Chapter 6.1: He Can't Keep His Hands Off Me.

Cecilia

I settle into a new routine, distracting myself from thoughts of Emeric with a laser-focused job search. 

But as the week stretches on, the rejections quickly pile up, and I can’t help but wonder why I’m being declined immediately for every position to which I apply.

Dread rises inside me as I move from dejection to suspicion. Objectively, I know my qualifications are competitive. It has to be something else that’s wrong.

Maybe it’s my background. What Serena Garvalle calls my “half-breed status.”

I always knew that hybrids like me were different.

Pureblood werewolves like Emeric are the real genius, whether from their family background and upbringing or personal ability, he is excellent to impeccable, everything makes him wherever he is a man of the moment, eye-catching.

He is also a very good brother. 

We didn't have a serious relationship, but we slept together once a week at Emeric's luxury apartment downtown, and I was always smart enough to leave and never stay the night, knowing that Serena didn't like me being there.

I don't know why Serena didn't like me, but after all these years of trying to impress the girl, she never gave me a good time.

So Emeric, who loved his sister, treated me like a transparent person.

He never contacted me unless I went to him. Even when he slept with me once a week, it was always when I brought food to the door, and he slept with me once a day when he felt the urge, and then he just ignored me.

Once a week, never more, sex seems to be a product of his desire to pass the time, and as if it were a gift given to me.

After leaving the Garvalles, my job hunting did not go as smoothly as I had hoped.

The firms I’ve been contacting are the best in the city. And they all happen to be werewolf-owned.

I schedule a phone meeting with a recruiter, desperate for answers. 

“I haven’t even been able to get a first interview,” I explain. “I’m baffled. I thought with my education and experience…” 

“Miss Thornhill, I’m afraid I do have an explanation,” the friendly woman replies. “It seems you have upset the Garvalle family.” 

Emeric. 

Or Serena. 

Or maybe it was the both of them. They blacklisted me, making sure I couldn’t get another job in the industry after I left their company.

“You are nothing in this world without me…”

That was the last thing Emeric said to me. I guess he’s trying to make good on his word.

Hours after that illuminating phone call, I’m still shaking with anger. My adrenaline shoots my anxiety up to a new level, though, when Emeric texts me. 

Meet me at the Waldorf in 30 min. Room 600.

Urgent.

I should have made better plans for my Friday night. 

But I’ve found myself in a luxury hotel, on my way to meet Emeric just because he texted me.

My heart starts racing at the thought of being in a hotel room with him.

But I gulp down the saliva that’s filled my mouth, close my eyes and pause.

I shake my head at my reflection in the mirrored elevator doors as I ride up to the sixth floor. Part of me knows I shouldn’t be doing this. But so much has been left unsaid with Emeric, and I’m desperate for him to hear me out.

I find the door to his room ajar.

The second I push inside, he appears from out of nowhere and slams the door closed behind me. Without a word, he shoves me back against the wall and gropes at my body with hot, needy hands. He dips his face to mine and dives in for a hungry kiss.

I shudder at the sudden, intense pleasure of his touch, letting my eyes flutter closed for a moment.

“What are you doing?” I breathe when I manage to peel our lips apart. “You said it was urgent.”

“Tell me you missed me,” Emeric demands.

He fists my hair and pulls, yanking my head back and making me gasp. His energy is frantic and wild. Thinking about how badly he seems to want me is turning me on like crazy, but I’m not about to tell him what he wants to hear—no matter how true it is. 

Emeric eyes my exposed throat and growls, baring his teeth reflexively. A surge of adrenaline zips through me, a familiar rush of simultaneous fear and arousal. In the next second, he picks me up and throws me onto the massive bed on the other side of the room. 

When he jumps on top of me, my body reacts against my will, arching my back and forcing a moan to tumble from my lips.

His fingers find the hem of my skirt and begin to inch it upward. I try to fight him, but he only pushes my hands away. 

He presses his lips to my ear, tickling my skin with his hot breath and the soft scratch of his dense five o’clock shadow. “Say it. Tell me you missed me.”