When her conversation was finished, she started to walk around him, but he grasped her arm, halting her in her tracks. She didn’t even bother looking at him as she said, “Let me go, Eli.”
“Not until you stop acting like a child and talk to me,” he bit out, leaning in close and tightening his grip, while still being careful not to hurt her.
She pulled in a deep breath, then slowly turned her head and took a good, long look at him with those dark eyes. “I can see you’re not going to be reasonable about this,” she eventually murmured, forcing a note of boredom in her words that made him want to put her over his knee and spank her until she stopped acting like such a little brat. “So, fine. If you want to talk, then talk.”
Eli stared down at her, lost in his hunger and craving, and suddenly couldn’t think of a single goddamn thing to say. Instead, he wanted to take her down to the lush green grass, strip her bare, and make her come until she stopped being so damn mad at him. Until he’d found a way to turn her hatred into something that didn’t make him feel like he was dying inside.
She crossed her arms over her chest the instant he lowered his hand, her foot tapping out an impatient rhythm against the grass, while his mind remained completely blank.
“Well?”
He ran his tongue over the front of his teeth, then got right in her face. “Why are you avoiding me?”
“It’s not that hard to figure out. I told you what I wanted to hear. Until you’re ready to be honest with me, which I seriously doubt is why you keep trying to do this, I have nothing to say to you.”
He bit back a curse, wondering if anything he said at this point would make a difference to her. She was so damn bitter. So angry.
Sensing the curious stares coming their way, he grasped her elbow and drew her reluctant body to the side of the cabin, where they were out of view. Then he gave into the visceral urge to have her locked down, and backed her against the rustic cedar planks, caging her in with his arms as he planted his palms against the exterior wall. Holding her hostile glare, he asked, “Why did you bother to come after me, to bring me back to this place, if all you planned to do was ignore me once we got here?”
“You’re seriously this upset because you think I’ve been ignoring you? Jesus, Eli. You ignored me for two entire days in the truck while we were driving here!”
He drew his head back in surprise. “I wasn’t ignoring you.”
“Like hell you weren’t.”
“Damn it, Rey. Why do you think I sat in the back seat for those entire two days? I hate not driving, but I wanted to be as close to you as I could be. Even if we weren’t talking to each other.”
“You wouldn’t even look at me!” she snapped, her beautiful eyes glittering with emotion.
His voice turned guttural. “I was looking at you every goddamn time you closed your eyes or stared out your window. I just didn’t want you to know it.”
Taking another deep breath, she asked, “And what about at the motel? What the hell was that?”
“That was...complicated.”
She made a sound that was half snarl, half scream, and he had to grab her again as she tried to duck under his arm.
“I was afraid of losing control!” he growled, holding her against the cabin with his big hands pressed to her shoulders. “You...you push me.”
“Toward what?” she demanded, only to immediately shake her head in frustration. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. The only pushing I plan on doing is pushing you away from me, so your problems are solved.”
He could feel a muscle beginning to pulse at the side of his jaw, his heart pounding to a hard, brutal rhythm. “That’s not what I want and you know it.”
She kept her angry gaze locked tight with his as she licked her bottom lip. “You’re wrong,” she argued, her breaths quickening. “I don’t know anything where you’re concerned.”
Biting back a groan, he begged her with his gaze to believe in him. “You would if you would just give me a chance.”
She paled as her eyes slid closed, and then she dropped her head back against the cabin with a thud that made him wince. “I told you at that shitty bar in Texas that I wasn’t bringing you back for me, Eli. I brought you back for Eric and Elise, and for the pack. But not for me.”
“So that’s it?” he asked quietly. “You have no interest in what I do?”
She lifted her head, then slowly opened her eyes, their brown depths filled with pain. “You’ll do whatever you want, same as you always have. I’ve learned not to care.”
He moved his sharp gaze over her beautiful face, using everything he had to read her...to see beneath her bitter words. “I call bullshit, Rey.”
“What?”
Pulling in a deep breath of her warm, mouthwatering scent, he spoke in a hushed, gruff voice that was thick with hope. “I can smell the need on you. See your pulse racing at the base of your throat. Christ, baby. I can fucking feel how much you need this. How much you need me.”
She glared up at him. “Unfortunately for you, my hormones don’t make the decisions around here.”
A low, deep laugh rumbled up from his chest, and he lowered his head, pressing his lips to the soft skin at the side of her throat. “Maybe you should let them,” he murmured, licking across her hammering pulse. “Because I want nothing more than to make you addicted to me. To how I can make you feel.”
Her hands settled against his shoulders, but she didn’t push him away. Instead, she sank her short nails into him, that little bite of pain shooting straight to his groin. “A woman’s head has to be in the game as much as her body for her to really enjoy herself, Eli.”
“I know,” he rasped, nipping her delicate earlobe. “And if you just give me the chance, I’ll get them both to the right place.” He lifted his head, looking her right in the eye. “Take me to your bed, Rey, and I swear I’ll do everything I can to make it worth your while.”
She stared back at him through her thick lashes. “I thought you wanted to talk, Eli. Not fuck.”
He put his face right over hers, his big hands flexing against her shoulders. “The talking comes after, Rey. After I’ve spent hours just making you come. I’ll bury my face between your sweet little thighs and lick you until you scream. I could keep my tongue busy down there for days, that’s how badly I want you. I dream about getting you under my mouth. Feeling you beneath my lips. Drinking you in, over and over. There were too many damn things I never got the chance to do to you, and I need them, baby. I need them so badly it’s killing me.”
For an instant, he thought she was actually softening, her skin dewy and warm with color, making him want to press his mouth to those fever blushes so badly he could taste it. But then disappointment cut into him like a knife as he lifted his gaze back to her eyes. He could tell by the way they narrowed that she wasn’t going to surrender so easily. “You didn’t get them because you went from never touching me, to messing around with me against a freaking tree, to falling on top of me like a drunken idiot two nights later, and then leaving me!”
He ground his back teeth together, wanting so badly to argue, but what could he say? She’d spoken nothing more than the truth. After trying so hard to keep his hands to himself, only allowing a few brief kisses and touches, she’d caught him that last night when his control was shattered. He’d been hurting for Elise, for what had happened to her, filled with rage that he hadn’t been able to find the other bastards who’d raped her. Had been worried about what the League would do to punish him for the kill he’d made, but unable to regret it. No, he would have done the same thing, in the same way, again...and again. But he’d drank more than he normally did that night, needing to dull the roar in his head, as well as the pain in his gut that made him ache for the feel of Carla in his arms. And then she’d knocked on his door, and his control had simply vanished, decimated beneath a crushing force of hunger so violent and savage he’d nearly taken her right there, on the hard wooden floor inside the doorway. Somehow, he
’d managed to get her into his bedroom, but that was the only concession to her comfort he’d been able to make.
He’d simply needed her too badly.
At first, he’d been worried she would stop him that night, since she hadn’t been happy with how he’d acted a few days before, when his control had first started to slip and he’d kissed her. Then put his hands all over her.
She’d been into the kissing...and the touching. Had loved it when he’d put his hand between her legs for the first time, her shirt pushed up under her chin. They’d been in the forest, surrounded by the trees and wind and rain, and he’d had her little nipple in his mouth while he’d thrust two fingers deep inside her tender sex, undone by the hot, wet feel of her. She’d been the tightest, sweetest thing he’d ever known, and when she’d pulsed around his fingers in orgasm, he’d wanted to throw his head back and howl. And once he’d finally pulled his fingers from between her silky thighs, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from shoving them in his mouth, sucking off every drop of her cream. But she’d been furious at the way he’d pulled away from her when she’d reached for the button on his jeans, putting an end to the stolen, erotic moment, knowing damn well that if she’d put her hands on him, he’d have been inside her in an instant. Something he’d wanted more than anything, but had known he couldn’t have.
So, yeah, he’d already been working on a hair trigger where she was concerned. And then, two nights later, she was there, in his house, and he hadn’t been able to fight it. He’d stripped her, taken her to his bed, and shoved her thighs apart to make way for him, his chest heaving with his frantic breaths. Heart pumping, he’d worked himself inside her hot, fist-tight sheath, completely lost in the exquisite, breathtaking feel of her, and had just pierced her throat with the tips of his fangs, when his father had started banging on his front door. Terrified Stefan would realize she was there, he’d jerked away from her, leaving her in his bed with the promise to be back. He had no idea how long she’d waited, but when he’d returned from being told that the League was determining his punishment for the unsanctioned kill that he’d made, she’d been gone.
The banishment had been announced the following day, and he’d known, in that moment, that he would probably never see her again. That he’d lost everything that had ever mattered to him.
Forcing his mind back on the present and away from those gut-wrenching memories, he told her, “I wanted to finish it that night, Carla. You have no idea how badly I wanted that. But I tried to do the right thing.”
“Which was what?” she snapped, curling her hands into fists and pressing them against his chest. “Protecting the little half-human from your big bad self? You didn’t think I would have been able to handle you?”
He shook his head, hard. “I wasn’t trying to protect you from me.” Though he should have, considering how savage she’d made him feel. “I was trying to protect you from my father.”
“Riiight.” Her tone made it clear that she thought he’d just fed her the most pathetic excuse in the history of brush-offs.
Forcing his words through his clenched teeth, he said, “You knew him, Rey. Knew what he was capable of. I never let myself have anything that he could use as leverage against me. What do you think would have happened if he’d learned that we... That we were...”
“Jesus, Eli. Just spit it out.”
His words punched from his mouth like bullets. “An item. Thing. Whatever the hell you want to call it.”
A smirk curled her beautiful mouth, and she clucked her tongue. “Come on, Eli. Get real. There wasn’t any chance of him ever thinking that, because I wasn’t yours. Maybe nature screwed up and thought I should be, but we both know the truth. I was just the half-breed you kept pushing away. The one you were too ashamed to be seen with.”
“Wrong,” he bit out, shoving his fingers into her hair and holding her head in a firm grip as he pressed his forehead against hers. “You were my everything, Carla. Besides my brother and sister, the only goddamn person that mattered. The person that mattered most.”
Before she could say anything else to piss him off, he took her mouth and filled it with his tongue, rubbing it against hers, the taste of her so incredible it nearly broke him.
“Ask me to come with you,” he panted against her soft lips, his body so hard and aching with the need to be inside her he would have gotten down on his damn knees if he weren’t afraid she would run from him when he did. “Invite me to your room...to your bed. Please, Rey. I’m begging you.”
“Never!” she cried, the single word cracking with emotion as she wrenched her head to the side.
Beyond frustrated, he exhaled a harsh breath, then turned away from her and paced a few yards away. Before he even knew what he was doing, he found himself smashing his fist into a towering tree trunk with so much force it would have broken his hand if he’d been human. He hit it against the rough bark, feeling his knuckles split and bleed, imagining it was his father’s face since it was that bastard’s fault he’d been too terrified to claim her like she’d deserved. And now, because of that, things were so screwed up, she wouldn’t even give him the chance to make them right.
When he finally got himself under control and turned back around to face her, she was gone, which wasn’t all that surprising. Still, a violent, guttural stream of curses burned at the back of his throat, and he braced his hands on his hips, struggling to catch his breath. What should he do now? Go after her? Follow her around like a pathetic puppy? Or the ol’ tried-and-true coping mechanism of losing himself in the bottom of a bottle? If he went that route, at least he’d be able to dull this goddamn hollow feeling sucking at his insides for a short time.
Then again, given how badly he wanted her, there probably wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to ease this ache.
Forcing himself to move, he walked back out into the glade, and immediately spotted a worried-looking Eric headed his way. Shit. How much had his brother just seen?
From the look on his dark face, too much, and Eli knew he wasn’t going to like what was coming. Eric didn’t even give him the chance to try and deflect him with a bullshit excuse. His brother just jerked his chin toward Elise’s cabin, where they knew she was working on a training schedule for the group, and growled, “Now.”
Eric knocked on her front door after they’d climbed the porch steps, and the moment Elise opened up, she took one look at their scowls and frowned. “In the kitchen,” she murmured, noticing the blood dripping from his battered knuckles. They followed her into the sunny kitchen, and Eli slumped down into one of the chairs at the table, offering a gruff, “Thanks,” when Elise handed him a damp dishtowel. He wrapped the soft cotton around his hand, then surged back to his feet, unable to sit still as he started pacing from one side of the kitchen to the other. Elise had taken a seat at the table across from where he’d been sitting, while Eric leaned against the sink with his arms crossed over his chest. But neither of them was saying a damn thing, and he ground his jaw, keeping his narrowed gaze on the floor, knowing they were watching him, trying to figure out what his problem was.
Eric was the first to break the uncomfortable silence. “So about you and Reyes?”
Eli flicked him a shuttered look. “Just leave it, Eric. I need to figure this out on my own.”
His brother’s dark brows were knitted with concern. “I get that, and I’m trying to be patient. To give you time to settle in after being away for so long. But I need you to answer a question for me.”
“I already know what you’re going to ask,” he ground out, “and the answer is yes. She’s mine.”
There was nothing for a moment but the heavy sound of his boots on the kitchen floor as he paced, and then Eric gave a tired sigh. “Yeah, we kinda already figured that out. What we’re wondering is...well, everything else that goes along with that. Why didn’t you ever tell us? What the hell is going on between the two of you now?”
“Christ,” he muttered, lifting his good hand and pullin
g it down his face.
“Did you know?” Eric pressed, unwilling to let it go. “Did you know that she was yours before you left?”
Hell yes, he’d known. Though he hadn’t admitted it to her, or even to himself, he’d known for years before they ever even spoke to one another on that fateful night when she’d been called up to town to collect Nicole. He’d started noticing Carla when she hit her teens. Had watched her, waiting for her to grow older. And then the day had come when he could no longer keep his distance, despite all the reasons why he should. Why it would have been better for them both.
He could have walked away that night, when he’d seen her struggling with Nicole on the street, but he hadn’t had the willpower. She was an adult, she was beautiful, and she was his. Even if he couldn’t claim her, he’d wanted to be close to her. To know her. Spend time with her. It’d been torture, but he’d soaked up every single second that he spent in her company—and he’d ached for her every single moment that they were apart. Even on those nights when she’d been in her cabin down in the Alley, and he’d been up in town, with another woman underneath him, trying to ease the pain of wanting her and not having her. Of course, the meaningless sexual encounters had never worked. How could a guy enjoy sex with another woman when he couldn’t get the image of the one he craved out of his head? When he kept thinking about how he’d feel if he knew she was doing the same thing with another male? What her face would look like if she were there to see him?
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