“No, when you’re around, I don’t think. I can’t think. Thoughts cease, and all there is is you.”
“But-”
“I think about your butt, too.”
I splutter a laugh. “Riot, be serious.”
“Riordan.”
I still. “What?”
“My name…it’s not Riot, it’s Riordan.”
I spread my fingers across his chest. The shirt is cool and soft, but I can feel the heat of him under it.
“I was…less in my pack. They said I was uncontrollable and savage, and I was. I would fight because I could and fight because they tried to make me something else. Everywhere I have gone, all I have left is a trail of destruction. Even our old pack,” Riot’s face tightens, “even they couldn’t accept me and what I was. They feared me.”
I stare up at him. The weight of his wonder, awe, and confusion hits me, pressing into me. I’m lost in the intoxicating incense that is leaching off him. The heat flares in my stomach, my mouth waters, and my knees threaten to buckle.
He’s everything I shouldn’t want.
Fear him? How could I?
“Why don’t you?” he purrs in perfect synchronisation with my bleak thoughts.
“Because,” I murmur, lifting so my lips are almost touching his, “you aren’t the monster who haunts my nightmares, you’re the one that appears in my fantasies.”
His eyes flare wide, and then his hands are on me, lifting me up against him as his lips claim mine.
Fear him?
He’s the one who should fear me.
Casey
I sit on thedate, trying really hard not to think about why my lips are still slightly sore and puffy. All we did was kiss for like an hour until breathing seemed pointless and his hands had mapped my entire body. Until I was burning up in flames of need. Until, when we parted, it felt weird and unnatural because, clearly, kissing this alpha is my life’s ambition and all my goals. Who needs chopped wood? I’ll stay warm with the power of his kiss.
“Did you like it?”
I blink back to the current conversation. We’re in town at one of the most expensive restaurants. I’m wearing skin-tight jeans and a turtleneck jumper because Riot wouldn’t let me leave until I was wearing more than the ‘scrap of material on my chest’.
He and Khaos really had it out. I swear, they made the house shake. Angel had waited until they were distracted, grabbed the hem of the top, and simply shredded it off my body.
So, jumper it was.
“Casey?”
“I’m sorry; I was just panicking over whether I remembered to leave water out for the dogs.”
He nods. “I love animals. I think they are amazing for the soul.”
Err… “Yes, I agree.”
He picks up his glass of red wine and swirls it around. “So, I was just asking about your life goals. What do you really need in your life to make it wonderful?”
I need Riot naked and in my bed when I get back. Why am I here? With this man? I want to go home.
“Uh,” what is this guy’s name again? Was it Tennyson? Davidson? Harrison? Crap. “My life goals? Well, I just want to keep going with my business, growing it, living more sustainably off the land.”
