When I didn’t respond or move, Monster grunted and tugged his apron off. He hung it on a peg inside the pantry before turning to look at me. When he did, I wished he hadn’t.
Should’ve stayed in the dirty clothes.
His eyes flared with molten heat, traversing my body without a speck of shame. He started at my feet, lifted his gaze to my calves and thighs and hips. Traced the possessive brush of his attention over the flat plane of my stomach and the curves of my breasts.
The shirt I’d picked was—obviously—too big. A generous amount of my chest showed, and I shivered when he paused on my cleavage before moving onto my collarbones. A lifetime later, he got to my face. Then, the hair I hadn’t placed in my usual braid.
His eyes didn’t flare this time; they blazed. Twin furnaces of blue beamed out, threatening to devour me in the heat inside them.
Monster swaggered across the floor, the muscles in that big body of his rolling and working in perfect unison until he was right in front of me. “I like your hair this way.” He reached out to slide his fingers through it. “You look less likely to kick unsuspecting men in the fucking balls.”
I folded my arms over my chest, cocking my hip so I could lean against the doorjamb. “Is that supposed to be a compliment? If so, you should probably try again.”
“Searching for praise now, pussycat?” His grin was the same one devils wore when they collected souls. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”
God, and the worst of it was that he was right.
What was I doing? Waiting on him to say something nice about how I looked?
Didn’t I know better than that by now?
Sure, he wanted to fuck me, and that feeling was certainly mutual. But what guy wasted time fishing for sweet things to say for a piece of ass? Especially when he could wander through the city and find a girl that was everything I wasn’t.
Hell, Monster could snap his fingers and put together a collection of women who weren’t poor, scarred, caustic, or generally allergic to those things called emotions.
“Fuck you, dude.” I ducked my head, letting my hair fall over my face, and made to go around him. “I knew I should’ve split when I had the chance.”
He caught me by the elbow, hauling me back in front of him despite my protest. “You had a chance, and now it’s gone,” he said pleasantly. “Don’t even pretend you’re going to be all pissy about sleeping on a real fucking bed instead of inside that hole in the wall death-trap you call a house.”
The steady thump of my heart sped up, and I tried to jerk out of his grip. Unsurprisingly, I went nowhere. His fingers stretched all the way around my arm, and while the grip he held me in wasn’t bruising at the moment, I couldn’t break it without more violence than I wanted to employ.
“Not all of us have a cushy mansion to go back to,” I spat, still not looking at him. “Don’t lecture me on what kind of roof I keep over my head when you’ve never gone hungry a day in your life!”
Monster was quiet for a moment, then he pushed me backward. My back hit the wall behind me, and I barely had time to grunt before he was there, caging me in, arms on either side of my head.
I shoved at his chest, so ready to be out of here I wasn’t even thinking about the buffet laid out behind him. This was a bad idea. Guys were things to be used and disregarded when they stopped suiting my needs. The same way I used Micah’s attraction to me as a way of keeping him on as my middleman between Nikolai and the other investors.
Guys weren’t supposed to be able to get a rise out of me. They weren’t supposed to be able to make me shake with fury and drip between my legs at the same time. And with more than a fair share of shame, I felt the truth of that as I rubbed my thighs together.
Monster ducked his head lower, and even though I was making a sport out of staring at his chest, I could feel his eyes boring into my forehead through the curtain of hair. “Why are you hiding?” he asked.
I wet my lips, turning away. “Hiding what?”
His sigh was part exasperation and part mocking. “Don’t play this game with me. If I have to fuck the answer out of you, I will. I’ll spread your fucking legs right against this wall and pound into that tight pussy until you’re willing to tell me everything.”
My lips parted on a soft gasp. That mental image did nothing for the flaring sparks I was trying to smother. “You act like I would just let that happen.”
Girl, why are you flirting with him? What part of get the hell out of here stopped being relevant?
Monster pushed his entire body against mine, obliterating the space that I needed to keep between us. His lips drifted up the column of my neck, and the hands on his chest that were supposed to be pushing him away instead curled in the fabric of his tank top while his tongue followed the path his lips had burned.
“You would.” He caught the lobe of my ear between his teeth and bit down, drawing a moan from me that I couldn’t stop. “Even if it wasn’t written all over your face, these are making your point for you.”
I didn’t have to wait for my brain to recover from the fog of lust before I realized what he meant. Monster flicked my nipple through the shirt and my back arched. He did the same to the other one, and if not for his knee between my legs I might’ve slid down the wall to the floor given the sudden weakness in my knees.
“And trust me,” he continued, sucking on the lobe he’d captured. “I’ll have you pliant and flushed beneath me soon. But what I want to know right now is why you’re hiding your scar from me? It’s not like I haven’t seen it before.”
Swallowing thickly, I tipped my chin up. But that took about everything I had in me. Answering was out of the question.
As if he knew, Monster pushed himself off the wall enough to get a hand between us. He pushed the screen of hair over my cheek, tucking the strands delicately behind my ear. It was hard to believe a man capable of such brutality could manage something like that.
But oh Lord, he did, and managed to look damn good doing it too.
“Tell me,” Monster said, fingertip sliding along the scar in question.
I lifted a brow, refusing to get into this. “The food is going to get cold.”
The play of emotions across his face was worth nearly being caught in a burning building.
Monster blinked. Cursed. Tossed a glare over his shoulder like he was angry at the food he had made for being the source of the interruption. When he turned back to me, there was a tic at the side of his jaw that hadn’t been there before.
Even though he let me up from the wall without a word and guided me to the table with a hand on the middle of my back, that tic said a whole lot.
Most importantly, it said I had only delayed the inevitable. An appropriate tell, considering that was how I felt around this man at all times.
Like I was running downhill from an avalanche with nowhere to hide and not nearly enough speed to get away.
I would be defenseless when he finally captured me, and that promised to be a terrible idea. Pain and embarrassment were familiar to me. I was used to having to go somewhere quiet to lick my wounds.
But while we sat down across from each other and started digging into the food with equal relish, I knew the kind of wounds Monster could leave on my heart and soul—if I let such a thing happen—would take more than bandages and stitches.
They would require a full-blown transplant.
So...why am I not running the fuck away? Still?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Josie
I kept waiting for Monster to hound me.
Once the food became scarce, I chewed slower, half-expecting him to come lunging over the kitchen island to pin me down and have his way with me.
After being so close to him, watching the profile of his handsome face while he ate, checked his phone, and otherwise ignored me, the thoughts he had put in my head were impossible to ignore. I kept thinking about how he said he would fuck me.
So when the plates were cleared—mostly
by him, dude was an eating machine—of everything but the last bit of remaining syrup and honey, imagine my surprise when he simply got up and started taking things to the sink and washing them.
I hovered awkwardly in the background for a while, unsure what the proper etiquette was after my offer for help was shot down with a grunt. He’d hardly broken eye contact with whatever was on his stupid phone to do it. To avoid lingering when he obviously had something else on his mind, I made my way back to the living room and the giant television I had dreamed about.
Alright, fine. I had spent less time dreaming about the TV than I had its bulky, irresistible owner. Sue me.
Either way, that was where I cozied up for the next hour, mindlessly watching a soap opera while I kept an ear trained on the kitchen. Monster took a few calls, but the only thing interesting about any of them was the sound of his voice echoing across the space.
Unless he was speaking in code when he was talking about application fees and security deposits and background checks. Except that seemed needlessly complicated and unlikely. So, I figured he was handling business and mostly tuned out of it.
At any moment...he was going to charge from the kitchen.
He’d pursued me for this long, hadn’t he? Now here I was, in the lair of the beast without so much as a pair of panties to preserve my modesty.
The thought sent a distracting flush up my neck, so I almost missed the familiar sound of that heavy steel door closing in the kitchen. I was on my feet faster than I cared to admit, peeking my head around the corner to look. Monster was nowhere to be seen.
What the hell is down there that’s so interesting?
Allowing myself to pout since he wasn’t there to see it, I ambled back into the living room and reclaimed my spot.
Did it matter what he was up to? I wouldn’t be able to visit Mom again until tomorrow anyway. Might as well kill time to let some of the heat die down before I ventured into town.
What better place to stay out of sight than at a compound no one knew about?
Weren’t you just worried about being swept away to an unfamiliar place? And what happened to packing up and leaving at the first sign of real trouble? Pretty sure angry Russians that know you stole their money counts.
I ignored everything that sensible voice was saying. Not because it was wrong. Not because I didn’t want to admit to those things, either. But because all of my focus was on that door in the kitchen and what the man behind it was freaking doing.
See? Whether or not this was meant to be a test like I thought when I woke up didn’t matter. If it was, I was going to fail the damn thing with flying colors because I couldn’t take it anymore.
I had to know.
In minutes, I’d worked up the nerve to tiptoe into the kitchen again. Which was ridiculous, by the way. That door was so damn heavy, I could’ve screamed and he wouldn’t have known the difference.
Unless he had cameras or microphones set up.
Which...I wouldn’t put past him.
I glanced around, eyes flitting over places I thought surveillance equipment might be. When I found nothing, either because there was nothing to find or because he’d hidden them too well, I focused on the task at hand.
A closer look at the door told me this wasn’t going to be easy. Even if I had my lock-picking stuff with me, which I didn’t, there wasn’t anywhere for them to go. Lifting my hair off my neck in frustration, I stared at the digital keypad.
Cracking passwords was not my strong suit. I’d picked up a few things when it came to thieving from some guys I used to run with in another state, but this was far above my pay grade. I would need a computer and lots of time to make a valid attempt.
That wasn’t going to work.
Curiosity gnawed a hole in the pit of my stomach. Every moment I spent unaware of what was happening down there, the stories my mind provided got stranger and stranger.
What if that was his torture chamber where he locked up women like me who were crazy enough to come home with him?
What if he was a government agent who kept his disguises and confidential stuff down there, and seeing any of them would mean he had to kill me?
What if he really was a vigilante and owned all kinds of cool toys that could aid him in fighting crime after dark when he wasn’t killing people or selling houses?
That’s such a strange combination.
What if—
Before I created an even wilder fantasy about the walking black spot of information, the door opened.
I took a step back, eyes wide, but I didn’t bother running. That would prove my guilt.
Monster was covered in a light sheen of sweat and I could almost pick out the smell of...smoke? He lifted a brow while I stared at him, openly curious.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to stand it,” he said, voice smug. “What was the plan? Stare at the door until you melt a hole through several feet of solid metal?”
I stopped glancing over his shoulder long enough to glare at him. “You do have cameras. That’s not creepy at all. Do you just disappear down there so you can watch me or something?”
He shook his head. “Not everything is about you, pussycat. And if you were curious, you should’ve just asked.”
My eyes narrowed and I stepped closer. “You’re the one that told me to stay out. That’s like waving a red flag in front of a bull and expecting them not to charge.”
“You know bulls don’t actually charge because of the color, right? Cattle are colorblind.” He smirked when my eyes rolled. “They’re pissed because they get treated poorly and then have to deal with some asshole waving something in their face.”
“I didn’t take you for an animal lover.”
“More of a dog guy, really.”
“I haven’t seen any Rottweilers with bared teeth anywhere.”
His lips curved in an actual smile and my heart punched me in the ribs. “Why are you implying I would have an attack dog?”
My shoulder lifted in a relaxed shrug. I was going for, no, you’re not cute. Stop thinking you are.
Although I’m not certain I pulled it off.
“If the shoe fits,” I said, peering around him again. “Are you going to show me what’s in the basement or do I need to kick you in the balls again and make a break for it?”
He stepped to the side and lifted an arm. “After you.”
“So you can be behind me the whole time? I don’t think so.”
His smile disappeared, lips thinning into a grim line that had me mourning its absence immediately.
He glared at me. “You think I would hurt you?”
Take it back. Stop being a bitch.
But what I said was, “Get on with the tour before you decide you don’t want me down there again.”
His fists clenched at his sides and he turned on his heel, stomping away down the stairs. He was already disappearing out of sight when he hollered, “Are you fucking coming or not?”
Great. Poke the bear after he cooked for you and was being pleasant. Such an awesome plan. Seriously, well done.
Sighing at my nature, I padded across the floor after him. He hit a button on the wall during our descent and I heard the door at the top of the steps close by itself. I glanced over my shoulder and sure enough, the only way out was now blocked.
I might’ve made an appropriately big deal about that if the rest of the space hadn’t come into view a moment later. Monster moved to the side and leaned against a wall, watching me as I stepped onto the padded mats and looked around.
There was a lot to take in. I got momentarily stuck on the piles of demolished bricks right in front of me before my eyes slid to the far right. Where the padded floors ended, a state-of-the-art gym on shiny tile began, complete with treadmills, benches, heavy bags, and squat racks.
There was even a salmon ladder in the corner, and the thought of him displaying all that shirtless strength while he made his way up was enough to leave me hot and bothered.
M
y gaze roved the other way, then froze. Full systems stop. Do not pass go. Do not collect a single penny because holy shit.
Excitement danced up my spine. “Is that—”
“Yes.”
Well, he was still pissed. Not that I blamed him. “You have a gun range in your basement? You know...normal people would do something like a bowling alley.”
Monster stood to his full height and crossed towards me, arms folded over his chest and a scowl on his chiseled features. “Do I look like a normal person?”
“Without the Sinner’s tattoo showing?” I looked him up and down carefully. “Almost.”
The slight quirk to his lip returned. Despite himself, he enjoyed it when I was a smartass.
How many people could he count on to talk back to him?
Monster tucked his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Almost, huh?” I nodded. “Well, since you’re so disappointed it’s not a bowling alley, I guess you wouldn’t mind going back upstairs without seeing the range?”
“Let’s just hold our horses for a minute here, big man. You can’t put something like that on the table and then take it away.”
“Looks like I just did.” His eyes flashed with something wicked. “Unless…”
I laughed and didn’t bother to try and stop it. “You’re seriously going to blackmail me right now?”
“Sinners don’t play fair, baby.” Sweet Jesus, the sound of that endearment on his tongue. “You’d do well to remember that. I’ll show you everything you need to know on one condition.”
“What condition?” I asked, voice breathy with anticipation.
No matter how much I wanted to pretend I was unaffected by him, it was a lie.
There was no escaping or denying it.
No pretending this was a hallucination or some other reality. I knew what he was going to ask for and I’m not ashamed to admit I wanted it almost as much as he did.
“Afterward,” he rumbled, hand briefly going to my neck. His thumb traced across the fluttering pulse there. “You’re fucking mine, pussycat. In whatever way I decide to take you.”
Monster: A Seven Sinners Novel Page 12
