“Tell me to back off, Lila,” he murmurs, sounding almost pained. “And I will.”
I should, and I know it.
I should scream the words at him, shove him out of my way, and do everything in my power to block him out for good.
But the bond is the one screaming now, drowning out any reason. To make matters worse, his scent hits me in a tangle of the forest air, smoke from the fireplace, and that warmth belonging only to him. Everything rises to the surface… longing, anger, hunger, and memories that demand to be replicated.
It’s all so overwhelming, I can’t even focus on my words.
Caleb lifts his hand with hesitation, almost trembling as if he’s fighting the exact same storm as me. Then, with the faintest touch, his fingers graze my jaw.
At once, everything in me short-circuits.
My blood runs hot at the proximity, roaring in my ears and disorienting me.
For a beat, I want to lean into it. To soak in the feeling of his skin, and to enter that state of euphoria, I know he can provide for me.
I inhale sharply as my sense returns, and I smack his hand away.
As if broken from a trance of his own, Caleb stumbles back a step, eyes dark with something far worse than anger. Want. Pure, unbridled desire.
Blinking back at me, he looks startled, but he doesn’t try again. Instead, he pulls in a breath and puts more distance between us, fighting himself again.
“Fuck,” he mutters hoarsely. “Sorry…”
I know he’s being sincere, and it’s the bond shaking our self-restraint, but I don’t accept it.
Instead, I turn away before he can see just how shaken up I am by it, and before he can sense just how close I am to giving in.
This time, as night blankets the cabin, I face the wall while Caleb sleeps on the couch across the room. Neither of us even wants to tempt fate.
But sleep still doesn’t come for me anyway.
Between my awareness of just how near he is despite the current distance between us and the insistent, agonizingly lonely part of me that remembers too much from before, I can’t get my mind to shut off.
I try so hard to push it all down. To not feel or want.
But the bond doesn’t care what I want. It echoes his name in my head and my heart, whispering for me to just give in.
And for the first time since the ceremony, I’m terrified I might lose the fight against primal instincts.
Chapter 12 - Caleb
Ignoring the bond is slow, agonizing torture.
It sits heavily in my chest, tugging me toward her even when I’m half-asleep. Every instinct I have wants to reach across the room, pull her close, and bury my face in her neck until that ache finally stops. More than that, I don’t just want to feel her body, but I need to feel claimed by her in return.
As overwhelming as those urges feel, I don’t move, and I don’t attempt to sway her.
Lila’s comfort sits far higher than my own on the hierarchy I’ve constructed in my mind, regardless of how sweet and tempting her scent is to me, and I’m not willing to sacrifice that comfort just to feel release.
Still on the narrow couch while the blue, hazy light of dawn pours into the cabin, I keep as still and quiet as I can manage. It doesn’t do anything to soothe that deep-seated hunger in me, and in all honesty, it only gets worse.
But this is the price of the damage I caused, and the price of forcing her into this union out of necessity and instinct. It wasn’t like I came up with this out of nowhere, given the obvious pull that had existed between us before, but I know the timing is less than ideal.
And I know that even now, she wants this too, she just can’t accept it yet. The wounds have been reopened for her, and she hasn’t had the time to process anything since I’ve returned.
Until the day comes when she decides I’m not half the monster she thinks I am, I’ll take the suffering.
