“Yes, I do.” He braces one hand on the shelf beside my head and cages me in without actually making contact. “I feel it through the bond, remember? Every spike of fear. Every flash of anger. Every moment when your heart races because I’m standing too close.” He drops his eyes to my mouth, and my traitorous body responds with a flood of heat that settles low inmy belly. “Every time you lie awake at night, wanting something you won’t let yourself have.”
My cheeks burn. I was right. He knows about the dream. Of course, he knows. The bond would have transmitted every embarrassing detail straight into his consciousness, every gasp and moan and desperate want that I couldn’t control even in sleep.
“That’s not—”
“Don’t. Don’t lie to me, Skylar. Lie to yourself if you need to, but don’t insult us both by pretending you don’t feel this.”
I can barely breathe. He’s so close I can count his eyelashes, and every nerve in my body is screaming at me to grab his shirt and pull him down and find out if he still kisses the same way he did ten years ago, when we were young and stupid and convinced we had forever stretching out ahead of us.
But I’m not that girl anymore. And he’s not the boy who broke my heart.
“What do you want from me?” I manage to choke out past the lump in my throat.
“Nothing you’re not willing to give.” His breath ghosts across my cheek as he speaks, making me shudder. “I’m not going to force a damn thing on you, Skylar, but I also won’t pretend the pull between us doesn’t exist. I won’t pretend I don’t want you so badly it’s keeping me up at night.”
His lips are inches from mine, so close I could close the gap with barely any movement at all.
“I’m not going to touch you. Not until you ask me to. But when you do—and you will, eventually—I’ll be ready.”
He pushes off the shelf and steps back, and the sudden absence leaves me dizzy. For a long moment, we just stare ateach other with the space between us thick with everything we’re not saying.
Then he turns and walks out of the supply room without another word.
I slump against the shelf for a long time after he’s gone, with my heart pounding against my ribs and my hands trembling at my sides.
I hate him for doing this to me. I hate myself for wanting him anyway.
And I hate, more than anything, the small voice in the back of my mind that whispers he might be right.
Chapter 11 - Bryan
I’ve been living with Skylar for five days now, and my control is hanging by a thread.
I’m sitting on the couch pretending to read a report Caleb sent over about Cheslem movement patterns, but the words keep swimming in front of my eyes. Every sound from the bathroom makes my wolf pace beneath my skin. The rush of water. The soft splash of her moving in the tub. The faint sound she makes when she’s lost in thought.
Five days of sharing meals in strained silence. Five days of sleeping on this godforsaken couch while the bond screams at me to go to her. Five days of watching her move through the cabin like I’m a piece of furniture she has to navigate around, and every single moment has been its own special kind of torture.
The worst part is the nights.
I feel her through the bond when she’s lying in that bed, just a wall away. Feel the restlessness that keeps her tossing and turning. Feel the heat that builds in her body when her mind drifts to places she doesn’t want it to go. She fights it every time, shoving the feelings down until they’re nothing but a dull ache, but I feel all of it. Every suppressed want. Every denied need.
It’s driving me out of my mind.
The bathroom door opens, and I tell myself to keep staring at the report. I will not look. I will maintain some semblance of dignity even if it kills me.
But then her scent hits me.
Honeysuckle and herbs, warm and damp from the bath. It wraps around me, and my wolf lurches forward so hard I have to grab the arm of the couch to keep from falling.
I look up. I can’t help it.
Skylar stands in the hallway wearing nothing but a thin cotton robe. The fabric is nearly see-through on her damp skin, and water droplets trail down her neck to disappear into the valley between her breasts. Her hair is loose and wet over her shoulders, darker than usual from the moisture. There’s nothing underneath that robe. I can tell by the way the cotton molds to every curve, leaving nothing to the imagination.
Our eyes meet.
Something passes between us. Something that has nothing to do with the bond and everything to do with ten years of wanting and denying and pretending we don’t still burn for each other.
I’m on my feet before I make the conscious decision to move. The report falls to the floor, forgotten. By some miracle, Skylar doesn’t back away as I cross the room. She doesn’t tell me to stop or remind me of all the reasons this is a terrible idea.
