He could wait just a little longer.
He wanted her wound up and desperate for him when he finally gave her what she needed. He wanted her body screaming for him, so there was no way she could deny the fire that burned between them.
"Run, little rabbit," he said. "Or the wolf's going to catch you."
Faith blanched at his harsh tone, but she made no effort to speed up…and it wasn't because she couldn't. Troy knew betas were capable of intense bursts of strength and speed when they thought their lives depended on it.
"You don't want to run faster, do you?" he said in a low, seductive voice, knowing it would get under her skin. The same way her sultry scent drove him wild. "Because you don't really want to get away. You want me to catch you."
"Shut up, devil," she hissed.
Troy slowly smiled. His little provocateur had some fire to her, that was for sure.
"That's not a no," he observed. Far from it.
She didn't respond, but the scent of her slick intensified, and Troy licked his lips in anticipation.
He'd had enough. He couldn't wait any longer.
"You're about to find out what the devil can do," Troy growled, taking her in his arms and then to the ground, letting the snow break his fall as she landed on top of him.
Faith kicked and thrashed in a half-hearted attempt to get free. It would have made him laugh if he wasn't on fire with darker thoughts. He'd seen and scented her true desperation back at Evander's earlier, and this paled in comparison.
Faith was fighting against the inevitable—but it wasn't the assault of a stranger that she feared most. The thing that Faith was battling so hard was herself, her own needs and desires. Her true nature.
Troy rolled her onto her back, pried open her knees, and positioned himself in between. He could feel her dampness through his jeans, and it took every ounce of his control not to tear them off and plunge inside her.
"Get off me," she yelled.
"I could do that," Troy said, adopting a bored tone as he propped himself up on his elbow. "Or I could stay and show you all those dirty things they warned you about. The ones you were too afraid to ask about. The ones that kept you up at night."
Faith's eyes widened, her hips involuntarily rocking against him. As hard as she'd fought him before, as desperate as she'd initially been to escape him, it was a distant memory now. Her body was taking over her conscious mind, its demands meeting less and less resistance from her virtue.
"You…really are the devil's spawn," she stammered.
He shook his head. "My name is Troy. Say it."
Faith shook her head, her long blonde hair splayed against the snow. Her eyes rolled back as she fought a battle inside herself.
"I won't," she whispered.
Troy slid his hand up her skirt, her silken skin at odds with the heavy, scratchy fabric of her dress. He caressed her thigh, dipping between her legs.
"Say it," he repeated.
* * *
Faith would never say his name.
It didn't matter how hard she had to clench her jaw. She would bite her tongue clean off if she had to.
The alpha was a devil, and that's all he would ever be to her. Nothing would change that.
Not even the huge, strong hand stroking her thigh, its very rhythm an obscenity.
Faith trembled at the sensation of his fingertips caressing her naked flesh, coming dangerously closer with each stroke to…that place.
No one had ever touched her like this. No one had ever touched her there. Not Peter—not anyone.
It wasn't something decent people did. It wasn't right.
But if that was the case, why wasn't she resisting? Why wasn't she kicking and screaming? Why wasn't she trying to force this beast off her so she could save herself?
The alpha might be twice her size, but he was on his knees straddling her, not holding her down. There was nothing preventing Faith from wriggling out and running away again.
Nothing but the strange, wicked sensations that kept building inside her, inflamed by his unholy ministrations, threatening to boil over at any second.
And if that happened…
Faith gasped as a new torrent of slick splashed from within. He slid his hand through it, rubbing it between his fingers, exulting in it. She added yet another sin to the list—it had to be idolatry, the pleasure he took from her shameful wetness—but then he slipped a finger lightly over her hard nub, and she gasped.
He hadn't been lying. He'd meant what he'd said about touching her there.
And if he hadn't been bluffing about using his fingers, maybe he hadn't been lying about his lips either.
As if reading her mind, he lifted his hand and made a show of letting her slick drip down onto his tongue. His eyes drifted closed, and he let out a growl—deeper and lower than any sound he'd made yet—that shook the air around them. A sharp shiver, part pleasure and part ache, ran through Faith at the sound.
Suddenly, she understood the real danger she was in. It wasn't from the alpha in front of her, but from the building sensations in her own body.
This had to be what her parents had warned her about, the reason they'd never wanted to leave her alone with boys—even Peter.
Not that Faith had ever felt this way about poor scrawny Peter. Not even close.
But now it was her own emotions that couldn't be trusted. To be so easily seduced—she might as well have never set eyes on a Bible. One touch, one growl, and she was drenching her clothes with the proof of her sinful thoughts.
Panic and disgust with herself combined to make Faith try to push the alpha away for him for real, but as she writhed underneath him, her hips rocked up against his huge thigh.
A bright, almost sharp sensation zinged through Faith, starting low in her belly
