Page 48 of The Fire Went Wild

But Jaxon just gives an exasperated sigh and shoves his hands through his hair. There’s none of that flirtatious coyness from dinner earlier. “I can’t tell you that,” he says. “Really. I can’t. Frankly, I’ve told you more than I should. Now come on, before I throw you over my shoulders and carry you back.”

I just scoff at that, gesture down at my plus-size body. Jaxon, though, flashes me an annoyingly handsome grin and says, “Don’t make me try it.”

“I’m absolutely going to make you try it.” I cross my arms over my chest and challenge him. He’s certainly strong enough to lift me for a few minutes, but there’s no way he can carry me through the woods. “You can’t think I’d just gowillingly?—”

And then my feet are off the ground. For one stupid second, I think I’m flying. Then I think he’s hit me. Then I realize he’s tossed me over his shoulder like a sack of grain.

“If you fight me,” he says, stomping into the swamp. “I’ll drag you behind me. And that won’t be much fun for either of us.”

“Put me down!” I shriek, kicking at his chest as the tree where he fucked me disappears into the shadows. He has one arm around my waist, which he tightens against my wriggling. The other he presses brazenly against my ass.

“Stop squirming.” He ducks a little as he marches into the overgrowth, and I realize when I feel a tree branch graze across the top of my ass that he did that for my benefit. In fact, he takes a strange, meandering path, like he’s trying to avoid all the branches that scraped and clawed at me when I ran into the swamp in the first place.

“How are you lifting me?” I gasp out.

“You’re not that heavy.”

“I’m heavier than you think.”

He chuckles, a sound that I feel in my belly when his shoulders shake. “Charlotte. I’m carrying you. I know exactly how heavy you are.”

I slump against his back. I feel defeated. Not just because I’m getting carried back to my prison. But because?—

Honestly?

I really don’t mind that much.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHARLOTTE

Jaxon carries me all the way back to his house. He doesn’t even sound out of breath.

“How are you doing this?” I twist my head to try and look at him but can’t see much. Just the swamp plants, clearer in the lightening sky. We’ve been out all night.

“I’m a Hunter,” he says, like that answers anything.

“So what?” I try to lift myself up, but he smacks my ass, hard enough to feel good, and I slump back down. “Lots of people are hunters,” I continue. “And they couldn’t carry a?—”

“We’re here.” He stops abruptly. “I’m gonna let you down now. If you run?—”

His grip tightens suggestively around my waist.

“I’ll catch you.”

Heat flushes to my cheeks. And elsewhere. “You made your point.”

“Did I?” He crouches down and gently slides me off his shoulder. When my feet touch the ground, I straighten up and find myself looking him right in the eye. He’s close enough to kiss.

“I’m not running, am I?” I am thinking about it. The sun’s coming up. I’ll be able to see. If I could just get to the road, I wouldn’t have to worry about getting lost in the swamp.

But he has a car. And he’s fast even on foot. Faster than me.

“Not yet.” His eyes glitter, and I both hate and love the way he looks at me like he’s going to devour me whole.

Then he pushes past me, heading back toward the house. I turn and watch him, hesitating. We’re at the same place in the fence where I escaped, the hole in the wires big and jagged. I doubt he’ll be able to fix that anytime soon. Maybe I can wait a day. Get his guard down. Then I could?—

“Don’t make me pick you up again!” Jaxon shouts as he ducks through the fence. He glances over at me, grinning a little, and my clit throbs with a sudden, unexpected need. Well, maybe not totally unexpected.

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