Page 29 of Sold Rejected Mate
When I give him a slight nod in response, he looks frustrated. He glances at his wife, who jerks her head toward Green as though reminding him that he needs to let her off the hook.
Xeran closes his eyes, saying on a breath, “Obviously, Lucian and the others were acting criminally. Based on the circumstances, and your agreement to rehabilitate, I’m writing off your use of magic as accidental, as self-defense. We’ll be issuing no other punishment today.”
Chapter 15 - Valerie
The moment Xeran clears me, a sense of elation runs through my body, thick and full, and I realize for the first time how much Ireallydidn’t want to die.
Throughout the years, I’ve toyed with the idea of letting it happen—not fighting a man approaching me on the street, not seeking medicine when I was sick. Once, I stared at the empty cabinet in my apartment and wondered if starving to death would be so bad.
But now, I feel a surge of gratitude. For life.
Maybe it’s a little fucked-up that one man had the power to take it from me—and I don’t know how likely it was that Xeran would have handed down a death sentence to me—but it doesn’t matter. I’m grateful for the grace, all the same.
The moment we walk out of the courthouse, Lachlan turns, wrapping his arms around me and picking me up. I let him, and I even enjoy the feeling of not having to hold myself up for a second, not having to be the one supporting all that weight.
“Gods,” Lachlan says, setting me down again. “What do you want to do to celebrate?”
I stare up at him, and he stares down at me.
I hear myself say, “I want to go home.”
His eyes go a little dark, his jaw ticking. When he swallows, I think he might tell me no. That he knows exactly what I’m talking about and wants nothing to do with it.
But he just nods, turning and walking toward the sleek sports car he brought us here in.
Maybe it’s okay, for just one night, to get to have him like this—hungry for the woman I’m not. Maybe I could just take one little taste of him. Then I can leave town before he realizes who I am and feels disgust at the idea of being with me.
The ride back to his place is thick with tension, his hands gripping the steering wheel tighter than necessary. Every few seconds, he glances over at me, the weight of his stare like physical pressure against my skin. The space between us is charged. Electric. Like the air before a storm.
I’ve felt this before, the first time he picked me up in that nice sports car—different from this one—and took me up to the ridge. The night he leaned over and kissed me, pulling himself back from going any further. Stopping abruptly and telling me that he would take me home, even though that’s the last thing I wanted.
Every time we went up to the ridge, I thought it was going to happen. But even when we climbed into the back seat, and even when he touched me, we never did the one thing I wanted more than anything else.
It kills me that he doesn’t see the parallel between now and then. That he still doesn’t recognize me, even with the obvious prodding Xeran was trying to do at the pack hall.
When we pull through the sleek sliding gate, Lachlan drives past the house and to the garage, cutting the engine but not getting out of the car. We sit silently for a moment, like the air is thick enough to keep us sitting here, to trap us together in this car.
Even if he doesn’t remember me, I want a moment of this.
For the past few days, being near him has been torture. And when he helped me bathe, I thought my heat was going tostart at any second. My pain was probably the only thing that kept it at bay.
The garage goes dark, the lights flickering off, and when I take a breath, I hear him move. For a second, I think he’s moving toward me, that he might be about to kiss me, but he grabs the handle and gets out, illuminating the car again.
Silently, I follow him inside, thinking the moment has passed.
But when I walk through the door to the kitchen, Lachlan turns suddenly, pinning me against the wall. His breathing is labored, and his pupils swallow his eyes, which dart back and forth between mine.
“What’s your name?” he says, his voice low and ragged.
It’s not what I’m expecting him to say, and the sound of it makes a stroke of fear run through my heart from top to bottom, like it’s cleaving the organ in half.
Instead of answering him, I surge forward, rising up on my toes and pressing my lips to his.
There’s no hesitation, no moment in which I worry that he might not kiss me back.
Lachlan presses his body against mine, his hips grinding into me, a growl low in his throat as he reaches around, cupping my ass in his hands and lifting me so I can wrap my legs around his waist.
This is not a slow kiss. There’s nothing intimate about the way he drives me into the door, his cock firm and pressing against my core through his pants and my panties, my skirt riding up around my hips.
