The Devil Baron by K.J. Jackson

Author:K.J. Jackson [Jackson, K.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AWD Publishing
Published: 2022-10-05T18:30:00+00:00

{ Chapter 18 }

Victoria stared at the back of Rafe’s shoulders as he retreated into the woods, disappearing into the thin slit of the trail through the trees.

Her cheeks flush, her breath ragged and her body limp, she couldn’t stumble after him like her gut told her to do.

He’d left her. Abandoned her.

Again.

She wanted him and he’d walked away.

Because of her anger at her father?

Why?

Her head dropped back against the bark of the oak tree, her look on the bare branches above her. Three little leaves, the last ones on the tree, crinkled and brown, flapped in the cold wind, unable to let go.

Fascinated.

He was fascinated at the emotions she couldn’t control. She saw clearly how he would study her when she was bordering on mania.

One is only fascinated by something one doesn’t understand. Which meant he was fascinated by her emotions because he didn’t understand them—didn’t feel them.

Any of them.

A fissure speared through her heart at the thought.

That a boy that once loved a dog enough to save it at his own peril, had turned into something so cold, so empty, he didn’t understand emotions playing out in other people.

He didn’t understand enough to know that what had just happened between them had nothing to do with her father.

True, her anger had started with her father, but the second Rafe’s mouth had met hers, it was no longer about her father. All that anger twisted away, morphing into a vicious hunger for Rafe’s body to be touching hers. There was no emotion beyond what was happening between her and him and the insanity of this pull between them that she couldn’t deny.

Not that she wanted to deny it. Not any longer.

Her anger at her father? That was just a quizzing glass, held up to allow her to focus on what she truly wanted.

She wanted Rafe.

And she wasn’t going to let him abandon her so easily.

She started after him, her boots crunching loud atop the frost-dusted fallen leaves scattered in the woods, whereas he was silent as he walked amongst the trees. How someone as large as him could move quietly in a forest, she couldn’t figure.

There.

The flash of a dark coat around the bend.

She sped forward, catching him. Or had he slowed down for her?

No matter. Her hand grabbed his arm, her heels digging into the cold ground and leaves to stop his stride. “Rafe, wait.”

He didn’t turn to her, but he did look back at her over his shoulder as his stride halted. The cold mask had been secured firmly in place.

That fissure across her heart cracked a touch wider.

“You don’t understand.”

His left eyebrow lifted. “What do I not understand?”

She rounded him, planting herself in front of him, her fingers not dropping from her grip on his arm. “You don’t want me?”

His brow furrowed. “Why would you think that?”

She stepped in, her neck craning to look up at him, her look searching past the chill in his dark eyes. Searching until she found it—just on the edges of the brown where his eyes turned into wisps of hazel.

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