Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 87848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
“I wish I didn’t have to be a person at all. I wish I could stay in my wolf form. It’s simpler there.”
“It is,” he agrees. “So much simpler. There is no shame. There is no conditioning. There is only the matter of what you want. What do you want now, Beatrix?”
I look into his silvered eyes, so much lighter than anybody’s eyes I’ve ever seen before, and for a moment, I get a mental image of him as his wolf self, powerful, steady, offering me the protection of his ferocity.
I melt.
“I think I want you,” I say, nervous. Words are the worst. Having to hear them is bad enough, but having to say them is a terrible ordeal.
Fortunately he does not make me keep talking. When I tell him I want him, his fingers drop from my neck to my breast. He reaches out with his other arm and kisses me deeply, drawing me closer to him with the fingers of his other hand in my hair. It is a tender, passionate embrace, but when he tightens his grip I think about how roughly he pinned me last night, and that is what makes me soak myself with desire.
Suddenly, I am so fucking horny I can hardly handle myself.
Taking my wolf form always invigorates me. It makes me feel as though I could rule the world. It reminds me that places like the orphanage are little prisons for people who consent to be imprisoned in exchange for the illusion of safety.
I told the girls the truth, but they didn’t want to believe me. I wonder if they believe me now, or if they are getting comfortable in their new prisons. The thought takes me out of the moment, makes me wonder if I, too, am just getting comfortable in a new prison.
“You are a tense little thing,” Armand purrs, looking down at me with those piercing eyes. “Tell me what you are thinking.”
I snort. I wouldn’t tell him what I was thinking if I only had two brain cells remaining.
His eyes narrow as he understands the quality and meaning of my mirth.
“I see. Won’t tell me about your past, won’t tell me about your present, won’t tell me anything of any use whatsoever.”
The air is still thick with arousal, but that doesn’t stop me from arguing. If anything, all this passion, all this primal energy makes me want to fight more.
“I don’t owe you anything,” I tell him. “I don’t care how much you spent on me. You can buy a lot of things with ten million dollars, and you should have bought them, because you can’t buy me.”
I steel myself for what I know is coming. He’s going to snap on me. He’s going to give into anger, yell at me, curse at me, possibly beat me. He might kill me.
He takes a deep breath.
“I can be patient,” he says. “You want to be difficult, that’s fine. We are new to one another, and I know you have had a hard life. In time you will see that I can be trusted.”
“I don’t want to trust you. I want you to let me go.”
It is a ridiculous thing to say. I don’t want him to let me go. I want him to hold me down and fuck me. I want him to surge inside me, the cock I saw in the bath last night thick and hard and claiming me in ways I have never been claimed before. But it’s easier to tell him to fuck off than it is to ask him to fuck me.
“And where would you go? What would you do?” He makes the mistake of taking me seriously. I whine internally, wishing he could see me for what I am, wishing I didn’t have to say everything out loud.
“None of your business.”
There’s a brief moment in which silence fills the air between us. I know I am pushing him. I want to. I want to find his breaking point. I want to prove to myself, and him, that he is just like the other cruel, stupid, impatient men I have always known.
“You are starting to become rude, little one, and my desire to discipline you is coming back ever more strongly,” he says, his eyes narrowed. “Do you wish to sit down when you meet the pack this evening? Or would you prefer to stand by my side, unable to tolerate so much as a skirt pressing against your skin?”
Armand
Her eyes light up at the threat of punishment.
She likes it—or she at least finds it familiar.
I find myself smiling. Finally, a way in. Her defiance isn’t the obstacle. It’s the answer.
“Come here, whelp,” I say, taking her by the wrist and turning her over my thighs.
She settles over my lap far more agreeably than she has done almost anything else. This is the only thing she does not fight, the only kind of interaction she seems comfortable with.