Primal Instinct

12- SUPERNATURAL FEELING 2

The world narrowed to his face, the sharp cut of his cheekbones, the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw. His gaze dragged over mine, down to my flushed cheeks, then lower, lingering at my mouth with a hunger he tried, and failed, to hide.

His breathing hitched. Just once. The heat inside me surged. "What are you doing to me?" I whispered.

His eyes flashed silver. "Nothing," he said, but it sounded like a lie. "This is why humans shouldn't be here." He spoke softly on the word human like it was fragile. Breakable. Dangerous.

He stepped in closer. My back bumped the edge of his desk. Papers rustled. Our bodies didn't touch, but they might as well have. The air between us pulsed, thick and electric. I could feel his warmth, the coiled strength under his skin, the way his self-control vibrated on a knife edge.

He inhaled, slow and deep, his nose close enough to my neck that I felt the ghost of his breath. His eyes fluttered shut, like he was torturing himself on purpose.

"Your scent," he said, voice roughened. "It's changing."

I swallowed hard. "You're freaking me out, you know that?"

"Good," he muttered, like he didn't mean it. "Maybe you'll finally stay away from me."

My hand brushed his as I shifted, and the contact detonated something. He flinched, like he'd been burned. A low sound rumbled in his chest, a growl, quiet but unmistakable. His fingers twitched, like he wanted to reach for me and choke me at the same time. He jerked back as if breaking free from a magnet.

"Go," he snapped. "Take ten minutes. Cool off. You're useless to me like this."

Anger flared, sharp and blessedly separate from the heat. "Wow. Okay. Thanks for the motivational speech."

"I'm not here to motivate you," he said, voice clipped. "I'm here to run a company. Go, Ms. Carter. Before I do something we both regret."

Something in his tone made my stomach drop. The heat inside me snarled at the distance, but there was something wild and dangerous in his eyes now that even my confused, bond-drunk brain understood.

I turned and walked out, feeling his gaze on my spine the whole way to the private restroom on the executive floor. I gripped the edge of the sink and stared at my reflection. My face was flushed, lips swollen from biting them, pupils blown too wide. My curls frizzed around my head in a humid halo.

"I'm fine," I told the mirror.

The mirror didn't believe me. I didn't either.

Another wave of heat rolled through me, tightening around my core like a fist. My thighs pressed together on instinct. It didn't help.

"What is happening to you?" I whispered.

My skin felt too tight, like my body was something I'd been poured into rather than born in. Every breath was heavy. Every beat of my heart seemed to echo lower, between my legs, hot and insistent.

The worst part? It wasn't vague, aimless arousal. It was pointed. Focused. Every spike of need came with an image—his throat, his hands, his mouth, the way his eyes had darkened when he looked at me.

I turned on the faucet and splashed cold water onto my face, then my wrists. The shock made me gasp, but the relief was fleeting. The heat coiled deeper, annoyed at my attempt to tame it. I paced. I cursed. I pressed my palms into my eyes until I saw stars. Nothing helped. Finally, when I could at least stand up without panting, I straightened my clothes and went back to work. I knew something was wrong before I even reached my desk.

His scent was stronger in the air—thicker, threaded with something else that made the hairs on the back of my neck rise. There was a sharper tang under it, floral and sweet and unfamiliar.

Laughter floated through the half-closed door to his office. A woman's voice. Low. Confident. Comfortable. I froze outside my desk, heartbeat stumbling. Don't be weird, Nai. People are allowed to exist around him. You are not his wife. You are not his anything. My hand still tightened on the back of my chair.

Through the gap in the door, I saw her—a stunning woman in a fitted dress, legs crossed, perched casually on the corner of his desk like she belonged there. Her hair was long and glossy, a deep black that shimmered blue under the lights. Her skin glowed. She leaned in close, fingers brushing his tie.

Not the woman from breakfast. Someone else.

renton sat in his chair, body angled toward her. His expression was cool, maybe a little bored, but he didn't move away when she touched him. Her hand slid along his chest, over the gold chain at his throat. She said something I couldn't hear.

He huffed out a breath that might have been a laugh.

The heat inside me detonated into something vicious.

For a split second, I thought it was just jealousy—ugly, petty, stupid. But then the pain hit. It was nothing like the heat that was there before. It was a knife in my chest. I gasped, hand flying to my sternum. The world tilted. The hallway blurred at the edges.

Pain lanced from my chest down into my belly, coiling low. It wasn't physical and yet it was. The ache wrapped around my ribs, squeezing, like someone was ripping something out of me from the inside.

No. No no no.

The hum I'd felt all day shattered, turned into shards of glass dragging through my veins. My knees buckled. I grabbed the edge of my desk, nails digging into the wood.

My heartbeat was wrong again—not just fast, but doubled. Mine and... someone else's. Out of sync. Jagged. Each beat came with flashes of sensation that weren't mine—skin, hands, breath, lips on someone else's throat.

The woman's hand on his chest.

His hand on her.

"Oh God," I whispered.

The pain spiked. My stomach twisted so hard I thought I might throw up. Heat twisted into something else—sharp, bitter, pulsing with a rhythm that screamed betrayal in a language I didn't know I spoke.

I lurched away from my desk, vision swimming. No one else was out there to see the way I staggered toward the elevator. I didn't remember the ride down. Just the moment the doors closed, cutting off the sound of her laugh, the sight of his hand resting casually on her thigh. Another wave of pain hit so hard I slid down the wall, pressing my forehead to my knees until the elevator chimed open again.