.Chapter 25-3
“Follow me,” I ordered, turning away before I could see his reaction or lose my nerve.
Clam
It took us ten minutes to reach one of the nicer guest rooms in the family wing of the pack house. We hadn’t spoken a word during the walk through the corridors, and the silence stretched between us until it felt suffocating.
When I opened the door and motioned for him to walk inside, carefully not meeting his eyes even once, I expected him to let me go. Maybe thank me politely and ask me not to tell anyone we knew each other. Keep up the pretense that we were strangers.
But no. He grabbed my arm and yanked me inside the room with him.
“What are you doing?!” I hissed, scowling at him in anger while looking directly into his beautiful blue eyes that gazed at me with so much longing it made my chest ache.
“We need to talk, don’t you think?” he grunted, closing the door behind us and leaning against it as
if to prevent my escape.
“I think we said enough the last time we saw each other,” I replied coldly, crossing my arms over my chest in a defensive gesture.
“No, Simone. You said enough. I barely got to speak,” he said, pushing off from the door and taking a step toward me.
“And why would you want to speak? Why would I want to hear you?!” The words poured out of me, months of hurt finally finding their voice. “I heard everything I needed when you spoke to Mal. Nothing you could have said would have convinced me to stay.”
“It wasn’t true!” he growled, his hands grabbing my shoulders before I could back away. “I would never, never, give you up, Simone. Not to my son or to Mal or whoever the fuck would want me to let you go. The thought of letting Mal have you never crossed my fucking mind. You know what did, though?”
I was getting lost in his eyes, though. And his voice, his warmth, his presence. This wasn’t the man I’d met in the forest, the one who’d speak a few words here and there. I thought about it at the meeting and now it was confirmed. This man was different. He looked, talked, and acted differently, as if he had nothing to lose. As if he couldn’t keep away from me.
“The thought of protecting you,” he continued, his voice rough with emotion. “Of buying you enough time so you could run and I could handle the enforcers on my own. I didn’t want to kill them, and I knew if any of them even looked at you the wrong way, they wouldn’t have lived for a second longer. That is what I was thinking when I told Mal I’d come get you.”
12
|||
O
<
Chapter 25-3
Cli
His thumbs were brushing against my collarbones through the fabric of my shirt, and I could feel
the tremor in his hands. He was barely holding himself together, and that vulnerability was dangerous to my resolve.
Oddly enough, my wolf believed him. She was practically purring at his explanation, convinced that our mate had been trying to protect us all along. Should I follow her instincts? I was so damn
confused.
“I don’t believe you,” I said, even though the words felt hollow in my mouth.
“Fuck, love,” he dragged his hands over his face and tugged at his hair in frustration, the gesture so familiar it made my heart clench. “I’ve spent the last ninety-one days and six hours searching for you. I walked that entire damn mountain for you, fought hell and heaven trying to find you. I thought I’d lost you forever, I thought maybe I was too late-”
He stopped talking, looking at me with such a broken expression that I wanted to cry and hug him and kiss him all at once. The pain in his eyes was so raw, so genuine, that it was impossible to
doubt.
“Everything I did back then was to protect you, and everything I’ve done since you left was trying to find you. Since the first time I saw you, you’ve been my entire world, my sun and stars.”
I could definitely feel tears gathering in my eyes now. I swallowed them down hard and tried to remember why I didn’t want to give in. Trust. Right. I didn’t trust him yet. And given the fact that I was literally pregnant with his child, I could never be too careful with my decisions.
“We don’t know each other, Kane,” I shook my head, trying to create some physical and emotional
distance between us.
“But I do,” he said earnestly, taking a step closer to close the gap I’d tried to create. “I know you’re a great person, I know you love your family and your pack, and I know you don’t trust me. I want to know more about you. I want you to trust me. Please, that’s all I’m asking.”
He took another step forward and cradled my face in his big hands, his touch gentle despite the desperation in his voice.
“Please give me a second chance.”
1
Comments
LUCK DRAW >
Vote
105
