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?”

9:37 Thu, Sep 4

Chapter 145

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

“What now?” I whispered.

Pale and ugly, cracking open with dawn. Still pink around the edges like a wound refusing

from before. Lower. Bruised. “Watch

laughed, sharp and hoarse.

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

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

cold was biting now.

he wasn’t sure if I was

of that pit,” I added, my voice breaking on

huffed a

I corrected, grinning through the chattering in my teeth.

stone in the open dark. It echoed. Stupidly loud, like he wanted the gods to hear

blinked at him. Mud clung to his

“You’re insane,” I muttered.

he shot back, still laughing. “You jumped in after

“You were drowning.”

“You were bleeding.”

stared at

smoke across the shore.

at my feet–raw, scratched, purple under the dirt.

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Chapter 145

you one

“Gross.”

again, quieter this time. “Thank you

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around the thud of my heart like it

the sound all snarled and spit, no human softness, and my hips betrayed me for

wouldn’t let go, holding me under, and then thing that raked over the wet inside of my ear

voice a low, hooked

bastard who cut you open just to watch you leak for me. For shoving you down when you tried to stand. For the

wet and heavy, his lips grazing, teeth marking, until the apology turned

along my neck–hot, wet, hunting–until his teeth found the place he used to bite when I

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 I wasn’t near. I’ve marked you, filled

Pack–trained. My spine wanted the bite before I did. “I should rip your tongue out,” I breathed. “Riot…I love

slow, black–gold and wolfshot, and I felt it before I saw it–his weight shifting, the room shrinking, breath thick with the scent of

know baby,” His hand found the edge of my jaw, rough, warm, too fucking familiar. “You love

apart now.

and I should accept

dragged over my mouth, slow like he wanted to feel

me,” I

starving. “I would’ve loved you

low where it shouldn’t. I was marked. Promised. Grayson’s. But my body

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Chapter 145

“Riot… we shouldn’t.”

gulped. “Yeah… we

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