Aurelia’s still talking shit when my shadow falls over her and she pauses mid-insult. A moment later, she goes right back to work and talking more shit even though she knows it’s me and I can hear everything.
“How are you going to pretend to be asleep, knowing I want to make love, but forget that you snore like a bear in the woods?Who does that? Oh, I know. Bitch ass bitches. What’s the matter, Khalil? Are you scared of my pussy now?”
“Got something you want to say to me, Goldilocks?”
“Fuck you,” she immediately barks like I haven’t spoken. She then huffs in frustration and throws down the trowel before sitting back on her heels.
My gaze passes over the garden bed that looks more like a dog dug a ton of holes after being let loose in the yard, and I realize belatedly what she was trying to do. “If you want to loosen the soil, that’s not the tool you want to use. You need the hoe.”
“Yes, I know,” she snaps as she snatches off the gardening gloves and stands. “I couldn’t find it.”
Because I hid it, but I don’t tell her that.
Last night, I overheard her tell Thorin that she was going to try planting the potatoes after their hunt today, so I snuck out to the shed and hid the hoe, hoping it would make her talk to me, but I overestimated her stubbornness. Apparently, she’d rather make her job three times harder than ask for my help. Whatever I’d done to piss her off, it must have been worse than I thought.
Aurelia turns around, but she doesn’t meet my gaze as she walks past me.
“Aurelia.” Of course, she ignores me and enters the cabin. I’m on her heels the entire time, so I easily catch her hand before she can get far, and I spin her around. “We need to talk.”
“No thanks.” She tries to walk away again, but my hands quickly snag her waist, and I lift her off the ground until she’s eye level with me, and then I keep her suspended like this with her feet hovering off the ground. She wrinkles her nose at me. “Khalil, put me down.”
“Not until we talk.”
“So that’s your plan? You really think you can hold me up that long?”
“Try me.”
Her lips part with a smart retort, but then she eyes my arms and the huge muscles bulging beneath my skin and sighs. “Fine. I’ll talk. Just… Put me down. I feel ridiculous, and you’re pissing me off.”
I gently set her down, and the moment I let her go, her lashes flutter in a telling way. Before she can roll her fucking eyes again, I grab her neck in a firm grip and trap her against the railing. “Roll your fucking eyes at me, and I swear to God, I’ll pluck every last one of your eyelashes out. Do not test me, Aurelia.”
I can tell she’s getting ready to do just that when she suddenly switches tactics and lets her eyes roam over my bare chest and eight-pack. “What’s wrong, Khalil?” I feel my grip on her neck weaken at the sudden switch in her tone. Every syllable is wrapped in sex now as she takes advantage of my loosened hold and pushes forward to cup my dick. “I think I know,” she coos as she pets me. “You miss dipping this big stick in my hot honey, don’t you?”
I know she’s being crass to fuck with me, but my dick doesn’t care. It twitches eagerly in my shorts under her palm, and Aurelia smiles knowingly as she rubs me. She molds the front of her body against mine, and I can’t bring myself to care that she’s finessing me. The fog of lust that demands I tear off her athletic shorts, throw her leg over my shoulder, and force my way inside swells along with my dick. The promise of pounding her warm, sweet pussy until she weeps for me threatens to derail my careful plans.
But then I feel it.
The pulsing vein in her neck that matches the rhythm of her heart. It reminds me of what I’m fighting for, and it’s not her pussy. That part of her is clearly still mine even whenshedoesn’t want to be anymore.
I have to know why.
“Stop.” I swat her hand away before she can get it inside my shorts. My hand is still around her neck, and I tighten my hold before driving her back against the rail again. She makes a noise caught between a choke and a moan. “When I want your pussy, you’ll know, and you’ll give it up like a good girl. Now stop throwing it at me andtalkto me. Tell me what’s wrong. What did I do?”
She rolls her eyes despite my warning. “Big talk for a man who was willing to fold at the slightest wind two weeks ago.”
So that’s it.
I drop my hand to keep from strangling her and tuck my hand into my pocket. “Explain. And don’t give me some smart-ass answer. I’m not with this cold-shoulder shit. Tell me what’s up.”
Her lips quiver as if everything she’s been feeling these past couple of weeks is suddenly hammering against the dam she’d built. When Aurelia finally allows herself to meet my gaze, the levees crumble away and the tidal wave of her anger and hurt hits me like a jab to the gut.
“You were going to give me up.”
“Goldilocks…” I shake my head in disappointment. Never did I think Aurelia would actually believe Iwantedto let her go. I thought she knew I wouldn’t walk away from this for any reason other than to keep her safe. “The sheriff knew who you were,” I remind gently. “He knew he’d been played. What was I supposed to do, Goldilocks? Let you go down with us?”
“Yes!”
“No.”
