Chapter 9

• The next fifty minutes passed in a suffocating blur of white noise and pure torture.
• Dante paced the front of the lecture hall, his voice a rich, dark velvet as he dissected Renaissance chiaroscuro—the dramatic contrast between light and dark. But I couldn't focus on a single slide. Every time he raised a hand to point at the screen, my mind dragged me straight back to that dream. I watched the way his crisp white sleeves pulled against his broad forearms, imagining those same calloused hands pinning my wrists above my head, his cold blue eyes burning into mine while Ryder’s wild heat consumed me from behind.
• My skin felt like it was on fire. I kept my face lowered over my empty notebook, my knuckles white around my pen, praying my wolf instincts wouldn't broadcast my spiked heart rate to the front of the room. Every few minutes, I could feel Dante’s heavy, glacial gaze drilling straight into the top of my head, sharp and calculating.