Page 95 of Hunting Pretty

He hummed like those nicknames were a serious consideration.

“If you want to tell me your name,” I pushed, “I can call you that instead?”

He chuckled, low and gravelly. “I like Scáth.”

Cormac paused in the hallway and turned back to glare at us, pointing his finger at me. “This isn’t over, Ava.”

“Oh, it’s over for you.” Scáth nuzzled my neck even as he replied to my ex in a tone that promised violence. “It’s only beginning for me.”

Cormac scowled and stormed off, his footsteps echoing through the hallway and out to the foyer.

Only when the front door slammed shut and we were alone, did I push Scáth off me.

He let go of me, but he was an unmoving stone statue.

I only managed to push myself back off him, wincing as I stepped on a few scattered coffee beans with my bare feet.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded.

He stiffened, glaring at me as he raised the knife still in his hand and pressed the flat side of the tip on his lips like he was shushing me.

I’d almost forgotten he still held that knife.

Even as he was kissing me.

A hot shudder ran through me at the memory of the other ways he could handle a knife.

He lowered the knife to his side and walked silently across the kitchen.

How did he walk so silently? Like a damn ninja.

He ducked his head out into the hallway as if to check that Cormac really was gone and we were really alone.

He whirled on me, striding toward me, throwing my knife still in his hand to the sink with a clatter. “A ‘thank you saving me from my asshole ex’ would be nice.”

I bristled even as I backed up. “Just because you don’t want anyone else muscling in on your plaything doesn’t mean I have to be grateful for it.”

I slammed into the cold counter ledge.

He placed his hands on either side of me, crowding me, caging me in.

I had nowhere else to go. Gulp.

His features hardened as he lowered his face inches from mine. “I wasn’t lying, Ava.No onetouches you but me.”

The deadly ferocity of his tone, the raw intensity at which he glared at me, the searing heat rolling off his muscular body and into every single one of my cells… it was all too much.

My mind short-circuited.

My body erupted into need and want, my nipples hardened into painful points, my pussy aching for him to dominate it.

Stupid brain.

Even stupider body.

I needed space.

I pushed his arm and to my surprise, he let me slide out from the counter. I stumbled back away from him.

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