I peered down at the spelled quartz encircling my feet, pressing my lips together before lifting my attention back to him. I drank in the sight of Knox, thirsty for more. His lips curved into a knowing grin as he watched me. He inhaled, and his smile faltered, replaced by a scowl as his expression turned cold.
“You want to explain to me why I can smell mutt on you?” he inquired, lifting a brow as he gave me a pointed look.
“I may have let one kiss me,” I confessed, withholding the disappointment of that kiss to myself.
Knox grinned with heat smoldering in his eyes. I didn’t need to tell him I’d been disappointed. The smug look in his eyes and the tilt of his lips told me he already knew. I wanted to lie, to say Dimitri bent me over and wrote his name on my uterus, but this was Knox, and he just knew shit. He could smell that I’d simply touched Dimitri’s lips, so lying about fucking him, well, it would be pointless since he could scent the lie in my lack of arousal, and something as mundane as my mood.
His expression told me he wasn’t worried about Dimitri in the slightest, and mine told him to get bent. Knox tilted his head, and his smirk turned conceited. Fiery eyes told me he was silently considering how he would bend my ass over and show me how he intended to get bent inside me. I swallowed, and his eyes sparkled with the challenge, daring me to lie.
“It could have happened that way!” I snapped, and his head shook slowly.
“Nah, Little Monster. It wouldn’t have. You and I both know that I’ll be the one satisfying your hunger when you reach your limit.” His voice was laden with gravel, scraping over every nerve ending in my body, causing a chill to shiver up my spine.
I loved the sound of his deep, sexy voice when he lowered it to that come, ride me woman octave. I swallowed, turning my head to stare into the room behind me. I whispered the spell for light, and candles lit within the room.
I felt Knox stiffen without needing to see him do so. His heated breath fanned my bare shoulder, and I shuddered involuntarily, sending a carnal wave of lust rushing through me to pulse against my apex. My shoulder throbbed where his mark adorned my flesh, and I felt the whisper of his lips against it, causing my core to clench, as all the blood in my body lowered to my nether region.
Knox’s scent was an aphrodisiac that drugged me, more potent than any potion or spell. He projected it on purpose, watching me fight the need to shed my inhibition and abandon my course to do what every instinct within me wanted.
It was an endless fight against doing what my body required, and what my mind knew we should leave alone. Neither could agree, and with every moment I was this close to the man my body desired, I wasn’t sure which would win the war.
“I bet Dimitri’s lips brushed against yours, and you saw me instead of him. I’m going to guess your creature didn’t even stir in his presence because she found him so fucking lacking that she couldn’t be bothered to notice him. Your body didn’t respond to Dimitri because you need and want the intensity that comes when we’re together, and everyone else just falls short and is found wanting in comparison. You and I both know that anything less would be pale and lacking, other than you and me stripped bare, fucking like the savages we really are.”
I moved away from him, unwilling to acknowledge he was right. Knox didn’t need verbal confirmation. He was cocky enough without me adding to it. We both knew I wouldn’t give in to another, and that my creature demanded the biggest, most primal beast would mount us, and that was this asshole prowling around me like a creature that smelled an easy kill.
As I moved, the quartz crystals moved with me, spelled to protect me from anyone, and anything. Quartz alone would serve as heavy protection, but spelled with an enchantment, they became magical stones that guarded me against anyone I didn’t want touching me. This meant I’d manually had to add Knox to that list since I wanted those powerful hands on me anytime they were near, even though I shouldn’t.
“I’ll take your silence as confirmation.” He followed me into the room, and I leaned against a table, staring at the formula marked on the paper. “I can help you find what you’re looking for,” he offered.
I turned to tell him off, frowning as his scent hit me with the force of being struck by a bus I hadn’t seen coming. My head dropped back as a moan slipped from my lips. I fought to regain control, dropping my head forward as my attention locked on the wickedly dark smile burning in his eyes.
Knox was releasing pheromones mixed with testosterone to lure me out of the quartz. I smirked, freeing my scent that made the cocky grin on his lips falter. His eyes widened with the realization that I wasn’t just horny; I was in season and had concealed it from him. His tongue escaped his mouth, licking his full bottom lip as he silently prowled closer.
Knox’s hands landed on the table behind me as he leaned forward, breathing me in as his deep, soothing rattle escaped his throat, echoing through every part of my body. My lips quivered while he watched me, his knowing gaze smoldering with the promise of flames as his nostrils flared. Knox shouldn’t have been able to get close to me, yet he caged me against the table regardless of the spelled quartz.
My pulse thundered with need, dropping to his hungry mouth that I desired to devour. If I touched him, the spell in the quartz would end, which wasn’t something that I couldn’t let happen. Not yet, anyway.
He stood and reached down, hooked his fingers beneath the shirt he wore, lifting it to reveal his body’s smooth, sculpted muscles. My eyes lowered to the ripple of muscle clenched in his abdomen, revealing his hard body to my hungry gaze. I loved Knox’s body; the subtle curves, the sharp edges. The way it rippled with power as it drove into mine, taking me to heights only he could achieve. He tossed the shirt aside, absently rubbing his large hand across the back of his neck, searching for something.
Slowly turning away, he revealed the hard, tapered muscles of his back that adorned ravens up his spine and shoulders. His broad shoulders dipped into the narrowed waist that vanished into the pants he wore. Those pants offended my senses, hindering the feast my hungry eyes wanted. It took effort to tear my gaze from his hard body, forcing my attention away from the male dripping his sinful scent to fuck with my head and hormones.
A scrapping noise across the floor gained my attention, and I frowned, watching as Knox returned with a large chair. He nodded toward the wide bench seat, his lips curling into a dark smirk as he kicked off his boots and sat, removing his socks.
Knox leaned back, studying me through his dark lashes as my chest rose and fell with hunger, growing labored with the need to climb him and cave to my baser needs. Swallowing audibly, I frowned, noting that he was telling me with his eyes to sit down, instead of asking.
I worried my lip between my teeth, letting my eyes linger on the way his stomach creased in the position he was sitting. His smile revealed white teeth as he noticed how my eyes couldn’t tear away from his utter perfection, lifting his arms wide, resting them on the back of the chair. Ignoring the warning burning in his eyes, I paced.
“Sit the fuck down, woman. You’re exhausting me,” he announced in a clipped tone, his eyes slowly sliding down my body, noting the splattering of blood that marred the wispy white skirt I wore. “I take it the witches in the woods were your kills?” My attention lifted from his muscles, locking with his eyes. “You surprise me. Come, ride my cock. You know you want it, and I’m right here. Use me to soothe that ache.”