Then his gaze slid to the man sitting beside me. To Sam’s hand, hovering near my elbow, and the way he was angled toward me.
The smile disappeared.
What replaced it was an expression I’d never seen on Caelan’s face before, cold, predatory. The look of a man who was calculating exactly how much damage he could inflict and how quickly.
And then something odd happened. Jealousy flooded my chest. Possessiveness, hot and bordering on unhinged. The urge to rip Sam away from me, to stake a claim, to make it clear thatshebelonged to me and no one else was allowed to touchher…
Wait. What the fuck?She, her?
Iwasn’t feeling jealous. I had nothing to be jealous of. Sam wasn’t touching any woman I cared about. He was touchingme, and I found it annoying, not threatening. But I felt it anyway. In my chest, in my blood, like someone else’s emotions were bleeding into my own. I rubbed at my sternum, confused.
Sam noticed the movement. His eyes dropped to my chest, specifically to my tits, highlighted by the rubbing motion, and stayed there, lingered, appreciated in a way that made my skin crawl.
Caelan noticed too.
He was across the room in three strides, stopping directly beside Sam’s chair. His expression could curdle milk, could freeze water. Could make a grown man reconsider every life choice that had led him to this moment.
“You’re in my seat.” The words came out in a low, threatening growl.
Sam looked up, eyebrows raised. He glanced between Caelan and me, a cocky smirk playing at his lips, completely unaware of the danger he was in. “Sorry, man. Finders keepers. Better luck arriving on time next time.”
The temperature in the room dropped approximately fifteen degrees.
“I’m going to give you one chance,” Caelan said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “Get the fuck out of that chair, or I’ll break your legs and put you in a wheelchair for the rest of your miserable existence. You will never walk again. You will never sit in a chair you weren’t invited to sit in again. And every time you look at the useless stumps where your legs used to be, you’ll remember this moment and wish you’d made a different choice.”
Oh my god.The room was silent now, and everyone was staring. Margo’s wine glass was frozen halfway to her mouth. Sloane looked like she was watching the best show on television, popcorn practically manifesting in her hands. Thessa had her face buried in her palms, shoulders shaking with what might be laughter or mortification.
Sam’s face had gone pale. His smirk was gone.
“Additionally,” Caelan continued, still in that calm, pleasant voice, as if discussing the weather or making dinner plans, “if I ever see you look at her that way again, I’ll remove your eyes with my fingers, one at a time.”
“Dude, what the fuck...”
“And if you ever. Touch her. Again,” Caelan leaned down, getting into Sam’s face, “if you so much as brush against her accidentally in a crowded room, I will hunt you down. I will find you wherever you hide. And I will take you apart piece by piece and enjoy every second of it. Do you understand?”
I was speechless.
“Okay, okay, Jesus Christ.” Sam scrambled out of the chair so fast he nearly tripped over his own feet. “She’s all yours, man. Fucking psycho.”
He relocated to a seat on the far side of the room, giving Caelan a ten-foot buffer.
And me? I felt it again. That surge of emotion that wasn’t mine. Satisfaction, the pleasure of victory. And underneath it, flooding my chest the moment Caelan’s eyes met mine, a warmth that made my throat tight.
Happiness. Just from looking at me.
What the hell was happening to me?
Caelan dropped into the chair beside me. His jaw was still tight, his shoulders tense, but he reached over and gave my hand a brief squeeze before pulling back.
The warmth that flooded my chest at the touch wasn’t mine either.
Or maybe it was. I couldn’t tell anymore. The line between my feelings and these other feelings, these external feelings, was getting blurrier by the second. I was so damn confused, but I decided to test my theory.
The discussion continued, though I wasn’t paying any attention. I knew we were deep into the book’s explicit scenes now, debating whether the hero’s possessiveness was romantic or problematic, but I was too busy watching Caelan and testing.
“I think there’s an appeal to being claimed,” I said suddenly, locking eyes with Caelan as I said the word claimed. “To being the sole focus of someone’s obsession. Knowing that they would do anything for you. Anything.”
Heat flooded my chest. Want, need, a hunger that made my toes curl in my shoes. That was when I finally realized those feelings weren’t mine buthis.
