She laughs, rolling her eyes. “Nope, you can’t fool me, Markus. I don’t think you’ll ever be the pouting, temper tantrum type. So I’m not going to listen to any more of your lies.”
I smirk and then gesture at the menu. “So what do you think, professionally speaking?”
“Well, I’m not exactly a professional.”
“I’ve tasted your cooking, remember,” I say, reaching across the carved wooden table to clasp her hand in mine.
“You tasted one dish,” she laughs.
“So?”
“Well, what if I’ve spent every day of the past decade perfecting my chili con carne, hmm? What if it’s the only dish I know how to do well? What if—”
I cut her off with booming laughter, her sassiness too much for me to handle. I don’t even care when several of the other patrons turn to see what the noise is all about.
“Goddamn, you’re funny as well as beautiful,” I say. “Really, though. I want to know your thoughts.”
“Why?” she asks.
“Because if I’m going to open a restaurant one day, I deserve to know how my head chef thinks.”
“Haha,” she says, rolling her eyes as she takes a sip from her cloudy glassed stein. “You’re so not funny.”
“Where’s the joke?” I say with passion. “I’ve got the money to open a restaurant and a genius of a chef sitting here in front of me. Why wouldn’t I take the opportunity to grill her a little.”
“No pun intended?” she offers.
I smirk, her zest for life infectious, making me want to carry her away someplace private.
Later.
If she’s ready.
My balls ache and throb at the thought.
Fucking hell, I hope she’s ready soon.
“How long have you wanted to open a restaurant?” she asks.
“Well, let’s see, when did we meet?” I laugh.
She shakes her head, pouting, cheeks flaming that shade of crimson that constantly have me all kinds of revved up.
“I hope you’re kidding. You can’t just give me a restaurant.”
We’ll see.
“Okay, forget the whole restaurant thing for now. What do you think?”
She shrugs, causing those round plump breasts to jiggle alluringly. “It’s a nice menu, although, I don’t know, it does seem a little long.” She begins to leaf through the pages, and a moment later she bites her lip. “And some of these German dishes, they could do with some translations at the side. I hate when restaurants do that like we’re all supposed to be multilingual or we’re not allowed to eat here. I hate … snobbery, I guess. Growing up in the home—Whoah, okay, sorry.”
“What?” I say, glancing around.
“No, I’m sorry for what I was about to do. Bring the mood down. Big time.”
I shake my head, smoothing my hand over her cheek and brushing some of her wild hair behind her ear. “You don’t have to apologize to me. Ever. I thought I made that clear. What were you going to say?”
“I guess that I just developed this whole anti-snobbery thing in the orphanage, you know. It was horrible, the constant paranoia of people looking down on me. And now I’ve got even more paranoia because he’s back and—”
She bites down, fighting off a wave of sadness that plucks a combative chord inside of me.
Finn Marston.
That bastard better leave town before I cross paths with him.
For his sake.
“I don’t want to think about that now,” she sighs. “What the heck is wrong with me? I’m ruining this.”
“You’re not,” I say firmly. “Because this isn’t a performance. You’re a gorgeously complicated and unique human being, Millie, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“I’m complicated?” she says, sassiness firing beneath her evident emotional turbulence. “You’re the one who’s tricked the whole town into thinking you’re this brute who won’t even say a simple good morning. You’re the one who’s convinced everyone that you’re an asshole.”
“I am an asshole,” I tell her. “Just not with you. Or maybe I’m just less of one with you. I’m just so goddamn glad that fate led Lava to me that night. Otherwise, I never would’ve laid eyes on you.”
“I never believed in fate,” she murmurs. “If I did, I’d have to attribute all the bad stuff in my life to it, too, right? But since we met …”
“Things have changed,” I rumble.
“Yeah,” she says, flashing me a soul trembling look. “They have.”
We hold each other’s gaze for a long time, moments that feel like they could stretch on endlessly, weave and warp and develop a universe of their own, a place that consists of only Millie, her eyes, her blooming cheeks, her bravery and her insecurity and all the little things that make her who she is.
That sounds like the best place in the goddamn world.
“Are we involved in a staring contest I wasn’t warned about?” she laughs.
I smirk, my whole world lighting up beneath the fuel of her laughing voice. There’s something goddamn magical about it, that she could make me laugh, make me smile, make me more than a husk who’s trained to fight and kill and lift weights and never – ever – feel anything more than focus for the task at hand.
But with her, I don’t care about the task at hand. I want to ignore it. I want to make a secret land beneath the sheets with her and disappear forever.
She’s mine.
Mine.
And I’m never letting go.
“Markus?” Millie murmurs. “Helloooo? Are you in there?”
“Yes,” I say, voice deep and gravelly. “I’m here.”
“It looked like you floated off someplace. What were you thinking about?”
“I can’t say,” I tell her, an animal tremor in my voice. “It’ll sound … like something a man like me shouldn’t say.”
“Like something a big gruff SEAL shouldn’t say, you mean,” she corrects. “But there are no men like you, Markus. There’s only you. Hmm?”
I smirk again and then frame her face in my hands, feeling the blistering warmth of her cheeks, touch my palms, move up my arms and straight into my chest, my heart, my soul, whatever the hell I want to call it.
“Alright, the truth?”
“Always,” she whispers.
“I was thinking about how I’m never going to be the same, and how I’m quite fucking happy about that, and how if I never would have met you my life would have been unspeakably sad.”
She reaches up, touching my face, and I wonder briefly if we look strange—two people touching each other’s faces, completely consumed with each other.
And then I realize I don’t give a damn.
Because I have her.
That’s all that matters.
“Oh, sorry,” the waiter says, the only time somebody has ever got the drop on me without me realizing it. He’s stand at the edge of the table, notepad in one hand and pen in the other. “I’ll, uh, give you a minute.”
Millie’s smile spreads across her face, pure delight, and her giggles come like music. My laughter follows shortly after.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Millie
Encouraged by Markus, I order the bratwurst with the fries, my belly rumbling when I look across the log cabin restaurant to the kitchen, steam, and smoke rising with a hiss of frying behind it, my mouth filling with saliva.
I still feel like laughing every time I think about the waiter finding us like that, cradling each other’s faces. He must’ve thought we were some kind of weirdos, but really it was just … us.
Butterflies flap wings of pure light inside me when I realize that there is an us, that we are beginning to become a partnership despite the short timeframe.
“What are you thinking?” Markus asks, turning away from the ocean to face me.
“Just that it’s crazy, me and you,” I murmur.
“Because it’s only been a few days?” I nod, and he goes on, “Crazy. Sane
. I’m done thinking in those terms. I’m done questioning it. I’m done second-guessing it. All I know is that you mean more to me than anybody. That’s all there is to it.”
“Careful, Markus, you’re going to give me a big head,” I joke.
“You deserve it,” he snarls. “After all, my head chef should be confident.”
My cheeks flame and my lips seem suddenly dry. I take a sip from the stein and then from my glass of water, running my tongue over my lower lip, staring at Markus as he looks back at me with those perceptive glinting greens.
“What’s wrong?” he asks plainly.
“It’s just … wouldn’t that be like, I don’t know, cheating?”
“Why?” he says passionately, puffing up like a silverback gorilla getting ready to defend his territory. “You’ve spent your whole life learning about this stuff. And I want to give you a chance to practice it. And let’s say that you turn out to be terrible … which seems impossible to me, but let’s just humor that insane notion. Then the restaurant will fail and you’ll be forced to step down. So you see, Millie? Actually, you’re right. It is unfair, but unfair for you. Instead of slowly working your way up, you’ll immediately have all the responsibility of a kitchen to contend with.”
A part of me recoils at the thought, the same shivering part that wanted to climb under a rock and hide away every time Finn sent me one of his pathetic little notes.
I know what you’ve done.
Well, I don’t, Finn … so why don’t you freaking enlighten me.
I shake my head, focusing on Markus, listening to that other part of me—the part that swells with I-can-do-this fervor.
“You’re right,” I murmur. “You wouldn’t be giving me a handout. You’d be giving me a crazy task and there’s every chance I could fail. Oh my God, I could accept, couldn’t I? I really could do this.”
“I believe in you,” he growls passionately. “I can just see it. You standing in the kitchen in your fine as hell chef’s outfit, the steam making you seem like an angel … even more of an angel than you already are. And then our children all around you, listening to you speak about the dish you’re preparing. The way they’ll look at you, Millie, goddamn, it’ll be like you’re magic. No, you are magic. They’ll look at you with so much love you’ll have to fight off tears every second of every goddamn day.”
I blink, realizing I’m doing that right now. “And you,” I whisper. “They’ll love you just as much.”
“Yeah, but I’ll be the ex-military grump making sure they’ve got discipline. They’ll always be more loving with you. I’d have it no other way.”
“You sound like you’ve got it all planned out,” I say, moving my finger around the edge of my stein, otherwise I might punch the air and leap around and cheer like a madwoman. “So how many children do you see?”
He taps his chin, shooting me a secretive smirk. I bet most people in Stone Harbor wouldn’t believe it if I took a picture of him now. They’d say it was Photoshopped because no way can grim faced Markus McCabe look so freaking playful. Light glimmering in his eyes.
“I’d say around fifteen,” he says.
“Fifteen?” I gasp. “Are you kidding me?”
“Oh, yeah,” he says.
“Phew.”
“I meant fifty.”
I reach across the table and playfully slap him on the arm, but I have to withdraw my hand quickly because the feel of his bulging bicep is too much on top of all the family talk. He sits there in a fresh pale blue shirt, the top button undone, the sleeves slightly rolled up to show the tautness of his forearms.
“I think the kitchen is going to be a little crowded in that case,” I laugh.
“Once word gets out about how incredible you are, you’re going to have enough restaurants for a whole army of children. Don’t worry.”
“I need to make you some more dishes before I agree to this,” I giggle. “I can’t have you giving me a whole restaurant based on some chili con carne.”
He raises his hands in mock defeat. “I won’t say no to any more of your cooking.”
Something swells in my chest, shifts around, and I find myself glancing over to the kitchen as though to check on our food. But really I’m just avoiding Markus’ gaze.
“What?” Markus growls, seeing everything like he always does.
“What?” I counter.
“You look … Oh, I see.”
“You see what?” I counter, swinging my gaze back to his.
He smirks, but with a cocky quality now, leans forward and stares directly into my eyes so that my insides do funny things. “You’re thinking about going someplace private after this,” he growls. “And I’m not going to argue with that. Just be sure, Millie. Because once we’re alone and I get that fine body naked, I’m going to be a madman.”
I swallow, skin pricking with goosebumps, everything swirling around inside of me, my heart pounding with all the talk of children and the future. For the first time in forever, I feel as though my life holds something other than fear and paranoia and shattered promises.
And that’s with Finn on our case.
This man is like a wizard with the effect he has on me.
“I want it,” I tell him. “But I’m … what if I can’t?”
“Can’t what?” he asks.
I shoot him an oh-please look. Take your massive cock, isn’t exactly appropriate talk for a restaurant, after all.
“Oh,” he mutters. “Then we’ll work through it. Millie, you really need to stop thinking of this as something you need to prove, to … anything. This isn’t like that. I’m not putting you on trial. I’m the lucky bastard who gets to be with you. I really don’t think you realize how beautiful you are, how intelligent, how funny, how incredible.”
“Well, duh,” I laugh. “You’re the first person who’s ever told me any of that. Except for Jackie.”
He reaches across the table and takes my hands in his, moving his thumbs over my knuckles, causing teasing tickles to dance up my arms.
“I want you,” he snarls. “If there are complications, then we’ll work through them, together. But listen to me. Our bodies want this. As crazy as it sounds, my seed, your womb, they’re starving for this. Once I get you alone, once we let out the animals inside of us, we’re going to find it hard to stop, not start.”
I squeeze tighter onto his hands, letting his words bolster me, my womb singing a song inside of me that tells me he’s right.
It’s time to stop letting my childhood, my fear, my anxiety rule my life.
It’s time to live.
I love you, Markus.
Okay, I really need to get those thoughts in check and make sure they don’t spontaneously become speech, because that could be a problem.
But other than that, life is good, better than good, and it becomes just about perfect when the waiter brings out two of the juiciest burgers I’ve ever laid eyes on.
“Let’s eat,” Markus says. “And then it’s time for dessert.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Markus
I park the Chevy outside The Castle on the Rock, a hotel that sits atop a cliffy rock side that overlooks the ocean. As we drove up the winding road, it was veiled in mist, a shimmering over the water that danced and warped. But it was hard to focus on the beauty of nature when I had an earth shattering beauty sitting next to me, filling the car with her all-consuming scent.
Now, I watch as Millie stares up at the hotel, a castle style structure complete with a wooden walkway that leads to the reception area. The place is a magnificent novelty, a one of a kind hotel, and as her evident glee lights up her features I’m glad I made the one hour drive.
“Worth the wait?” I ask.
She spins on me with those lust pricked cheeks. “One hundred million percent worth the wait,” she laughs.
I step from the car and walk around to her side, open the door, and offer her my hand. She takes it, sending savage twisting sensations up my arm, dancing a
round my body, going straight into my chest, and causing my heart to beat like I’m a damn madman.
I pull her to her feet and into a crushing embrace, feeling how tense her body is with her orgiastic energy.
I reel back before kissing her, though, because my manhood is as rock solid as it’s been the whole ride over and I don’t trust myself to hold back. The temptation to maul her whelms inside of me like a deafening, impossible to ignore song.
She lets out a shivering breath that goes directly to my center, and then slides her hand down my arm and interlocks her fingers with mine.
“Wasn’t it a bit presumptuous?” she sasses as we walk toward the glorious brick structure.
“What?” I ask.
“You know, booking a room here without asking me first.”
The teasing note in her voice almost drives me feral right there, the way she feistily perks her eyebrows, the way her whole body seems to shimmer so that those life-giving breasts jiggle alluringly.
“Oh, I haven’t booked a room,” I smirk.
“Markus,” she laughs. “Look at this place. It’s going to be completely booked up.”
“You better hope not,” I banter right back, loving how easy it is to sink into a back-and-forth with her. “Because if that’s the case, I’m taking you down there on the rocks, with the sea as our backdrop. I can’t wait any longer.”
Her hand tightens on mine. It’s like I can feel her womb in the gesture, the urgency of her body’s need to take everything I have to give, to welcome it into her womb and let it make a home there, creating life, creating a future.
“What am I, a mermaid?”
“No, Millie, you’re far more magical than that.”
She flushes. “Well, I’m not the sea creature anyway. You are … you seal.”
I chuckle, shaking my head. “You’ve got me there.”
The reception area is decorated like some sort of ancient ballroom, with tapestries on the walls. The receptionist wears an outfit that wouldn’t look out of place in a museum, his hair cut in the classic Prince Charming way. They really go for it here, it seems.
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