Stolen by her Bear (Black Ridge Bears #1) - Felicity Heaton Page 0,27
couple of feet.
She stiffened. Her eyes widened. A hint of fear coloured them.
“Not that sort of proof.” He barely kept the growl from his voice as he realised the path her thoughts were traversing, blamed Knox and his heavy handling of her. The idiot should have known that pinning her to the floor would terrify her, would make her think things were about to go seriously south for her. He jerked his chin towards her. “Lift your hair.”
She frowned at him, but did as he asked, twisting her mass of black waves into her fists and raising it. Saint prowled around the back of the couch, heart beating a staccato rhythm against his chest as he prepared himself, steeled himself for the fact she might be mated.
Only when he came to a halt behind her and gazed at her nape, there were no scars.
Not a trace of a claiming bite mark.
“You’re not mated,” he whispered, throat thick as he stared at her nape and tried to make himself believe what he was seeing.
She dropped her hair and he wanted to growl as she stole that beautiful patch of unmarked skin from his gaze.
“No shit,” she bit out. “I’m not Ember.”
“If you’re not Ember, who are you?” He moved around the couch again, sure to head back towards the end nearest the door, just in case thoughts about escaping him finally popped into her head as her shock and fear subsided.
“Her best friend.” She tipped her chin up and folded her arms over her chest, pulling her purple jacket tight across her shoulders.
So that was how she wanted to play it now. She had information he wanted and she was going to refuse to give it to him, was going to make him suffer for it because of what he had done, and what Knox had done.
Saint still wanted to growl at how the male had been handling her, pinning her beneath him.
He kept that need in check, not wanting to scare the female.
She slid him a black look. “I’m not sure how you mistook me for Ember. Ember is curvy, and pretty, and has blue in her eyes.”
Saint gazed at her, couldn’t have taken his eyes off her if he had wanted to. “So that’s where I went wrong… I accidentally grabbed a beautiful female.”
A hint of colour climbed her cheeks and she was quick to avert her gaze, and he wanted to growl and puff his chest out because he had been the one to make her blush.
“You’re such an asshole,” she muttered.
An asshole who had put a flush in her cheeks and a flicker of heat in her eyes.
“How come you smell like Cobalt?” He studied her closely, seeking the tiniest hint of nerves, trying to see if she was lying to him because he really needed to know the truth about this. Both sides of him had been angry when he had smelled Cobalt on her. Both sides of him had lost their minds at the thought of her with that male.
With any other male.
Her lips flattened and he thought she wouldn’t answer him, but then she tilted her chin up and said, “I’m staying in his cabin while he and Ember share her one.”
The darkly possessive part of him she had awoken didn’t like that she had been sleeping in another male’s bed.
Didn’t like that Knox had been all over her and she smelled a little like him now.
She fidgeted again, her gaze downcast, the fire he had sparked in her fading as she toyed with her fingers. He felt the fear rising in her, heard it in her heartbeat, and knew her thoughts were traversing dark paths again, ones involving Knox.
“I’m sorry Knox got rough with you.” Those words came effortlessly to him as he gazed at her, as a tight feeling formed in the centre of his chest, one that felt as if it wouldn’t ease until he had calmed her and she was relaxed again.
Her tone was sharp, lashed at him as she bit out, “I don’t like this game… sending that man in to do your dirty work.”
Gods, how low she thought him.
Heat flared in his veins, had him taking a hard step towards her, one he regretted when she shrank back and her hands came up to her chest in a protective gesture that almost killed him.
He didn’t want her to fear him.
But he had done a terrible job of giving her reason not to feel that emotion around him.