“Bloody hell, stop!” Dair shouted from what sounded like right behind me.
I zigged again.
Then it felt like a cinderblock, or twelve, hit me square in the back, and I went down on my stomach in the wet leaves, a heavy weight landing on top of me, and I did this with an “Oof!”
I hadn’t even begun to get my breath back when he wrenched me lower under his body, turned me then dumped all his weight on me.
“Oof!” again!
“What the fuck are ye doing?” he growled in my face.
“Running,” I panted.
“Through thick fog where ye can’t see a goddamned thing? Ye nearly broke an ankle back there.”
He was still growling.
What he was not doing was panting or even breathing heavily.
Ugh!
He was the worst.
“Get off me,” I demanded.
“No fucking way. Ye might run again.”
I was never running again in my life.
“You tackled me,” I accused.
“Aye, because you were running from me.”
“Take a hint, hotshot, a woman runs from you?—”
His big hand covered my mouth, and that pissed me off so badly, I felt my eyes nearly pop out of my head.
“You’ve said your words, lassie, and now I’m going to say mine.”
I glared at him, even knowing I looked like a moron lying in damp leaves, my hair a wet, tangled mess. I hadn’t put makeup on that day (which turned into a boon because in this weather, it’d be all over my face). And I was doing this under a mountain of muscle with his hand wrapped over my mouth.
But what else could I do?
“Are ye going to keep quiet so I can talk?” he asked.
“Fuck no,” I said behind his hand, which came out as “Fug nah.”
He understood it anyway, which was why he said, “Fine. We’ll do it like this.”
I tried to heave him off.
I didn’t so much as budge him.
God!
I kept glaring.
“I’m in love with ye.”
