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Damn Incubus senses. “He was in no state to discern that when he was so far gone himself.”

“Hmm,” he said, stepping closer and making me tense. “You can think on your feet admirably. Who knew? You certainly don’t demonstrate that at the Academy. Then again, with youconstantly burying your head in the sand, you don’t demonstrate much of anything.”

He stepped ever closer until he was right in my personal space and looming over me. His eyes flashed. “Until tonight, that is.”

“What are you talking about?”

Instead of answering, he reached out and curled a lock of my golden hair around his finger as he studied me in that creepy, invasive way of his. “You’re more than meets the eye after all, aren’t you? More than just a puppet whose strings are operated by everybody else. I thought you’d lost that ability long ago when we were kids.”

“Shut up,” I bit back, before I could stop myself.

Arguing with Kai Hunter was a big fucking mistake.

He decimated any opponent in a verbal sparring match with ease. And absolutely mercilessly at that. He was an arrogant intellectual and he used that to the fullest.

That was why it was all the more surprising when he merely smiled, albeit devilishly, and didn’t speak to my biting—and ridiculous—response.

“Have you ever been fucked like that?”

I jolted at his brazen and completely out-there question.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“That’s none of your business.”

As if I hadn’t even spoken, he went on, “Or, perhaps, you can’t entertain anything but abstinence? You’re afraid that in the throes of it, you’ll accidentally smite any cock that you invite into that little celestial cunt of yours?”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Nyx isn’t scenting you as a virgin, so you’ve at least tried. So, what happened?” he pushed.

“Son of a bitch, why the fuck do you care?”

“I’m a seeker of knowledge. Everybody knows that.” He stroked his thumb over my jawline, making me suck in a breath at the unexpected intimacy of it. “But nobody knows aboutyou.Anything about you, really.”

“And now, because I saw what I did tonight, you think this is your chance to open up that kind of dialog?”

“Perhaps.”

“That’s demented.”

His hard muscular body pushed into my softness, his appetizing sandalwood scent infusing me.

I moved back, but smacked against a tree trunk behind me, inadvertently giving him the in to crowd me completely against it.

His hands came down either side of my head, caging me in.

I should be fuming. I should be disgusted. I should be insulted.

But the heat from him was suffocating everything else around me and drawing too much of my attention, alongside the questions he’d been asking me, of someone actually wanting to know anything resembling the truth when it came to me.

“Demented, hmm? I can go in for that.”

“I got that message earlier.”

“Yeah? Was it the dirty talk? Stirring my saliva in his tight little ass? Making him chafe his beautiful cock against your beloved gazebo and paint it with his glorious, sticky cum?”