Page 213 of Entangled

He nods down at the dirt, then brushes his foot over it. “Smear it next time. Dead giveaway.”

Even with my glasses, in this light, I can hardly even see his foot.

My brows lift. “You canseethat?”

Ugh. I am so overdue for an optometrist appointment.

“You should go back to the party,” he mutters, looking down at me.

“No, we need totalk.”

Jayk goes rigid, then nudges me back toward Bristlebrook. “I told you I don’t want to talk to you, Eden.”

He’s not sneering at me, or taunting. There’s no smirk or belligerence in his voice. It encourages me to turn back to him.

The night air swirls around us, laden with smoke and pine. I lay a hand on his chest, over the buttons of the fancy shirt that doesn’t suit him at all.

“Yes, you do. Why else would you get all dressed up like this? Shave?” I reach up to touch his cheek—his smooth, shaved cheek—and he flinches back when my fingertips make contact. I let them curl as I lower my hand and hold in my aching sigh. “You look incredible, Jayk, but you don’t need to do any of that for me.”

His eyes catch the light for a moment, then he looks away.

“Go back to Lucky. He’sfun.” Even in the dark, I can see his mouth twist. “Just go. I mean it. You don’t want to talk to me right now.”

I think, for some reason, of Dom, telling me to use my voice. Of Jasper sending me on my hunt. Of Heather, sighing over me not standing up for myself.

Bond-fire or not, for me, tonight is a claiming—but not just of my men. It’s a claiming of the person I want to be. After Jayk walking away from me without a word, after a week of his silence, I’ve had enough.

“If not now, then when?” I ask him. “It’s never a good time to talk with you, Jayk. You’re either trying to get in my pants, or marking your territory, or storming off. There’s no in between.”

Jayk grabs me around my waist so quickly I gasp. He yanks me against him and grinds his dick against me, all rough hands and sneering hurt.

“You’re one to talk, princess. It ain’t like you’ve been inviting me for tea and biscuits.”

The balls clatter inside me, and the reminder is sharp and brutal.

“I-Iam,” I insist, though it comes out a touch breathy. “We can have tea and biscuits.”

Jayk lowers his rough-hewn face to mine. “I’m not doing shit with you right now. You don’t think I know what you look like after you’ve been fucked?” His grip tightens. “You fucking smell like sex, Eden.”

I can smell Jayk too, for the first time in days—because for days, he was gone. Hurt and frustration swell in me like a blizzard.

Lifting my chin, I give him a frosty look. “Yes, I do, and I love it. It could have been you, too, but youleft. You just walked out.”

Jayk wrenches back and darkness slams in around him again, until only his eyes shine with an ungodly light. His wounded anger clouds the space between us.

“You took two seconds to run back to Beau!” he growls.

“Itoldyou I loved him too.”

His angry scoff blisters the air. “You don’t get to have everything, princess. That’s not how this world works. You might have been brought up different, but it’s about time you got a reality check.”

He stalks around me, staring at me, and he’s so untethered right now, so raw and predatory that I find myself holding taut. Still. It’s a struggle to hold my ground.

His voice is a lashing snarl. “You’re owednothing. There’s no sharing. There’s no smorgasbord of options you get to pick at when you’re hungry. The only things you get are what you steal and will kill to protect. You pickoneperson—andmaybethey pick you back.”

Jayk’s glare bites in the night. “Go pick them, princess—and leave me the hell alone.”

Rage settles over my lust like a sheen of oil. God, I amso sickof him being wrong about me.

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