Page 67 of Vicious Luna

“Just like you didn’t want to fuckme?”

“You know I wanted to fuck you,” I growl, holding her stare. “Still do, if we’re sticking to the honesty thing.” I lick my lips, my gaze dropping down her body, then slowly climbing back up. “I can’t stop thinking about you, Avery.”

Gold flecks flare to life in her eyes, and I’m momentarily mesmerized by the way they glow against the deep brown of her irises before she darts her gaze away, abruptly pushing up from her chair. “I think we’re done for now,” she snaps, kicking the chair out of the way and turning to start for the door.

I rise to stand across from her, my pulse kicking up a notch. “No we’re not, I have more questions.”

She whips around to face me, her brow furrowed and a scowl on her lips. “Fine, here’s shifter one-oh-one.” She holds up a hand, ticking each thing off as she goes. “We’re fast. We’re strong. We’re human, but better.Superhuman.”

“Which is exactly what makes you so dangerous,” I mumble, reciting the indoctrination that’s been ingrained in me for the past decade.

“Hey, you’re included in that now too, buddy,” she scoffs, pointing a finger in my direction. “And you shifter hunters are dangerous in your own right. I mean, who gives a bunch of psychos a gun and a vendetta?”

“I was wrong!” I admit, raising my voice as I advance a step toward her. “I know that now, but I…”

“It’s too late,” she interrupts, and I can practically see the walls in her mind slamming back up to shut me out. “The damage is already done, and now we just have to deal with it.”

I reach out for her, but she flinches back, spinning around and pacing toward the door. Before I can even get another word out, she yanks it open and steps through, the loud slam echoing off the cinderblock walls as she shoves it closed behind her.

31

The second I slam the door, I freeze. My hand’s still on the knob, my breathing ragged and my heart threatening to beat out of my chest as I agonize over whether I should go back in there and tell him the truth or just walk away.

I know what my wolf wants. She’s a jealous bitch with a one-track mind, and she wants to stake her claim so that everybody knows Cam’sours. One of us has to be rational, though, which is why I keep shoving her back down. I can’t allow my judgment to be clouded by my wolf’s instincts. I need to decide whatIwant.

The thing is, I’d already come to terms with letting Cam go. Our hookups weren’t supposed to mean anything, and given his history with the hunters, he’d never be accepted into any of the packs here. His best bet is finding his biological father and joining the pack he belongs to by blood, while my place will always be with the six-pack. Our futures don’t align.

Still, whenever I’m around him, it’s like the air is charged with electricity. The tension simmering between us is so volatile that at any given moment, I can’t decide whether I want to punch him in the face or jump his fuckingbones. That can’t be healthy, right? Part of me still wants to hate him, but the other part…

Ugh, why can’t I just walk away, damnit!

It takes all of three seconds for those chaotic thoughts to race through my brain, and then I’m twisting the knob and pushing the door open again, locking eyes with Cam as I step back into his holding cell.

“There’s a reason you can’t stop thinking about me,” I say, planting my hands on my hips as I stare him down. “I played you, Cam.”

He arches a dubious brow, folding those thick, inked forearms across his chest as he waits for me to elaborate.

“I needed to get out of that cell by any means necessary,” I continue, looking him dead in the eye as I confess my sins. “It was all fake.”

He stares back at me for a long, contemplative moment, those endlessly dark eyes boring into mine with a level of intensity that makes me want to squirm. Then he sighs, swiping a hand over his chin before giving a little shake of his head. “No, it wasn’t.”

I make a scoffing sound in my throat, flinching back. “Excuse me?”

The corner of his mouth lifts. “There were certain things you definitely didn’t fake.”

A pulsing starts in my core, a blush heating my cheeks. “Okay, maybe notthatpart,” I admit, suddenly a little flustered. “But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t manipulating the situation for my own benefit. I needed you to get attached to me so I could use it to get out of there. I honey trapped you, Cam.”

He doesn’t gasp dramatically or gape at me in shock. Turns out, this guy never reacts how I expect him to. Instead, his lips curve into a sexy-as-fuck grin as he takes a step toward me, those dark, haunted eyes never leaving mine.

“You think I didn’t know what you were doing?” he asks ina low voice, closing the distance between us until he’s close enough to touch. I lift my chin to hold his eye contact, his own tilting down to maintain the connection. “You’re not as good of an actress as you think you are, Luna.”

My brow furrows with my responding scowl. “Youknew?”

“It wasn’t hard to put together,” he grumbles. “Why do you think I didn’t react every time you came at me with that demure, sweet shit? That’s not you.” He reaches out to graze the backs of his knuckles down my arm, leaving me shivering beneath his touch. “No, therealyou drives me fucking insane, but for some reason, I find your specific brand of poison to be addictive.”

“That’s your wolf,” I mumble, averting my gaze.

“Didn’t you say we’re one and the same?”

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