Page 230 of Hearts Entangled In Winter's Fury

He lifted me easily, pushing me up against the wall so my feet left the floor. My back collided with the plaster, and the sound must have been loud, but I only heard his breath in my ear, ragged and near feral.

He held me there as if I weighed nothing, as if letting go was not an option, and I realized in that moment how much I wanted this, how much I needed someone to eclipse my own will.

His teeth dragged down my throat, scraping past the collarbone to the hollow at its base, and I heard myself gasp, the sound animal and unhinged.

His hands roamed—back, ribs, ass—nothing tentative, nothing gentle. He gripped the meat of my thigh and hiked it up around his waist, pressing himself so close I could feel the bulge in his jeans, hot and urgent against me.

There was no air left between us.

“You want to go, go to him,” he hissed against my ear, but his hand squeezed tighter. “See if you can be touched by him without thinking about this fucking hunger.”

He let go, sudden and sharp, like a dog unclenching its jaw.

My arm hung at my side, numb and tingling.

He stepped back.

For a split second I caught the look in his eyes, how starved he was, how deeply, perfectly broken.

Then he slammed the door and was gone.

I watched the shadow of him all the way to the end, confused and hot all over. One minute, he was distant and cold. Then, suddenly he was possessive and all hunger.

I sighed and let myself out into the night, into Alex’s waiting arms.

We went to the gelato place, and I smiled andlaughed and tried to be normal, to be someone who could enjoy the clean, citrus tang of blood orange on the tongue.

But it all tasted like memory, like the sweetness you only recognize after it’s gone. Alex touched my hand and told stories, and I nodded along, but the heat of Caiden’s mouth lingered, a ghost on my lips.

And as I lay in bed that night, I felt uncertainty press down on me, knowing that whatever came next would shape the course of our lives.