Moon, Bitten

Chapter Fifteen

Kate felt a panic steel over her as he muttered that heated conviction fervently in the pitch-dark, a sliver of light streaming from the bottom crevice of the door.

She couldn't see him but knew he towered over her, his muscled forearms encasing either side of her, permitting no escape.

She felt the heat of his body through the silk of her blouse, confirming the proximity of him and shuddered, pressing her back further into the wall as that alluring, wild spice wrapped dangerously about her scrambled senses.

Her heart was a solid frightened beat in her chest, pounding erratically to every imaginable fear she'd ever conceived.

She was startled by a sudden stroke of his fingers and instinctively smacked his hand away, "Don't!" she hissed, anger and alarm forcing her voice to a shrill.

"Kate – " his voice, now a velvety timbre, coaxed soothingly, "I didn't mean to frighten you."

Her mouth felt incredibly dry and she blinked in the dark, "What do you want?" she demanded, her chest rising and falling with labored breaths.

Her spine stiffened as he shifted, leaning closer until she felt his breath fan her forehead. "I want you to relax. I'm not going to hurt you."

"Then why am I in a closet?" she rasped apprehensively.

Ronan knew there was nothing he could say to rationalize there being crammed in a broom closet but damn if he hadn't reacted on a fierce pang of jealousy.

He'd gone to her house at first, wanting to see her one last time before heading to New York. He realized the danger it presented but seemed incapable in ignoring the impulse. He had trailed her scent to the Victorian pub. The moment he caught whiff of Jax and another male, it instilled sheer umbrage that intensified all the more.

She hadn't seen him enter the lounge. He'd hung back, cradled by the shadows, studying her through heavy slits, his ears honing to every word spoken.

Every part of his possessive being urged him to flip their table and snatch her from the eyes of her dark-haired companion. The human was by no means a threat but the more she smiled at him, lavishing him with that alluring and beautiful laugh, it further darkened his already blackened mood.

He was damn tired of fighting this unwarranted attraction to her. He was a man accustomed to getting everything he desired and what he desired most was a beauty with captivating, bewitching eyes.

And now he realized his grave error in wedging them into a room barely capable of withstanding his size.

The smell of her hair drifted to his nose and he inhaled it deeply. Her short breaths portrayed her rapid heartbeat, propelled by dormant fears that obviously stemmed from a dark, elusive place.

It sickened him to have alarmed her but he couldn't risk exposing her to the pack. They could be watching him.

"I am not yours." She spat angrily, recalling his rather uncivilized sentiment. "Let me out." She commanded haughtily.

Ronan felt a grin tug precariously at the corners of his mouth, beguiled by the challenge in her fixed tone.

Grinning, he edged closer and caught her hitched breath as she all but shrank against the wall, separated by a meager sliver of space.

Her fists shoved aimlessly at his chest, "I'm warning you, Morrissey!" she whispered breathlessly.

He reached up and captured her face gently, running his thumb softly across her cheek, "Why do you resist me, Kate?" his deep baritone lured tenderly, "Last I remembered, you kissed me back."