Page 6 of Forsaken (The Nightwolf Pack #3)
CHAPTER 6
S erafina
“Are you out of your mind?” I yell as soon as Noah lowers me to my feet in the middle of their spacious living room. “That will be the last time you throw me over your damn shoulder.”
He gets in my face. “Or else what?”
I hate the way my eyes immediately go to the taut skin of his chest and broad biceps as he folds his arms over his chest. He’s naked after shifting back to his human form.
A fact I couldn’t ignore as I stared at his tight ass while he carried me like a damn ragdoll over his shoulder. He smells like pinewood and soap. Probably one of those soaps that markets itself for only men. As if damn soap has a gender.
Yet, my body urges me closer. Just one step and we’d be chest to chest.
I loathe the way my belly warms from that thought.
“Give me back my bow and arrow and you’ll find out,” I reply.
His frown deepens. “You’re two seconds away from me spreading you across my lap.”
“What?” I gasp.
“That is enough,” Ronan intervenes.
He gets in the middle of the two of us, his back to his brother. “It’s been a long day for everyone.”
A mocking laugh spills from my lips. “Oh, here comes the voice of reason. A long day …” I mimic, mockingly. “Yeah, with all of the kidnapping and holding someone against their will. I suppose it has been a long day for you.”
His only reaction to my sarcasm is a flattening of his lips.
The urge to run my hand through his hair to ruffle it almost overwhelms me. The way he can stand in front of me, completely nude with perfectly styled hair and look more dignified and unmoved than the King of England pisses me off.
I step away from him because otherwise, I’m not sure what I’ll do. Despite the enormity of the cabin, the presence of all three of them in one room, naked at that, makes it hard to breathe.
The urge to escape takes over.
I hate them.
All three of them.
“Where are you going now?” Ronan asks from behind me when I start down the hallway.
“Anywhere that’s not near any of the three of you,” I toss over my shoulder.
“Your bedroom is upstairs.”
His words stop me. I spin to face them, doing my best to keep my eyes from traveling downward.
I’ve grown up among shifters. Been around them my entire life. I should be used to nudity by now. And I am.
Never do I get the urge to check out any of the men or women in the Nightwolf pack right before or after a shift. Nudity is common among our kind.
Scratch that.
Their kind.
I’m not one of them, even though I was raised among them. So yeah, anyway, nudity doesn’t affect me. Yet, as I stand facing Ronan in this long hallway, I have to fight with myself not to look him up and down.
It’s a fight I halfway lose. My gaze somehow ends up traveling downward, scoping out his broad, heavily muscled chest, the rippled abs that most human males can only dream about.
Stop it.
A quick chastisement brings me back to reality.
“Fine.” I lift my chin and head in the opposite direction that I was going to get to the staircase.
I attempt to pass Ronan while doing my best not to touch him at all, but he throws a thick arm in front of me.
I step back to look up at him.
His gaze lingers on me for a beat. For a nanosecond, I swear I see a glimmer in his eyes, but one second it’s there and the next it’s gone.
I made it up.
The man is unfeeling. Too controlled to give in to any base emotion.
Not that any of them have any real emotion where I’m concerned.
“You need a tour first,” he says.
“I don’t want one. It’s not like I’ll be here for long.”
He looks me up and down, his expression never changing. “You’re going to get one anyway.
“This way.” He takes me by the arm, pulling me in the opposite direction of the living room.
His ass is as firm as Noah’s. And yes, I hate myself for noticing.
“Are you going to put some clothes on?” I ask, ripping my arm from his hold.
He turns to face me but looks down at himself as if realizing he is still naked. His gaze meets mine again.
A slight tugging of his lips is all the reaction I get before he tosses a look over my shoulder.
“You can do the tour while I put clothes on.”
With that, he exits the kitchen without granting me a backwards glance.
Surprise has my head jutting backward when I realize it’s Montgomery he was speaking to and not Noah. Noah isn’t anywhere in sight, and Montgomery lingers in the kitchen entryway, fully clothed in a pair of jeans and dark gray T-shirt.
His feet are bare, and the way his toes bend and flex it looks as if he’s anxious to shift. It’s a habit I’ve noticed among the Nightwolves.
When some of them are eager to shift but can’t for whatever reason, the tension in their bodies gives away their desire.
Not for the first time, I wonder what it’s like to live side by side with a wolf inside of you. To have needs and desires that sometimes conflict with another being that lives inside of your body.
Long ago, I tried to imagine it. However, I’ve long since stopped trying.
But now curiosity starts to rise within me again, angering me.
“Well, let’s get this over with,” I tell Montgomery who so obviously wants to be here even less than I do.