tongue, and my cock gave an interested twitch as her alluring smell surrounded me.
“I warned you, doll,” I snarled. She needed to learn, and if scaring her was the only way to do it, then so be it. “Didn’t I tell you to behave? I told you not to come here, not to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong. Now you’ve really done it.” With one hand still pinning down her wrist, I grasped her chin with the other. My hand fully encompassed her jaw and pressed against her throat; I could feel her thumping heart, pattering like a rabbit’s.
“You...you can’t tell me what to do,” she said, all the fierceness gone out of her. I grinned triumphantly to see her shrinking. This was no mere game to be recorded for internet fame.
This was life and death. This was my freedom on the line.
“You’re messing around with shit you know nothing about.” I pulled her forward by the jaw, forcing her to gaze up at me with those defiant eyes. “Curiosity can kill you, Raelynn. What you’ve started here isn’t easily undone.”
Her eyes flickered over my face in shock. “Are you threatening me?”
“I’m warning you, Rae.” She was pressed right up against me, her legs between mine — a dangerously tempting position. The feral desire to claim her — all of her, body and soul — roared up in me. I wanted to see her fall to her knees and beg forgiveness for her mistake. I wanted to feel her soul meld with mine in offering. I wanted to taste her come undone on my tongue.
Something must have shown on my face, because she began to struggle in my grasp. The wiggle of her body between my thighs made my grip tighten instinctively, a growl rising in me, and her eyes swelled when she felt me restrain her.
But not with fear — with arousal.
Oh. So that’s how it was going to be, was it?
I took both her wrists in my grasp — such breakable little bones — and pinned them above her head, right against the carved wooden cross on the pulpit, making her twitching fingers a blasphemous Christ. I traced my finger along her stubborn jaw, pausing where I could feel the eager ba-bump, ba-bump of her heart.
“You’re very lucky, Raelynn,” I said softly, holding her gaze, “that I don’t bend you over this pulpit and teach you a real lesson about not fucking with things you don’t understand.”
A little whimper burst out of her. Somewhere between disbelief and desire, she grit her teeth and growled back, “I’d like to see you fucking try, asshole.” She ground her boot down on my foot, as if she could hurt me. I chuckled, as my fingers reached her chin and the tiny, delicate dimple right below her pouting lower lip. She went still as I brushed her mouth, tracing the contours of her lips, her breath shuddering over my skin.
“Don’t tempt me,” I growled. “Just be a good girl, give me the book, and go.”
She had tucked the grimoire into her bag, which was slung over her shoulder and pressed between her back and the pulpit. She’d stopped resisting, so I slowly released my hold on her, and for a moment she didn’t move, other than her eyes. Her gaze moved over me slowly, assessing me, contemplating the risk.
Then she dodged away.
It would have been too easy to catch her. I faced her as she began to back toward the exit, her knuckles white as she gripped her phone. If she wanted a game, how could I deny her?
“Raelynn.” I smiled, approaching slowly, nonchalantly. “Give me the book. It’s for the best, truly it is.”
She shook her head. “No. The book is mine.”
“The book should not exist!” There was a petulant, possessive tone that had come into her voice in her desperation to cling to that wretched grimoire, and it stoked my anger again.
“Get away!” She was backing away hurriedly as I advanced. Little fool would rather run than cooperate. She wanted a chase, did she? She wanted a hunt?
Then she’d get a hunt.
I stopped advancing. I watched her retreat with the smile spreading wider over my face.
“Give me the book.” My voice was soft in warning. “Otherwise, you’re going to be a very sorry girl.”
Her jaw tightened. “What are you going to do?” She sneered, bolder now that she had distance between us. “Threaten me more?”
“I don’t make idle threats. If you run out of here” — and I