Page 45 of The Alpha Dire Wolf
“I don’t know.” I crossed my arms. “That the animals here are crazy? That you’re not a weird stalker who is going to hurt me?”
His face went so still it could have been carved from marble. I’d hit a nerve.
“Do you think I’m going to hurt you?” he asked with heart-stopping intensity.
Something told me a great deal hinged on my response, and not to take it lightly.
“I don’t know,” I said after giving it real thought. “I have no idea if I can trust you because sometimes you look at me like I’m a threat, and your fingers clench into fists. I wonder what you intend to do with them.”
Lincoln looked down, noting the tightly clenched fist of his right hand. With a visible effort, he let his fingers drop.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, lifting his head, his eyes ablaze with color so intense I rocked backward under the weight of it.
“I believe that,” I said. I looked away and shoved the rising flutters in my stomach back down, burying them under the weight of all my unacknowledged emotions and trauma. Now wasnotthe time for this. “But I also know that you, and everyone else in town for that matter, are holding things back from me. And it’s making me tired.”
“What do you mean?”
“You damn well know what I mean!” I shouted, my temper snatching the reins momentarily. “My grandmother knew, the neighbors do, half the people in this town seem to know something is up or different. I don’t even knowwhatit is all you people know, but it’s clear it’s something, and you’re all trying to pretend like you don’t. Then of course there’s all this curse of the woods and guardian stuff. It’s exhausting.”
“Not everything in the woods is a curse,” Lincoln ground out through a clenched jaw.
Was he angry with me for calling him out? That seemed awfully petty of him. It had to be something else.
“There you go again! Does anyone around here not talk in riddles?” I asked hotly, shoving his feelings aside. This wasn’t about him. He’d come to my house in the middle of the night. This was about me.
“Only those who understand,” came the reply.
I’d had enough.
“Leave,” I said, pointing past him. “Just walk back into the forest, and leave. I’ve had enough of this crap. I’m done. I am so done with it all. I’ve got enough other things to deal with. Your secrets just aren’t going to be one of them. So go away. Go back to your forest life. I don’t want you around.”
Lincoln hadn’t moved the entire time I spoke. Now he stepped forward, grabbing my outstretched arm and holding it tightlyas he entered my personal space, invading my bubble with his presence and holding it hostage.
“Yes, you do,” he rumbled, looking down at me, the closeness between us emphasizing just how much taller he was. Among other things it emphasized, like his strength, the casual ease with which his fingers wrapped around my biceps held me immobile.
I wanted to throw his hand off me, toss it aside and shove him back. Create some space around me again. But I didn’t do any of it. Icouldn’tdo any of it. I was frozen at his touch. Locked in place, rooted to the ground. Not because he was pinning me there, even though he had a hold of my arm.
But because my body was betraying me. Reacting to his closeness, to the swell of his pecs, and the heat radiating off his body. Lava coursed through my body, lighting it on fire from head to toe and clouding my vision with the heatwave. It lingered in places I did not want it to go.
Whoisthis man?
“Your heart is beating faster,” Lincoln breathed into my ear. “Your blood is heated. I can feel it. You want me close.”
“You canfeelit?” Apparently, my voice still worked, as did my skepticism.
“Yes,” he said. “I can. Because I—”
Ice water doused any source of heat as it washed over me like a tsunami in unison with nails digging into my spine, dragging my attention away from Lincoln’s imposing presence and drawing it back to the dark outline of the forest.
At the same instant, Lincoln spun around, placing himself between me and the forest as he stared at it with eerie intensity. His entire body was still. It didn’t move, not even rising and falling. Was he breathing?
“Something is wrong,” I whispered, my instincts’ warning ending all further thoughts of Lincoln’s body for good. The alarm bells in my mind were louder than the drums in my dream.
“I agree. But how did you know that so soon?” Lincoln asked suspiciously, though he never took his attention off the forest, scanning it left and right, trying to locate the source of whatever was setting us both off.
“I have a good sixth sense for danger,” I said. “It went off. I listened.”
“Good. Listen to it now. Go inside,” he rumbled. “I’ll handle whatever is out there.”
