She bites my lip and pulls it taut.
She’s a livingdare, goading me into wanting her more. I’ll have to win her again and again and just the thought’s edging me close to coming.
I’ll have to work for her, every step of the way. Hunt her down, take her, make her mine over and over and over again.
My hips push her hard to the clapboard siding, my hard-as-rock dick aching to spike her to this wall, to keep her here and show everyone that passes that she’s mine. My prize.
Better earn her first.
I shudder, my eyesight compressing dark at the edges before expanding again, my heart twisting in its cage. What I love the most, watching her in what’s left of the daylight, is the challenge in her eyes. Grace is not a brat playing games with my heart.
She’s a viking waging all-out war.
With a snarl, I pin her to the wall and kiss her hard—the kind of bruising, claiming kiss we’ll both feel for days. She gives me back as good as she gets and then—thank you God—she shoves me away, hard enough to send me spinning back.
In the next split second, she takes off.
I’m right behind her, limbs pumping, blood thrumming through my veins.
People scatter for her, then go stock still when I race by, mouths dropping open in almost comical shock. Their reactions don’t touch me one way or another, don’t rub me right or wrong, except that a part of me wants them to see that she’s mine. Or she will be when I catch her.
25
Grace
Instinct takes over.
Fight, flight, fuck—this is all of it, a whirlwind of base human urges encased in skin and bones, fueled by hormones.
My brain doesn’t guide this sprint through camp. It’s pure, unadulterated adrenaline that keeps me from crashing and holy shit is it freeing. Not good or bad, but wild in a way I’ve never experienced. More than the thing we did in the dark.
I veer back onto what I think is the path, my steps awkward in flip-flops. I’d have planned better if I’d known.
My vision’s gone weird, clear in front and hazy around the edges, my eyes skipping from one silhouette to the next—tree trunks, flapping leaves, stones on the path, a downed tree. I sail over it, light as air, my lungs full, my breathing erratic. I land, lose a shoe, and keep going, my progress loud over the path. I spare a quick thought for poison ivy, which I hope has been cleared out in this new area.
I can’t say how far I go or where the hell I wind up or if I’ve sprained an ankle somewhere along the way. All I know is the fast, frantic rush of escape. And, my God, it’s exciting. Scary, and so goddamn real I can’t separate fact from fiction.
With breathtaking suddenness, the forest lightens, the ground evens out, the backlit blue of a nearly twilit sky appears overhead. My other flip-flop flies off, I push harder, struggling to suck in air, missing the forest scent before I’ve realized it’s gone. Grass slides smooth and damp beneath the soles of my frantic feet. The smell’s bright and fresh and full of memories.
He’s back there. I feel him, though I can’t say how far.
I’ve gone maybe a dozen steps through an open field when I hear him pounding behind me, so close my nape prickles. And then a hand slips into the back of my jeans, gripping the waist. I jolt to a dead stop, try to turn, throw my hands up in front of my face. In seconds, I’m down, on the ground without the full effect of being slammed to my front. His hold, I realize in a far off way, slows my fall, keeping me from taking the brunt of it the way he’s done every single time.
“Don’t move.” Liev’s low, muttered words send everything spiking inside of me. God, I love this part.
I resist. I can’t help it. The instinct that made me run, barefoot, without feeling a thing, now pushes me to fight him. And so I do, kicking back when his bulk closes in, twisting when his hands grasp at my wrists, clawing at him, biting. And through it all, he somehow gets a hand under me, wrenches the button of my jeans open and yanks down the zipper, so hard it’s probably broken.
My hips are up, the jeans pulled down over my butt in a slower, more sensuous version of our first time. He makes a sound behind me, a low growl that has the hairs on my body standing up, along with my nipples. He mutters something under his breath, and shoves the jeans farther, trapping my knees.
“Mine.” That’s what he’s saying.Mine mine mine.
Without warning, he lands a slap on my ass—sudden and sharp. I gasp, try to twist up and block him. He wrestles me flat on my chest on the earth, my face in the grass, until I twist to look at him.
Oh, he’s lovely. It’s not the right word, I guess. It’s not a hard word and, God, he’s hard, but it’s the way my heart feels when I see him. Bright and excited and ready.
This is the moment I stop fighting. I’m pretty sure I stop breathing. My heart doesn’t beat, as if all of me is suspended. The surreality of blending the two worlds hits me. Daylight and darkness.
It seems fitting this should happen in that liminal time after sunset.
