Am I really going to tell a complete stranger?
Stop calling him a stranger, an instinct screams inside of me. He’s the future father of your children, your future husband if you’re lucky. He’s the man of your dreams.
I bite down for a moment, trying to battle those thoughts away. They’re so pie-in-the-sky, so insane, so just … ugh. I imagine voicing them to Markus and envision how he’d react, and in my imaginings, it’s never pretty.
I finish the vacuum cleaning and double-check the floor, and then stow it in the corner.
“Okay,” I call. “All done.”
Markus walks into the room, frowning at the window, where snowflakes bluster in through the curtains.
“We’re going to need to sort that out,” he mutters.
“I’ll call someone,” I say.
“I can take care of it if you want,” he replies. “Just need to go into town to get some supplies. For tonight we can board it up. Do you have any tools?”
“In the basement, I think. Jackie’s ex-husband left some behind.”
“That’ll work.”
Lava comes barreling over to me when Markus turns back into the hallway, his tongue hanging out as he leaps up at me, checking that I’m safe. Once he’s made sure that I am, he starts sniffing around. I watch him anxiously, waiting for any sign that he’s stepped on any glass.
A minute later, Markus returns with a few sheets of cardboard and some duct tape.
“All I could find,” he says, with a shrug. “It’ll look prettier tomorrow when the town’s open. So this guy came to talk you to about drugs …”
I sit down, watching Markus work, imagining that he’s fixing up a baby’s room in our house instead of patching up a window shattered by a brick in my friend’s house. I start to tell myself to stop it, but then I realize that might be making it worse, all this self-denial just erupting in defiance.
So I just let the heart soothing vignettes move through me, assuring myself that they’re just fantasies and will remain just fantasies. I never have to voice them. I never have to face the rejection.
“Yes,” I say, after a pause. “His name was Finn Marston. Well, is Finn Marston. He gave us this speech about gateway drugs, stuff like that, basically telling us to keep clean. But the whole time I felt like he was staring at me. I was a nervous kid, pretty paranoid and self-conscious, I guess you could say. So it wasn’t unusual for me to think I was being singled out. But he kept staring.
“Anyway, he left, and that’s when my life started to get really weird. Every few months, somebody would leave messages under my pillow. I know what you’ve done. Stuff like that, always accusing me of this mysterious thing. I swear to God, Markus, I had no idea—I have no idea what he was talking about. That was it for a few years, just those messages.”
Markus turns, placing the duct tape on the counter, the cardboard billowing but holding where he’s overlapped it.
“That would fuck with any kid’s head,” he says, walking over to me, reaching down and giving Lava a stroke before taking the seat next to me. He pulls it up so we’re sitting close together. “You don’t have to downplay it.”
I take his hand, squeezing onto it for comfort.
“Well, yeah, it did,” I admit. “It was horrible. It was hell. But as I got older, things got even creepier. Some of the notes told me to meet him at certain times and places, and I always ignored them. Then he started leaving rats in my locker at school. Things in my book bag. He stabbed my bike tires four or five times until I just gave up and never rode my bike again.”
A light flashes in Markus’ eyes. I imagine him thinking, So he has a history of tire-stabbing.
“Things got even worse when I moved out,” I go on. “Bricks through the window, just like now. Setting fire to my mail. He even planted drugs once in my apartment and had the police show up. Luckily I told them my story and they believed me, and they let me off with a warning. I moved. He did the same. I don’t know how the heck he does it, always breaking in like that, never being seen. When I was a kid I used to think he was a vampire or something. But now I know he’s just a sick freak.”
I can’t keep the acid out of my voice. Markus reaches across and thumbs a tear from my cheek, one I didn’t even know I’d shed.
“It’s okay,” Markus whispers softly. “I’m here, Millie.”
“The worst part is never knowing why,” I tell him. “He just walked in one day and got this crazy obsession with me.”
“Some people are just evil,” Markus murmurs, but he doesn’t sound convinced. “I can look into it. I’ve got some contacts who should be able to track him, to see if he’s stayed in your old city or moved out here. I’ll need a list, everything you can think of. Name of your orphanage, your old high school, your apartments, things like that. It’ll help build a picture.”
“Why are you doing this?”
He leans in, a smoldering in his eyes. “Because I—”
The door slams open and Jackie rushes in, shivering from the cold. She stares at us for a moment and then at the boarded-up window, and back again.
“What the hell happened in here?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Markus
I wake with Lava draped over my feet, the couch sagging and whining beneath me as I sit up, rubbing at my eyes. The sun has yet to rise and the world is dark, Lava shifting and glancing at me as though annoyed at me for moving so soon.
It’s not even six, his eyes say accusingly. What the hell is wrong with you?
“Sorry, boy,” I whisper, giving him a light rub on the head. “Go back to sleep. It’s okay.”
I stand up and stretch my arms up over my head, rolling my shoulders, tilting my head from side to side to loosen up my neck.
I’ve slept in far worse places than Jackie and Millie’s living room, that’s for sure.
I wander into the kitchen, making sure that my DIY solution to the window has stayed in place.
Last night returns to me in shades of unreality as I stand there, remembering Jackie coming home and cutting off what I was going to tell Millie. After that, I told them that I’d stay to keep them safe, and my chest swelled when Millie leaped at the offer, all fiery, with that spark in her eyes that goes straight to my soul.
Then I called up my ex-SEAL contacts, a few of whom work in law enforcement now, and I fed them all the information Millie could give me about this Finn Marston motherfucker.
Now it’s just a matter of staying vigilant in case the bastard shows up again.
And protect Millie.
Because I’d never let anything happen to her.
All last night my dreams were a frenetic rush of her, the taste of her on my lips, the way she shivered when she hit her release, my engorged seed-swollen manhood pushing apart those pink lips and grinding deeply inside, watching as she shivered and took every last inch.
And then on – dreaming – seeing us standing together outside of our first home.
Sharing a smile over our child’s first word.
Millie beaming proudly in her chef’s uniform, standing in a shining metal kitchen, and then grabbing her hips through the pleated black of her chef’s pants and lifting her onto the counter, grinding, claiming, owning.
Several times last night the urge to grab my rock hard manhood came to me, but I fought it fiercely, unwilling to give in to the urge.
My seed belongs inside of her.
Nowhere else.
I return to the living room, moving quietly through the shadows and the semidarkness, used to the low light and the soundlessness from my time in the military.
I sit down next to Lava and let him rest his head on my leg, his tail wagging sleepily before becoming still like the rest of him.
I need to tell her how I feel, how I see our future together.
Otherwise, I’m just wasting our damn time.
But what if she laughs? What if she runs?
CHAPTER TWELVE
Millie
&nb
sp; I sit in the passenger seat of Markus’ Chevy, my waitress’ uniform feeling like it clings far too close to my body. I glance at him and then out of the window, and then back again, trying to detect any hint of distaste in his expression from my uniform.
After last night, you really think he doesn’t want you?
I try to clutch firmly onto the delirious pleasure of last night, his mouth a contained fire between my thighs, pleasing, attacking, making me feel things I’d only ever read about before.
I woke this morning with the firm conviction that I would tell him the truth before things got too far before it becomes this huge unsaid thing hanging between us like a scythe ready to drop.
But as we drive through the forest, all I can really hear is the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears.
It’s a small thing, I try to tell myself.
Compared with everything else going on – Lava being let out, the window, the car, Finn – it’s not worth stressing about.
But that doesn’t stop me from bringing my hand to my face with the intention of worrying at my already-gnawed fingernails, an ugly habit I’ve tried to kill more times than I can count.
Markus glances over at me and I quickly let my hand drop.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
“You don’t have to apologize,” he says.
Behind him, nature moves by, the trees standing like prickly soldiers waiting for their orders. Markus wears the same shirt from last night, his suit jacket in the back seat, his body like solid oak beneath the thin material.
“What’s on your mind, Millie?” he asks a moment later.
I force a laugh. “Apart from the obvious?”
He smirks.
One day I’ll get you to smile for real, Markus.
“Yeah,” he says. “You were going to tell me something last night before we were interrupted.”
I almost shoot back that the same could be said for him. Before Jackie walked in, when his expression became an intense inferno, I’m certain he was going to say something important.
But he’s talking about the first time when we were upstairs before the brick shattered our conversation.
My hand once again strays toward my mouth as though it has a freaking mind of its own. I remember when the notes first started arriving, how the habit began to grow within me, this need to control something, anything. It was a small thing, gnawing crazily at my nails, but at least I chose when and how it happened.
I forcibly place my hands in my lap, gripping them together.
“Maybe you should pull over,” I murmur.
He glides the car to the side of the road, over the ice and the crunchy leaves, and then brings it to a stop. The engine continues to purr, the heating blasting us, turning my cheeks red.
Or maybe that has something to do with the words trying to choke their way up my throat.
“I guess this is a weekend of telling strangers things I’ve never told anyone before, huh?” I murmur.
He flinches, his green eyes becoming a darker shade, a Nordic deep-sea green, a faraway shimmer.
“Is that what we are?” he growls. “Strangers?”
No.
“Well, we only just met,” I murmur.
He smirks, tilting his head at me appraisingly. “You can ‘know’ somebody for years, decades, and not truly know a thing about them. I feel like I know you way better than most other people in my life. If that makes me crazy, fine, maybe I’m a goddamn madman.”
I draw in a sharp, stunned, the passion of his words triggering something deep inside of me.
He grins like a wolf, more a baring of his teeth.
“I’m not much good at this emotional stuff,” he goes on. “But when I laid eyes on you, I fucking knew I had to have you—not just your body, Millie. I knew I had to have all of you. Your body, your soul, your life, your womb. Do you hear me? Your fucking womb.”
The words rush out of him. He’s like a man possessed, leaning in closer as his muscles pulse and swell in the confines of his shirt. His eyes blaze into me and his jaw tightens, filled with tension.
Every part of him looks like it could erupt at any second.
“Yeah,” he goes on with a growl. “There is it. It’s out there. As crazy as it is, the second I saw you I knew you were going to be the mother of my children. I knew that I was going to claim you. I knew I’d turn into a full fucking beast if anybody else ever tried to take you from me. Do you understand now? Do you see? You’re mine. You fucking belong to me.”
He darts his hand out, clamping it down on my thigh.
I shiver and let out a panting pleasure-filled breath, biting my lip as I look down at his strong big mitt on my leg, and then up into the twin stars of his eyes, fiery, alight, focused on me and nothing else.
The forest, the town, the world drifts away as he stares at me.
“You’re mine,” he says. “I’m claiming you. Your gorgeous hair and your cute-as-fuck face, those pouty lips, your curvy body, your cooking skills, your sassiness, your shyness, everything you are, or will ever be, belongs to me. That’s what I thought the second I saw you. So no, Millie, I can’t consider us strangers. I don’t care about how long it’s been. I don’t care about reason. All I care about is my instincts, and every single one is telling me that you’re the woman for me, the only woman.”
His lips are on mine in a blink. It’s like our bodies were just waiting for the contact, my hands gliding up his solid arms and through his silver-flecked hair, his tongue finding mine as we open our mouths.
I moan through our kiss and he makes a carnal growling noise, the vibration of it moving through me, down my neck, and into my body.
“You’re so damn beautiful,” he says, holding his lips next to mine, our eyes staring directly into each other.
“I thought it was just me,” I gasp.
“What?”
“All that stuff you said—about wanting to have kids together, about just knowing we were meant to be together. It’s crazy, Markus. I’ve had the same thoughts. Oh, God, the same instincts. But I thought it was just me.”
He leans back, eyes wide with shock. “Jesus, that’s insane,” he murmurs. “You have? You really fucking have?”
“Yes,” I exclaim, glee bubbling in my voice.
Suddenly I feel as if I could leap from the car and fly into the snowy sky, darting between the clouds, nothing holding me down.
But then I remember Finn.
And then I remember it.
“What, Millie?” Markus says, taking my hands in his. “This is good. This is better than good. I’m no poet. But this just feels … right. Correct. Like it was meant to happen. Goddamn, now you’ve got me believing in fate.”
“I know, I feel the same,” I whisper, squeezing onto his hands as though that means I don’t have to say it, to shatter this moment like the brick that shattered the window.
“Then what’s there to pout about, eh?”
“Hey, who said I was pouting?”
I punch him playfully in the arm.
“You need to learn some better technique,” he teases. “That felt like a damn fly landing on my arm.”
I mock glare at him, suddenly filled with light, air, and glee. I don’t know how he does this to me, but his words have got me feeling like anything’s possible.
He’s claiming me.
And it feels so good to be claimed.
“Maybe you can teach me,” I banter.
“What, give you tips on how to beat me up?”
I giggle, making to slap him again. He catches my hand at the wrist and then crushes me with his lips, still wet and tingling from before, and yet eager to taste him again, to feel the desire growing beneath his hard muscled surface.
“Wait,” he says, breaking off the kiss with an effort. “You had something to tell me, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, and you rudely interrupted,” I tease, both of us laughing because it’s all in good fun. “I guess that’s a theme with us, being interrupt
ed.”
He chuckles. “It’s starting to feel that way. So you better tell me what you were going to say before a tree falls on the car or a snowman comes to life and starts attacking us.”
“What?” I giggle.
He smirks. “Well, who knows what the world’s gonna throw at us this time?”
I lean back, as though I’m getting ready to throw the car door open and sprint away.
Part of me wants to just keep it a secret, but surely it’s going to come out later down the road, especially now that I know he feels the same as me.
“Markus, I’m a—”
I cut off, drawing in a shuddering breath.
This is harder than I thought it’d be.
“What, Millie?” he urges. “You can tell me anything.”
I blurt it out, quickly, before my nerve deserts me.
“I’m a virgin.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Markus
Fate really must be messing with us because the second those words come out of her mouth, her cellphone starts to blare.
She sighs and snatches it out of her pocket, glances at the screen, and then shoots me a look of apology.
“It’s my boss, I’ve got to take it,” she says.
I nod shortly, finding it difficult to form words.
It’s easier to just look at her, hair tied back in a ponytail, looking fierce and beautiful and maternal all at once. Her body is a downright meal in that waitress’s uniform, her curves imprisoned, begging to be set free and worshiped … with my hand, my tongue, the engorged head of my manhood.
Everything, I’ll give her everything.
“What?” she snaps. “No … I didn’t. Garry, listen to me, why the heck would I do that? Yeah, I’m on my way now.”
“What is it?” I ask.
She tightens her hand around her cellphone so hard her knuckles turn white and then begins to shake, a scream starting quietly and then reaching a crescendo when she finally lets it out.
“Ah,” she snaps, thumping the dashboard.
Taming Her Beast Page 6
