When he stands in front of me as he does, towering over me like a monster ready to eat his prey, I just want to challenge him. Because I’m not like normal prey. I don't just roll over and take it. I bite back.
Instead of threatening me again, as I expect, his hands skid down my sides until they oh so carefully find my hips. His eyes flicker to mine and lock right before he pulls me against his body. Hot tingles of awareness pass through me. I can’t move even if I want to. The press of him and the creeping awareness of danger has my blood pumping faster.
What the actual fuck is wrong with me? I think. I want to step away from him, but my body fights me. It loves his nearness, the heat he throws off like a goddamn furnace. And the sense of brutality that might be coming at me at any second.
"W-what am I right about?" I shove the words out, unwilling to let him think that I'm not letting him touch me of my own free will.
One corner of his lips stays up as his fingers hook into the waistband of my pants and pauses. "Everything I know about you came from a file," he answers. "And that's going to change."
I lean back, looking up into his face with suspicion. He looks like a fallen angel with those dark eyes and equally dark hair against a tanned face. The stubble growing across the lower half of his face throws shadows in the most dangerous of places, so that when he looks at me, all that's highlighted is the upper bridge of his nose and his cheekbones. There's no light other than that of the beam of the motorcycle's headlight—something I assume he left on—and the moon. It makes me realize just how far removed from civilization we are.
He claimed he didn't, but if he'd wanted to kill me, he could easily get away with it. Just toss my body over the edge of the cliff and be done with it. No muss. No fuss. I shake away those thoughts and glare up at him.
"What are you talking about?"
"I've made a decision," he says. "I know all about the bargain you and Abel struck, but it seems keeping an eye on you from a distance isn't enough. You and I are about to become very close, Avalon." When Dean emphasizes the word 'very,' he pulls me into him until I can feel the full rigid length of his cock in his pants.
My face remains passive as my heart begins to race in my chest. One of my hands glides up and I settle it on his chest, right between his pecs and beneath his sternum. "You think so?" I challenge with an arched brow.
"I know so," he replies coolly.
"Are you asking for a truce?" I inquire, curious.
He laughs, the sound low and vibrating. It stirs something wicked inside of me; a twisted desire for this man who acts like a King and looks like the devil. He is a devil, beautiful and cruel. I doubt there's a woman alive who could survive him, and I certainly know that if I tried, I'd be left as nothing more than a husk of a human afterwards. Because Dean Carter is a man that cannot be tamed.
"No, little girl," he replies. "No more truces. No more bargains. I'm done being nice."
I snort and he pulls back a little to look down at my face fully. A cloud of air expels from his mouth as he breathes out, small and barely there—but with how cold the mountain air is, it doesn't surprise me to see it.
"This was you being nice?" I counter with a smirk.
"Oh yes," he says, his voice so serious that it makes my lips turn downward once more. "I've been very nice to you, baby." He turns his face and nuzzles against the soft, whisper thin baby hairs at my hairline. This time, there's no repressing the shiver that comes from his nearness.
Fuck, I think. I'm so fucking fucked. And not in the good way.
"But that's all about to end," he continues, "because you can't be trusted."
"I don't trust you either," I point out. The masculine scent of him invades my nostrils and I try to back up, but his hands press down harder against my sides, anchoring me in place. After a moment, he drops his arms and takes a step back, turning towards