Page 85 of Hunted

The loss is brutal.

My mouth aches as if he’s left a mark there, and a small sound of protest escapes before I can kill it. Humiliation burns through me instantly, but his eyes catch it.

Satisfaction glints in the silver.

He holds himself close enough that his breath brushes my mouth, close enough that if I tilted forward an inch, I could steal another kiss.

His hand remains in my hair for one beat longer, fingers splayed like a restraint he’s choosing to keep.

‘No,’ he says, quiet and absolute.

And I sense he’s speaking to himself as much as to me. Then his hand drops away, slow and measured.

A man letting go of a blade by the edge.

We stand there, both of us breathing too hard, the air thick with what just happened. With what still vibrates beneath my skin like aftershock.

I can feel my pulse everywhere. Throat. Wrists. Jaw. My overheated pussy.

His gaze stays fixed on my mouth and, for a second, I see the strain beneath his control, the tightness at the corner of his lips, the minute tension in his jaw as he clamps down on something feral.

The hot, thick imprint of his cock still presses against my belly.

Gods, he would feel insane.

Incredible.

No. Not thinking about that. The Earth has moved beneath us, shifted its rules and tossed us over a line.

It would be pure madness to take this further.

Still, my tongue flicks over my lips, not checking for blood because there’s no sting, no cut, no injury.

Only taste, and the need to keep the last trace of him on me for one more second.

I drag my fingertips to my mouth, touching lightly.

His gaze follows the movement with a focus that makes my stomach dip.

‘You are not bitten,’ he says, and the formality of the statement is almost absurd when his mouth is the thing that did this to me.

When his cock still shifts subtly against my belly like even he can’t fully help himself.

I swallow.

Still disgraceful.

Still too loud in the hush.

‘No,’ I say, voice huskier than I mean it to be. ‘I’m not… checking for cuts.’

His eyes flare, and for one second, I think he might lean back in. Might break his own ‘no’. Might let hunger win.

Instead, he growls and remains still.

That restraint is its own kind of intimacy. Its own proof that he wasn’t lying when he said he was capable of it.

I breathe again, deeper this time, and my gaze slides down his throat, following the elegant line to the open collar of his shirt, where pale, smooth skin shows.