Page 33 of Wolf Tamer

Better to keep my hands as far away as possible.

She shakes her head and thrusts against me a final time before crawling from my lap. “Fine,” she replies. She sounds unbothered, but I know better. The silent plea in her eyes is clear, as well as her burning need, the same one I claim for my own.

“We’re going to pick this up later,” I tell her, adjusting my painful erection inside my jeans before standing. “We’re going to finish this.”

Tasha merely lifts a brow at me, punctuating the dismissive gesture with a little sniff. “So you say. Now let’s get this over with before I change my mind.”

ChapterEleven

Tasha

Isay it like I have any actual control over what’s going to happen.

How aboutno?

Knowing what has to happen and being open to it are different beasts from having to face the firing squad.

In my head, I see a crowd of wolves with their canines on display and their tongues lapping at those teeth from very human faces. Surely it won’t be that bad, but the tone of his voice sends me into overdrive.

Reid has got to go through with the public punishment, and although logically I know there’s no way around it… inside, I’m seething. Somehow I’ve managed to go from hot and bothered to furious in the span of a few seconds. And I’m going to have to go through with this bullshit wet and aching between the legs.

I did it to myself, but taking personal responsibility for my horniness makes me madder yet. After a few tense minutes of getting myself together, Reid drags me down to the living room. The moment we’re out of the room, the masks slip down, both of us falling seamlessly into the parts we have to play.

The difference shocks me. I’m surprised justhoweasy it is.

With a rough howl, he calls the others to attention. They respond slowly—much more slowly than I would have thought considering his position within the Redcliff Pack—their howls coming in spits and spats from the absolutely massive living room.

A cathedral ceiling soars up to the third story of the house, with equally large and spotless windows showing the expanse of forest at the front. The fireplace would look like overkill anywhere else, but it’s par for the course for the mansion and its owners.

And seated around on the multiple sofas are his pack. Some have chosen to stand, but most of them lounge comfortably around the open space in front of the fireplace.

The tableau to witness my misery.

The mighty have fallen, I think with a groan that I keep to myself, watching the last onlookers slink into the room—Liam and Julius, specifically—and I give a start at Reid’s older brother.

Julius looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks. Dark circles stand out like bruises beneath his eyes, and his shoulders slump forward as though he can’t carry the weight of them any longer. Liam, on the other hand, has always been quiet. He’s the type of wolf that floats beneath the radar because he has the unique ability to blend into his surroundings without even trying.

The eye tends to skip over him.

Mine doesn’t.Not today. I see them all, and the noticeable absence of Emily and Crane is a punch to the gut. Emily’s sister, Darcy, who is married to Reid’s second-in-command—and I can still say without a shadow of a doubt that I don’t trust Bullet for shit—seems to have shrunk in on her already delicate frame. The termbird bonedcomes to mind when I see her.

She stands a step behind her husband and leans slightly into him for protection. Bullet, for his part, simply looks amused. He stands with his arms crossed over his chest and a grin I want to slap off his face.

I’ve never met another man I want to slap as badly as Bullet.

Reid tightens his grip on me, and I feel him tense, standing straighter yet. It’s not right for me to hold whatever he has to say or do today against him. No matter how badly my heart starts to flip and the rest of me wants to melt into a puddle.

Crowds aren’t really my thing, especially when the crowd consists of hungry beasts who want to see me fail. They want the worst for me, and I don’t need to know them personally to understand that.

Unfortunately for me, I’ve gotten to know several of these wolves during my time at the mansion, and individually, I can’t hate them.

No matter how badly I want to.

“Come on,” Reid mutters under his breath. He gives me a shove toward the open section of the room and I stumble.

I want to ignore them all, and I try my best with my chin tilted skyward and an unseen breeze tweaking my nipples to hard points beneath my shirt, and not in a good way. I can’t ignore them, because this isforthem.

This is to show that Reid is still a leader they can believe in, a leader they can trust, and since I’m his property…

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