“Let me take the lead,” I growl, my voice shivering with carnal need at this new development. “You don’t have to worry, my perfect virgin writer. I’ll show you how goddamn sexual you are.”
She bites her lip, releases it, forks at her plate with a shiver moving across her expression. “It’s funny, but I’ve always felt sexual, you know, in my internal life. In my mind, I’m the most confident person in the world when it comes to that stuff. But it’s never translated to reality…”
“Until last night,” I growl, reading her as I’ll always be able to.
“Exactly.” She nods. “Last night was just crazy. And when it was happening, I wasn’t thinking like this. I was wholly in the moment. I wonder if that’s what it’d be like if we… you know.”
I reach across the table and tuck her hair behind her ear, savoring the way she shivers at the gesture, as though reverberations of lust are moving through her.
“Do you have any idea how cute you are when you get all shy like that?”
She reaches up and touches my hand. “Just don’t be angry if I’m not what you hope I am.”
“What did I say before?” I snarl. “You already are. Now eat your damn food. I need to get you home.”
I pick up my burger and take a monstrous bite, smirking – with my mouth closed, I’m not a complete animal – when she lets out an adorable giggle.
“You’re crazy, Miller.”
She’s right. I’m completely certifiably crazy about her.
Her words dance through me, tempting me to claim her right here.
The savage buried deep inside of me – my whirring seed and my pounding desire – tell me to leap across the table and wrap my arm around her waist. The need tells me to bend her over the table and pull up her skirt, grabbing her ass cheeks as I guide my engorged helm to her hot pink hole.
But I have to hold myself back, at least for a little while longer.
Chapter Nineteen
Macie
His hand squeezes onto my thigh as we ride in the limousine back to his penthouse apartment. I can feel the need burning through his body, triggering an answering call of lust deep inside of me, my womb screaming out for him to slide his hand further up my leg and press down on my sex.
I shift my legs, feeling the wetness between my legs, the way my panties grind against my clit and my lips.
He smirks as his gaze moves over me, every part of him bulging in his suit. His tendons stand out on his neck and his facial features are tight like he’s trying to hold back a beastly roar of release.
He leans down and kisses my neck, softly, and then kisses up to a place behind my ear that sets my whole body tingling like he’s just pushed a button. I shiver and shift against him, moving closer, seeking more of the warmth his lips offer.
“You drive me fucking crazy,” he whispers in my ear, his warm breath painting me.
“You do the same to me,” I whimper, as his hand tightens against my thigh and sends more whirring lust between my legs.
Then he breaks it off with a gruff laugh. “I can’t keep touching you, my sweet virgin, or I’ll end up taking your hot needy hole right here. You deserve privacy. You deserve soft silk sheets for your first time.”
I nod, even if part of me wants to leap atop him and spread my legs, driving my sex down against his manhood and grind against him until he’s gasping with the need for me. I imagine grabbing his manhood through his pants, feeling how irrepressibly solid he is, stroking him up and down as I whisper dirty words in his ear.
One day, maybe, I’ll have the confidence to be so forward.
Right now I’m more concerned with thinking about what happens when we get home, oscillating between hungry want and aching nervousness, unsure of which is going to win.
“How many do you want?” he asks, squeezing his hands together as though it’s the only way he can stop himself from grabbing me again.
“How many what?” I ask, captivated by the way he looks in profile, every feature chiseled, his hulking body emanating volcanic heat.
“Children.” He glances at me, a smirk touching his lips. “Because let me tell you, Macie, I’d have a hundred with you if that’s what you wanted.”
“A hundred?” I giggle. “Don’t you think that’ll be, you know, impossible?”
He laughs, his eyes lighting up, and for a second he’s not my savage lover but the future father of my children, with kindness in his eyes, and I can imagine him sitting in front of a crackling fire with a book open on his lap as he reads to our gathered children. Who knows… maybe he’ll be reading one of my books to them.
“How many do you want?” I ask.
“Oh, no, you’re not getting away that easily.”
“What?” I giggle.
“Number one, I asked first. And number two, you’ve been thinking about being a mother for far longer than I’ve been thinking about being a father. I’d resigned to the fact I would never meet the woman of my dreams until you walked into my office.”
“Yeah, but…” I sit up straighter, aiming a challenging look at him. “Before that, you used to think about it, right? You used to dream about having a family. You thought you might meet the woman of your dreams. So when you used to fantasize about that, how many children were there?”
“You’re too damn clever,” he says, wrapping his hand around mine.
I notice he holds my hand with purposeful softness.
It’s like he can’t bring himself to squeeze me as hard as he wants because then it would lead to other things, to unleashing something inside of him he wouldn’t be able to stop.
The pre-Miller Macie would feel silly for thinking I could read so much in a handhold, but I’m starting to get sick and freaking tired of questioning myself. I can feel something burning through his body, the same way I can sense my womb whelming up inside of me, two primal forces calling to each other through the intimacy of our touches.
“But I still asked first,” he goes on. “Or are you going to make me add to the spank tally?”
“I thought that was for saying sorry?”
“Ah, there you go. Number three.”
I laugh, giving his hand a firm squeeze. “How the heck is that number three? I wasn’t saying sorry. I was just asking a question.”
“Number four.”
I laugh, rolling my eyes. “You are too much, Miller, really.”
My skin tingles with the thought of him spanking me, not hard, not like that BDSM stuff, but just enough to let me know I belong to him. I think of the way he turned savage in the restaurant, saying he’d tear anybody to pieces who tried to touch me, and I imagine that same Miller emerging in the bedroom.
Anxiety coils through me at the thought, because maybe I won’t be able to live up to what he needs.
Maybe I won’t be able to give him what he wants…
But at the same time, I want it. I need it. And I’m not going to spend my whole life living in fear.
“How many?” he asks, voice fiercer now.
“It’s different,” I murmur.
“What do you mean?”
“When I was going to be a single mother, I thought maybe two at the most. But now we’re going to do this together, four or even five… yeah, I think that would be a great number. We could still give each of them the attention they deserve, but they’d have plenty of brothers and sisters to get into trouble with. What about you?”
“Four or five,” he whispers, nodding. “I think that’s a great idea. And you’re right. We need for them to be able to get into some trouble with their siblings… but we’re not building an army.”
He leans in and kisses the edge of my mouth, and then I move my lips and kiss him fully, passionately, kiss him like I’ve never been shy for one moment in my entire life. I reach up and clasp onto his face, moaning through the kiss as our tongues clash together, as our bodies heat up and we start to lose control.
Then the limo abruptly stops.
I yelp and lurch
forward, the safety belt cutting into my belly.
Miller grabs me and pushes me softly back, immediately on high alert, his eyes glinting with the predatory instincts of a wolf.
He presses a button on the center panel. “Driver, why have we stopped?”
“There’s a man standing in the road, sir,” the driver says, a note of uncertainty in his voice. “No… several men.”
“Describe him,” I say, my voice catching. “What does he look like?”
“Um, he’s tall, quite strong-looking. He’s wearing a bomber jacket and he’s got long black hair.”
“It’s Derrick,” I say. “Jesus Christ, Miller. It’s Derrick.”
Miller bites down, glancing outside. “Motherfucker must’ve been watching us. He knew we would take the side road to reach the private garage. He knows attacking us away from the street is the best move. Fucking rat.”
“Sir, what shall I do?”
“Call the cops,” Miller snarls. “As long as we stay in here…”
“Miller,” a woman cries out, her voice wavering. “Don’t do anything he says.”
It takes me a moment to realize who that is.
Kayla, Miller’s mom.
Derrick has taken Miller’s mother hostage, the woman who was so kind to me earlier today, who made me wonder what it would be like to have her as a mother-in-law.
And now because of me, because of that sick fuck who will never leave me alone, her life is in danger.
I don’t even think.
I grab the door handle and push it open, leaping out onto the street, my heart pounding in my ears.
Chapter Twenty
Miller
I leap from the car the second Macie does, a siren of war blaring in my head. It’s the same feeling I get when I’m down at the gym, sparring with some of the younger men who want to make a name for themselves by taking out a man with a reputation.
I assess the situation quickly, glancing up and down the street.
We’re in the narrow side road, the one that leads to my private penthouse entrance. At the end of the road traffic moves by on the main street, a few pedestrians walking by, but in a big city like this nobody’s about to involve themselves.
Derrick stands at the head of a gang of men, six of them including him.
The bastard has a steroid look about him, a swollen physique I recognize well from my years spent training in martial arts.
All his men look the same, the lazy bastards.
Derrick is over six feet and would probably intimidate any other man, but all I feel is liquid fire in my veins when I see his hand on my mother’s wrist, bending her arm behind her back.
I move around the limo as Macie steps forward, quickly looping my arm around her and pulling her back. I have no idea what she thinks she’s going to do against six men.
“You fucking loser,” Macie screams, her voice cracking with absolute outrage. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? She’s done nothing to you.”
“Quiet, slut,” Derrick snarls.
His men chuckle behind him. They vary in age, from Derrick’s twenty-something to around my age, and all of them have the glassy eyes of junkies.
When I hear him call my woman a slut, I take several steps forward, intent on ending his rat life, only stopping when Mom lets out a whimper of pain.
I step back, my fists clenched tightly, ready to stomp this bastard’s face into the concrete.
“Let’s not be stupid here, Miller,” Derrick says, with a sick smile on his face. He even licks his lips, the sick fuck. “All I want is a fair trade. I’ll give you dear Mommy if you hand over my property.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Macie yells, directing her question at the men now rather than Miller. “Why would you go along with this?”
She pauses, tilting her head, and then lets out a vicious laugh.
“Oh, I see. Your inheritance. Jesus, Derrick. You’re using your inheritance to try and kidnap me?”
“Who the fuck has the hostage here?” Derrick roars, losing his temper like all steroid junkies do. “Or do you want me to rape this fucking old cunt right here in front of you? Is that it?”
That’s twice he’s insulted the women I love. I make a silent promise to bust his goddamn face open when I get my hands on him.
Mom holds herself with her regular dignity, despite the circumstances. She straightens her shoulders as much as she is able with his hand on her wrist, stiffening her lip.
“Don’t do what he says, dear,” she says, staring at Macie with so much affection in her eyes it makes me want to pound my chest in victory despite the circumstances.
Whatever else this proves, it’s that my mother and the love of my life have bonded already.
“Quiet,” Derrick snaps. “I’ve told you once. What’s it going to be, Miller? Some bitch you barely know, or your dear old ma?”
“I’m sorry,” Mom says, her eyes widening in fear and pain. “He said his dog was hurt and his cell phone had run out of charge. I followed him down here. I’m an idiot.”
“Yes, you are,” Derrick snarls. “But I’m pretty sure I told you to shut your bitch mouth.”
“You stupid fucking boy,” I growl, taking a step forward and leveling my gaze at him. He flinches as I stare hard at him, revealing his deep-set fear even if he’s trying to act tough. “You’ve insulted my mother. You’ve insulted the woman I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. Do you really think I’m going to let you get away with this?”
Derrick tosses his head, causing his lank black hair to shift around his face. “Are you people stupid or do you just act like it? I’m the one holding all the cards here, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Okay,” Macie says, walking up beside me and placing her hand on my shoulder.
She gives me a short squeeze, full of meaning.
“We’ll do the switch.”
“No, dear, no,” Mom cries. “I won’t allow that.”
“It’s not your choice, you old hag,” Derrick snarls.
Macie must be able to sense the rebellion happening inside of me, because she squeezes my shoulder again, silently screaming at me to go along with this. I know she’s planning something, but the protective impulse inside of me roars out to stop her…
But then that means leaving Mom in the hands of this lunatic.
This is a mess.
“See.” Derrick smiles, his eyes glimmering like he’s going to burst into tears as he stares at my woman. “That’s all I ever wanted, Macie. For you to see sense. We’re meant to be together. I hate that you drove me to this, that I had to go to these lengths to make you see something that should’ve been so obvious.”
“I know,” Macie murmurs, letting go of my shoulder and walking forward.
I prime my body, stalking subtly after her, my eyes scanning the way the men move. They’re low-rent thugs, and none of them are carrying weapons if their bearing is anything to go by.
But what if I’m wrong?
What if one of them has a gun and they pull it the second Derrick gets his hands on my woman?
I move after her, relieved Derrick is keeping his gaze on Macie. The sick fuck is captivated by her, a caricature of the way I feel about her.
I can read the evil glint in his eyes.
I can see that he’s going to do unspeakable things to her if I ever let him get his hands on her…
Not that I ever will.
My mind is filled with primal efficiency, with a song of pure war, as I get ready to take this man and his goons out.
Six against one are bad odds for anybody, but I’m driven by something far more potent than this bastard could ever understand.
I’m driven by love.
“Nice and easy,” he says, creeping forward with my Mom walking in front of him. “We’ll make the switch and be on our way. I knew you’d come round, Macie. I knew you’d see things my way.”
“Of course,” Macie says, doing a decent job of hiding her disgu
st. “It’s always been you, Derrick. I just needed you to make me see that.”
How insanely deranged must this bastard be to believe this?
The answer is very because he shoves my mother forward and then darts out to grab Macie.
At the last second, Macie spins, darting back toward us.
Derrick swears and leaps for my mother, intent to get his hostage back, but Kayla Marshall is a fierce woman and she follows after Macie.
And then I leap forward, putting myself between my woman, my mother, and these bastards.
“Fuck,” Derrick roars, as I spin around and aim a high kick at his head.
The idiot doesn’t expect a man of my size to be able to move with such fluidity, and my shoe catches him under the chin. He gasps and his head snaps back, his body deflating as all the energy goes out of him.
He collapses like a sack of shit on the concrete and then his men charge at me, yelling as they clumsily swing their fists.
I slide out of the way and let out short breaths.
“Tsk-tsk,” I hiss between my teeth as I aim three stiff jabs at three onrushing men, none of them trained if their amateur movements are anything to go by.
The momentum of their charge meets with my fist and they jolt backward.
The remaining two men charge at me, and I spin to the side and land a vicious elbow just behind the ear of one, disorienting him as I loop my arm around the neck of the other and haul him off his feet.
I spin him around as the other men come at me, made even clumsier by their injuries.
Using him like a battering ram, I fling him around and catch his friends in the face with his kicking legs, and then I toss him to the ground and step back, hands raised in a boxing stance.
The men nurse their injuries, groaning and looking at me like I’ve done the impossible.
“It’s called training, you dumb motherfuckers,” I growl. “Brawn can only get you so far. So are we going to go for round two? Because I can do this shit all day.”
They exchange glances, looks of defeat on their faces, and I know this is more than they ever expected to deal with.
Dr. Good: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance Page 10
