Page 24 of Wanderlust With Wolves

We stare.

I slide one step back.

He slides one step forward.

Oh.

Oh.

I remember the rules.

I am in control.

I set the tone.

I choose.

My heartbeat pounds in my ears as the realization crashes over me.

I have to run.

So I do.

Chapter Eleven

THE HUNT ENDS

Ronan

I hopeshe makes it fun for me.

And she does.

Maya runs like she was born for this, her body moving fluidly through the night, weaving through the trees like she belongs to the wild. Her feet barely whisper over the forest floor, the soft crunch of leaves and the snap of twigs swallowed by the hush of moonlight filtering through the canopy. The cool air stirs around us, crisp with the scent of pine and damp earth, but beneath it—beneath everything—there is her. Sweet and sun-warmed, the kind of scent that clings to skin long after she’s gone, the kind that makes me ache to bury my face in the curve of her neck and breathe her in until nothing else exists.

She shouldn’t belong here.

She’s soft, a creature of sunshine and silk, of spilled laughter and honeyed words, a woman meant for open roads and starlit skies. Not this—this midnight chase, this reckless game wherethe shadows stretch long and the night hums with something electric, something hungry.

And yet, here she is—running.

Running from me.

No.

Running for me.

She’s not afraid.

She’s giggling—a breathless, exhilarated sound that shivers through my chest like a sharp, bright blade. It cuts through the darkness, ringing clear, alive, mine. A wild little sound, untamed, unguarded, laced with something wicked and teasing. She knows exactly what she’s doing to me. She knows I want her.

I could listen to her forever.

I could spend a lifetime chasing her through the woods, drawing out those little gasps and gasping laughs, that wicked, teasing joy she gets when she thinks she’s one step ahead of me.

But I have been so very patient.

And now?

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