Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Briar
My breath hitched on a small gasp as Knox pulled away from my ear to gaze down at me. I didn’t know what to say or how to respond to him.
Seth had never spoken to me like that before; he wouldn’t have, but Knox enjoyed shocking me with those words. Cool amusement gleamed in his eyes, and the corner of his mouth twisted into that sneer I was starting to loathe.
His breath, warm and smelling of peppermint, washed over my mouth. Although he unnerved me, I couldn’t stop myself from breathing it deeper into me. It filled my lungs with unexpected warmth.
He wasn’t mine anymore, but he was as much a part of me as my heart. When I lost him, it was like having that heart ripped away.
He was here now and so close I could touch him, but he’d only rebuke me. And that knowledge was like having my heart ripped out all over again.
“When I scented your arousal,” he continued, “I thought perhaps you’d entered your Needing, but it turns out you were watching others.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. He’d caught me, and there was no turning back from that. I also wasn’t going to explain it wasn’t so much what they were doing that aroused me, but how much I missed doing it with him.
“I’d bet that if I pulled up your nightgown and slid my hand between your pretty thighs, I’d find you wet and aching,” he continued.
“No,” I managed to get out.
“Oh, more lies from those pretty little lips of yours.”
“It’s not a lie.”
He might find a lingering wetness, but I wasn’t aroused. I was too stunned for that.
“I know your scent, Briar. I know when you’re wet and aching to be fucked. I used to love having your aroma all over me. I’d relished in your taste as your tight, wet pussy took me deeper.”
I shook my head as I tried to deny his words even as they caused my body to quicken and a new ache to rise. I’d sell my soul to feel his arms around me again as he filled me, took me, and loved me.
“Yes, it was… it was titillating at first, but it’s not what excited me. It’s not what I want,” I said.
“And what do you want?”
When he leaned a little closer again, my breath sucked in as the head of his shaft pressed against me.
He was so much larger than me that his erection prodded my upper belly.
I almost started to sway toward him before stopping myself.
No matter how badly we wanted each other, this would only end in the ugliest of ways.
“What do you want, Briar?” he asked when I didn’t immediately answer him.
“The old you,” I admitted on a whisper.
For a second, he didn’t speak, but then he laughed as his arm fell from beside my head. “You helped destroy the old me.”
Despite the harshness of his face and the angry glint in his unnatural, orange eyes, I sensed something off about him as he backed a few feet away. His ruthless expression made the slashes of his scar stand out more.
“Seth—”
“Don’t call me that! It’s not my name,” he snarled.
I closed my mouth. The hand I hadn’t realized I’d stretched toward him fell back to my side. I remained standing against the wall as he stalked away from me.
“Enjoy the show.”
With those final words, he stormed out the door and slammed it shut. I jumped a little as the crash quaked the windows; it was still reverberating through the room when the lock clicked into place.
Legs shaking, I slid to the floor with my back against the wall.
I rested my head on the stone as the tiny creature poked out from where he’d taken refuge under the bed.
The small animal scampered to me, climbed up my side, and nuzzled my neck.
Its warmth provided little comfort as I still felt cold and hollow inside.
I had to escape Wildwood but didn’t know how. The woods were full of murderous creatures, and I had nowhere to go.
I closed my eyes as, outside, a wolf howled.