“And I told you to stop me.” He takes a step. Then another. Closing the space between us with the easy authority of a male who’s never been denied ground. His scent reaches me — God, hisscent— blood and male and the dense undertone of alpha that my wolf has been focused on since the ridgeline. At four feet away, it’s so strong I can feel my pupils dilating.
“But you’re not going to,” he says, close now, heat radiating off his skin. “Because you’ve had all day to figure out what you want from me, and cutting me isn’t it.”
The scorn in his tone makes my already heated blood boil.
I hit him.
I want to punch him in the face, but my fist catches the wound on his shoulder instead, my aim thrown off because my hands are shaking, and I will not think about why my hands are shaking.
Rage, that’s why.
He grunts, the first honest sound of pain I’ve gotten from him, and I follow with my elbow into his scarred ribs. He reaches for me. Not swinging — grabbing. Trying to catch my arms, lock them down. I duck under his reach and drive my knee into his side.
He’s fast. Faster than he should be, wounded and drugged and running on whatever fumes got him out of that cabin. He catches my wrist, and the grip is absolute; my bones grind under his fingers. He yanks me off balance, and I slam into his chest.
Fuck.
Skin on skin. The full hot length of his torso against me, my breasts flattened against his chest. The contact sends a bolt of heat straight between my thighs that makes my knees want to fold.
No! Fight! Hit him again.
I rake my nails down his forearm, across the cuts, and he hisses. His grip loosens, and I tear free. We circle. I’m panting. He’s panting. The air between us is thick with the smell of blood and sweat. And something else that my wolf is drunk on, a musk that’s pure alpha male,and I want to claw it out of my nose.
He comes again. Catches me, both arms this time, locking mine against my sides, his hands flat on my back, my body pinned against his from chest to thigh. I writhe, trying to wrench free, and the writhing is a mistake because it rubs me against him in ways that turn the heat between my legs into a wet, insistent ache.
He feels it. I know he does, because his arms tighten and his breathing drops and his cock twitches against my stomach.He’s hard, insistent, throbbing, and hot. And this is going in a direction I have no intention of allowing. I twist sideways, teeth snapping, clawing at him. I’m fighting against a much stronger opponent, and I need every weapon at my disposal. It doesn’t help. He takes me down.
Ground. His weight. My face in the grass and his hand between my shoulder blades, pressing me flat. I push up, and he pushes down again. I’m pinned under two hundred and twenty pounds of pure male, and my body — my traitorous, desperate body — is arching into the pressure instead of fighting it.
“Get off me!” I scream, bucking my hips.
“Stop fighting me,” he growls into my ear, his teeth grazing the sensitive shell of it.
Fight him!
But I can’t. And worse, I don’t want to. My struggles become less about escaping and more about the friction of my nipples dragging against the rough forest floor, the way his hips press down on mine.
He growls.
Low. From the very bottom of his chest. A sound that isn’t a word and isn’t a threat and isn’t anything human. It vibrates through his ribcage and into my spine, and I feel it in my belly, my thighs, between my legs, where I’m so wet I can feel it on my skin.
My wolf responds. A sound rips out of my throat — rough, needy, pitched to match his growl — and I didn’t make it. I didn’tchooseit. But it comes, and his response is immediate. His hand slides from between my shoulder blades to the back of my neck. His fingers twist into my hair andpull, yanking my head back, and his other hand grips my hip hard enough to leave marks I’ll wear for a week.
Without conscious thought, I arch my back, raising my hips high in the air. I feel the cool air kiss my wet pussy, exposed andvulnerable to his gaze. I hear his breath hitch, a sharp intake of air that tells me he sees exactly how ready I am.
I’m gasping, teeth bared, still struggling. But beneath the fight, something else is brewing. My core clenches, instinct awakening to the alpha call.
This is a terrible idea. This is the worst thing I could possibly—
I push my ass back against him. Grind against the hard length of his cock. The contact is electric. I feel it everywhere, a full-body jolt that wipes the thought clean out of my head. My claws are out. I can feel them, extended past my fingertips, scoring the dirt as my hands curl into fists. I’m panting like an animal because I am one. My wolf has taken the wheel, and the woman screaming in the back seat can scream all she wants.
“Fuck!” he mutters. He tilts my hips. Angles me. The head of his cock drags through wet folds, finding my entrance, and I should stop this. I should shift and run and put miles between us and never—
He thrusts in.
I make a sound I’ve never heard from my own mouth. Deep, guttural, dragged up from the bottom of my lungs. The stretch is —God— he’s thick, and I’m tight, and the sting of being spread open this fast is sharp enough to make my vision swim. But underneath the sting, my wolf ishowling. Satisfaction so savage it floods my body and melts my resistance. And all I can do is dig my claws into the dirt and push back to take more of him.
God! Oh, God! What are you doing, Briar?