Chapter 452-We Kiss Like Lovers

Chapter 452: 452-We Kiss Like Lovers

Verity:

"Verity, stop talking," he warned.

But for some reason, my gaze dropped to his trousers.

"Don’t do that. It’s... I’m not hard. I mean, it’s hard to explain why I was hard, or why there was a bulge. What the fuck have you done to me, Verity?"

He was fumbling so badly, blurting out random words and unfinished sentences, that he only managed to embarrass himself further.

I could even see tears gathering in his eyes.

Honestly, I was starting to feel bad for him.

"And no, I don’t. I don’t look for reasons to touch you. Sometimes I get a little physical, but it’s not in a sexual way. Or any other way. No, I don’t even get sexual with you. I mean, physical with you."

He kept stumbling over his words, seemingly unable to find a single explanation that didn’t make things worse.

"You know what? I hate you."

After all that rambling, those were the only words he finally managed to get out.

He pointed a finger at me before storming toward the office door.

"And you know what? Stay here all you want! Finish every last bit of that work because I don’t want you leaving. If you leave anything unfinished now, you’re fired!"

And with that, he stormed out.

Well, there it was. His way of taking his anger out on me.

His ego had taken one hell of a beating, and I could certainly tell.

He continued ranting even after the door had slammed shut.

He was so embarrassed that he couldn’t bring himself to come back inside.

Honestly, I found it a little funny, but I also felt sorry for him.

Until I remembered why I was doing all of this in the first place.

The smile slowly faded from my face.

I got up, fetched some wipes, and began cleaning my desk.

’Don’t get too attached to his actions,’ my wolf grumbled inside my head.

’If the Moon Goddess hadn’t made us mates with his brothers, I would’ve never even thought about any of them that way.’

Of course, my wolf just had to remind me.

And I knew exactly why she kept doing it.

She’d told me before how much she hated it when I acted as though I’d forgotten what they had done to my brother.

But that wasn’t true.

I hadn’t forgotten anything.

The problem was that the mate bond had complicated everything.

’That’s bullshit,’ my wolf interrupted, having read my thoughts.

’If this were only about the mate bond, you’d feel this way about Jaguar and Theodore. But your emotions toward Ragnar are completely different. The fact that seeing tears in his eyes made you feel sorry for him... I pity you.’

I squeezed my eyes shut, clenching the wipe in my fist and pressing it hard against the desk.

"You just keep making things harder for me!" I finally snapped, throwing the wipe onto the table. "You need to understand that none of this has been easy for me either. While you were comfortably sleeping, I was the one facing everything!"

I couldn’t hold back anymore.

She’d suddenly woken up and started acting like some fucking queen.

Every time I spoke to her, she had something to say, something to criticize.

No matter what I did, she always managed to make me feel terrible about it.

"Where the hell were you when those goons were sent to my house, huh, Art? Where were you then? And where were you when my brother was lying in the hospital and I was forced to strip naked in front of that perverted father and son? You were fast asleep back then, weren’t you? But now you’ve decided to wake up just so you can criticize me?"

I didn’t know what had gotten into me, but once I started, I couldn’t seem to stop.

Maybe it was all the frustration I’d been bottling up.

The moments I shared with Ragnar left me feeling strange.

Whenever we were together, I somehow forgot everything else, and I genuinely enjoyed our constant bickering.

But the moment my wolf reminded me of my mission, I ended up lashing out at her.

I knew I wasn’t handling things the right way, but that didn’t mean what I was saying was wrong.

Art wasn’t exactly innocent either.

She’d abandoned me when I’d needed her the most, especially when my brother had needed help.

"Why? Nothing to say now?" I demanded, shaking my head.

"And I know it was the Moon Goddess who made them my mates, not you. Because you didn’t even have the strength to wake up! You couldn’t even manage a single transformation. So why don’t you just shut up and let me work?"

I gestured dismissively before dropping back into my chair and resuming my typing.

I was pounding the keys so aggressively that I genuinely thought I’d break the keyboard before the night was over.

Then something unexpected happened.

For the next three hours, I worked without a single interruption.

No arguments, no distractions, nothing.

I’d almost forgotten about my earlier confrontation with Ragnar.

At that point, I figured I’d either finish everything there or take whatever was left home, complete it overnight, and submit it the following morning.

But three hours later, the office door suddenly slammed open.

I jolted in my seat and whipped my head around to see who had barged in.

Ragnar stood in the doorway, looking completely disheveled.

"I told you, I’m not leaving until I finish my work," I announced, even though, deep down, I desperately wanted to go home.

He didn’t respond.

He simply stood there, staring at me.

"What happened? Is everything okay?" I asked, slowly rising from my chair.

That was when I noticed he wasn’t merely disheveled.

He was drenched from head to toe from the rain.

I had no idea where he’d been or what he’d been doing, but he looked as though he’d been restless ever since our argument.

Still, he said nothing.

He was breathing so heavily that he seemed to be struggling to catch his breath.

"Don’t get so upset about what happened earlier. I was only trying to tease you," I assured him in a low, breathy voice.

Honestly, I was starting to worry that he’d come back to murder me.

But there was something strange about the energy radiating from him, something I couldn’t quite understand.

"Ragnar, if you’re here for another argument, I’m really not in the mood. I’m exhausted."

I was still speaking, standing in front of my desk, when he suddenly approached me.

But he wasn’t charging at me aggressively.

There was something unexpectedly warm about the way he came closer.

And before he even reached me, I noticed his gaze drop to my lips.

He stopped for a brief second when he was right in front of me, then gently cupped my cheek with one hand while placing the other on my waist.

I supposed those few seconds were his way of giving me a chance to push him away.

But I didn’t.

And when I made no move to stop him, he leaned in and crashed his lips against mine.