Chapter 45
“You’re an ass**le,” Cloe declared as she shoved away from him and awkwardly climbed to her feet so that she could continue to storm away from him as though they hadn’t just fallen fifty feet down the hill that he hadn’t seen coming until the last second.
“You’re welcome,” he said dryly as he pushed off the ground and sat up.
“I’m welcome?” she repeated in disgust as she whirled around and stormed back over to him so that she could glare down at him through beautiful red eyes. “I wouldn’t have fallen down that hill if it wasn’t for you!”
“How is it my fault that you tripped over your own two feet?” he asked innocently, loving the scent of anger rolling off her. Not because he was a sick bastard, but because beneath the scent of anger was arousal.
God, she smelled f**king fantastic.
Okay, maybe he was a sick bastard, because he couldn’t help but smile as the scent of her anger intensified right along with the scent of her arousal. He shifted back a bit until he felt his back come in contact with the large boulder behind him. He sighed with satisfaction as she glared down at him. He could smell the blood rushing to swell her br**sts and harden her ni**les and wondered if she’d consider letting him feed from her there one day. Probably not, but just the thought of feeding from her as he suckled her nipple had his c**k hardening painfully.
“You bastard!” she hissed, as he relaxed back against the boulder, licking his lips as he smelled her sex swell.
She opened her mouth to say something else, but abruptly shut it, narrowed her eyes on him and then with a snort of disgust, demanded, “Are you f**king kidding me?”
“Hmmm?” he murmured, barely registering her reaction or the fact that she’d moved closer to him so that she could glare down at him.
“You’re getting turned on? Now?” she demanded, the sound of disgust in her voice should have been enough to knock some sense into him, but sadly, it wasn’t.
“Yes,” he answered with absolutely no shame as he ran his eyes over her, devouring every last detail from her hair tangled with tiny sticks and leaves down to her dirt smudged face, the torn blanket covered in dirt and grass stains that she had wrapped around her body all the way down to her beautiful dirt smudged feet.
“Seriously?” she snapped, looking down at herself in disgust. “I look like I was dragged through a tornado and this is turning you on?”
He reached up and grabbed her hand, giving it a gentle pull before she could react. He yanked her down on top of him, giving her the choice to straddle him or fall over. “You always turn me on,” he admitted, reaching up and cupping the back of her neck. He pulled her down for a kiss as she settled on his lap, the blanket bunching up around her h*ps to accommodate the move.
“You are a deeply disturbed individual,” she whispered against his lips as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and threaded her fingers through his hair as she returned his kiss.
“Yes, I am,” he said, dropping his hands to her bare legs where the blanket bunched and running his hands up her smooth legs, forcing the blanket up even higher until he came in contact with her cotton panties.
She ended the kiss with a sigh as she sat back on his thighs, putting some space between them, which was probably for the best given the situation. “We should get going.”
“Yes, we should,” he said, sighing heavily because he knew that she was right.
They should be moving their asses, finding a car and getting as far away from here as possible, but the problem was, he had no idea where they should go. For the first time in his life he had the freedom to go and do whatever he wanted, but all he wanted to do was to find someplace to keep Cloe safe and he had no clue where that was.
“Do you think they’ve gotten loose yet?” she asked quietly, dropping her arms from his shoulders so that she could toy with his shirt.
He focused on the forest around them, listening for any signs that they were being hunted, but after a minute he shook his head and murmured, “No.”
“They’re probably going to be pissed when they get free,” she said, all of her attention zeroed in on her fingers as they toyed with the hem of the tee shirt that someone had dressed him in when he’d been knocked out.
“Probably,” he agreed, thinking about everything that they’d told him and now that they’d escaped, a sense of unease settled over him, making him wonder if he’d f**ked up by taking Cloe away.
“Do you think it’s true?”
“What’s true?” he asked, reaching up and pushing a strand of her tangled hair behind her ear.
“About what they said about a shifter marking me,” she said, swallowing nervously as she shifted her gaze up to meet his.
He bit back a sigh as he reluctantly nodded and moved his hands to her shoulders, moving them down her back as far as the blanket would allow, needing to offer her some comfort for the pain she’d gone through. He didn’t think they were lying. He wasn’t foolish enough to think that their group was above bullshitting them to get what they wanted, but because of what Seth had explained to him. Seth, shit! He hadn’t thought of the vampire since this whole thing started. He owed it to the vampire after all these years of helping him keep his sanity to make sure that he was okay.
Just as soon as they were settled, he would……..
“What the hell?” he muttered as his hands moved over smooth skin. Heart pounding in his chest, he leaned forward, jerked the blanket away from her and turned her just enough so that he could get a good look at her back. What he saw there had him swallowing back a curse as he traced her back with trembling fingers.
“What?” Cloe asked, shifting anxiously on his lap. “What the hell is going on?”
“Your back,” he choked out.
“What about it?”
“The scars…..,” he said, shaking his head in an attempt to make sense of what he was seeing. “They’re gone.”
“Gone?” she asked, her tone disbelieving as she reached back and ran her fingers over her back, looking for scars that were no longer there.
“Oh, my God,” she said, her voice breaking with emotion. “How did they do that?” she asked, wrapping her arms around her bare br**sts as she sat back down on his thighs, but she wouldn’t look at him, probably afraid that he’d see her eyes tearing up.
When he hesitated, she looked up at him through watery eyes. “How?” she demanded through clenched teeth.