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11. Closer
MY FOOTFALLS THUDDED in the wide corridor as I tailed Roy with quick strides. The more I recovered from the shock of what had happened in the training hall, the more anger singed the back of my mouth. He didn’t like to see me merging with a partner, did he? So he was angry? Well, so was I. He couldn’t spit his fury on me, as if I’d been cheating on him, and then leave. Again. A growl came out from my beast as I approached him. He was striding along a secondary corridor, and I wasn’t sure where it led.
“Leave me alone,” he gritted out without slowing his pace or turning around.
“You left Crawley Farm without saying a word of goodbye. You chose Nathan as my new partner and didn’t bother to inform me. You don’t want to work with me, and yet you are angry?” I matched his strides and grabbed his arm, my claws popping out. “You have no right to be angry.”
“I didn’t choose him. He volunteered.” The low growl that cried out of him made me shiver. “I didn’t want to choose anyone for you. You were supposed to choose, but he insisted, and Allen agreed.” His pupils formed two vertical slits, and his irises darkened as he pounced on me, trapping me between his hard body and the wall. Ivory fangs appeared from underneath his upper lip. Heat radiated from his tense muscles. He was ready to lunge, his beast nearly taking over again. Through our connection, his fury flooded into me, sweeping through me like a wave. Ironically, his anger was the first feeling he had liberally shared with me.
My breath came out in hard pants. I pressed my back against the wall to put some distance between us. A mix of fear and excitement drummed through my body, making me painfully aware of his closeness, his immense strength, and his undiluted wrath. Wrath directed towards me.
“He was touching you.” Even his voice rang lower and more menacing than usual, reverberating in my chest. “He was so close to you.”
“Go to hell, Roy. We were doing what you told us to do,” I hissed. “How dare you barge into the hall and behave like that.” I tried to shrug him off me, but he didn’t budge. If anything, he pressed his body against mine harder.
“He was wrapped all around you.” There was so much pain in his voice that my anger almost melted away. “He was stroking your hips.”
“We were training.” I shook my head. “Why are we having this conversation at all? You don’t care about what I do. You’ve made that clear by leaving me without a word. Nathan is my new partner, and I was doing my job. You bloody stubborn ass.” I thumped his chest, without any effect, of course.
“How can you say I don’t care?” The lines in his face became taut ropes as his heady scent wafted out of him.
“Do you think I was trying to make you jealous?” I couldn’t stop a nervous chuckle. “That’s ridiculous. I would never—”
He wrapped his hand around my neck, holding me in place gently, but firmly. My pulse kicked against the rough pad of his thumb. A gentle stroke of my skin caused my knees to weaken. Raw emotions still poured out of his beast, but there was something else beneath the layers of anger and frustrations. Something sweet and vulnerable.
“You don’t have any idea how I feel when you’re close to me,” he said against my mouth, his breath caressing me. Only an inch separated our lips while his body was almost crushing me with its weight. “And I don’t like how I react. I don’t like being so angry. I don’t like being so jealous. Not one bit. I lost control. Look what my lack of control has done to me. I hate this side of me, but the more I fight it, the more it bites me back.”
A new, sudden flare of anger sparked inside me. “That doesn’t give you the right to behave like that.” I whacked his chest with my fist, aware that it wouldn’t do much to his foul temper aside from fuelling it. “You’re incapable of feeling anything aside from anger and resentment. You keep secrets from me. You don’t want to be with me. I don’t want your anger. You can keep it. I want your—” Sod him. I wasn’t going to bare myself to him when he’d given me only secrets and mistrust. Besides, I wasn’t sure how to end that train of thought. What did I want from him? Love? Or maybe some tenderness and care? Sex? All of that? I hadn’t allowed myself to think about that, since he had never given me any signs that he loved me. If I realised that I loved him, my heart would shatter; I’d be scarred for life, and I didn’t need the pain.
“My what?” he demanded, his thumb still stroking my skin.
Placing both my hands on his chest, I shoved him hard. He didn’t move but kept searching my face. “Nothing.”
“Finish that sentence.”
“No. Let me go or I swear I’ll start screaming.”
“And?” His lips were dangerously close to my neck.
“And someone will come and wrench you away from me.”
He chuckled, a sound halfway between a growl and a laugh, some of the tension lifting. “I’d like to see them try. No one can wrench me away from what I want.”
“Do you want me?” I gazed up at him. I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it anyway.
His hand cupped my cheek as he bent closer. The first brush of his lips against mine was as scorching as his fury. The second caused my lips to part. And the third tore a shameless moan out of me. When the tip of his tongue slipped past my lips and stroked mine, I was positively sagging against him. Sod the power he had over my body, but this kiss was sweet and so bloody intense that I couldn’t push him away. I didn’t want to.
The sweetness didn’t last, though. In his usual style, he took control and devoured my mouth with a hard, bruising kiss that was a claim. Not that I was complaining. As a heated sensation swept through me, the familiar ache started to throb between my legs. Wetness pooled at my core. Maddening desire mingled with the urgency to rip his hallowed silk off.
He broke the kiss, eyes closed, and inhaled deeply. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
“I’m not sure I should forgive you.” I rolled my hips.
“Don’t.” He sounded exhausted. “Your scent drives me crazy.” His hand cupped my breast and fondled it, ripping another moan from me. “It’s been haunting me for days, teasing me every time I entered a room you’d just left.” His thumb rubbed my nipple through the fabric of my suit. “And when it’s spiced like now with your arousal, all I can think of is to pound inside you until you can’t walk straight for a week. Until you can feel me inside you even when we aren’t together. I want my scent on your skin, so that every bloody beast out there will know that you’re mine and I yours.”
Oh Lord. I tried to press my thighs together, but he slipped a hand between them, blocking me.
“Don’t.” He was breathing hard, his naked chest heaving. “You make it worse when you do that. The scent becomes more intense.”
