She lets out a shriek, and I laugh as we collide with the grass.
Being the feisty woman she is, she struggles against me until I ease my hold. When her eyes land on me, her mouth falls open. “I-I didn’t turn you to stone. How? I was in my gorgon form.”
“Your guess is as good as mine, but I’m here now and I’m going to make the best of it,” I say with a smirk, rolling her so she’s on her back and I’m wedged between her thighs. Putting all my weight on my forearms, which are on either side of her head, I ask, “Why did you run?”
Her gaze drifts to the tree beside us. “I don’t know. Part of me was scared Merric would escape your hold and come after me when you turned to stone—that he’d finish what he started.”
A growl rumbles in my chest. “I would never have let that happen.”
She purses her lips. “How could you have stopped him if you’d turned to stone?”
I grab her chin and turn her face to look at me. This time, she doesn’t fight. She looks at me with those mesmerizing eyes, full of tears that have yet to spill. They’re even more vibrant green than they’d been at the house, and I can’t imagine never being able to look into them again.
“Well, it didn’t happen, and I’ll make sure nothing like that happens ever again,” I whisper.
A tear streaks down her cheek, and she sniffles. “You don’t even know me.”
“I know there’s something different about you.”
“What if it’s something you don’t like?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think there could be a single thing about you I won’t like. You’re more likely to find things about me you don’t like.”
“Like what?”
I give her a sly smirk. “You’re going to have to stick around and find out for yourself. I’m not letting you run off yet. Well, unless you like being chased.”
Her cheeks flush a beautiful shade of red. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve kind of been locked inside houses for my entire life and haven’t tried to run away from someone until now.”
“Well, we’ll have to do some… research at some point.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks hesitantly.
I run my tongue piercing over my lip. “We’re going to have so much fun, pretty girl. Just you wait.”
She stares at me with her brows drawn together, and I laugh because she has no idea what I have in store for her. After a moment, I get to my feet and hold out a hand to her. One of her eyebrows raises as she takes it.
I pull her to her feet and swoop her up into my arms bridal style. “You’re coming home with me, and I won’t be letting you go anytime soon.”
Her eyes widen, and her breathing picks up as she tries to shove away from me. All I do is laugh because I know her attempts are futile.
“If all you intend to do is lock me up, you may as well put me down now. I willnotgo from one prison to another!“ she shrieks.
My steps falter. “Who said I was going to lock you up?”
Her brows draw together again. “You just said you weren’t going to be ‘letting me go anytime soon’.”
A harsh laugh escapes me, and I continue walking. “I didn’t mean that in the literal sense. You’re your own person, so you can do whatever it is you please, but I won’t let you leaveme. You’reminefrom this day forward. Hell, you’ve been mine since the first time I saw you.”
Chapter five
Walking away from Avie this evening was so fucking hard. I could smell her arousal, and my tail tried to get away from me a time or two. It wanted to sneak between her thighs and tell me just how wet she was. Hell, if she’d let me, I would’ve taken her right there, on the ground in front of the house she was watching. She never shied away from public sex; she loves to watch and to be watched.
Fuck. Now I’m hot and bothered again just thinking about her and her damn arousal.
When I showed up at the crime scene and found her there this evening, I was shocked. Per usual, all-black gear covered nearly every inch of her pale skin—which I confirmed this evening is still as soft as the last time I touched it. Then, after she ran into me, her beautiful, icy blue eyes looked up at me through those thick lashes of hers, and my heart flipped-flopped for the first time in far too many years.
It’s been longer than I’d like to admit since I saw her last, and I wish we could go back to the way things were before my family fucked everything up. Her absence has left a gaping hole in my heart that I tried to remedy by slapping a band-aid over it. Seeing her today ripped the motherfucker off, and I’m hurting all over again. I’ve missed my little mimic so fucking much.
