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“I don’t know what it is you think happened last night, Weston.” There she goes, using my name again, sending that shiver through me. “But it seems you and I have a very different memory of it.”
I allow my lids to rise to meet her gaze again.
She waits until my focus is on her before she continues, still sitting back, looking so relaxed, though I don’t know how she can be after what happened. “I remember two consenting adults having incredible sex and getting each other off. You’re acting like it was some sort of assault.”
“It was.”
She snorts. “In what world?”
I snarl at her, the sound so guttural and vicious that she recoils slightly. “In the world where you aren’t here of your own free will, in a world you can’t possibly stay in, in a world where there is no future for us. In this fucking world.”
It doesn’t matter that she was a willing participant, that she practically begged me for it; I should not have allowed it to happen. Not last night. Not ever.
She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth as she watches me. The longer her heated gaze stays locked on mine, the more uncomfortable I become, waiting for her response, shifting restlessly in my chair.
Father always trained Wendy and me to keep our cool, to have a poker face, to never give anything away—a lesson I took to heart and that has served me well for most of my life. But it seems the many decades I’ve spent up here away from civilization have left me a bit unpracticed, or perhaps it’s simply the woman in front of me who makes it impossible for me not to squirm.
“You don’t have to keep reminding me why I’m here, Weston.” She releases a little sardonic laugh that doesn’t hold any humor. “Believe me, I remember the day I got here vividly, even if I want to forget it.”
I wince, the memory of chasing her through the woods, of her stumbling, of her fear, of her slicing her foot open and passing out in my arms, flooding back, only making what I’m already feeling a thousand times worse.
No one should suffer what she did that night.
And so much worse has happened on Barker Mountain.
At my hands.
She runs one of hers through her thick, blond hair, and it falls like a golden halo around her shoulders again, framing her heart-shaped face perfectly. Accentuating her high cheekbones. Her peachy skin. Those soft, pink lips she purses together.
That fucking mouth…
I had mine all over it last night.
My tongue inside it.
And her taste comes flooding back to me on a wave of need I have to force down so my cock doesn’t explode in my jeans as we sit here, staring each other down.
She considers me for a moment, her annoyance at my comment still twisting her lips. “I certainly came up here with the wrong impression of you, which wasn’t helped by your ‘friendly reception.’” The tiniest smirk vanishes as quickly as it appears. “I’ve spent enough time with you to understand there’s more going on behind the scenes, and I know you weren’t the one who made the request, or should I say demand, that I come at all. Someone else is pulling the strings, is making the decisions with you, maybe for you.”
I open my mouth to object to her suggestion, to argue against the dangerous supposition she’s making, but she holds up a hand to stop me.
Like some trained dog, my mouth snaps shut instantly.
She pushes her chair back and stands, then slowly approaches me around the table. The closer she gets, the faster my heart beats, until she’s standing directly beside me. “You’ve made it clear you’re not going to tell me anything, but I want to make something very clear to you, Weston Barker. People may be afraid of The Beast, but you are not him.”
My hands tighten on the armrests, fingers curling around the carved wood the same way Dad’s did when he sat here, trying to control his anger. “But I destroyed you last night, acted like a goddamn animal…”
She raises a brow. “Do you see me complaining?”
Before I can do anything to react, she slides between me and the table and straddles my hips, wedging her knees between them and the outsides of the chair.
Her arms loop around the back of my neck, and she stares down at me, completely oblivious that the move she just made may have ensured she never leaves Barker Mountain.
CALLISTA
The flash of uncertainty in Weston’s gaze shifts quickly to something I never thought I would see in a man with a reputation like his, who has killed for little more than his family’s greed.
Fear.
