"Eth—"

I opened my mouth to speak, but the words were choked back by the wave of scorching heat radiating from Ethan's body.

In the confined space, the air seemed to thicken, becoming heavy and charged with tension.

His hands braced on either side of me, trapping me between him and the back of the couch. His gaze was terrifying.

There was no yelling, no accusations. Ethan simply leaned in, silently and aggressively. His nose nearly brushed my skin, trailing from my collarbone up to the hollow of my neck.

I stiffened, too nervous to even breathe.

The crushing pressure of a top-tier Alpha King wrapped around me like a suffocating, airtight web.

A strange heat began to bloom along the inner thighs he'd forced apart, sending my heart into an irregular, frantic thrumming.

"Such strong cologne," Ethan murmured in a low voice, rough with a barely contained fury. "Rose… and a nauseating stench of cheap cologne."

My heart skipped a beat. He smelled it!

According to the plan, I was supposed to boldly admit that I had a man now and make him leave me.

But as I faced this beast on the edge of losing control, I couldn't utter the words I had prepared. All I felt was the primal fear that made me want to run and deny everything.

Ethan's finger suddenly lifted a stray lock of hair by my ear. His fingertips ghosted over the red mark I had carefully created.

The touch was light, but it sent a shiver down my spine.

If he shifted my hair just a fraction more, the forged hickey would be completely exposed.

"Freya."

His breath fanned against my sensitive ear. It felt hot and wet, with a force that seemed to burn me from the inside out.

"Where did you go this morning, besides picking up Nora from the airport?" Ethan asked.

"N-Nowhere…" I turned my face away, unable to meet his eyes. "I just… stayed in the car..."

Damn it!

If I had just told him that I went to a love hotel, it would have angered him enough to break our mate bond. But I completely chickened out under that suffocating stare.

A strange sense of guilt and pressure made it feel like the oxygen was being sucked out of the room, and my chest tightened with panic.

"Really?" Ethan let out a soft chuckle, but his smile never reached his eyes.

His hand suddenly slid down along the strands of my hair. His fingers felt slightly rough as they grazed the most sensitive skin on the side of my neck.

"If you didn't go anywhere…"

He suddenly moved closer. With his lips hovering just over my ear, he spoke in a tone so deep it sounded like a murmur from the depths of hell.

"Then where did this smell of another man come from?"

"Mm…"

Whether it was fear or the sensation of my ear being teased, I shuddered, and a soft gasp escaped from deep within my throat.

It was trembling and seductive, sounding exactly like the sound I made when he pushed me to my absolute limit in bed.

The air seemed to freeze at that moment.

Ethan's crimson eyes darkened with fury. That sound made him seethe with jealousy, yet simultaneously filled him with the satisfaction of total control.

He straightened up abruptly and swept his arm out.

With a swoosh, the heavy blackout curtains were drawn shut. The room plunged into darkness, as if the night had come early.

In the dark, his glowing eyes locked onto mine.

"Can't answer me?"

Ethan closed in on me, completely blocking off any retreat. "Since you can't answer me…"

In the darkness, he traced the glaring red mark, then pressed his fingertip into it as if trying to erase both the skin and the memory with it.

His voice was harsh and obsessive as he growled, "Then let your body remember every moment that's about to happen. Forget everything that shouldn't be in your mind, completely!"

With those words, his large hand slammed against the back of my head. Driven by a raw possessiveness, he crashed his lips onto mine in a brutal kiss.

He wanted to overwrite everything with his scent, his mark, and his very being, leaving me with nothing but the memory of him.