Page 26 of Soul to Possess

He turned his head slowly, that same easy smile spreading across his face. It was infuriatingly self-assured. “Dangerous thing,” he said, “letting a man like me pick the topic.”

I gave a huff of disbelief. “Great. Well, let’s startthere.Why do you keep calling me ‘girl’? Gennie girl. Little girl. I’m not a child. I’m a grown woman.”

He chuckled, voice low and unhurried. “It has nothing to do with your age. Or your status.”

“Thenwhat, exactly?”

His gaze ran over me—slow, pointed, and completely unapologetic.

“It’s the innocence,” he said simply.

I nearly choked. “Innocence?” I definitely shrieked a little. It was insulting. Maddening.Wrong.But the worst part? A small, secret piece of me wanted to ask what exactly he thought made me innocent.

“You met a man through an ad. Talked to him for a bit via paper. Then hopped on a bus to marry him.” His voice dropped, eyes narrowing. “And instead of a proposal, you ended up stranded in grandmother’s cabin, deep in the woods… with the big bad wolf.” The way he said it—low and smooth, with just a trace of mockery—made my skin prickle.

I blinked at him. “Did you really just hit me with aLittle Red Riding Hoodreference?”

He gave a single nod, slow and deliberate.

“So, you’re the wolf,” I said. “Big teeth and all?”

The look he gave me wasn’t playful. Not really. It was… hungry. Eyes too green. Too bright. Like the kind of ocean you don’t swim in unless you’re ready to drown.

“All the better to eat you with, Gennie girl,” he murmured.

The words weren’t subtle. The way he looked at me wasn’t subtle either.

My breath snagged.

“Charming,” I said, trying to sound dry, unimpressed. Like I hadn’t just felt something coil low in my stomach. It was the lamp’s fault, I told myself. The way the light caught his hair—warm copper catching fire in the shadows. The way the lines of his arms and shoulders flexed under his shirt, tattoos winding like stories I didn’t know how to read. I shouldn’t be noticing things like that. And yet…

I dragged my eyes back up to his face.

His grin curved slow. Knowing. “You like what you see?”

I shook my head quickly, too quickly. “Just looking at your ink. Do they mean something?”

“Not really.” He leaned back, tossing his boots up on the table like he not only owned the place, but like he owned the world. “Some were done at important moments. But the designs themselves don’t mean anything.”

“Will you tell me about them?” I asked before I could stop myself.

He looked over at me, expression unreadable. “Maybe. Not tonight.”

A polite no. Or a challenge. Hard to tell with him. I let it go. For now.

“So…” I said, desperate to shift the air between us before it grew too thick to breathe. “What made you move all the way out here? South Dakota’s not exactly the center of the universe.”

He didn’t answer right away. Just sat there, tapping his thumb against the side of his chair like he was debating how much to say. “The snow,” he said finally.

I blinked. “Seriously?”

A faint smile tugged at his mouth. “Yeah. I grew up in it. Real winters. Cold that gets inside your bones and makes you feel something. Then moved south for a bit, and winter just stopped meaning anything. I missed it.”

I let out a soft exhale. “I get that,” I murmured. “I always loved how it looked in the mornings, when the sun hits it just right. It sparkles, like everything’s been dusted in glitter.”

As soon as the wordglitterleft my mouth, I cringed. But he didn’t laugh. Didn’t tease. Instead, his eyes narrowed on me—less like he was amused and more like he was cataloging something.

“That’s a beautiful way of putting it,” he said. “You notice the little things. That’s a rare quality, Bluebell.”

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