Page 24 of Blackwood

“You couldn’t leave it alone, could you?” His voice shook, anger coating the words as he added another finger and slowly stroked me. “Couldn’t leavemealone.”

I forced my breathy voice past his palm. “I just wanted to know—”

“Some things are better left in the dark, Red.”

“No.” I didn’t believe that. “It’s better to know.”

“You want to know why I was fired and ordered to stay off all campus property?” He nipped at my jaw.

Every nerve ending in my body focused on his touch, but I had to hear the truth. “Yes, tell me what happened.”

“Fucking the dean’s wife wouldn’t have been such a problem. But things didn’t go so well when he walked in on me raping her.”

Chapter Thirteen

Rape?My blood turnedto ice, and I struggled to escape Garrett’s harsh grip. He was bigger, stronger, and I was still weak from the boar attack.

“Let me go.” I dug my nails into his wrists.

He kept his grip on my neck, but pulled his fingers from between my legs. Licking them clean, he kept his eyes locked on mine as my heart banged against my ribs. He groaned as his tongue snaked along his fingers, and I fought down the heat his erotic show created inside me. He’d said rape. I couldn’t trust him. Had to get away.

“You’re a rapist.” I wrapped both my hands around his forearm, but he still kept a solid grip on my throat.

“No. I’ve never taken a woman against her will.”

My mind spun. “But you just said—”

“I know what I said.” He finally released me, but didn’t rise, just sat and held my gaze.

I swallowed, my skin missing the heat from his palm.

“This.” He glanced to my throat. “Is just a sample, Red. My appetites would disgust you. Fuck.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Sometimes they disgust me, but I can’t escape them.”

I pulled my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. “Like what?”

“Haven’t you seen enough to know you should leave me alone?” He clasped his hands in his lap. “And get out of here as soon as you can?”

“I need an explanation.” I’d never been able to let anything go. My career and the burning need to know what happened to my father weren’t choices. They were part of my makeup. Mysteries were meant to be solved, truths brought to light. “Did you rape the dean’s wife?”

He shook his head. “No, but it certainly looked that way.” His expression soured. “And she preferred me leaving under a cloud of suspicion to giving up her position as the dean’s wife.”

“What happened?”

He stared at me, worry wrinkling the skin around his eyes, then rose and walked to the door. “I’ve fucked up enough people. You don’t deserve it.”

For reasons I didn’t understand, I ached for him. He seemed so lonely, lost. Maybe even lonelier than I was. “You can talk to me.”

“It would ruin you, and I don’t want that.”

“I’m not some virgin in an antebellum flick.” I cocked my head at him. “You can’truinme, Garrett.”

He growled with frustration and slammed his palm against the doorframe. “Don’t you get it? I’m the wolf. That day you showed up on my front porch in your red coat, if you’d known the thoughts I’d had, the things I’d wanted to do to you—you would never have come back here.” His muscles were drawn taut, as if he were straining to remain still.

I swallowed hard. “I’m a grown woman, not a child in a red cloak. You’re a grown man, not a wolf. I’m not afraid of you.” Was that true? “Why can’t you just talk to me?”

“Because if I did, then youwouldbe afraid of me. And for once, I don’t want that. You being here is the first time in a long time that I’ve felt…” He sighed, as if the word he was searching for was floating just out of his reach. “Not so alone. I know you can’t stay. I won’t let you for a million different reasons. But what we have right now is the most I’ve had since—” He stopped himself and turned to face me again, his eyes sad. “Look, I just don’t want to ruin it.”

“How is you telling me about your past ruining it?” I absentmindedly ran my fingertips along my ear where his lips had been, the sparks gone but the memory still singeing my skin.

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