Page 36 of Song Bird Hearts

Which is worse.

I hit a small rise and scramble up it, my thigh burning with the burst of activity. When I crest the top of it. . .

He’s waiting.

He’s leaning against a tree, one hand in his pocket like he hadn’t just chased me halfway across the woods. His mouth is quirked up in a smile, all suggestion and adrenaline.

I shriek a breathless laugh and spin the other way, nearly sliding on the descent. I hear him move then, quiet, fast, and precise. He’s not chasing anymore. He’s escorting me, flanking me, never far enough for me to forget he’s there.

“You’re not running from me,” his voice calls. Is it from behind? Or is it from beside me? “You’re running for me.”

“Go to hell!” I shout back, grinning like a lunatic as branches slap at my arms.

“I’ve already been, little star,” he says, closer now, almost at my ear. “There wasn’t nearly anything as pretty as you down there.”

My knees buckle slightly at the sound, but I keep moving, breath ripping out of my lungs. He almost lets me get away, lets me think I’m gaining ground. Until a fallen log forces me to leap, and when I land, he’s right there.

His hand grazes my back, barely. It’s a glancing touch that makes me yelp and lurch forward faster.

“You’re playing dirty,” I gasp, laughing through the ache in my ribs.

“I told you to run. I never said I wouldn’t make it fun,” he fires back.

I dart left again, but the woods are shifting around me. The paths are getting narrower, familiar shapes are reappearing. Through the trees, just barely, I can make out the cabin.

I skid into the same clearing ringed with dark pine, my guitar leaning against the log. My chest is heaving, my hair wild as I drag in great lungfuls of air to try and steady my heart. The bastard had been directing me, keeping me close enough to the cabin that I’d still be safe. Somehow, that. . . makes me feel better.

Until he steps out of the trees behind me, calm and unhurried.

The chase had been mine.

But the catching? The catching is all his.

I tense as he stalks toward me. He moves like the creature he takes the name of, slow and silent, a shadow with eyes full of hunger. I turn as if to run again, but my legs won’t obey. Not from fear, but from want.

From the weight of his gaze crawling over my skin like it belongs there.

“You don’t even know what you’re asking for,” he murmurs, his voice raw with restraint.

I don’t speak. I can’t. My whole body trembles—not from the cold, but from being seen too much, from being wanted too thoroughly.

He reaches for me, but doesn’t touch me. He just leans in close, his breath brushing the shell of my ear.

“You want me to pin you down,” he breaths. “Make you beg. Make you say please with that pretty mouth.”

I shiver, watching him as he begins to stalk around me.

“I told you I’d catch you,” he murmurs, voice low and velvet-slick. “I’d chase you forever if you let me.”

I look at him over my shoulder as he moves behind me. “What are you waiting for?” I rasp.

That’s all he needs.

Wolf surges forward, crashing into me like a wave finally set loose. He’s in front of me before I’m aware of it, his mouth claiming mine in a bruising and desperate kiss. One hand tangles in my hair, the other gripping my hip almost painfully as he drags me against the hard length of him through his pants.

I moan into his mouth, my fingers clawing at his shirt. He tastes like dark things, like secrets, like fire that burns slow and deep. Everything about Wolf is a mystery except for the way he makes me feel.

We fumble backwards until my back hits a tree, the bark scraping against my jacket as he drops to his knees in the pine needles. This predator lowers himself for me, but his eyes look anything but submissive.

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