Page 74 of Wanted

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” she finally says. Then her eyes dip down to my chest, further down to my abs, and further still, until they reach my very erect cock.

“Or that,” she confesses as she glances back up at me.

CHAPTER 20

Emery

No, seeing Chance completely nude is not something I don’t think I’ll ever get used to. Men aren’t supposed to look like this. As if handcrafted from the highest quality bronze.

Energy sizzles and crackles throughout my body. The same energy I’ve fought for years to suppress. The wild existence deep within my bones that good girls aren’t supposed to possess.

It’s there, thrashing around in the pit of my stomach. All while I watch Chance stare down at me like a wolf who’s finally ensnared his prey.

The recriminations my parents all but beat into my head on how well-behaved women aren’t supposed to show too much emotion, not appear too wanton, or ask for too much, creep into my mind.

They force me to turn around. To face the writings on the cave wall. I can’t continue to look at Chance. He’s a wolf shifter. It’s not strange for him to be naked after a shift.

“So, uh, I was looking at this picture and I wondered…” I say as I point to a scene on the wall of a group of women sitting in a circle while small children in their lap as they braid their hair.

The question I’d been about to ask falls dead on my tongue when Chance’s fingers wrap around my chin, turning me to face him again.

“I need to see your mouth to know what you’re saying,” he says. His voice is low, and heavy with want.

But, undeniably, there’s a hint of shame in his as well. It reminds me of the shame I’ve seen off and on, in his eyes over the past few weeks.

I need to see your mouth to know what you’re saying…

Then I remember.

That awful woman back in the stationery shop. She mentioned her alpha forbidding her from mating a broken wolf.

He needs to see my lips moving to know what I’m saying because he can’t hear.

“Yes.” Chance nods, making me realize I’d said my last thought out loud.

His massive hands cup the sides of my face.

“Is that why you ran away? Because you found out what I really am?”

The question stuns me into complete silence for a beat. He can’t be asking what I think he is. There’s no way he could possibly believe I think less of him because he can’t hear.

“No.” I shake my head adamantly.

I plant my hands against his chest. I feel his heart rate quicken beneath my touch.

Is that the effect I have on him?

I shake that loose thought. I need to make him understand that my running had nothing to do with finding out that he’s deaf.

“Not at all,” I say as I look him in the eyes. “Th-that woman in the shop. She was so mean once she found out that you and I were…”

I trail off because I don’t know how to finish that sentence.

“I attacked her,” I confess. “I pushed her to the ground and I would’ve done more. If she had kept talking about you like that, I would’ve ripped her hair out and then stuffed it down her throat.”

My body heats all over from anger. Just the reminder of her snide remarks and the way she looked me up and down as if she were better than me.

No, in all seriousness, it wasn’t that she believed she was superior to me. It was the fact that she knew Chance in a way that I didn’t that truly pissed me off.

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