Page 60 of Blood and Trouble

He shot his head up, his features going slack, his eyes shimmering in the moonlight. “Don’t do that.”

Taking a step closer, I came to stand in front of him, the inches between us electric with the months of unyielding strain. I wanted him. He knew I wanted him. All these weeks apart had only made my addiction to him stronger, more overwhelming.

“Do what?” I darted my tongue out over my lips, pretending to be ignorant of the effect it had on him.

“You know what,” he said, his voice low and husky. “You’re married.” He stood up, bringing our faces inches apart. “You married her.”

“And you?” I held firm, refusing to give any ground. “You reek like bonding scent anytime she’s around.” There. It was out in the open now. “Got something you want to admit?”

He looked away, but my wolf snarled at the disrespect. I grabbed his jaw and forced his gaze back to me, savoring the delicious salt of his possession that wafted between us. It proved what I’d already suspected. The bonding scent wasn’t just for her. It bloomed for me, too, and that sent a thrill of wanton passion straight down to my cock.

“Oh.” I laughed and stepped into him, connecting my pelvis to his so he could feel how this was affecting me. “Still such a brooding little liar, huh?”

He groaned and pushed his hips against me, dropping his head to my shoulder as his rock-hard cock brushed up against mine. The contact made my stomach clench, made me want to wrap my fingers in his hair and yank.

“No,” he muttered through a rough breath.

“You’re lying to yourself,” I continued, leaning in to run my nose along his cheek to his ear. He shivered, and my wolf howled at the thought of fighting his control away from him again. He wouldn’t hand it over freely, oh no. But I knew the truth. Poe wanted to lose. He wanted to fight and scrap and be forced to submit. He liked it the best when I took it from him, and Gods be good, I lived to do it. “And you’re lying to me. I can smell it.”

It was the dank, tangy mix of his regret and yearning and grasping adoration. For me. For Ava. For all he wanted and forbade himself from taking.

“Is that why the witch offered me to you if you left?” I asked. “Is that what you want? Me and you riding off into eternity, leaving all this behind?”

I dragged my lips over his throat and teased myself with a quick lick on his pulse. His skin still tasted the same. Clean sweat. Male. Him.

“Fuck off,” he growled, but there was no threat in it. All bark.

“If you want me… If you want her… All you have to do is say it.” I ghosted my fingers up his arm to his shoulder.

“You don’t want me,” he murmured, glancing down at the ground between us. “She doesn’t want me.”

I hummed and leaned back to rut my pelvis against his, another reminder of how wrong he was. My cock kicked between us, desperate to get inside him again. I wandered up the back of his neck and tunneled my fingers into his hair, gripping a fistful before tugging his head back. He hissed in a breath and sagged in my hold.

“Is that what you tell yourself?” I murmured. “Is that why you stayed away from me for all these weeks?”

“You left me,” he whispered. “You left me and married her and…” His voice cracked, and his lips trembled as a slap of heartbreak roared through the pack bond.

That wasn’t how I saw it. He’d broken it off with me, but I didn’t argue. I nearly wilted from its intensity. Had he been living with this since we broke up, since coming back to me?

“You’re torturing yourself,” I said. “That’s my job.”

We were both so entranced with each other that neither of us heard the footsteps on the porch or the steady heartbeat of the woman who’d become the center of our world. The door opened, and Poe shoved my shoulders away from him, forcing me to drop my hold and take a step back.

Ava froze in the doorway as her gaze danced back and forth between us. She inhaled and licked her lips, her pulse kicking up a notch as she stepped inside. Shut the door behind her. Curled her luscious mouth into a devious grin.

“I don’t know whether I should be angry about the pheromones bouncing around or pull up a chair and watch.” She bit her bottom lip, eyes shimmering with delight. “Maybe both.”

Poe audibly gulped and shoved past me, shouldering me in the arm before stomping toward the door at the back of the cabin.

“Poe,” I shouted, but he ignored me, rushed out into the night, and slammed the door.

Ava jumped, and her features fell. “Should one of us go after him?”

“No, he won’t leave the pack lands,” I said. He’d be safe, even if he was stubborn and hardheaded. He wouldn’t listen, no matter what we told him. He’d come around when he was ready.

“What did Kodiak have to say?”

I sat on the couch and leaned back as she came closer. “They think Evelyn might be rounding up the European Scorpions. No one’s confirmed it. We’re bunking here for the time being.”