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He might not have expected her to bolt before, or maybe he hadn’t chased her again right away because he knew she couldn’t get far. There was no way he could have known that her ankle was already tweaked from when she jumped from the window. And yet, after she twisted it again and tried to rise, he was there in an instant to hold her against his chest.
His very naked chest.
This was the closest they’d been. Even through her t-shirt, she could feel the blazing heat coming off of his bare skin. She shivered and the bastard tightened his hold on her. Maybe he was offering her warmth, maybe it was comfort, but Evangeline wouldn’t let herself buy into it. He’d kidnapped her, damn it.
She refused to become another victim of the Stockholm Syndrome.
“Let me go,” she told him, shoving against him. It was like trying to bend steel. His arms weren’t going anywhere.
Instead, he slipped his hand between their pressed bodies, taking her defiant chin gently between his claw-tipped fingers. He tilted her head back, careful not to scratch her.
“Look at me,” he demanded.
Stubborn to a fault, Evangeline closed her eyes. “No.”
He exhaled. Warm breath fanned her cheek, a delicious musk surrounding her. Her body wanted to fall into his embrace. Evangeline refused to let it.
“You’re tired,” he rumbled. “You’re hurt. You’re scared. Look at me, Evangeline. Recognize who I am. I’ll never hurt you.”
She quirked one eye open. He seemed so earnest, so sincere.
He was absolutely full of it.
“Why should I believe you?”
Maddox ignored her question, though she did notice that it was his turn to tremble. But, when he spoke again, his voice was firm and commanding. “Look at me.”
She refused. “I told you no. You stole me, you monster. You took me from my family, my friends. My home. I won’t do a damn thing you tell me to. I’d rather die first.”
“I’d die myself before I let that happen again.”
Evangeline found her eyes darting back to the tattoo on his chest. This close, she couldn’t deny it. She couldn’t pretend. Those numbers… that date—it was the day of the accident. Her accident.
She almost died once before herself. And the way he said ‘again’, almost like he knew...
How did he know?
Maddox took a deep breath. She felt his chest move. In, then out. In. Out. His skin brushed against hers and, as if she expected what was coming, she braced herself.
“Look at me, Angie.” His voice resonated with a power she couldn’t describe. Or understand.
That name again. She hated that it felt so right for him to call her that. She hated that he thought he had the right to call her that.
Against her better judgment, she looked over at him.
His golden eyes. The same glowing golden gaze that haunted her dreams and gave fuel to her every fantasy. Familiar and alien at the same time, Evangeline was drawn to him like a moth to a flame. She knew it was foolish. She knew it was dangerous. She couldn’t seem to stop herself anyway.
Could it be just a dream? Those eyes were so familiar. And, though she was too shaken to admit, so was he.
Her fingers ghosted over the numbers etched into his skin. The date of her accident. When she’d died—and been given a second chance at life. He rumbled again, but it wasn’t from anger or exertion this time. It was pure pleasure that she touched him.
She took her hand back. His eyes flashed, an amber sheen turning the gold a darker shade.
Evangeline didn’t know this man. She didn’t. But she was almost sure she knew what he was.
The strength, the speed, the power. The howl. The ability to track her through the woods. The inhuman hearing. The amber eyes.
She knew he was a shifter. That was undeniable. Some part of her had been hoping he was something safe and sweet, like a pussy cat or a bunny rabbit.
