Page 102 of Wolf's Reckoning
I didn’t look up as he entered the house.
“You okay?” he asked, voice low. Controlled.
“My heats usually last three days,” I told him quickly. “The first bit is usually the worst. If you could ask your friends to leave the rooms, I can go?—”
“No,” he said. “You stay here.” He looked at the untouched food on my plate. “You didn’t eat?”
“I wasn’t hungry.”
A long silence followed.
“I was,” he murmured finally, “but I didn’t eat either.”
I glared at him, fists clenched. “Is that supposed to mean something?”
He stepped closer, anger flashing in his eyes. “It means you’re not the only one whose wolf is crawling under their skin.”
I stared at him. At the broad frame, the bulge of his biceps under his T-shirt, the heat radiating from him like a threat and a promise all in one.
“You don’t get to act like this is hard for you,” I snapped.
“Trust me, princess, it isveryhard for me.” His lip was curled into a sneer. His voice was sharp now. “Don’t mistake my kindness for weakness.”
I pushed myself to my feet and walked past him, or tried to. His arm shot out and caught mine. Not hard. Not rough. But firm. A reminder of who he was. Of who we were.
I turned on him, my anger flaring like wildfire. “You don’t get to touch me.”
His jaw tightened. “And yet here you are—shaking with anticipation.”
“I’m not?—”
“Don’t lie.” His voice dropped. “You feel it. You know you do.”
I did. My body betrayed me in every way it could—heat pooling low, breath catching, heart thundering.
We were nose to nose now. One move. That’s all it would take.
I hated him. Icravedhim.
“It’s never been like this,” I whispered, the words scraping out of me. “Why? What changed?”
“You’ve been through a lot.” His voice was tight with control.
The power in his voice hit like a gut punch.
“I know what this is now,” he said. “I feel it.”
“Feel it?” My voice broke on the edge of a whisper. His scent was all around me, tempting me. “You…” I couldn’t believe I was going to say it. “You can do it,” I whispered, need coating my tongue. “You can ease it…”
“No,” he said, and that single word stole the air from my lungs.
“No?”
“I want you tochooseme because you wantme, not just my cock.”
He let go of my arm. Stepped back. Because he could. Because he wasn’t going to take what his wolf wanted.
And Goddess help me—that was worse.
