I want to rip the bastardlimbfrom limb, but since I can’t, I allow the thicker, stronger feeling to move through me.
I lean back, the chair creaking under me as relief hits me sharp and unexpected. She’s not tied to him anymore. She’s here.
And she’s never going back.
She must see the change in me because her head tilts, eyes narrowing. “You look…relieved.”
I don’t deny it. “Because I am.”
Her cheeks flush. She looks away again.
I growl low. “Don’t you dare clam up now. Look at me.”
She shakes her head. “I’ve said enough.”
“Do you want me to drag every word out of you, rabbit?”
Her mouth parts. Her chin tips up. “Stop calling me rabbit.”
“Keep answering my questions, and maybe I’ll think of something else to call you.”
Her lips twitch. She whispers, “Okay, Bear.”
My chest goes tight, and oxygen feels like treacle in my throat. She doesn’t know what that word means to me, what the slight variation of it meant to millions of screaming fans. I stiffen, jaw clenched.
She notices. Of course she does. She studies me with bright eyes. And her legs shift under the table, brushing mine, parting just slightly.
Christ.
Her bare thigh.
Heat licks up my spine and swallows me whole. I know she’s not wearing panties because her ripped, slick-crusted pair I plan never to wash is sitting in my drawer next to her bra. Next to my things.
I see the way she presses her thighs together, the blush crawling her throat.
I know she feels me watching.
Her gaze lifts slowly, alluringly…and collides with mine. For one charged second, I’m caught in her beautiful green eyes, fixing to drag her across this table and grind her down until she’s begging. Eat her out until she loses her vocal cords.
But she looks away, lips pressed tight, and my blood boils all over again.
“You don’t stop halfway,” I snarl. “You finish. Tell me where you were running to.” My fist bunches on the table as jealousy grips me tighter. “Or who you were running to.”
Her voice wavers. “Nowhere. No one. I had no destination in mind, just knew that I needed to get away. No one’s waiting for me. Or looking for me.”
Her eyes grow wide when she realizes what she’s let slip.
Every last atom in me shrieks in triumph. “Say it again.” My voice is a vicious thunderclap.
She jumps, tries to curl away from me. “Bear?—”
“Don’t make me drag it out of you, Lily.”
She trembles, even as her nipples surge hard and hungry against my T-shirt. As her gaze darts around my space before landing on me. “No one’s looking for me,” she whispers.
The truth.
But then she adds, quiet as a breath, “But I can’t stay here. I…I don’t know what he’ll do if I don’t come home.”
