Page 13 of Hunted

I blinked. River was a wall of muscle over me, surrounding me, filling me. As I felt the tingling rush of my climax building in my hips, tears pricked my eyes. “Why do you keep coming to my dreams?”

“Why do you keep letting me in?”

“And if I told you to go?”

That arrogant smirk again. “You won’t.”

“Go to hell, River.”

“As you wish.”

Just before I could claim release, he dissolved over me. I gasped, sweaty and tangled in the sheets, River gone.

Because of course, he’d never been there at all.

“Bastard.” I blew a strand of hair out of my eyes. Ignoring my phone where it was buzzing insistently on the nightstand, I dug in the drawer below it instead.

Pulling out my slim silver bullet, I powered it on, the image of River fucking me mercilessly filling the backs of my eyelids as I found the aching spot between my legs. This time, in the safety of my imagination, River didn’t hesitate, his thrusts taking on a wild, feral intensity as he held me down, biting me, claiming me.

I bit my lip to stay quiet, picturing my favorite fantasy of him holding me up against the wall. As he bit my neck in the safety of my imagination, the first orgasm fluttered through my hips like wildfire. I knew River felt it every time I came, whether he was across town or on the other side of the state. He knew every time I got myself off by picturing riding his cock while he fisted my hair, leaning up to bite my neck, growling, mine.

A shiver rolled down my spine.

Panting, I swiped the hair off my face, staring up at the candlelight flickering in cider gold patterns across my ceiling. Whatever River and I were doing, whatever this was, it was nothing, and I had to get that straight in my head. We were fucking. Not even that. Could it really even be called fucking when I was still technically a virgin? We’d never slept together in real life. And if he were to bite me—

I sat up, grabbing the t-shirt of River’s that I slept in from the foot of the bed and sliding it over my head. At six foot three, he was almost a foot taller than me, and I was practically swimming in it, but it was soft and worn, and smelled like him, like mint and soap. Lately, I never slept in anything else.

There was a part of me that pictured the fantasy of being with River, really being with him. His girlfriend. His partner. His mate. I fantasized about an alternate reality where he hadn’t stripped my memories and I didn’t have residual neural damage. Where we could have explored the possibility of us on our own terms.

My phone snarled again from the nightstand. Reaching for it, I slid out of bed, heading downstairs. River and I could never be anything more than a fantasy. As much as I enjoyed sex with him in projections, the reality was, he was a werewolf and I was human. If he were to bite me during sex, hot as that sounded in all my fantasies, it would mean forever giving up my humanity. If he came inside me, I could be infected with the lycan virus, changed into a werewolf just like my sister had been. Hayden was blissfully happy with her husband and mate Ethan. She had no regrets.

I wasn’t so sure I was ready to give up on the idea of being human. For River Caldwell or anyone else.

Downstairs in the kitchen, the LED clock on the stove read just past two in the morning. I quietly put a mug of water in the microwave for tea. Someone, no doubt Piper, had set out a display of miniature pumpkins and fall gourds on the kitchen table, changing out the tablecloth for a fresh one in a warm nut brown that went with the dark red place settings.

The microwave timer went off. I dipped a bag of herbal peppermint tea in the cup, inhaling the scent as it steeped. I opened the text message on my phone.

River: Are you wearing my shirt?

Taking a sip of tea, I slid into one of the stools at the breakfast bar.

Ellie: Maybe. Why?

River: Are you?

I took a quick selfie of me with Waffles and my tea and sent it back.

Ellie: Bonus points if you can correctly identify this rabbit.

River: Buttermilk?

Ellie: Grr…

River: I like knowing you’re sleeping in my clothes.

Ellie: Oh.

River: I like having my scent on you, knowing you’re marked as mine, even if I can’t really mark you the way I want to.

I nearly spit tea all over the table. It was maybe more words than I’d ever gotten out of River Caldwell on the subject of us or what we were doing when he came to my bed at night. Fingers shaking, I started to type.

Ellie: I wanted you to mark me tonight. I mean, really mark me.

I bit my lip, heart pounding in my chest as I stared down at the screen, waiting for him to respond.

A minute passed, then two. Eager anticipation quickly turned to a dull acid gnawing at my insides as an all too familiar wave of anxiety took over. I groaned, burying my head in my arms, wishing I could claw the text I’d sent back from cyberspace.

Three blinking dots appeared.

My hands were shaking so hard by that point, I had to set the phone down to read the text when it came in.

River: Stay where you are. There’s been a break-in at the lab.