Page 98 of Wolf Caged
“Return to your room,” he growled and reluctantly loosened his grip.
“Is that a suggestion or an order?” I sniped back at him and wrenched free. I sashayed away from him, turning my chin up and squaring my shoulders. “Either way, the answer is no. I’m not done with my walk.”
“You. Are. Done.” He stepped towards me in time with each hard word he bit out, punctuating them. “I order you to return to your room.”
“No.” I walked a little faster, heart pounding as adrenaline rushed through me, and sense screamed at me not to antagonise him.
“What were you doing talking to Oberon?” he snarled, right on my heels.
I quickened my pace, storming through a flower-laced pergola, heading for the castle. “Talking. You might want to try it sometime rather than just ordering people around like they’re your property.”
“Youaremy property.”
I stopped so quickly that he walked right into my back.
I whirled on him, the horror I felt on my face for him to see, unable to mask it as shock swept through me, surprise that he had just gone there. “I belong to no one.”
“You belong to me,” he growled and reached for my arm, but I shoved it behind my back, evading his touch. “You do not speak to Oberon.Ever.”
Darkness flashed in his eyes and shadows writhed from his shoulders like onyx wings.
“You don’t get to say who I can speak to.” I held my ground, even as the part of me that wasn’t all riled up and furious with him whispered that he did because he did in fact own me.
I was his property, whether I liked it or not.
And part of me had forgotten that.
I blamed the mating heat and his far-too-skilled tongue.
“You’re in a shitty mood,” I snapped at him. “I don’t want to talk to you until you’re in a better one. Barging into my conversation, ruining my walk, threatening your friends. What is wrong with you?”
“What is wrong withyou?” he shot back. “I saw how you were looking at him, how wounded you looked. What did he say to you that has put you in such a terrible mood?”
Oh my gods. He had stepped in and protected me with his shadows because he had seen my horror over what had happened last night and had interpreted it as horror over something Oberon had said to me.
I looked up at him, seeing that wrath simmering in his eyes as he looked back in Oberon’s direction, a dark and terrible hunger to harm a male who had been nothing but kind to me, and had even managed to lift my spirits for a moment.
I wasn’t going to stand by and let Kaeleron blame Oberon for my bleak mood.
“You,” I barked, gaining his attention and a confused look. I planted my hands on my hips and glared at him, heart labouring, mind spinning. Was I really going to do this? Yes. Yes, I was. “You’re the reason I’m in a shitty mood. I get it. I know you didn’t want to be there last night and just felt obligated to help, and I appreciate that, but you could have put on a better performance and not looked so disgusted?—”
“Disgusted?” He cut me off, earning himself a growl.
I gave him another one when he crowded me, menacing and far-too-sexy as he backed me up against one of the ornately carved wooden posts of the pergola, leaving me with nowhere to go.
Making my wolf side want to wrap itself around him.
“I wanted to be there.” His voice pitched low, a purr that held my attention and had my eyes falling to his lips and watching them as they moved in a tempting symphony. He planted one hand against the post above my head, and gently wrapped the other around my throat before sliding it over my skin to my neck and settling it on my nape. A shiver bolted down my spine, heat rising as his skin grazed my nape, drawing all my focus there, to that spot a male would mark during a mating. His hooded gaze lowered to my lips and they tingled, the traitorous thingswanting to feel his lips on them. “I wanted to be there, Saphira. I enjoyed last night as much as you did. Maybe more so.”
His smouldering gaze lifted to lock with mine, searing me, making it impossible to breathe.
“Watching you,” he husked and I trembled as he palmed my nape, my legs weakening as I stared into his eyes, lost in them. “Feeling you come on my fingers… your tight little body quivering from my touch as you sobbed my name.” He flashed sharp teeth, crimson flaring in his eyes. “I will never forget how good that felt.”
I gripped the post behind me in an effort to remain upright as my world narrowed to only him, to the heat of his body so achingly close to mine, to the scent of him in my lungs and fogging my mind, and that searing, claiming look in his eyes that branded me with his name.
“But you wouldn’t—” I blushed. Hard. Unable to bring myself to say it, too embarrassed to bring up the fact I had begged him to take me like that.
“Fuck you?” he husked, sexy and deep, apparently not at all ashamed to bring it up. He stepped closer, his body brushing mine, and angled his head as he held my gaze. “Do you know how hard it was not to fuck you like you were begging me to, little wolf? How much I wanted to sink my cock into you and satisfy both of us? I wanted it, but I could not. You needed relief—a gentle hand—and I most certainly would not have been gentle with you. You would not have allowed it.”
