Page 47 of Hunt for You

He grunted and put his hand to my back without a word. I took a second to realize he was counting my breathing rate.

Which meant pretty soon he was going to realize I wasn’t out of breath anymore. Which meant I needed to get ready to run.

“Just take your time,” he growled, sitting back on his heels and finally taking his hand off me. “You’ve got a waterbottle in that bag, right?” He pushed to his feet and started trotting towards the shopping bag I’d tossed to the edge of the clearing. “Don’t worry, we can go back to our game when the time is right, but you need to be checked—”

I pushed to my feet and sprinted in the opposite direction from where he’d gone.

Behind me, I heard him hiss a curse, then heavy footsteps raced after me.

I laughed, but kept running and didn’t look back. I needed to focus on putting each step in the right place so I wouldn’t turn an ankle, and conserving energy to make this chase as long as possible. I was fast, but he was going to catch me. It was inevitable.

Thirty seconds later those footsteps were gaining fast and I knew it was time for evasive maneuvers. But I waited until I heard him pounding right in my wake and the hair on the back of my neck stood up, then I juked him and darted between twotrees that had plenty of room for me, but were close enough to slow him down a hair.

“Sonofabitch!”

I snorted, but kept running, eyes on the ground to avoid getting tripped by a tree-root, snickering to myself because I was getting a little lightheaded. But my heart was full and slamming in my chest in thebestway.

Of course, it couldn’t last forever. I could feel him gaining again, the ground vibrating under my feet with his heavy steps. I’d had to slow because we were off-trail and I was worried about falling, spraining something. Plus, after the oxygen deprivation, my body was tiring fast. Even though I was pretty fit, I didn’t get a lot of lengthy cardio.

Clearly Cain did, because even though he was a lot heavier than me, he wasn’t slowing down.

There was a moment when I couldhearhis panting. Then he gave the most delicious chuckle and rasped, “Got you.”

I tried to juke-step again, but I was too late.

A steel bar of an arm whipped around my stomach and suddenly I was running on air, stomach swooping as Cain grunted and whirled me around, curling his other arm around me too and slowing to a walk.

He’d pinned one of my arms against his body, but the other was free, so I used it for leverage, locking against his shoulder and shoving out and away, not giving him the chance grip me close to his chest and take control.

But he just hitched me a little higher on his body, held tighter with the first arm, then used his steel forearm to knock my wrist upwards so I lost my leverage.

He chuckled when I hissed and spat like a cat, struggling and kicking, but now that he had me without traction, he’d turned me over his hip again, clearly remembering how I’d kicked him in the shins last time.

Then he turned back in the direction we’d come from, but after a few steps, he hesitated, and turned again.

I clawed at his arm, trying to break his grip around my waist. But he was wearing a thick hoodie and even though I knew I was pinching him, I couldn’t seem to cause enough damage to even make him swear, let alone let me go.

“Put me down, or I’m going to scream!” I wheezed, still fighting.

“No you aren’t. You want this as much as I do,” he growled in that low rasp and my stomach trilled.

I stopped fighting for a second and looked up at him. “Ohhhhh, do we get to do the fucking before the killing?” I whispered. “I thought it was all teasing before the Big Event. But I’m definitely up for that.”

“Fucking shameless.”

“Lee.”

He looked down at me and even though I couldn’t see his face, I knew he was staring at me like he was confused. “What?”

“Lee,” I repeated. “Fucking shamelessly.”

He snorted and started hauling me deeper into the trees. “Dear God, you have problems.”

“Said the pot to the kettle.”

He was shaking his head, but before I could come up with anything else to keep him talking, he carried me through a thicket of bushy trees that caught at my hair and scratched my skin.

“Ow! Where’s your chivalry? Push the branches away with one of those ham-sized fists, please.”

---