Page 78 of The Girl in the Forest

“Now that I know what’s going on,” I managed, “it’s pretty hard to ignore.”

As were the brutal muscles in his shoulders and chest. He was everything I was becoming, and I trembled at the images in my head, the erotic, dark things he wanted to do with me. To me. The things I wanted to do with him. To him.

But we were not safe people. Not anymore. Singularly, we were the shadow and the flame, but together, our fire might consume everything and everyone around us.

He was smart enough to know not every prophesy was true—but what had been shown to me did not come from witches, and doubt crept back into my mind. What purpose had been behind the illusions in that cave?

And how determined was fate to close the circle between Grayson and I?

“Maybe I’m not really there in your head,” he mocked. “And you only imagined a mate bond.”

His offered way out had me crossing my arms. “Convenient for you if I did.”

“No—very inconvenient for me. I’d rather think about it than talk about it. Harder to argue that way.”

One corner of his mouth curled up, arrogant, the damn alpha, and I thought my favorite word for him. “Bastard.”

“So furious, Noa.” His mental voice whispered warmly in my head. “Afraid you’re in deeper than you thought?”

“I’m not in anything,” I argued—out loud—without even realizing what that proved.

His snort of laughter rocked through me. “Convince me.”

“Convince yourself.” And maybe I shot the thought toward him because I wasn’t begging.

His answer came as swiftly. “Take off my shirt.”

My eyes widened. “No chance in flaming bright hell.”

“Now you are begging.”

“Get out of my head.”

“Get out of mine, Noa. Or else take off my shirt.” He took a step toward me. “Let me see what I had to imagine in that cave. I want to see the pulse flutter in your throat when I touch you. Put my mouth on you.”

He waited, the controlled predator, but the sensations rocking through me were undeniable—his knuckle, brushing against my breast. His fingers caressing my skin. How could an imagined touch be so devastating when it existed only in my mind?

“It’s simple enough to prove, Noa.” His mental voice caressed again. “Take off my shirt. Let me see your body, watch the way your lips part as I look at you.”

Did I dare? His jeans were low on his hips, the top silver button unfastened. I could see the deep groves and the dark, masculine shadow dragging my gaze lower.

“We’re outside,” I managed.

“There’s no one here to see us.”

What he aroused was… breathtaking. Everything about him hinted at dominance and promised a sexual encounter that would remake me.

I stepped back from the wildness swirling between us.

“Noa.”

His voice startled me after our mental communications.

“Do you want me on my knees?”

The air shuddered in my lungs. This man… unyielding. The Alpha of Sentinel Falls. A dread lord… a man willing to go to his knees for me.

What we felt—how deeply we felt it—was a mystery to me. Was this nothing more than magic, driven to even a centuries-old score? A sin for a sin?

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