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This entire relationship, he’s been pushing. Pushing for more touching, more intimacy, more openness—justmore.

He pauses long enough to look me in the eye. “For you to be my mate.”

I might be the most awful person in the world because at his words, I shudder. Not the good kind of shudder either.

“Um.” I can’t edge away from him, caught in his arms as I am. He’s not even acting human at the moment. Eli’s touchy-feely in general, but he’s never like this—never crazed with the need to mark and claim me as his.

My eyes slide to the window, where dusk is setting in. “We should talk about this when we aren’t close to the full moon.”When I know you’re not going to go big bad wolf on me.

His chest rumbles with his disapproval. “I don’t want to talk about this, Callie. I don’t want to analyze what I feel for you. I want you to say yes, and then I want to fuck you until you’re saying my name like a mantra.”

That right there is how this man managed to end up in my bed in the first place. That’s sexual manipulation. Or oral—or I don’t freaking know, but he definitely knows how to win over the siren.

“I have a ring,” he says, kissing my jaw, his fingernails shifting into claws, then back to human nails. “Shit,” he says, a bit of his human side peeking out, “none of this is coming out right. Just, be mine.”

A grown man as sexy as Eli can’t just say stuff like that. My lady bits want to overthrow my brain.

“Please, Eli,” I say as he rubs his cheek against mine, masking me in his scent. “We need to talk about this.”

Wait. What am I saying?

This isn’t a negotiation. There’s nothing to talk about. When you end a relationship, you don’t owe the other person an explanation, crappy though that may be.

Besides, I already gave him one.

His chest rumbles. “Fine, we’ll talk later.”

He resumes kissing me with the same animalistic passion he entered my home with. Only now, it’s even sharper than usual. The man’s giving way to the beast even as the sun sets.

I don’t know what to do. I ended my relationship with this man. He’s acting like it never happened.

I pull away long enough to say, “We broke up.”

“I thought about it after we talked.” He kisses me, then pulls away again. “What kind of mate would I be if I didn’t stand by you when you needed me?”

The alpha in him is telling me that that’s the end of the conversation, and for a few moments I get dragged under.

I blink through the haze of his dominance, the same dominance he’s been throwing around since he swept me up in his arms, I just hadn’t noticed it then.

He doesn’t get to decide we’re back together. And even if he’s okay with me receiving attention from two men at the same time—and an alpha would never settle for being second fiddle—I’mnot.

His hands are beginning to roam. This is escalatingwaytoo quickly.

“Wait, Eli,” I say. But he’s not listening to my words, he’s listening to my body, and my body’s sort of enjoying the heavy petting.

“Eli,” I say again, even as the siren surfaces.

His hand dips into my pants and—

“Eli, stop.” My voice hits multiple notes as I force the siren into it.

Eli stills, obeying the command in my voice.

I bent an alpha to my will.Not good not good not good.

But more than that, I just glamoured Eli, the man who proclaimed to love me. A bounty hunter who works on the right side of the law.

I’m fucked in every way but the one I’d actually enjoy.