Page 52 of A Dance With Fire
“Hurry up,” he growled.
She didn’t have to shit. Not really. She’d just hoped the words would deter him from following her. What kind of a sick, weird person watched another take a shit anyway? That seemed more like a Clay thing to do. Then again, she didn’t really know Ryker, so she couldn’t say what he liked to do and didn’t.
The snapping of a twig caught her attention. The sound cracked like thunder. Close. So close.
Before Shula could even breathe, Ryker’s big arms were wrapped around her and he was yanking her to his chest.
Her back collided against him, and she felt the steady rise and fall of his breathing. She was too surprised to admonish him for the action. She couldn’t speak, could barely breathe.
His body was warm, pressed against her own so tightly that she swore she could feel the latticework of scars through the material of his shirt. He moved so quickly, her feet lifted from the ground as he hid them behind a bush and ducked.
In that position, Shula found herself bent over slightly, with every tight ridge and bump of his body pressed against hers. Her heart pounded against her chest at the proximity, at the steady heat of his breath near her ear.
She wanted to move, desperately wanted to yank herself out of his hold, but the snapping grew closer and closer. She knew this was a precarious moment. That they shouldn’t make noise, but she feared the beating of her heart gave her away.
Her eyes widened, and her whole body relaxed when she saw Orna step through the trees, skipping and laughing lightly. Her body gave off the softest of glows, dark blue skin that shimmered with stardust. She was a single light in the darkness streaking between the trees, her tinkling laughter a thing of stories and seduction. Behind her, her husband caught up, catching her around the waist to pull her against his chest in a position that mimicked Shula and Ryker’s, with Orna’s body bent over slightly.
Shula watched, enraptured as he pressed a kiss to Orna’s neck. The echoes of her sighs reached Shula’s ears, making her face heat.
She wanted to look away; this moment was too intimate for their eyes, and yet she and Ryker both held still and watched as Orna’s husband slipped his hand beneath the waist of her pants.
Her moan was loud, the sound causing Shula’s own core to tighten with need.
Ryker breathed in deeply and she knew. She knew he could smell her desire, something she’d scarcely felt in all her life. It was just… witnessing it, seeing the way the human brought Orna to breathless whispers and desperate moans… It made Shula crave that closeness with someone else.
And it made the male prominently pressed to her back sense it.
She was suddenly ashamed. Of herself and of him with his body wrapped tightly around her. Because she couldn’t find that release in him, in any of them. It left her feeling frustrated, it left her craving, and it made herangry.
Because a human would have been oblivious to what she was feeling. But Ryker was Fae and she could hear his nostrils flaring, could hear him inhaling even while he made no further movements to ease her aches.
She suddenly didn’t want him touching her, this Fae who despised her with every fiber of his being. Well, she despised him too.
She jerked out of his hold quietly and stepped back, one stumbling step after another. He straightened and turned, and the noises of desire beyond them paused.
Shula couldn’t handle it. Not when Ryker turned and stared at her with something unreadable in his gaze. It wasn’t desire. It wasn’t affection. It was hatred, and she had absolutely no idea why.
Just like she didn’t know why her heart felt like it was breaking.
Shula whirled, choking on her own breaths.
And she ran away from the woods.
Away from Ryker.
Away from the sound of lust and love.
Two things she knew she would never have.
* * *
Shula layon the dry earth, her palms pillowing her cheeks as she stared into the flames. They grounded her, brought her back to the present. They made her forget.
She smelled Orna before the Fae laid down next to her. She smelt musky like the earth, with an underlying tone of something sweet and floral.
And she smelt like sex.
Shula held her breath and closed her eyes, hoping Orna wouldn’t speak.
