She released me and rolled to her feet. I got up as well, watching as she walked over to pick up the water bottle she’d brought. While my human pride stung that I’d just had my ass handed to me by a female I outweighed by seventy-five pounds, the wolf inside me felt surprisingly different. He didn’t like to lose any more than I did, but he wanted the strength and the fire that Chloe possessed. A she-wolf like her would bite and claw, demanding as much as she gave in return. And when she finally grew pliant, her capitulation would be all the sweeter.
My cock ached at the images and thoughts that I shared with my wolf. The shorts I wore did nothing to disguise the state of my body when Chloe returned to the center of the clearing, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“Are we done for the day or do you want to go another round?”
Her nonchalance and her indifference burned. It set off a chain reaction in my blood. I didn’t want to fight. I craved the chase. “I want you to run, Chloe.”
She frowned at me. “Run?” Her eyes flashed. “Why, so you can chase me?” Her tone was biting.
“Yes,” I hissed.
Crossing her arms over her chest, she cocked one hip and glared at me. “I don’t think so, Lachlan. I don’t run away from anything.”
“Don’t you?” I retorted.
Her eyes narrowed. “What the fuck does that mean?”
I inched toward her. “It means that you ran from the MacIntire pack, Chloe. What I don’t know is why.” I’d been asking myself that question for weeks, unsure why I cared. But I did. Not only did I care, but her leaving the pack,leaving me, pissed me off.
Her face changed then, but I couldn’t read her expression. It was as if she had shut me out completely.
“Fine, Ian. You want me to run, I’ll run. But good luck catching me,” she declared before turning on her heel and sprinting into the woods.
Chloe MacArthur might be the best fighter I’d ever met, but she was about to discover that I could track anything or anyone.
“You’ll never catch me if you keep standing there,” she taunted from the woods, the wind carrying her voice to me.
“Oh yes I will,” I growled.
I ran toward the trees where she’d entered the woods, inhaling her scent as I went. My blood pumped wildly in my veins. This was what I wanted.
As I sprinted through the underbrush, one question echoed in my mind.
What would I do when I caught her?
Chapter Seventeen
Chloe
Ifought tocontrol my breathing as I moved through the trees and underbrush. I heard the slight rustle of leaves, but that was my only warning that Lachlan was on my trail. The man barely made a sound as he followed me through the woods. No matter what I did, I couldn’t shake him.
I spotted a flash of grey out of the corner of my eye and turned my head to look. There was nothing there.
Adrenaline surged through me and I took off in a dead run. Lachlan had been stalking me for nearly a half hour. Every time I thought I caught a glimpse of him, he would disappear. When the wind shifted, I could smell him, so I knew he was nearby, but it was disconcerting not to be able to see or hear him.
Suddenly, he was right in my path, his eyes brilliant even in the shadows beneath the trees. I turned, skidding a little in the leaves that littered the ground, and tried to dodge him, but it was no use.
Lachlan lunged for me, his arms closing around my waist before I could get more than a couple of feet away from him. I twisted against him, bracing my hands against his shoulders in an effort to leverage myself free. Before I could decide the best way to get loose, my back hit the trunk of a tree, the bark scraping the bare skin of my shoulders.
“Lach, what are you—” The expression on his face made the words die in my throat. Any thought of fighting him vanished.
His eyes gleamed beneath his lowered brows and his hands gripped my thighs, opening them so his hips fit in between. I felt him then, rigid against my pussy. He was hard and long.
I stared up at him in shock as his hand wrapped around my braid, tugging my head back.
“Lachlan,” I began.
He snarled at me, a warning. My heart sped up in my chest, thumping so hard and fast that I knew he could hear it.
