Page 95 of Wicked Dove
He clears his throat as he runs his hand through his hair. “I didn’t, I just asked her to help me find him.” There’s something in the lilt of his voice, but I can’t place it.
“Why?” I ask, still confused by the whole thing, and he shrugs.
“She was my guardian.”
The second he says it, I remember what Kael told her when we were in her office. It was when he was referring to being my guardian. That makes more sense, I guess, but it still doesn’t feel right. Not with how much of a bitch she was.
Nipping at my bottom lip, I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. I consider admitting that wasn’t the vibe I got from her at the time, but despite how much I feel it in my gut, I don’t say a word about it. Instead, I remain focused on the man I hate most in the world.
“Did she find him?” I ask, my stomach tightening as I wait on bated breath for his answer, but he shakes his head.
“No.”
I’m torn between wondering why he needs to find him, and what he would do if he did, and the fact that if the professor can find him, maybe that could be my way out of here.
My stomach tightens further, seemingly not liking the idea of running so much now. I try to squash that feeling down too. I’m a ticking time bomb at this stage, tamping everything away so no one can see it, and I definitely can’t acknowledge it.
“She wasn’t the help I needed anyway,” he murmurs after a moment, drawing my gaze to his, and I clear my throat.
“Did you tell anyone else?”
He looks at me funny, his lips pursing for the briefest moment before he tilts his face at me. “Did I tell them what, specifically?”
“What you saw,” I breathe, and he shakes his head.
“No, that’s not my story to tell,” he says, and the tension in my shoulders eases.
I should say thank you, but I can’t find the words. Instead, he wraps his hand around my ankle and tugs me back down the bed so I’m lying beside him once again, and I gulp.
He leans on his side, hovering over me, stealing every breath I have as he inches closer and closer, until there’s only an inch between our lips. My pulse quickens in my ears, and my body moves of its own accord. I lift my head to eliminate the remaining distance between us, but before I can feel his full lips against mine, he rears back, putting distance between us.
Embarrassed, I throw myself off the bed in panic, watching as he swipes a hand down his face.
I don’t speak, I just move, darting for the door desperately, but then his voice cuts through the air.
“Don’t go.”
My hand curls around the door handle. I can’t bring myself to look back. “I don’t think staying is a good idea.”
“It is, I just… no kissing.”
I almost snap my neck to look at him. The loneliness I saw in his eyes earlier is there again, but this time, it’s interwoven with glimmers of pain. The deep-rooted kind, the leave-scars-forever kind. My kind.
The desire to ask him why is on the tip of my tongue, but I would hate it if someone called out my trauma like that. So, I fight against my curiosity, tamping another thing down. Parting my lips, I try to find the right words to say, but he speaks first.
“Unless it’s that pretty pussy of yours. I’d kiss that.” I roll my eyes at him, unable to hide the grin on my face as I shake my head at him. He shuffles to the end of his bed, thighs spread as he stares at me. “Do you realize how intoxicating you are?”
“You’re ridiculous,” I say with a sigh, and he grins.
“No, your scent is,” he rasps, and my eyebrows rise in surprise.
“My scent,” I repeat, dumbfounded, and he shrugs.
“Wolf, remember?” He curls his finger at me, and like the puppet I am, I float to him.
The moment I’m close enough, he grabs my waist and circles his tongue around my belly button.
Holy fuck.
