Taming Her Beast Read online

  “Take me,” I whisper in his ear. “Take me hard.”

  He immediately picks up the pace of his thrusts, his abs stroking against my bare belly as he leans in closer, as though he wants to melt into me, getting as close to each other as humanly possible.

  His cock thunders into my aching no-longer-virgin hole, the walls of my pussy buzzing as they widen with each movement, that spot deep within sizzling and singing with each hard-kissed touch of him.

  I bite down on his shoulder, tasting him, and he groans to let me know it’s okay, he likes it, to keep going. His sweat and his musk fill me as my pussy starts to gorge shamelessly on the pleasure of his cock.

  The fireworks grow even brighter inside of me, a series of explosions that consume my pussy until there’s nothing but the light within, blinding, consuming, claiming.

  I let go of his shoulder and tip my head back, screaming out my lust, my legs trembling and my whole body shivering in a crazy dance of unleashing euphoria.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he snarls, leaning back so that he can watch the orgasm tear its way through me.

  I try to keep my eyes open so that I can stare back at him, but everything is shimmering and suddenly it’s like I’m floating, being thrown around by invisible hands.

  “You—feel—so …”

  I can’t finish the sentence as he drives into me again, his lips twisting savagely as he tries to withhold his own release. But then he starts to growl and grunt like the beast he is—like the beast I’ll never begrudge him being.

  I rock with him, our rocking made slick with all the juices squirting out of me, my center pulsing and shimmering and my womb driving more and more ecstasy through me.

  “Beg me to come in you,” he snarls, his words distorted with his animalistic lust. “In—your—cunt.”

  “Come in my cunt,” I scream, bouncing, relishing. “Come in my tight fucking virgin cunt—”

  “Arghhhhhh,” he roars, collapsing atop me, emptying his seed into me as my orgasm fizzles out, leaving me to collapse against him, both of us shaking with the after-tremors of our mutual release.

  “Jesus Christ,” he groans, rolling aside and immediately pulling me to him.

  I rest my head on his chest and drape my naked come-slick thigh over his body.

  But then I flinch when I see it, spots of carmine over the sheets, a different shade to their crimson pallor.

  The evidence of my virginity.

  “Shh,” Markus murmurs, kissing the top of my head.

  I glance up at him, giggling. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Yeah, but your thoughts were loud, Millie,” he smirks. “You never have to be ashamed with me. Never.”

  “You know how freaky it is that you can basically read my mind, right?”

  “Are you saying you don’t like it?”

  “No,” I laugh.

  He smirks and leans down, our lips finding each other in a hot rough brush of contact.

  “How was I?” I can’t resist asking once we’ve broken it off.

  He gazes at me for a few long moments. “Are you joking?” he finally says. “Or are you just fishing for compliments, eh? You were amazing, Millie. Downright fucking amazing. I knew our bodies would take over. I knew there was no reason for you to be nervous.”

  “I’m a little shocked at myself, actually,” I whisper. “I didn’t think I’d be so … confident? I don’t know if that’s the word. But it’s like you said, once we started, it was like I couldn’t stop. You felt so freaking good inside of me, Markus.”

  I glance away, blushing at my own words.

  Markus touches my chin and guides my gaze back to his. “I wasn’t shocked,” he says, staring at me as though the mist-covered ocean and Stone Harbor and Finn and the world and everything, just everything doesn’t matter as long as we have each other. “And now I know, don’t I? I really fucking know.”

  “Know what?” I ask.

  He smirks. “You’re the full package, Millie. Sexy as fuck and an amazing chef. Now all I’ve got to do is hold onto you.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that,” I whisper. “I’m not going anywhere… unless you want me to.”

  He chuckles deeply. “Never. Never-never-never. I’d die – I’d kill – before I let you slip from my grasp. And that’s not only because I’m pretty goddamn certain I just put our first child inside of you.”

  He smooths his hand down my body, touching my belly.

  Something must have changed when I gave myself to him because I don’t flinch away from his touch against my bare plus size body.

  I don’t even want to.

  Instead, I place my hand atop his and sink into the enveloping warmth of the moment.

  “I can feel it,” he whispers. “I can feel our future. Our happiness. I can feel …”

  “Hope?” I whisper, blinking back tears of pure joy.

  He kisses them away, our noses tickling each other.

  “You might have just given our first daughter her name, I think,” he says.

  Hope.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Markus

  I join Millie in the kitchen, lean down, and stroke Lava behind the ear. The Golden Retriever has taken to following me around ever since we returned from the hotel this morning, his tongue hanging out when we picked him up from the dog daycare. Now his tail wags and he leaps up, placing his forepaws on my thighs.

  “You’re a good boy,” I say, ruffling his scruff so that his mouth opens in a wide smile.

  I walk over to the table and sit down, inhaling the scent of breakfast, bacon frying, freshly baked bread throwing its scent into the mix.

  Millie stands with her back to me, wearing a bathrobe and nothing else, my whole body pulsating at the sight of those sexy-as-fuck curves beneath the pink material. Her hair spills down her back, gorgeous locks of it, calling for my touch, to be caressed and then fisted, guiding her nakedly into bed, claiming, owning.

  I shake my head, knowing that I have to tell her.

  I just got off the phone with my ex-SEAL contact and he told me who Finn Marston is – what his connection to Millie is – and now my heart is thudding like a goddamn oil derrick about to hit the motherlode.

  She hums sweetly as she butters the bread, taking care even with this simple task. The snow has cleared and the morning is unusually bright, everything melting and glistening warmly. Sunlight glows through the window, framing my woman in a silhouette.

  I’ll shatter this perfect moment, this perfect morning, when I tell her.

  “Millie—”

  “Markus,” she says at the exact same moment. She laughs, looking over her shoulder at me. “I’m sorry. Go ahead.”

  “No, please,” I say.

  “Please?” she sasses. “Since when did you get so polite, hmm?”

  “Hmm,” I banter, unable to stop myself from grinning like a wild dog …except I’m not wild anymore.

  I’ve found a home.

  Lava strolls over to Millie, walking in tight circles as his nose puckers at the smell of the bacon, tail completely erect, ready for any stray piece of fallen meat.

  I almost laugh at myself.

  The weather, Lava, Millie’s gorgeous hair … I’ll focus on anything, it seems, except what I should be focusing on right now, and that’s who the fuck Finn Marston really is.

  “I was just thinking about your offer,” Millie goes on, laying out the bacon on plates, and then carries them over.

  The top of her bathrobe opens slightly, revealing her voluptuous cleavage, my manhood flooding, and becoming iron hard.

  She places the plates down and sits opposite me, folding her legs, tossing her head so that her hair whispers out of her eyes. Everything she does is hyper-real to me, as though she’s the only thing that matters, exists.

  She’s everything.

  And I don’t have it in me to break her heart.

  “My offer?” I murmur, dragging my attention back to my woman.

>   “The head chef offer,” she says. “I was thinking … I want it. I think I can do it. I know that there are people out there who’d say, Fuck that, I’m pulling myself up by my bootstraps. But wouldn’t that be crazy, turning down the chance of a lifetime for freaking pride?”

  “Yes,” I tell her. “And you’re talented. And you’re beautiful. And you’re dedicated. And you’re every goddamn thing I could want in a head chef, a partner, a mother …”

  “Hey,” she says quietly, reaching across the table and laying her hand on mine. I’ve begun to shake, the livid rage moving through me like a force of nature, making my body tremble. “What’s wrong? I didn’t misunderstand, did I …”

  “No, no,” I say quickly. “I’m glad. I’m more than glad. Really. It’s not that.”

  “What, then?”

  I sigh, rubbing the bridge of my eyebrows as though that can smooth away the tension, the reality.

  “I spoke to my ex-SEAL buddy,” I tell her. “He’s a cop now, quite high ranking. He was able to do some digging and he found something that … oh, fuck, Millie, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s about Finn?” she says, her voice becoming ice-cold. The color drains from her cheeks. She grips the edge of the table. “Tell me, Markus. Just… just tell me.”

  I take a deep breath. “First I want to say something if you’ll let me?”

  She nods shortly, her eyes never leaving mine, a blush spreading across her face, neck, and her chest, as though she’s burning up from the inside.

  “My dad was a piece of shit. He was a junkie and an abusive asshole and he made my mother’s life hell. I don’t blame her for running out after the way he treated her. But would you say that because my dad was evil, that makes me an evil bastard?”

  “What?” she says, looking at me like I’m crazy. “No, of course not.”

  “I want you to know that you’re incredible,” I go on. “You’re kind. You’re beautiful. You have—Jesus, Millie, you’ve just got a good soul, alright?”

  “Markus, you’re scaring me,” she whispers.

  “Sorry,” I growl, my body becoming stiff, ready to dismantle her pain, and any bastard who dares to cause it. “My buddy found a case that had been purposefully hidden in the files. I’m sorry, Millie – but basically, your old man was involved in organized crime. He was their accountant for a long time, but he also doubled as an enforcer and … and—”

  “And what?” she hisses. “I want to know everything. I deserve that.”

  I sigh darkly.

  “He tortured people,” I whisper.

  Her hands fly to her mouth. “Oh my God.”

  I drag my chair around the table, wrap my arm around her, and let her rest her cheek against my shoulder.

  I stroke my hands through her hair.

  “So where does Finn come into this?”

  “Finn was part of the same organized crime syndicate as your father. There was some internal conflict.”

  “What conflict?”

  “Millie, the details don’t matter, do they—”

  “What conflict?”

  I sigh, kissing the top of her head. “They argued over their stakes in a human trafficking operation. Things got out of hand and your father...killed two of Finn’s men. Finn then decided to get revenge. Arson. He paid the police later to cover it up and say it was a malfunctioning dryer. I’m so sorry, Millie.”

  She begins to shake and cry, burying her face in my chest and gripping onto me as though she never wants to let go.

  I hold her tighter, chords plucking in my chest at the sight and touch of such visceral pain from my queen, my woman, my life.

  “We’re making our own family,” I tell her softly. “Me and you, our children. The past doesn’t matter. Only the future, and what we make of it. I swear to you, Millie, I’ll always be here for you. You never have to face this alone.”

  She looks up and smiles shakily. “I’ve got your shirt all wet.”

  I reach up and wipe her cheeks with my thumbs. “I’m sure I’ll survive.”

  “Together, yeah?” she whispers.

  “Together,” I say passionately.

  “Okay,” she sighs, coughing back another sob. “I’m happy I know. Well, not happy. But it’s better than living in the dark. And—and I never knew them, my parents. It’s just a shock. I don’t get why Finn would find me afterward, though.”

  “From what my buddy told me, he’s a sick fuck,” I say quietly. “Maybe he developed some … wait.”

  “What?” Millie murmurs.

  I glance at Lava, standing stone still at the door with his tail pricking the air. His head is tilted and he’s staring down the hallway at the front door.

  After a moment, a low growl sounds in the back of his throat and then breaks into a deep guttural bark.

  I stand and go to the window, a savage fury moving through me when I spot him emerging from the trees.

  Finn Marston, a tall wide man, at least as tall as me—all puffed up in his winter jacket, his muscles inflated with either years of hard work or steroids.

  I know which I’m betting on.

  Behind him, stalking from the trees like jackals, six men emerge, all of them wearing jet black winter coats, and each of them as puffed up and muscle bound as Finn.

  Millie appears at my side. “Oh, no. Jackie …”

  Lava’s barking has become a cacophony now, his paws scraping at the front door in his desperation to get to his owner.

  Jackie’s mouth is gagged and her hands are tied behind her back, one of the black coated goons pulling her along by her arm.

  Finn stops next to my Chevy, staring at it for a moment. Then he turns to the house and pulls a gun from his pocket, a police issue Glock it looks like from here.

  Something drops in my chest when I realize I don’t have a firearm on me.

  I’m unarmed, and there are seven of them, and at least one has a gun.

  Fuck.

  This is bad.

  “I see you,” Finn says, glee dancing in his psychopath’s voice. “Now are you going to be a good little girl and come out and say howdy? Or am I going to see how loud this bitch can scream with a gag in her mouth?”

  He casually points the gun at Jackie, keeping his eyes fixated on us.

  “How about I count to ten? Oh, and keep the dog inside. I don’t want to hurt it.

  “Ten …

  “Nine …

  “Eight …”

  Millie flinches, and then darts for the door—the back door, away from where Lava is pawing and barking.

  I follow her without thinking, my only concern now protecting my woman and the baby I’m sure is already growing inside of her.

  But this is bad.

  This is really fucking bad.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Millie

  The world pricks coldly at my bare skin and freezes the soles of my feet as I run across the icy lawn, the ice crunching between my toes.

  It’s only when I get to the end of the lawn that I realize I’m still only wearing my bathrobe, goosebumps spreading over my legs and my arms, combining with the dread and the heartache lancing through me to make me shiver.

  Behind me, Markus approaches, striding briskly until he’s standing next to me … and then subtly in front of me, moving so that his body creates a natural shield in front of me. Further back, Lava’s barks become high pitched and frantic, his clawing and scraping so desperate it breaks my heart.

  Finn grins from ear to ear, his red hair damp and greasy looking. His eyes move disgustingly over me, from my toes to my face and then back again.

  I meet Jackies eyes, silently willing her to see how sorry I am, silently begging for her forgiveness.

  She’s wearing her stiff black blazer and her pencil skirt and tights, her normal work attire, but her hair has come loose from her ponytail and falls down in jagged waves.

  Finn tosses his gun from hand to hand, eyeing Markus.

  “You don’t look like a
good little girl,” he says.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I snap, somehow keeping my voice steady despite everything.

  “I said be a good little girl and come out here, so what is this streak of piss doing, eh? What, tough guy? You got something to say?”

  “You’re dirt,” Markus says calmly.

  “I think you’re forgetting which one of us has the gun.”

  “No, I can see that you have it,” he says, voice tinged with ice. “But you’re still dirt.”

  “Maybe I should teach you some manners. Maybe I’ll take these bitches in front of you, make you watch. Then we’ll see how tough you are.”

  “That will never happen,” Markus states flatly.

  Finn laughs in a deranged way, turning to glance around at his men for a moment. A few of them have tattoos on their necks and faces, and all of them look like they’d follow Finn’s instructions with enthusiasm. A chill moves through me and I can’t look at them for long, because many of them leer at me as though they’re just waiting for him to give the order.

  “Pretty confident for a man who’s fucked ten ways to Sunday, ain’t you?” Finn laughs.

  “You’re a freak,” I snap, my voice trembling with years long pain. “You’re a freaking weirdo, Finn. What the hell’s the matter with you? Leaving notes at the orphanage, that’s one thing. Vandalism … but this, this is sick beyond anything you’ve ever done before.”

  Finn throws his head back and laughs loudly, disturbing the regular peace of this place so much that several birds desert the trees behind him and flap into the air. Lava’s barking punches more urgently at the noise of his cackling, several of his men grunting out laughs along with him.

  “If you think this is anywhere close to the worst thing I’ve ever done, you’re sorely fucking mistaken. But don’t worry, Millie. I know what you’ve done.”

  “Stop saying that,” I hiss, balling my hands into fists. “Those stupid notes. What could I ever have done to you?”

  “You rejected me,” he says, darkness creeping into his gaze.

  Markus shifts to the side so that I have to look around his bulky protective body to see the dead seriousness of Finn’s expression.

  “I … what?” I gasp.