Chapter 292: Do it if you dare

Yuki’s emotional state had been a complete wreck all night, and she suddenly just wanted to push every single one of his buttons until he snapped.

With a defiant gasp, she began violently struggling against him, grabbing the hem of the shirt and trying to yank it back off. "I want to stay naked! I want to feel the cold air against my skin!" she lied through her teeth. Her voice pitched up in defiance.

Kaden grabbed her wrists. His dark eyes flashed with warning. "Stop being so irrationally stubborn for five damn minutes and keep the shirt on," he growled. His voice was deep and rough.

He knew damn well she was doing this purely to torment him. He wanted her to stop fucking testing his crumbling self-control, but her stubborn glare showed zero fear of his intimidating aura.

The verbal sparring quickly devolved into a physical struggle. They wrestled for dominance on the riverbank, their bodies tangling together as they rolled over the smooth pebbles and damp sand. Taking advantage of his massive size and superior strength, Kaden easily pinned her hips to the ground, trapping her waist tightly between his muscular thighs.

Even then, she did not stop fighting, twisting violently beneath him until the thin cotton of the T-shirt ripped loudly down the seam.

Instead of freezing, Yuki looked up at him through her dishevelled hair and let out a triumphant, infuriating smirk.

That was the absolute breaking point. Kaden’s last shred of control shattered into a million pieces.

With a low, feral growl, his hand shot out. His fingers wrapped firmly around her jawline as he forced her face up to meet his fierce glare.

"You really aren’t scared of anything, are you?" he hissed, his face inches from hers. "You honestly don’t give a damn that you’re sitting here completely naked right beneath me?"

Yuki held his blistering gaze. Her breath hitched as she whispered defiantly, "Why should I be scared? Why would a man who claims to hate my guts care if he sees me naked? If anything, you should feel completely repulsed."

A dark, humourless laugh rumbled deep in Kaden’s chest. "You are really something Snow" he drawled his blue eyes flickered gold. "You still don’t plan on walking away, and you clearly refuse to stay covered up, don’t you?"

Yuki defiantly tilted her chin up higher, pressing her luck. "Then leave. Walk away if you’re so worried and can’t stand it. This isn’t the only place in the forest."

"Fine then," Kaden murmured darkly.

Yuki blinked in genuine surprise. Her breath caught as she realised he was actually giving in. A wild, crazy part of her had actually wanted him to stay stubborn, to fight her on it. But what he did next completely fried every circuit in her brain.

"Since you want to play games, Snow," Kaden rasped, his voice dropping into a dangerous purr, "two can play that exact same game."

Before she could process his words, his large hand dropped from her jaw down to the waistband of his fitted joggers. With a deliberate, agonisingly slow motion, he hooked his thumbs into the elastic and pushed the fabric down past his hips, revealing the sharp, punishing V-line of his lower abdomen.

Yuki’s stomach violently flipped over. Her mind screamed at her to look away, to push him off, to stop him. But her body completely betrayed her, reacting on pure instinctual biology before her conscious mind could catch up.

A burning flush rushed across her skin, turning her face completely crimson. With a breathless gasp, she threw her hands forward, lunging to grab his waistband and stop him. But Kaden was too fast. With a swift, practised motion, he caught both her wrists in one massive hand, pinning them securely above her head, while his free hand shoved the trousers down entirely.

"Why is your heart racing so fast, Snow?" Kaden taunted softly, leaning in so close his lips brushed the shell of her ear. "You shouldn’t be panicking like this. After all, it completely contradicts your little philosophy about us just being ’siblings,’ doesn’t it?"

He deliberately dragged out the word siblings, turning it into a filthy, mocking curse.

Kaden shifted his weight, sliding his free hand down to firmly grip her bare waist, anchoring her hips flush against his body so completely that every desperate twitch of her struggle became useless. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, inhaling her scent deeply. His voice grew hoarse, rough, and ragged as he whispered directly against her sensitive skin like he was sharing a dark, forbidden confession.

"Don’t you dare lie to me." he growled against her pulse. "You love to fucking test me, don’t you?"

Yuki completely froze. They were both stark naked, pressed skin to skin in the dead of night in the middle of a deserted forest. His bare body radiated intense, scorching heat against her like a roaring furnace, and she felt every single inch of it.

The heavy, rigid hardness of his arousal was pressed directly against her waist and butt, sending blinding shockwaves of heat straight through her core. Her breath hitched. Her throat turned bone-dry as a humiliating, heavy wetness pooled between her thighs.

Struggling to find her voice through the dense fog of arousal, Yuki forced a desperate, nervous laugh, trying to mask the panic in her tone. "Then why are you hard, Kaden? Don’t you fucking hate me?"

A dark, vibrating chuckle rumbled against her skin right beside her ear. His deep voice drawled out in a slow, punishing cadence. "News flash, Snow. My body still remembers how to get hard for my ex-mate."

His voice dropped to a low, gravelly whisper that sent shivers down her spine. "I’m hard right now because looking at you naked makes me want to forget everything and fuck you senseless until you scream my name. Loving someone and being sexually attracted to them are two entirely different things, Yuki. Now stop misbehaving, or you might just end up getting thoroughly fucked right here, on a riverbank, the night before your grand engagement to another man."

His harsh words were deliberately meant to frighten her. After all, she was supposed to despise him above all others. But instead of fear, her inner core clenched violently at the crude threat, and the wet, aching heat between her thighs only intensified at the filthy, degrading thought of him taking her right here, in the dirt, before she belonged to someone else. "Really.." she drawled. Her voice dropped. "Then do it if you dare."