Chapter 5: Tell me what you want?

Lyra's POV

Of all the moments for him to walk in, it had to be this one.

But the desire pulled me toward him, drawn by his scent of frost-bitten pine and black pepper.

I could not understand. Though no mate bond existed between us, I could still catch his scent, and even felt the pull to close the distance between us.

But the moment my consciousness was about to reach him, an invisible barrier suddenly rose between us. It was as if someone had deliberately severed this connection. No matter how I reached, I could not cross that boundary.

I fought the urge to move closer, knowing he would discover Vern's mark.

I couldn't—yet I found myself breathing in that scent greedily anyway, letting it ease the burning heat.

Every thought of Vern was driven from my mind.

I felt him bend down and lift me, carrying me to the soft bed and laying me down gently.

His calloused fingertips brushed my cheek, wiping away tears, and both his scent and touch sent shivers through me.

The wetness between my legs increased, and I could barely restrain myself from lunging at him, from kissing him.

But then he pulled away, and the absence of him hit me like a physical blow.

He stood there looking down at me with those blue-gray eyes, and somehow the weight of his gaze only intensified my desire.

I could feel myself growing wetter, my body completely betraying me, and I thought I might lose my mind.

"You could try asking," Drax said, his voice dropping lower, rougher.

"See what I might be willing to do for you."

The words sent heat flooding through me that had nothing to do with Vern's forced bond.

Was he actually offering—

"I... no..." The denial came out breathless, unconvincing even to my own ears.

"I don't need anything. I'm just not feeling well. You really don't need to worry about me."

Some rational part of my brain was still screaming warnings—that I was Lyra, not Cynthia, that my neck bore another man's permanent claim, that one wrong move would expose everything.

But that voice was drowning beneath wave after wave of chemically-induced need, the wolf in me clawing at my insides with a desperation that had nothing to do with choice and everything to do with Vern's deliberate weaponizing of my body against me.

"Don't lie to me."

He cut through my weak protest, his tone still measured but edged with something darker now, something that made my wolf whimper in confused submission.

"Your body's already told me everything your mouth won't."

Shame burned through me even as another wave of need crashed over my senses, the forced heat warring with my survival instincts in a battle I was rapidly losing.

He was right—my scent had to be saturating the air by now, giving me away far better than any words could, though I desperately hoped the artificial nature of it remained concealed.

My thighs trembled as I pressed them together harder, trying to protect what little dignity I had left while my mind raced through increasingly panicked calculations about how long I could maintain this charade before he noticed something fundamentally wrong.

"Is that so?"

He moved with predatory grace, slow and deliberate, bracing one hand beside my head as he leaned over me.

The mattress dipped under his weight, and suddenly I was caged beneath him, trapped between his body and the bed like prey with nowhere left to go.

The sheer presence of him pressed down on me—dominant, inescapable, overwhelming—and some primal part of me that had nothing to do with reason responded with a shameful, desperate need to submit, even as the small voice of reason whispered that submission meant exposure, that the permanent mark on my neck would be discovered, that the entire carefully constructed lie would crumble.

He lowered his head, taking his time, his nose brushing along my exposed throat as he inhaled deeply, and my entire body went rigid with a terror that cut through even the chemical haze.

I felt his breath ghost across my overheated skin, dangerously close to where Vern's teeth had broken flesh and bound me to him forever, and my pulse jumped wildly beneath his lips in a rhythm that spoke of fear as much as arousal.

"Unusual," he murmured against my neck, a word that landed somewhere low in my stomach.

"There's something... layered about your scent. Something that doesn't quite fit."

Panic spiked through the haze of desire, sharp and clarifying.

Can he smell Vern's mark beneath the artificial heat?

Has he already started to suspect that I'm an impostor?

My hands twitched with the urge to push him away, to protect the secret that could cost me everything, but my body refused to cooperate, held hostage by chemistry and desperation in equal measure.

But before I could form any coherent response or marshal my scattered defenses, his hand slid down my side, fingers trailing over the curve of my waist with deliberate slowness that made rational thought nearly impossible.

"Tell me what you want."

His voice was a low command now, one that made my body respond even as my mind screamed warnings about consequences and discoveries and the permanent bond already carved into my flesh.

"Or I walk out that door and leave you to deal with this yourself."

The thought of him leaving—of being abandoned to this burning, empty need with no relief and no way to explain what Vern had done to me—was suddenly unbearable, though I knew letting him stay carried risks that might prove fatal to my carefully constructed identity.

My hands moved without permission, reaching up to clutch at his shoulders, feeling the solid muscle beneath the expensive fabric of his suit while my mind catalogued every danger: his proximity to the mark, his already noted suspicion about my scent, the way this forced intimacy would create expectations I couldn't possibly meet.

"Please..."

The word escaped before I could stop it, small and broken and far too honest, less about wanting him and more about surviving what Vern had turned my own body into.

"Please what?"

He pulled back just enough to look down at me, those blue-gray eyes pinning me in place as effectively as his body did.

I realized with dawning horror that this moment would define everything that came after—that whatever I said next would either buy me time or destroy the illusion entirely.

"Say it," Drax said.