Animal Instincts (Gilded Knights Series Book 3)

by Emilia Finn

  Her stomach is distended, her knees aching from carrying the weight. I know she’s in pain. I know she’d probably rather sleep. But I give her a gentle tug anyway, and when she starts walking, I lead her out of her bay and into the rainy day outside.

  Darla stands at her door, no doubt wondering what the fuck I’m doing, but her being there saves me the trouble of finding a member of the family and letting them know I have their horse.

  I wave to Darla, then I nod toward the north. That’s all she gets; hopefully, she trusts me enough not to call the cops with the assumption I’ve stolen her beast.

  “How are you feeling today, Graciela?” I lead her over soft grass and toward where Samara promises is a magical lake. I run my hand over the mare’s belly, over knobby knees of a foal with too little room inside her mother’s stomach.

  Graciela whinnies and steps to the left, toward me… her way of encroaching on my space. A hug, I suppose. But she whips her head up and keeps on walking.

  “Who’s your baby daddy, anyway?” I look around Reginald’s farm and think on the other horses kept there. They’re all mares. “Did Reggie ship a dude in to knock you up? Or did that stallion bolt the second things got serious?”

  With a flick of her ear, Graciela looks up to the sky and absorbs the gentle rainfall on her face.

  “It’s nice, huh?” I do the same—walk blindly and stare up at the clouds as we move from farm to trees. “Nice bit of rain to wash away the trash.”

  My heart aches. An actual, literal pain that leaves me damn near breathless. And if I were to truly acknowledge how I feel right now, I might break down in tears and crawl into a ball on the soggy ground.

  But that’s not really me, is it? I’m the player. The womanizer. The slut who can easily brush rejection away.

  Right?

  So why the fuck does it feel like my stomach is bleeding and my heart is on the outside of my chest? Why now, and why Tabby?

  Because she’s fucking special. That’s why.

  “Beckett?”

  Her shout brings me to a skidding stop. The panic in her tone, the pain on her breath.

  “Beckett, wait!”

  I turn and bring Graciela around in time to catch sight of Tabby running. Across the murder farm, over a firepit, around an old tractor that hasn’t worked in a decade at least.

  Tabby wears sneakers, but the laces aren’t done, which means she simply jammed her feet inside and bolted out the door. Her cheeks are red, burning, her eyes still filled with tears.

  I brace for her next attack. For her next spiel on how I’m a piece of shit. And yet, knowing what’s coming, I still notice her hair, flittering as she runs. I notice the way her lips turn cherry red when she’s physically exerted, and the way her eyes burn the same—anger or grief, the burn is the same.

  “Listen, Tabby. I don’t really have the energy for—”

  She throws herself at me. Her whole body, she flings herself at least six feet and trusts that I won’t drop her. Our collision slams the oxygen from my lungs, but then Tabby’s lips crash against mine.

  For a single second, I’m stunned, frozen and unbreathing. There’s this saying about something being too good to be true means it probably is. But then common sense overrules that bullshit, and my catching hands turn to a caress. My heart stumbles and my brain fires off a million thoughts at once. My pulse sprints faster than I can keep up with, but Tabby’s lips move on mine and make my blood sizzle.

  This is all I’ve wanted. This is what I’ve dreamt of. What I’ve wished for. Now it’s happening, and it all feels too surreal.

  A little awkward.

  I should kiss her back. I should scream that shit about love again. I should shout into the universe that this is it, that I’ve got her and I won’t let go.

  But in reality, I peel her off my chest and stare deep into her terrified eyes. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  “You don’t want me?” she whimpers. “Really?”

  “I want you more than I want my next breath,” I rasp out. I set her on her feet, hold her hands in mine, so between us, we hold Graciela’s rope. “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. I want you more than I want to escape the murder house,” I choke out on a false laugh. “But I don’t want fake. I don’t want something that isn’t real.”

  “I don’t know what I want at the end of the day,” she rushes out. “I don’t know how to date, I don’t know how to keep your interest. I don’t know how to do any of this. But you walked away, and I knew I didn’t want that.”

  She pushes forward and wraps her arms around my hips. She presses her cheek to my chest, hugs me so tight that we both groan, then when I think she’s done and readying to pull away, she readjusts her hold and keeps going.

  “I don’t want you to walk away, Beckett. I don’t want you to think I don’t feel…” she hesitates. “Things. I don’t want you to think you’re not worthy.”

  “What happened on the phone?” I hear it ring… like the horror has followed her outside. Though in reality, the device sits in her pocket and continues to taunt us. “What did he say?”

  Did he break up with you and take the choice out of your hands? Am I the consolation prize?

  “I didn’t take his call,” she admits quietly. “I let it ring out, because I realized I wanted to argue with you more than I wanted to talk to him.” She looks down so I’m robbed of seeing her eyes and left only with the top of her head. “I declined three consecutive calls, because I knew it was wrong to take them.” She looks up with fresh tears in her eyes. “Then he texted, told me how much he loves me, and that on Saturday, he has something very serious to discuss with me.”

  Marriage.

  My heart knows it. And I think hers does too.

  My stomach dips and makes me sick. “Okay…”

  “He texted that he loved me, and I couldn’t text it back,” she murmurs. “I couldn’t do it without thinking about you.” She snatches the phone from her pocket and shows me her text screen.

  I see his name. I see his declarations of love. The over-the-top running-on of love and devotion.

  “I typed it,” she whimpers. “I swear I did. I typed out that I love him too, and that I can’t wait to see him Saturday.”

  My stomach aches from her words.

  “But I couldn’t hit send,” she adds breathlessly. “It’s not true if I’m thinking about another man.”

  “Tabby—”

  “It’s like you dating other women and thinking about me just to get hard. I was thinking about you just so I could type those three words.”

  “So, does that… does…” I swallow the emotion balling in my throat. “You love me back?”

  “I don’t know! But I know I can’t say it to him without picturing you in my mind. That has to mean something.”

  “Yeah,” I choke out a laugh. “It means you’re in love with me. Finally, your stubborn side is accepting it. Did you… Are you…” I look to the black-screened phone. “Switzerland?”

  She shakes her head and unlocks the phone a second time. “I’m not into cheating. And I think you deserve someone better than that.”

  She shows her screen and scrolls down to the part where she tells him she’s no longer happy in their relationship. She’s exiting, and he can do whatever he wants with his life. But she would no longer be a part of it.

  “You broke up with him?”

  Fresh tears spill over her cheek as she nods. “I broke up with him.”

  “For me?” My heart beats so hard, it might explode. “You… for me?”

  She shakes her head. “For me. And for us. I’m gonna try this,” she points between us. “And I guess we’ll see where it goes. If it all falls apart in a week, then at least I can say I took a chance on something good.”

  “Works for me.”

  I snatch her phone fast enough to make her jump, then I silence the incoming calls. Mark isn’t done talking to his ex-girlfriend yet, and now that she�
��s out, he knows what I knew all along; she’s special, and when you catch something so perfect, you don’t become so fucking stupid as to let her go.

  I drop her phone in my own pocket, and grin when her movements turn jittery. She needs that phone to work, to operate, to rule my universe.

  “You don’t need that for the next little while.” Taking a small step forward till our toes touch, I slide a hand around to the small of her back. “I’m right here, and I’m saying your schedule is now clear.”

  “We should be working,” she laughs nervously. “It’s a workday. And I destroyed it all by booking you into the murder house.”

  “Fifty years from now, we’ll tell our grandkids how we came to be.”

  I smile when Tabby’s eyes grow wider. Afraid. But then I use my other hand and draw her closer. Closer. Until our breath mingles and hers catches. “Wanna kiss for real now?”

  Shyly, she nods.

  She’s terrified of change. Terrified of me, really. Terrified of being with someone other than the one she knows. Add in that we’re colleagues, chaperoned by a heavily pregnant Graciela, and we’re on a murder farm…

  Really, she could be forgiven for feeling out of sorts.

  Still, I bring my lips to hers and swallow her whimpered cry. I swallow her breath, her tears, and when she opens up, her soul.

  Tabby’s arms, slack and undemanding a moment ago, now come over my shoulders and cinch us close. Graciela whinnies behind us as Tabby steps onto her toes and closes whatever space there is between us. Her tongue darts out and taps against mine. Her lips, plump and feather-soft, roam over mine, more commanding than I would have given her credit for.

  “I know you’re scared,” I pant for breath between teasing bites. “I know this is crazy and impulsive and terrifying for you. But it’s gonna be okay.”

  “Do you promise?” She lets her lips cruise over my jaw. To my neck. My Adam’s apple. “Do you promise it’ll work out?”

  “I promise I’m gonna try my fucking hardest to make you happy.” I drop Graciela’s rope, but make sure to step on the end so she can’t run. When the horse is secure, I cup Tabby’s face, her jaw, and hold her on her toes. “I promise to give you everything I have. I promise to never lie to you. And should I ever accept a job elsewhere, I’m taking you with me. Every fucking minute, every mile we go, we’re gonna be side by side.”

  “You really didn’t take Martha to family dinner?”

  I bark out a loud laugh. “No! My family knew her because of the practice, but they’d never eaten a meal with her before.”

  “And yet you took me home.”

  “They already know you’re it for me.” I press my lips to Tabby’s and grin. “They knew I was all-in that day, and you were there to become one of us.”

  “I talked about Mark that night,” she whimper-laughs. “You say I was there as a declaration to your family, but you let me talk about my boyfriend?”

  “Ex-boyfriend.” I nip at her bottom lip. “And it is what it is. I’m never gonna censor you. I’m never gonna script your interactions with anyone, let alone my family.”

  “They must hate me.”

  I scoff. “You know that’s not true.” I press another kiss to her lips. “But they sure as shit hate Mark. Soon, we’ll have good news for them, and they can stop worrying about my heart.”

  “I just…” Shaking her head, she steps back onto flat feet. But she slides her hand into mine. She wraps her fingers around mine. She holds on, even as I stare down at our joined hands. “This doesn’t feel real to me,” she murmurs. “It wasn’t possible. Now…”

  “It’s happening.” I bring her hand to my lips and press a kiss to the knuckles. “You just wanted to see the magical lake, didn’t you?”

  She bursts out with a fast laugh. “Caught me.”

  “Come on.” I bend and grab Graciela’s rope. Standing tall once more, I meet Tabby’s eyes and feel young and foolish. Smiley. Flirty. Blushing, even.

  She lends an air of innocence to everything we have, not because she’s some protected little virgin, but because she doesn’t tolerate bullshit. And she sure as hell doesn’t tolerate my bullshit.

  With a soft exhale, I set off and lead both ladies in a slow stroll.

  The rain lets up a little, the sun works to break through the clouds, but the world around us is still dull, muted and cold. It’s perfect, because it allows us to be in our own dome. Our own world. The rest of humankind can stay on the outside and leave us be while we discover whoever the hell we are when we’re together.

  “Would you like to go to dinner with me tonight?” I sling an arm over Tabby’s shoulder and pull her in close. “Now that we’re a couple and you’ve already committed to life, I figure we should start out on the right foot.”

  She snickers and bumps into my side as we walk. “I don’t recall agreeing to life.”

  “It was in the small print.” Bravely, I press a kiss to her brow, and when she doesn’t recoil or screech about sexual harassment in the workplace, I grin and drag her closer. “You barreling across a shit-covered paddock and throwing yourself into my arms kinda sealed the promise.”

  “Shit-covered?” She stumbles as we walk and checks the bottoms of her shoes. “Nope. We’re good. And just to clarify, by dinner…” She looks around at the trees surrounding us. “You mean romantic and sweet, special for a brand-new couple, but chaperoned by a murder family, right? Since your truck is broken.”

  “Accurate.” I chuckle. “But that girl, Samara, she’s actually pretty cool. If she proves to be a murderer when she’s older, I’m confident she’ll be classy and smart about it.”

  Tabby snorts. “That’s important. We don’t want to associate with sloppy work.”

  “Right. So when they interview us fifteen years from now, as the last couple to survive the murder house, and ask us our thoughts on all this, I want to be able to say I believed in her abilities. I want to say she thought long and hard on the best ways to torture and skin someone, and she did it all while finishing elementary school with perfect grades.”

  “Which is very important.”

  “Exactly.”

  We walk. For five minutes. Ten. Perhaps even fifteen—which becomes concerning, since Samara said it wouldn’t take so long. Graciela moves slowly, but her body warms, and with it, the playful noises she makes. She’s tired and overweight, but getting out and stretching her legs makes her happy.

  Ironically, the same could be said for Tabby and me. We spent too much of yesterday in the car. Too much of last night fighting, and in my case, sleeping on the floor. We’ve spent too long, since we met, biting at each other and denying the chemistry that pulses between us.

  As we continue through the trees and my heart pounds faster, harder, since there’s a possibility we may be lost—or led to death by the underaged murderer—I frantically search for an opening in the trees, perhaps for the shimmer of water in the distance. I listen for the sounds of ducks frolicking, or waves breaking; hell, I’d take an alligator snapping at this point.

  “You’re getting tense,” Tabby leans into my side and murmurs. “What’s wrong?”

  “I think we’re lost.” I stretch my neck to look further, deeper into the trees. “This walk was only supposed to take ten minutes. We’ve been going longer than that.”

  “Let Graciela lead. She’ll find the water.”

  “You think?” I allow a little more slack on Graciela’s rope.

  “She’s full-term pregnant, she’s been walking for fifteen minutes, and her escort is hopelessly lost.” She exhales. “Yeah, I think she’ll find the lake easy enough.”

  Tabby is right, of course. With a simple slackening of the rope, Graciela corrects our course, and we end up finding water within minutes.

  The trees open up, birds sing for us, and when we come upon the lake, for just a minute before nature realizes humans have encroached, we’re treated to a family of deer drinking on the other side. A mother and her ducklings swimm
ing in a line. There are no crocodiles, but fish jump and frolic in the water, free from capture by the vast majority of the world.

  Reginald and his murderous clan would be the only hunters out here. And right now, he’s safely at home, plowing a field.

  “This is so pretty.” Tabby releases my hand and steps forward to study the three hundred square feet of water. Her eyes flitter to a family of birds diving to catch their lunch. To the ducklings, cruising around with nothing on their minds except paddling. “Beckett…” She reaches back, but she doesn’t turn, doesn’t freak out about whether or not I’ll meet her where she stands.

  Of course I will.

  I tie the very end of Graciela’s rope to a branch that stretches close to the water, giving her enough leeway so she can reach, but not so much that she can run, nor drown.

  I don’t want to tie her up; it doesn’t make me feel good. But if she bolts and we can’t catch her, the chances of her and her baby dying tonight are high.

  So we compromise. She gets shade, and grass, and water, and I get to step forward and press my chest to Tabby’s back. I get to wrap my arms around her torso. I get to slide her hair aside and nuzzle her fragrant neck.

  “It feels weird that I get to do this.”

  “Don’t talk about it being weird,” she snickers. “Or you’ll make it weird.”

  “Not making it weird.”

  I slide my fingers along her arm. The ball of her shoulder. Then the column of her neck. I grin when goosebumps break out on her skin. But it gets better when, fingering the shoulder of her top lower, I expose her flesh and a smattering of freckles that draw my eyes.

  “You’re so fucking beautiful, Tabby.”

  “You’re too smooth.” Her words are a rebuff, but her arching neck says kiss me here, love me here. “The fact you’re so practiced and smooth wigs me out.”

  “Why?” I slide my tongue over her earlobe and groan when she trembles in my arms. “What’s the problem?”

  “If you think I’m not thinking about you and the women you’ve perfected this with, you’re sorely mistaken.”