatile combination. “Sex? That’s really what this is about?” He pushed harder into her, crushing the softness of her thighs under his.
Instead of backing off, she pushed into him. “Yes! Yes! Yes! Clear enough for you?”
“Fine.” Grabbing her waist, he lifted her onto the counter, spreading her knees wide in the same move. Something fell to the floor and shattered, but he didn’t give a shit. “You want to f**k, we’ll f**k.”
A hint of uncertainty moved over her face. “Nate—”
He closed his hand over the bare skin of her upper thigh. “You’re backing off? Don’t want me now that you’re faced with the reality?”
Her lower lip quivered. “Not like this,” she whispered. “Why are you being so mean?”
The protective male core of him couldn’t bear to see her looking so emotionally bruised, but they had to have this out. He couldn’t handle being pushed the way she’d been pushing him since her return from New York. “I’m trying to give you something—I’m trying to love you the only way I know how, and you’re rejecting it because you’re hot for sex?” That hurt him. Her freedom was the biggest gift he could give her. Some days, the cost it demanded threatened to drive him to murder.
“No, Nathan, no.” She cupped her face in his hands. “I just need you—all of you—so much that I’m going crazy. I need your laugh. I need your company. I need you to sleep beside me and I need you to wake when I wake. I need you with everything in me.”
“Then stop with the sex talk. It’s not you.”
Her hands dropped to his shoulders. “It’s not me?” A soft question.
“No. You’re warm and practical and loyal. You don’t go around flaunting yourself like a—” He caught himself before he said something unforgivable.
“Why don’t I finish it for you—like a bitch in heat—that’s what you were going to say, wasn’t it?”
Eight
“DAMN IT, TAMMY, DON’T LOOK LIKE THAT.” HE WAS THE one who cupped her face this time—her spine was straight, but she couldn’t hide the hurt in her eyes. “All this, the way you’ve been talking and dressing, it’s not anything normal for you and you know it.”
She looked at him through her lashes. “Yeah. Don’t know what I was thinking.”
His beast didn’t like the flatness in her tone. Reacting instinctively, he bent until their foreheads touched. “Come on, where’s my sweet Tammy?” He missed the woman who had become his closest friend over the years, the one with whom he could totally lower his guard. It was something he hadn’t been able to do since the day she’d started pushing at him. “Tamsyn?”
“I’m fine and I’m also late.” She gave him a shaky smile, then pressed her hands gently against his chest. “Some of the kids will be here soon to finish up their ornaments. I’d better get dressed. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
“You sure you’re all right, baby?” His leopard was pacing inside his skull, growling that something was wrong.
“Just a headache. Lack of sleep, you know.” She shrugged, making the former point of contention a joke. When her lips curved upward in a deeper smile, the leopard relaxed.
“Yeah, I do.” Laughing, he helped her down from the counter, then lifted her over the mess of the broken jam jar on the floor. “Go get changed. I’ll clean this up and head out to continue my watch.”