His sawing snarl pebbles my skin, canines slipping down so fast my breath catches.
“No more,” I whisper, hearing his teeth grind.
His mighty chest inflates. Releasing through his nose, he cracks his neck from side to side. “No more lies to hide yourhurt,” he growls, the words thicker than the last.
I hold his stare.
Another backward step.
His entire body locks up, as though he’s putting all his strength into keeping his spine pinned to the tree.
Another bolt of thrill crackles through my veins, thrumming deep into my core, and a moan almost pries from my lips, my heart thumping so hard I feel it at the base of my throat.
“If you run, you’re mine,” he says, so deadly soft I barely catch it over the pattering rain.
I tilt my head to the side. “And if I don’t?”
Silence. Even the storm seems to still its booming symphony while something toils in the depths of his eyes, rivulets of water traveling down his perfectly sculpted body. So barbarically beautiful my chest aches at the sight while other parts of mehunger.
He tips his head against the tree, looking at me from beneath lowered lashes. “Then I will tell you another truth so you can go back to hating me.”
Hate …
The love I have for this man has grown on a foundation of that four-letter word. He’s seen so many of my ugly sides.
I’ve seen so many of his.
We’re both bruised from the battle it took us to get here, but tall trees uproot in windstorms if the hole isn’t dug deep enough to tether to the soil.
Love him today, hate him tomorrow. I’m not going anywhere.
I flick him a smile, turn on my heel, andrun.
The rain stops as I sprint into the jungle’s dense confines, pursued by silence. But my prickling skin and fraying nerves make me innately aware that he’s chasing.
Hunting.
My lungs labor, heart pounding in rhythm with my feet, each hurried step strumming that raw, tender ache between my legs until every forward motion is a scarcely won victory.
I power around partially glassed trees half frozen in an eerie, see-through eternity, the other halves dead or bleached or crumbling. Rays of sunlight spear through translucent foliage, creating bright, glistening pockets in the gloom. Part of me wants to stop and marvel at the changing world around me, but my heart is pounding too hard. The throb in my core is too crippling.
My monster’s on my heels.
Passing what looks like an entrance to a cave bored into the edge of a hill, I risk a peek behind, unable to see him, but I feel his icy stare track across my face like a chilling prelude. Another bolt of pulse-scatteringthrillerupts low in my belly and high in my chest, a moan whittling through my lips still stained in the taste ofhim.
Perfectly, beautifullyhim.
Heart in my throat, I loop around, then dash behind a massive fallen log that’s half clothed in moss, tucking myself into a knot, heaving shuddered breaths. My gaze darts left and right, up and down, and I battle the urge to push my hand beneath the waistband of my pants. To press my fingers against the hungry ache.
Silence.
No slow patter of water still dribbling down from above. No crackle of thunder. Even the wind has stopped, the world around me so hollow of noise my breathssaw,my galloping heartbeat akin to the pound of hooves clopping against hard-packed soil.
If I can hear it, so can he.
Slowly, my breaths begin to tame. Still, the silence prevails, my skin prickling with baited anticipation, my pulse like a butterfly caught in the base of my throat as I continue to search left, right, up, down.
Where is he?
