Page 45 of To Hunt A Wolf
And the stab of hurt I feel at his words makes me lash out.
“I hate you,” I spit.
He growls, grabbing my wrists and pinning them over my head. He’s close now, his body pressing down against mine. “You can hate me all you want, Mac. But you will stop trying to get yourself killed, or you’ll suffer the consequences.”
It takes me a minute to respond, mostly because I’m too busy trying not to arch my hips into his. My nipples are a lost cause. They’re already hard enough to cut glass, and I have a feeling he knows it.
Rather than continue to fight, I stop struggling and let my body relax. If it’s a fight he wants, then surrender’s going to really piss him off. Turning my head, I refuse to meet his eyes as I say quietly, “There’s nothing you can do to me you haven’t already done.”
Levi’s reaction isn’t the victory I expect, though.
Instead of the insult I’ve braced for, he lets me go and turns around, balling his hands into fists and letting out a roar that comes from deep in his gut. A roar he’s purposefully chosen not to aim at me. More like, he’s aiming it at himself.
It jars me more than any retort I expected.
He seems tortured. And that doesn’t make sense, not according to the uncaring asshole label I’ve given him. His emotional outburst makes me feel bad for him, and that’s not an emotion I’m comfortable feeling.
I sit up and attempt a joke. A bad one. “We can go again, and this time you can jump from the moving vehicle.”
He turns to me, not a shred of amusement on his pained face. He sits down beside me on the lumpy mattress.
“Mac, I know I’ve hurt you. Deeply. But you have to know that it hurts me too. If you can’t trust me, trust your wolf. Trust our connection. I know you can feel the truth in that. What I did to you… it kills me. But it was the only way.”
I don’t pretend to understand his logic, but I’m done trying to argue it. At least for today.
“I didn’t betray you,” I say instead. “The mafia guys were there for me. It had nothing to do with you. And I’m sorry I got you tangled up in my problem.”
“Why are they looking for you? What were you doing with Franco?”
I sigh. “My mom knows him. She asked him about the guy who hired the tracker to kill me.”
His eyes darken. “Did she get a name?”
“Thiago.”
Levi curses. His hands fist again, and I wait while he works to get control of himself. I can’t understand why he’s so angry about the idea of someone else trying to hurt me, but every time I ask, his answer gets more cryptic, so I leave it alone.
“What are you going to do?” he asks.
“My mom wants to go after Thiago directly.”
“Don’t you?” he asks.
“I want to save Kari. She’s what matters to me.”
“You think your mom’s method will endanger Kari.”
“I do.”
“And the mafia?” he asks finally.
“She asked them to babysit me while she ‘handles things.’ I may have run off before they could lock me up.”
He snickers. “They underestimated your stubbornness.”
I decide to let that be a compliment. “Anyway, it had nothing to do with you or Jadick. Thanks for helping me get away from them, though.”
I look away before he can see my true intentions for coming with him. But Levi’s not an idiot, unfortunately for me.
