Page 19 of Lost Touch
I screamed loud enough to wake the dead and rattled the door, yanking and tugging—and he wrapped his arms around me and jerked me back against his chest.
I froze again, legs like jelly, unable to move a muscle.
Drew didn’t speak, but I could feel his chest heaving and his heart pounding. He leaned down and nuzzled into my hair. His harsh, panting breaths, like the soundtrack to a horror movie, ruffled my hair and ratcheted my fright up to eleven.
Something pressed against my lower back.
Oh, God. His cock. He’d gotten hard. He’d looked like he’d been about to kill me, and now…now he had something else in mind. He had a lot wrong with him, so very fucking wrong. And I was trapped here with him, with no one else around for miles. He could do anything to me.
“Drew?” My thin, strained voice would’ve been inaudible to anyone without werewolf hearing. “Drew, please.”
The chill from outside crept under the door, freezing my toes, but Drew’s body heated me more than any furnace would have.
He pushed against my back, crushing me in his arms, his cock stabbing me in the spine.
If I struggled, it might only make it worse. That could be taken as a challenge. Weren’t you supposed to play dead? Or was that bears? I knew I’d never read anything specifically about what to do if you were pinned against a washing machine by an aroused, furious werewolf. That I would’ve remembered, amnesia or no.
In the end, my body didn’t give me any choice.
Drew curled over me, breath hot against my ear, and pressed his face into the curve of my neck and shoulder.
And closed his mouth over the scar he’d left there.
His fangs pressed into me. Had he broken the skin? I had no way to tell, since it wouldn’t hurt either way. The heat of his mouth, the wet swipe of his tongue, kept me from knowing if I had blood on my skin.
I could be bleeding, crimson welling from my neck, hot and vital.
My head whirled dizzily, and I collapsed in Drew’s arms as if someone had cut my strings.
Drew went rigid, his arms like steel around me, all his muscles flexed.
“Fuck,” he said against my neck, a low, raspy whisper. “Fucking gods. What—”
I cried out as he let go of me—flung me, more like, tossing me onto the floor of the laundry porch with enough force that my arms flew out and my head snapped back. I landed hard enough to stun me. A crack and thump made me flinch and moan, and then a blast of cold air hit me. Rapid footsteps, tearing fabric, an unearthly howl that throbbed in my ears and in my brain and had me wrapping my arms over my head and whimpering…and then silence.
Slowly, panting and shaking, I levered myself up, one of my arms wobbling worryingly. Christ, I wouldn’t even know if I’d broken it.
IfDrewhad broken it.
Because no matter how much I wanted to believe that he’d been telling the truth when he said he’d never hurt me…that hadn’t been someone else assaulting me. He’d done that. Hurt me. And trying to defend him, even in my own head, would only make me more of a victim.
Broken arm or not, I managed to get up onto my knees.
The back door hung crazily on one hinge, both it and the frame splintered where the hardware had wrenched out of them. A few feet of knee-walking shuffle got me over by the dryer where I could peer outside. Drew’s clothes lay scattered all over the steps and the flagstones below, shredded to ribbons.
He’d shifted—in a big hurry—and run.
Unless he was lurking somewhere just out of sight. Watching me with those glowing eyes, fangs down, claws ready to rend and tear me to pieces the moment I moved and gave him something to chase. Prey that ran might be more fun. Maybe my going limp had bored him temporarily.
I couldn’t even feel my heart beating anymore; it’d risen to a tempo that felt more like the juddering vibration of a poorly tuned motor. My hands shook. My whole body had gone damp and clammy. I stared out into the night.
Something rustled in the darkness.
And something broke in my brain.
I booked it out of the laundry room so fast my feet slipped on the floor, probably making me look like a cartoon. A high-pitched keen rang in my dulled ears over the thud of my heart—me, screaming as I fled. Panic had my throat in a grip so tight my breath rasped and my lungs labored.
The stairs. I could run for the—oh, God, nothing up there but the bedroom. Lock myself in there and wait for Drew to break the door down.
