Page 65 of To Hunt A Wolf
“And the others?”
“Everyone else has gone to bed.”
Bed.
For some reason, I think of that mattress on the floor, and my face heats.
“I had a room made up for you,” he adds, and I wonder if he’s read my thoughts somehow.
“I’m not staying.”
He cocks his head at me. “Aren’t you?” When I don’t answer, he adds, “What about Jadick’s plan?”
“Jadick said a lot of words without actually telling me anything.”
His brows lift. “You seemed into it.”
“Jealous?”
“Should I be? You stuck around and listened to him in a way you never have with me.”
“He didn’t publicly reject me and then spend years working with my own mother behind my back to accomplish the very thing you promised we’d do together.”
His eyes narrowed. “Is that how you see this?”
“How else should I see it?”
His voice rose. I’d finally shaken his control. Good. “You could try seeing me as something other than the villain of your fucking story.”
“When you startbeingsomething else, I’llseesomething else.”
His eyes narrow, and he grabs my arm, walking me backward toward the wall. Unlike earlier, I realize I have a choice. He’s not forcing me. But I don’t fight it. Or him.
My shoulders thud against the wall, and Levi crowds me, filling my personal space until I’m practically breathing him.
“I think about you every day,” he whispers, his voice strained. “My wolf still wants you just the same as it did before. No.” He closes his eyes slowly, inhaling me so deliberately it feels erotic, despite the fact that we aren’t doing anything but standing here. “He wants you even more.”
His voice is ragged. Raw. He’s barely holding it together.
I can smell his lust just like I know he can smell mine.
“I did all of this for you,” he says.
“Bull shit,” I whisper, and his narrowed eyes register hurt at my response. I’m too shocked at seeing it there—at knowing I caused it in the first place—to continue my argument.
“Every single day since the moment I turned you away has been torture, Mac. Why can’t you see that?”
“Because you left me,” I say, letting my own broken heart show in my eyes. “You did the one thing you swore you wouldn’t, Levi. You rejected me. And you did it publicly. It was the worst day of my life. And I think about you every day too. About that moment. I’ll be reliving that nightmare every single day—forever.”
“I’m sorry,” he says, bending low until our foreheads touch.
He means it.
I can feel the genuine desperation—the pain—radiating from him. His wolf hates this. So does mine. But it doesn’t change what he did. Or what we are now, which is nothing.
He angles his face, his mouth inching toward mine.
He’s going to kiss me.
