Wild Invitation

bond real, to be my mate in truth. But you said no. You always say no! Well, you know what, I’m through with begging. I’m through with not being good enough for you!”
    It felt like she’d stabbed him. “You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he said, the leopard alive in his voice. “I’ve spent every day of the past four years thinking of myself as the luckiest man on the planet—frustrated as hell, but damn lucky.”
    She shook her head. “Don’t. Don’t lie.”
    It was all he could do not to crush his lips to hers and kiss her into accepting his words. “I watch you work and feel such pride, sometimes I think my heart will explode. I look at your body and have to fight the urge to bare my teeth and warn off anyone else from doing the same. You want to know why I lost it when you wore those tight, sexy clothes?
    “It was because others could see what was
mine
.” It was a possessive, animal reaction, one he usually tempered with human civility. But Tamsyn needed to see the real man, claws and all. “I don’t like to share.”
    Finally a reaction. “You didn’t think I looked stupid?”
    “I wanted to peel you out of those damn come-to-bed jeans”—something he was definitely going to do today—“and mount you right there in the Pack Circle.”
    “Nate!”
    “I wanted to show everyone that you were mine. I wanted to put my hands on your breasts and my lips on yours and my co—”
    She squeaked, slapping a hand over his mouth. “Nate!” The scandalized expression on her face was very Tamsyn. His mate had come back to him.
    He pulled away the restraint, using his other hand to manacle her free hand, too. “Where was I? I have wanted you so damn long, my balls are permanently blue. As—”
    “I believe you!” A hint of desperation.
    “I don’t want any mistakes about this.” And her time wasup. The things he wanted to do to her were probably illegal in some countries. Too bad.
    He backed her into a wall with slow deliberation, not stopping until her breasts were crushed warm and tempting against him, her stomach muscles clenching at the granite-hard thrust of his erection. “The sex—hell, yes, I want the sex. I want it so much I could devour you right this second, take little bites out of all those soft, delicate places.”
    Her breasts rose and fell in a jagged rhythm as she watched him through her lashes.
    “But baby, I fell in love with you long before the mating heat kicked in this bad. Do you know why I came to wish you happy birthday when you were fifteen?”
    She shook her head, mute.
    “Because I adored everything about you as much then as I do now,” he whispered, giving her words because she needed them, and because he’d made her cry. There was no excuse for that. “It wasn’t sexual—you were too young. It was just this tightness inside my chest. Every time you smiled, my world lit up. All I wanted to do was keep giving you reasons to smile. The day I realized you were my mate, the happiness almost killed me. So don’t you
ever
say I don’t love or want you. I chose you, Tamsyn Mahaire. I chose you.”
    Tamsyn wanted to burst out crying. “Oh, Nate.” She buried her face against his chest and, when he let go of her hands, wrapped her arms around him as he wrapped his around hers. She had never heard him speak in that impassioned, romantic way, never imagined he would. And to her? To his practical, sensible mate?
    “You are not leaving me,” he ordered, his voice predator deep. “If you want to go roaming, I’ll take you. But you are not leaving me.”
    She wondered if he expected them to go back to the way things were. If so, he was about to get a surprise. Half of the mess that was their relationship had been her fault. She’d let him think he was the boss. Well, he wasn’t. They were a partnership. Breaking the embrace, she pushed off his jacket. He was so surprised, he let her. Then she began undoing his rough wool-blend shirt.
    “Tammy.” He grabbed at her wrist.
    “Forget it, Nathan,” she snapped, tearing the shirt down the middle. Buttons went flying every which way. “I’m ready to lose my virginity and you’re going to help me do it. I don’t care if I have to kidnap you and tie you to the bed.”
    He opened his mouth as if to speak, but then she flattened her palms on his wonderful, hard chest and he shuddered instead. The same head-spinning rush hit her, powered by the skin-to-skin contact.
Skin privileges.
She had