What adick.
“Right. Because I expected a merc like you to know human dialect, anyway.”
If a human akin to the devil could have turned into a statue, he would have, right before my eyes. Yet, he still said nothing. Now, it was just a staring contest with an evil incarnation. My body nearly vibrated from the brewing anxiety and loud, thumping music surrounding us.
You are an independent woman. You don’t deserve this,I screamed inside my head.
I scoffed. Echo must have been delusional by thinking that Aureo had any interest in me. But, Icouldn’t blame her, even if I could have gotten better responses from a brick wall thanhim.
“Why did I bother coming over here?” I muttered as I began to turn away from him. I was right. I was an independent woman. I wasn’t a child anymore. Yet, I couldn’t help but feel the slightest bit of dejection as I turned away from him. I wasn’t the type of girl who needed a man’s approval, and I certainly wasn’t the girl who needed sex daily, but it still stung in some weird way.
I barely made it a single step before I felt a tight, heated pressure on my wrist. By instinct, I scowled, looking down and making eye contact with a hand that may have well resembled a bear’s paw. He had me captured in his grip, and right when I went to tug against him—now too pissed to give a damn about what he wanted—I felt the lightest brush of the plastic covering his face against my cheek, sending a shiver down my spine. Considering I hadn’t known he was behind me, it’s a miracle that I didn’t jump out of my skin.
“What the fuck did you just say to me?” he rasped.
I turned to him, meeting his hardened gaze and tugging slightly to try and get out of his grasp. “I asked what the reason for me coming over here was, only to be ignored by the brute barbarian you apparently are.”My words only made him hold on to me tighter, but I kept my expression sharp. “Are we done now?”
His jaw clicked, only slowly releasing when he took in a shuddering breath, cracking his neck to the side.
Finally—anemotion. Good for him.
“Not that,” he muttered. His voice sounded like he had just swallowed the smoothest whiskey and goosebumps broke out against my skin. “And quit with the pompous, bitch act. It’s annoying.”
You have got to be kidding me.
I said as much. “Are you fucking kidd?—”
He cut me off, squeezing my wrist tighter. “What did you call me a minute ago?”
Anger seared through me. Now hewas reallyacting like a brute barbarian. I was going to wake up with bruise marks on my wrist, of all places, tomorrow morning. I felt my teeth ground together from the realization.
When I admitted my love of pain to the class, this wasnotwhat I meant.
He pulled my wrist back behind my back, twisting my elbow until I grunted softly. One of his rough, calloused hands moved to my front until he was holding my throat in a solid grasp. I felt his chuckle, the breath hot, as he felt me gulp against him.
I would have never admitted this to anyone, butbeing held like that made the most depraved thoughts enter my head. I could feel my heart beating faster, maybe even begin beating elsewhere, and I swore he could feel it too as my thighs squeezed together on their own doing.
“What did you call me?” he whispered into my ear, repeating himself and squeezing the hand on my throat softly.
I gulped. I was still so fucking pissed—seething, probably vibrating, actually—but being a girl in this world meant you knew your limits, and my limits stopped at being withheld by the big, bad wolf.
“People are going to notice you holding me like this,” I whispered, forgoing any attempts to try and pull away from him. I had a feeling that whatever was happening, whatever had fallen over the both of us, I wasn’t going to win. And I was right. He pulled me closer to him until my back was flush against the soft material of his shirt.
We almost fit together like puzzle pieces.
I rolled my eyes at the thought. This wasnotthe time to be poetic.
“See if I give a flying fuck, little girl. I’m not going to ask again.”
My subconscious thought back through the last few minutes. It was hard to think around him as hetouched me, especially as the unique scent of his cedarwood, nearly geranium cologne hit my senses. It was almost intoxicating in its own right.
I was pissed not even five minutes ago, yet now I fought the urge to melt into him. The power of alpha-males was seriously something that needed scientific research.
Finally, expletives floated through my brain as I realized what Aureo was really asking for. My body went taunt against him and I cursed under my breath when his grip tightened even more, almost to the point that breathing was difficult.
He knew that I knew.
“I called you a merc,” I said, all of my bravado fading with fear and the most confusing sense of hot arousal in its tracks. His touch was searing, the calluses on his hands scraping against my flesh. I wanted it off me, but yet I wanted it to consume me at the same damn time.
