At that point, Haley all but ran from his bedroom.

As she glanced back at the doorway, she nearly changed her mind. Nearly went to her knees in front of him and took everything he had to give her.

In one hand he held her lace panties to his mouth and nose, his eyes were closed, and his expression, his expression was pure, wicked pleasure.

She had to force herself to turn and go to her own room. Had to force herself away from him. And she had a feeling running was only delaying the inevitable. He was going to end up in her bed. And he was going to be there soon.

Chapter 7

The night was hell. The next morning was an exercise in restraint that had Noble's control stretched to its limits. The day was gray, the clouds lying heavy as more snow drifted over the mountains.

There was more than two feet out there, and the city was struggling to keep up as more snow was forecast. Winter was driving in hard and heavy, unlike anything they had seen in years. The winds swirled and moaned as the icy cold tried to penetrate every crack and pore of the house.

Haley had lit the fire that morning. Noble had carried in the firewood from the back porch and watched as she efficiently set fire to the tinder, building the coal bed with the smallest logs before placing the larger ones on it.

She did it the old-fashioned way. She used untreated firewood, preferring, she said, the scent of the wood over the fumes of the chemicals.

And as the afternoon progressed, he found her more and more often in front of the fire, her legs curled beside her as she sat on the thick, heavy rug before the hearth and leaned into the fat, fluffy pillows she'd had stored beside the couch.

She watched the fire as though it held the answers to every question she had ever asked.

Behind her, the Christmas tree twinkled with a million lights, the gaily wrapped presents beneath it gleaming with brilliant colors.

He'd never experienced Christmas. He'd been out of the labs for ten years, but it had been ten years struggling to aid the survival of the breed communities. The feline compound of Sanctuary as well as the Colorado-based wolf breed compound, Haven.

Christmas had been just another day for him, until now. Until he saw all the careful planning and the joy that would have gone into it for Haley.

Decorations filled the kitchen and living room as well as the outside of the house. From the groceries that were delivered that morning, he knew she planned to bake. He knew she was praying the danger would all be over before her family arrived on the twenty-third. He knew there were more presents in her bedroom to be wrapped. A pile of them. And he knew she was fighting the same needs, the same hungers he was fighting.

He stood just inside the living room, having just finished a call from Jonas. They were moving in on the person responsible for the leak in Haley's identity. The information they were tracking through their own servers as well as spyware slipped into Brackenmore's and Engalls's computers was turning up some interesting information.

Information that might end this sooner than any of them imagined.

There was a reason why Uriel had been so erratic in the past years. A reason why Brackenmore and Engalls had found the information about mating heat and ultimately the aging decrease. Mating heat always slowed aging in mates. Because Uriel was definitely a breed, and obviously in mating heat. That damned phenomenon was enough to make any breed slightly off center, but for a hired killer, it could be more dangerous than to most.

"They've had a break in the investigation." He kept his voice low, kept a careful distance between them.

"Jonas is certain he'll have the identity of the person behind this within days."

She tensed. The fiery scent of her arousal seemed to intensify as he spoke to her.

As she turned, her hair fell over her shoulder, the flames gleaming over it, turning it to fire as well. The sight of it was nearly mesmerizing. Dazzling.

"Within days," she said softly. "That's pretty fast."

Jonas was pushing. He was breaking mandates and laws and working silently to identify Uriel, the hired assassin who had attempted to kill her. Not that he would get caught, even if the spy-ware was eventually detected.

"Jonas made you a promise to protect you, Haley. He'll keep it."

She lowered her head, staring down at her fingers as she twined them together.

"And when it's over?" She lifted her head and stared back at him somberly. "What then?"

"Sanctuary and its backers rebuild the library, restock it, and you get your life back," he told her.

"The way it was?"

He inhaled heavily, staring back at her, uncertain how to ease the pain he could sense inside her.

"That's up to you," he finally told her.

The memory of her touching him seared him then—a flash of heat hotter than the flames as the glands beneath his tongue made it feel thick, unruly.

The hormone was growing more potent, torturing him. The arousal was building inside him, and he knew he had only a short amount of time before he was forced to walk away from her or risk destroying her trust in him.

Trust was such a fragile commodity, especially for a woman. He'd known of matings that had worked when that choice was removed. Love had grown, and it had thrived. But he had sworn he would never take that choice from his mate. That he would never take that choice from Haley. But time was running out for him.

The choice had been taken from him a year before, when he first saw that smile. When he first scented her, first felt the glands swelling beneath his tongue and realized what was going on. And he hadn't left.

He had stayed. If he had left, he might have had a choice.

"My choice," she whispered before shaking her head and lowering it again. "You don't make things easy do you, Noble."

"Was I supposed to make it easy?" he asked her, feeling the growing tension rising inside him. "Did you want me to take the choice from you, Haley? Would you have hated me for it?"

Haley stared back at him, having no-answers. All she knew was the need that didn't go away, the knowledge it was never going to go away. She had somehow always sensed that. That Noble would be the one man she would never be able to forget, never be able to get over if she fell in love with him.

And that had been what had held her back.

"I wouldn't have hated you," she finally whispered.

"But it's too late for that, anyway. I do know. And knowing changes things."

"It didn't change anything last night," he bit out.

"You loved touching me, Haley. Tasting me. I saw it in your face."

And she had seen it in his as well. The pure pleasure, the hunger and the overriding primal lust that had filled him. A part of her was drawn to it. A part of her was terrified by it. And she knew, she couldn't walk away from it again.

He pushed his fingers through his hair before gripping his neck and glaring over at her. She stared at him with those solemn, stormy eyes, and he knew that the same torments plagued her. Not as intently, not as strong. But she needed him, she ached for him.

"I want you until I don't know how to breathe without thinking of it anymore," she finally whispered, her voice echoing with the ache he felt inside his chest. "And I don't know what to do, Noble.

I never expected this. And now, I don't know how to handle it."

"I'm not asking you to handle anything," he stated harshly. "Look, don't worry about it." He forced a tight, hard smile to his lips. "I've lived with it for a year now and survived. It won't kill me."

Maybe.

He moved through the living room into the spare bedroom he used. The communications and sensor equipment was set up there. Thankfully, the snow wasn't interfering with it too severely.

The satellite imagery was a little corrupted, but it still pinpointed his team's position. Three breeds on twelve-hour shifts, three resting but prepared for backup. Mordecai's coyote paced the grounds, and there was nothing in the immediate vicinity to cause any alarms.

Even more, whoever the breed was that had targeted her for Brackenmore and Engalls, they had no idea that Jonas was moving in. That would make it easier. And none besides himself, Jonas, and Callan were aware that there was a six-man force on constant detail.

The mission rosters were listed and Blake, Shiloh, and Flint were listed as operational and out of country.

Mordecai was listed as patrolling Buffalo Gap, which he did, sometimes. And John Talon and Micah Jones were listed as Noble's outside security team only.

The careful deception wouldn't last for long, but perhaps long enough for the assassin to feel safe and confident enough to move in for the kill. Because Noble was also listed as "compromised," the term used for a breed entering mating heat.

Mating heat was known to compromise a breed's ability to detect more subtle scents. The senses were so involved with the scent, the taste, and the need for the mate, that most breeds weren't even operational during the first months of the phenomenon. Only after the mating heat had leveled off, allowing both mates to function without the near-constant need for sex, were mated breeds returned to operational status.

They had laid the groundwork, and the opportunity for the assassin to show up. And he would, soon. Noble could feel it. And when the bastard made the move, they would be ready for it.

"How bad is it for you?"

He tensed as she stepped into the bedroom. He had been aware of her movement through the house, the scent of her, like summer in the mountains, flowing toward him.

"Like I said, I'll survive." He shrugged.

"Can I touch you then?"

Agony ripped through him.

"No." He had to force the word out. "Not yet, Haley."

"If it's not that bad, then you could stand for me to touch you," she whispered. "Why are you lying to me, Noble?" He clenched his jaw as she moved closer.

"Wrong time to push this," he growled, turning on her, glaring down at her.

There was no fear in her eyes, though he knew he must look more like an animal than the man he tried to be. The hunger was nearly out of control. As long as he kept a careful distance between them, then he survived it, but Haley wasn't keeping that distance.