~SCARLETT.

My feet were glued to the fucking soil.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the tall grass, swaying like it was mocking how completely terrified I’d become. My chest heaved, and every pulse thudded so loudly I could swear Liam could hear it.

Judging by the low, humorless laugh he exhaled against my neck… he could.

“What’s the matter, doll?” he hissed. “All that fire you had earlier… gone now. Shaking like some frightened little leaf. Where’d your bravado disappear to?”

Before I could even blink, his teeth clamped onto the shell of my ear, and a strangled, humiliating muffled gasp left me as an unwelcome shiver crawled straight...