Chapter 256: Pervert!

I froze, paralyzed by his shocking arrogance. Feeling my lips tremble with barely suppressed rage, my hands clenched into tight fists. My short nails bit painfully into my palms, scraping delicate skin—a sharp flash of physical pain that grounded me just enough to keep from losing my mind in the face of this absurdity.

"You are completely out of your mind if you think I’m sleeping with you!" I spat, sliding backward to the very edge of the mattress and pulling my knees tightly against my chest.

"We don’t have to just sleep," the guy said, a smooth, mocking smirk playing on his lips. Turning slowly onto his side, he propped his head on his hand and locked his dark, predatory gaze onto mine. "We could enjoy this night in each other’s arms, since you already slept off your fatigue in the car."

"That’s not what I meant at all! I meant we shouldn’t even be in the same bed in the first place!" I hissed through gritted teeth, searing him with a look of pure hatred.

"Why not? Mates sleep together." Arching a dark brow, he let his gaze drop heavily to my chest with slow, brazen intent.

Under his heat, the skin beneath my shirt flamed instantly. A burning wave of humiliation washed over me, twisting my stomach into a tight, aching knot.

"We are nowhere near close enough to share a bed," I gasped indignantly. Yanking at the edge of the blanket to cover myself, I hissed in pain as the fabric slipped violently from my grasp.

Damn sharp-eyed alpha wolf. Damian pinned the duvet under his massive weight, anchoring it so firmly that I nearly tore the skin off my fingers trying to free even a corner.

"How much closer could we get, little bird? Unless... like this?"

With a devilish grin, he lunged forward, his fingers wrapping like iron bands around my ankle. He jerked me toward him with such raw force that before I could even fight back, I slid across the mattress with a quiet cry, coming level with him.

The blanket tumbled away completely, and my t-shirt pulled up past my ribs, exposing my stomach. Taking immediate advantage of my vulnerability, Damian leaned over and trapped me beneath him in one fluid, powerful movement. His hand gripped my bare waist, scorching my skin like red-hot metal.

"That is not what I meant—get your hands off me right now!" I squirmed frantically beneath his immense weight, desperate to crawl away, but his grip on my waist only tightened.

In the very next moment, his heavy hand pressed imperiously right over my chest, right through the thin fabric of my t-shirt, and my breath hitched instantly. Damian didn’t offer a word in response. His massive body radiated such intense, blistering heat that with a living radiator like him beside me, I hardly needed a blanket at all.

Thoroughly enraged, driven by pure spite and exhaustion, I lashed out and kicked him in the shin with all the strength in my healthy leg. Yet the only response I received was a low, vibrating chuckle. The next instant, his thigh wedged with terrifying force between my legs, ruthlessly flipping me from my side onto my stomach and pinning me flush against the mattress.

"Get off me, Damian! I’ll never fall asleep like this—you’re way too hot and impossibly heavy!" I cried out, shuddering with a full-body spasm as I made one last, pitiful attempt to throw him off, though it was completely useless. "You seriously need to go on a diet!"

"Well, sex is the best and most enjoyable form of cardio, Hart," his rumbling whisper brushed against my neck, sending an immediate swarm of icy chills racing down my spine. "Do your boyfriend a favor and help me shed a few pounds."

"Go to hell, pervert!" Hissing like an enraged cat, I blindly drove my nails into his forearm, desperate to rake his skin. But, as expected, I got no reaction out of him—save for the sound of the Alpha’s heavier, ragged breathing right against the back of my neck.

I thrashed desperately, trying to claw my way out of the iron trap of his arms, until the very last drop of strength drained from my body. The guy didn’t utter another word. In the end, I was so utterly exhausted that it seemed I was the one rapidly losing weight from the sheer physical toll, rather than him.

As I drifted into sleep, battered down by futile resistance, I caught a murmur slipping through the haze. It sounded like the fevered delirium of a tired mind, yet it made every nerve inside me instinctively recoil.

"You have no idea how close I am to crossing that line, little breeder..."

***

I woke up to harsh sunlight streaming brazenly across my face, forcing me to squint against the glare. Sitting up abruptly in bed, I blinked hard, looked around, and let out a massive sigh of relief when I realized I was completely alone in my own bedroom. Damian was gone. Sleepily rubbing my eyes, I reached for the bedside table, picked up my phone, and froze in sheer shock.

One o’clock in the afternoon. The air caught in my throat. Somehow, I had managed to sleep straight through the morning and missed two lectures at the university.

Leaping out of bed in a panic, I let out a muffled groan and winced in pain. My injured foot flared with a sharp, throbbing ache, serving as a ruthless reminder that it had literally been stitched up yesterday.

Sinking back onto the edge of the mattress, I carefully drew my injured leg up toward me. Unwinding the bandage with trembling fingers, I stared at the wound with growing anxiety. The edges of the stitches had turned an angry shade of red and were unpleasantly inflamed, radiating a feverish heat. That was truly the last thing I needed right now.

My mind instantly conjured memories, as I had already experienced getting stitches before. This happened back in elementary school, when our drunk neighbor went out for a walk with his massive hunting dog and simply couldn’t hold it on the leash.

I was just returning from the store, carrying a bag of fresh meat. Evidently, the starving animal caught the scent of blood, broke free, and charged after me.

I ran with all my might, screaming in primal terror down the entire street while clutching the ill-fated bag to my chest. The neighbor, who had wrapped the leash around his hand, was dragged along the asphalt behind his beast, and realistically, his heavy body was the only thing that slowed the creature down. I never would have outrun it if the dog had been loose.

Out of wild panic, I scrambled onto an old wooden cart and climbed over a high fence. At first, I hadn’t even noticed, but as it turned out later, I deeply sliced my palm on the fence, and the wound was quite severe.

So deep that my father drove me to a doctor, who stitched up the cut after numbing my entire hand with an anesthetic.

And when the stitched wound flared up with the exact same inflammation the next morning, I panicked terribly. But back then, my dad calmly told me that it was completely normal. He explained a lot about how our bodies actively fight damage, though right now I couldn’t recall all the details.

The main thing was to avoid infection or severe inflammation accompanied by a high fever. That was precisely what he said back then to reassure me.

Carefully getting up from the bed and leaning on my healthy leg, I limped heavily out into the hallway. Slowly walking through the empty apartment, I realized I was indeed completely alone. Deimos was nowhere to be found. Just to be sure, I checked the rest of the rooms, glancing into the guy’s bedroom and even the bathroom.

I was home alone.

Finding myself standing in the middle of the hallway, I froze. My gaze, as if magnetized by some invisible, primal force, drifted toward the room with the locked door.