His Trouble Maker

Chapter 145

JESSICA

“Are you fucking insane?”

:

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My voice tore up my throat, raw and soaked as I surfaced, coughing lakewater and blood into the dark.

He-

Riot-

He fucking threw us in. He threw us in.

My fingers scraped his chest before I could see him, before I could even breathe right. My legs kicked under me, too heavy, too cold, water slapping up my spine, and still I shoved at him, slapped at his shoulder like that could undo it, like I wasn’t already screaming inside.

“You think this is funny?” I snarled, coughing. “We’re soaked, we’re stinking, we’re fucking reeking like heat- rut prey–every pack from here to the ridge is gonna catch this stink off the air-”

The water was freezing.

The sky was bleeding into light.

Day’s coming and if we don’t move, if he doesn’t let go, if I don’t get this fucking heat off me, they’ll see.

They’ll know.

They’ll find us here in the open, wrecked and wrecking, stinking of heat and rut and shame.

“Fuck-”

I slipped again. My elbow cracked off something sharp, and the lake tried to take me a second time. Riot lunged, grabbed my wrist–too fast, too hard–and dragged me up before I could sink.

“Don’t–fucking touch me-”

He didn’t let go.

He gripped under my arms, hauled me sideways, hands tight in places they shouldn’t be, his breath hot in my ear as he dragged me toward the edge, over stone, over mud, my legs useless, my hips grinding into sharp rock and broken roots. “Riot!”

“Stay still,” he muttered, voice low and hot right in my car. “You’ll thank me in a second.”

He settled me down–too carefully for someone who’d just ruined me–his hands firm on my thighs, his knee between mine as he lowered me back against the flat of a rock slick with moss and lakewater.

“There,” Riot breathed, his hand still on my leg, still too close. “Still cold?”

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Chapter 145

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shaking. He was watching me too close. Too amused. Too fucking proud

“What now?” I whispered.

ugly, cracking open with dawn. Still

from before. Lower. Bruised. “Watch the light change.

laughed, sharp and hoarse.

hand skimming up, dragging mud and lakeweed with it until his palm rested against my side,

a good one,” he said. “But you’re alive. We’re both

cold was biting now. “When are you going to

wasn’t

your sorry ass out of that pit,” I added, my voice breaking on the last word. “Don’t think I

a

chattering

made was full–throated, real–ugly, rough laughter that cracked like stone against stone in the open dark. It echoed. Stupidly loud, like he wanted the gods to

blinked at him. Mud

“You’re insane,” I muttered.

say the same for you,” he shot back, still laughing. “You

“You were drowning.”

“You were bleeding.”

at each

the shore. I shivered

at my feet–raw, scratched, purple under

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Chapter 145

give you one of

“Gross.”

this time. “Thank you for

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parted, stupid, my chest caving in around the thud of my heart like it thought I could pull

ground into the space between my teeth and my ear, the sound all snarled

go, holding me under, and then thing that raked

voice a low, hooked

me. For shoving you down when you tried to stand. For the names I called you because I liked the

heavy, his lips grazing, teeth marking, until the apology turned almost obscene in how close it

my neck–hot, wet, hunting–until his

your fury. I wanted to make your legs tremble just from the memory of me. I wanted to be the thing your heat kept calling back, even when

wanted the bite before I did. “I should rip

and I felt it before I saw it–his weight shifting,

rough, warm, too fucking familiar. “You love

lips were a breath apart

him… and

thumb dragged over my mouth, slow like he wanted to

ruined me,” I

black–gold, fucked, starving. “I would’ve loved you harder

pulsing low where it shouldn’t. I was marked. Promised. Grayson’s. But my body didn’t care. My wolf didn’t care. She was tipping forward like she wanted Riot’s

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Chapter 145

“Riot… we shouldn’t.”

“Yeah…

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