Page 7 of Claimed By the Damned

“Look, you guys don’t even know me. You don’t know if we are even compatible.”

It was a lame excuse, even to her, but she was beginning to run out of reasons to give them for why this thing between them wouldn’t work. They didn’t seem to care about the risks, and the longer she was around them, the more her wolf tried to convince her that it was worth it.

Zeke’s eyebrows rose as he folded his own arms across his chest. “That’s how fated mates work, and you know that. We’re compatible in every way. Part of us, if not all, is fit to be yours. Just like you are fit to be ours.”

“If you’d like, we can show you just how compatible we are,” Knox added. The implication was clear in his voice, and it didn’t take much to figure out what he meant.

“This is my place of business, Knox,” she reminded him with another eye roll. However, she couldn’t hide the small smile that played across her lips. It had been a long time since someone had been this playful with her, and she wasn’t going to lie – she had missed it.

Knox shrugged. “I can always lock the door.”

“I’m not fucking you in my bookstore,” she replied bluntly, despite the heat that was beginning to form in her lower belly.

He took a step toward her, forcing her to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact. “That sounds like another dare. I don’t think you know how fucking much I accept the challenge.”

“Knox,” Zeke warned with a soft laugh of his own. However, he didn’t get the chance to finish his sentence because his cell phone started ringing. He pulled it from his back pocket and looked at the screen. “Shit. I have to take this. It’s work.” He looked pointedly at Knox as he hit the accept button on the screen. “Behave.”

Pressing the phone to his ear, Zeke strode from the bookstore and back out onto the sidewalk. Amara watched him go for several moments, realizing that he had just left her alone with Knox.

The moment he was gone, Knox moved, pinning her against the hard wooden shelves behind her. He was chest-to-chest with her in a matter of seconds, and the hungry look in his eyes sent a quiver down her spine. She knew what that look meant, what he planned to do, and she couldn’t let it happen. This was the exact opposite of what Zeke had just told him to do.

On instinct, Amara reached for the first thing she could find to defend herself; a box cutter, which had been sitting on a stack of boxes to the right of her. She immediately held it up, hoping to deter Knox from what he had planned.

“Don’t,” she warned as firmly as she could.

Unfortunately, instead of deterring him as she had hoped, Knox suddenly gripped her ass and lifted her into his arms, positioning her legs around his waist as her back hit the shelf again. To any normal person, she’d be too heavy to do such a thing, but to Knox, she was lifted as if she weighed no more than a feather.

She squealed loudly and then moved the box cutter to the side of his throat. His chest rumbled as he leaned closer to her, his lips parted. “Do it,” he murmured, taking her by surprise.

“What?” she gasped. Surely, he wasn’t serious. He didn’t really want her to cut him, did he?

“Pain will only turn me on, little bunny. Do it. Cut me.”

She wanted to call him out on his bluff, but she couldn’t. The evidence behind the truth of his words was the erection that was pressing against her core, making her think all manner of dirty and inappropriate thoughts. Meanwhile, her wolf practically purred in appreciation as if she were in heat and in dire need of a good lay.

This was exactly what she had been worried about. She’d heard the stories about how hard it was to resist one's fated mate, and she hadn’t wanted to find herself in this position. Yet, here she was. Completely and utterly helpless.

Her hand began to tremble, her eyes searching his. He must have seen the questions swirling behind them because he grinned at her menacingly as he pressed the side of his neck against the blade, drawing blood. The moment she spotted the blood dripping down his skin, the box cutter dropped from her hand and clattered to the ground.

“You’re deranged,” she whispered, not trusting her voice to speak any louder than that.

Knox leaned closer to her so that their lips were almost touching. “I like what I like, and I think there’s a part of you that likes it too. Wanna see what else we have in common?”

“What makes you think I like it?” she challenged. She knew she was only pouring gasoline into an already intense flame, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t like feeling so out of control of her own body.

He grinned at her, his nose wrinkling a bit. “The fact that I can feel how wet you are right now and how strong the scent of your arousal is.” He ran his nose along the side of her neck, causing goosebumps to erupt all over her body. “You wore this dress just for me, didn’t you? To give me easy access to what’s mine.”

She shook her head the best she could. She needed to get out of this somehow. If Knox decided to take things any further, she didn’t think she’d be able to resist, and then they would all be in some trouble. “No, I didn’t.”

“Liar,” he chuckled, grinding into her at the same time he took her mouth.

For a moment, Amara was unsure of what to do, but that quickly changed when Knox nipped her lip, making her gasp again. He used that moment to deepen the kiss, the feel of his tongue intoxicating and sensual. It was wrong but in all the right ways, and Amara quickly found herself kissing him back, despite her better judgment.

Her fingers moved to his hair and tugged on the strands while his fingers dug into her ass. He ground his hips into her again, the friction it caused nearly making her moan. “Do you like that, little bunny?” he growled. His voice was more animal than human at that point, and it turned her on more than it should. “Do you want my cock to fill that tight little pussy?”

“What I want and what’s right are two different things,” she somehow managed to say while trying to catch her breath at the same time.

“You and I both know that what we want and what is right is me fucking you until you scream my name.”

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