Page 43 of Claimed By Werewolf
When I glanced back at her, soft, vulnerable, and beautiful in a way that made my chest ache, I knew I’d made my choice.
The Broken Sons were my blood.My life.My code.
But Demi Cross was my heart.
And God help anyone who tried to take her from me.
Chapter Twenty-One
Demi
I stretched as the sheet slipped over my skin, and I stared at the ceiling for a count of ten while memories rolled back in slow waves.His hands.His voice rough in my ear.The promise in the way he touched me.
Claimed.It should’ve felt like a collar.Instead, it settled over me like a vow I’d asked for and refused to return.
He wasn’t in the room.The shower hissed through the open bathroom door.A shadow moved behind the glass of a familiar outline that tugged heat into my cheeks before I could decide whether to be annoyed or thrilled that a silhouette knew every inch of my body.
I found my shirt on the chair but opted to grab his hoodie.I dragged it on and it swallowed me.The sleeves fell past my knuckles, and the weight of it felt indecently intimate.The mirror caught me with my hair wrecked and my mouth still a little swollen from all his kisses.
The shower cut off.“Demi,” he called.
“Uh, yeah?”
A beat, then a sound that lived somewhere between a laugh and a growl.“You dressed?”
I looked down at his sweatshirt.I was adequately covered.“Uh, maybe?”
“Get dressed,” he ordered.“We’re going to your place.”
He came out, toweling his hair.He wore jeans, still unbuttoned, and nothing else.I tried not to look.I failed.He saw me fail and didn’t look away, and that was somehow worse and better in the same breath.
“You look good in my clothes.Maybe put some pants on, too,” he smirked.
I rolled my eyes and grabbed my jeans from the floor.“I’m keeping the hoodie.”I pulled on my pants and piled my hair on top of my head.
“We’ve got eyes on us today.”
“We had eyes on us last night,” I said, arms crossed.“And you didn’t seem to mind.”
His gaze flicked to my mouth, lingered, then dragged up to my eyes with effort.“I minded,” he said quietly.“Just not enough to stop.”
The admission carried a danger all its own.He closed the distance, and I thought he’d kiss me, but he pressed the back of his knuckles to my cheek instead.Gentle.Abruptly tender.Like I was a thing he didn’t trust his hands with.
“Why can’t we stay here?”I asked, because wouldn’t it just be easier to stay here?
“Not today.”He looked past me, toward the window.“Word’s out.Tremor is stirring the pot, so it would be best to stay away from here until things blow over.”
“Tremor.”The name tasted like poison.“He enjoys pushing you.”
“He enjoys seeing weakness.”He tipped my chin up with a knuckle.“Don’t give him a read on yours.”
“And what are my weaknesses, exactly?”I asked and held his stare.
A slow, deep heat passed through his eyes.“I’m learning them.”
It was nothing like a kiss and exactly as dangerous.My breath hitched.He noticed, of course he did, and stepped back first, like he always had to be the one to pull himself away or we’d both go under.
“Come on,” he said, and tossed me my shirt.“We’re going to your place.You stay with me until we get to my bike, Demi.I mean it.Two steps either side and I won’t be polite about how I bring you back.”
