Page 100 of The Darkest Chase

His palm feels so hot it’s like I’m already naked. Even my shirt can’t buffer the burn of his touch.

“Say it again. Say my name again, Talia, and I can’t turn back,” he breathes raggedly.

The thought of what can’t turn back means hits like a lightning bolt.

I curl my hands against his arms, pulling back enough to look up at him, breathing so hard I’m shaking.

Yet instead of my lungs hurting, it feels good, this sweet rush electrifying nerves I never knew I had.

“So don’t?” I whisper. “Do whatever you want with me.”

He stares at me with his eyes boiling, all liquid mercury. “Talia, you don’t want to be with me.”

“You don’t get to decide what I want.” I don’t even know what I’m doing. I’m being reckless, being wild, and I don’t care.

I lean into him, pressing my body to his, shivering as I savor his hard muscle molding against me.

“Talia—fuck!” His cock grazes my leg through his pants.

I almost die right there.

“You… you only get to tell me what you want,” I whisper. “Do you want to be with me? Would you regret it?”

Micah searches my face.

I wish I could read him more easily.

There’s something there.

Something vulnerable behind the wolfish hunger.

Something almost afraid yet so brave and certain.

“I thought you were shy,” he rasps.

“I am.” I smile shakily but don’t pull away. “Honestly, I’m scared out of my wits, but I still want it. I want you. Even if it means getting hurt when you say no.”

“I don’t fucking want to say no.” His voice comes even rougher than his touch when he presses the pad of his thumb to my lower lip, his gaze fused to my mouth. “But, woman, I don’t want you to regret saying yes. I’m no good for you—no fucking good for anybody—and I don’t want you figuring that out after I’ve hurt you.”

I swallow thickly.

“You’ve been nothing but good. Micah. I wish you could see it…”

He strokes his thumb to the corner of my mouth and his lips curl faintly. “And how do you see me?”

No words.

I don’t have words to tell him how every time I see him, my world gets just a little bit brighter.

How I feel alive.

How protected I feel, how I trust him to watch over me, to shelter me.

How I know that no matter how he struggles, he’s guided by a moral compass made of steel, a righteous sense of justice so strong it could drive him to do terrible things for the innocent.

For me.

I also think he’s been told so often that he’s a freak of nature that he started believing it.

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