Page 28 of Shadow Bonds

I ignore him and slide my hands slowly across my stomach and breasts, moving lower and lower before dragging my hands back up and starting over again and again. I make sure to gasp and moan, putting on a little show for him.

His breaths are ragged by the time I’m finished my little warm-up.

“What will do you if I give you what you want?” I ask him while making a show of squeezing my breasts.

“Whateveryou want,”he growls out, practically panting.

Biting back a smile, I sink to my knees and spread my legs wide, arching my back.

“WhateverI want?”I ask.

He glances down at his thick, hard erection and squeezes.

“Yes…”he grits out, making a smile spread across my face.

I slide my hands down the tops of my thighs, painfully slowly. Before curving them toward my center and sliding them back and forth. I almost feel his heady look and his hungry dark stare.

“I want…” I make sure he sees exactly what I’m doing, while teasing him with what he wants and willneverhave. “…you to fuck off.” I quickly cut out the connection between us, filling my mind with every thought and worry while thinking of everyonebuthim. My vision quickly returns to the white shower as a loud bang echoes from somewhere in the house. It’s followed by a slew of curses and hard thumps.

Feeling damn happy with myself, I get up from my position in the shower while chuckling to myself.

Fuck him and his little demands. Unlike him, I don’t need any of them to get myself off…

I slide a hand down my body and try not to think about him and his dirty mouth. Or the fact that I come not two minutes later to the sound of him telling me I’m a good girl.

CHAPTER 10

Over the next week, I avoid the four assholes at every chance I get and instead head back to the library to learn as much as I can about mating bonds and how they work. Mainly so I can use it against them. Turns out there’s an entire shelf of books about mates and I was just looking in the wrong place.

“It’s been so peaceful without you around as much.”

I grind my teeth, hearing Knox again. The fucker never stops talking.

“And yet here you are talking to me,”I tell him, and he chuckles. It didn’t take me long to learn how to talk back to him. But blocking him out completely is a whole other thing.

“Only because I know it annoys you so much. I have better things to do.”

“Then go do it. And fuck off,”I tell him, glancing back down at the book in my hands.

Mate bonds.

I read through the section quickly, realizing that there’s really nothing I didn’t already know. Or guess.

I had my confirmation in the shower with Malakai. All I really need to do is relax, clear my mind, and focus. It apparently gets easier over time.

But it doesn’t help when you have a dickhead like Knox constantly in your head.

Knox chuckles this throaty sound, and it slides down my back, making me feel things I have no right to feel. I tell myself it’s because I heard him singing and that’s it. That Malakai’s dirty mouth isn’t something I ever want to hear again, and when Cyrus looks at me with worry, it’s not because he actually cares.

Focusing on Malakai, I take a few deeps breaths as I blank my mind and thoughts. A second later I feel it. Our bond. The warm energy expands, and in seconds my sight changes from shelves of old dusty books to the lounge in the house. He’s sitting beside Cyrus while Knox and Theon are across from him.

“Where is she?”Cyrus asks Malakai.

“In the library,”Malakai answers, clenching his jaw.

“She’s been hiding out in that library all week, and when she’s not there, she’s in class or training,”Knox says.“She’s avoiding us.”

“Maybe she really doesn’t remember,”Cyrus says, and the others glance over at him, not immediately shutting it down.

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