Taming Her Beast Read online

  And then – I hardly remember how – I’m cradled to Markus’ chest, his hands moving through my hair, tingling all over.

  “It’s okay, Millie,” he growls softly, an alpha lion comforting his lioness. “You’re safe now. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  I wish I could believe you, I almost say, thinking about the doors being left open, Markus’ car being vandalized.

  “I’m here,” he goes on. “And I’ll never let anything happen to you.”

  I melt against him, giving in to the sobs, the sort of tears I haven’t cried for years.

  Humiliating, way too forward … and yet there’s something about this stranger’s presence that makes me feel as if I’m finally allowed to let it out.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Markus

  I hold her to me, letting her heartache spill out as croaking sobs.

  A savage protector’s desire blares through me like a warrior’s war-horn, a call to arms I feel right at the base of my being.

  I need to find whoever caused her this pain because there’s more to her story and make them pay, make them suffer like she’s now suffering.

  I imagine coming face to face with any motherfucker who’d dare to hurt her, who’d dare to cause her this pain.

  Blood, violence, death.

  Being a SEAL is about being disciplined, but the beast within me doesn’t care about discipline where my fucking queen is concerned, my woman.

  Who the fuck thinks they have the right to cause her pain, she who belongs to me—her soul, her mind, her ambitions, her body, everything.

  It’s all mine. And a man protects what’s his.

  She leans back in my embrace, trying to laugh it off.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I didn’t mean to just offload like that.”

  “You never have to apologize to me,” I snarl.

  She giggles sweetly. “What if I’ve given you food poisoning with my cooking, huh? I don’t have to apologize even then?”

  I chuckle, her laughter bolstering my mood, dragging me back from the primordial edge. “I think you’re too work-proud to make a mistake like that.”

  She flushes magnetically. “Okay, Mr. Compliment.”

  “No, Millie,” I growl. “It’s just the truth.”

  We sit back down and continue eating. I try and act civilized, but with each mouthful, I want more, the food so delicious, the taste mixing with her tanginess from the kiss on my tongue.

  “Jeez,” Millie laughs after a minute or so, eyes dry but still a little red. “You weren’t lying when you said you liked it.”

  “Forty years I’ve been on this planet,” I tell her, “and this is by far the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

  Her eyebrows raise and for a moment something drops in my belly.

  It’s my age, I think.

  You waited too long, a voice snarls in my mind. You should have settled down a long time ago.

  “I know, I’m ancient,” I grin wolfishly.

  “What?” she says, narrowing her eyes. “No, I wasn’t thinking that at all. I’m just shocked that you like my cooking so much, that’s all. Ancient? Forty is hardly one hundred, you silly man. Anyway, there isn’t that much between forty and twenty-one, is there?”

  “Not to me, there isn’t,” I say passionately.

  “There you go then,” she says, giving me the cutest pout I’ve ever seen. “So there’s no reason to fuss, is there?”

  “Fuss?” I laugh. “Is that what you’d call it?”

  “Well, what else?” she teases.

  “I’m just making sure you don’t run a mile when I take you upstairs after dinner,” I snarl, reaching across the table and taking her hand.

  Again, I see it, that war in her expression, lust, and need sparring with indecision.

  I read her. I look closer. Deeper, I see into her eyes and into her soul and a suspicion rises within me, one I’d never voice allowed.

  It’s not my place to do it for her.

  “Because,” I go on, “even if this meal is goddamn delicious, I have a feeling there’s something else that tastes even better.”

  “T-taste?” she whimpers, moving her finger over my knuckles, the heat of her evident in her blazing palm.

  “Taste,” I growl. “That’s all I want, at first. Just to taste you. Just to see you shiver and writhe for me.”

  Another widening of her eyes.

  Goddamn, I could spend the next ten years just watching the dance of her facial expression, just seeing the different moods and aspects of her rising to the surface.

  “I can’t believe you’re saying this,” she says. “I should scream at you for being so forward, you know, protect my female honor and all that.”

  “Oh, I’m going to honor you,” I tell her, giving her hand a squeeze. “Every damn part of you. But you can tell me no. Just say the words and I’ll go back to being a civilized gentleman.”

  Her lips tremble and her blush spreads across her cheeks, down her neck, until I imagine making other parts of her red. Those round ass cheeks, spanking them lightly, watching as they change color for me. And then sliding my wetness all over her ass cheeks, making them glisten.

  Fuck.

  I’m losing control here.

  “I don’t think you were ever a civilized gentleman,” she whispers, eyes flashing.

  “Is that a yes?” I snarl.

  “Yes,” she says, a note of bravery in her voice.

  “Good, then eat up,” I tell her. “Because I’m fucking hungry.”

  She giggles and we turn back to our food, both of us – I sense – stunned at comfortable we are being together already. It’s like there’s all this heat inside of us just waiting to be tapped into, as though we’ve been waiting our whole lives for this.

  That’s because we have.

  After dinner, I can barely wait to get my hands on her.

  She carries the dishes to the sink and I move up behind her, reaching around and palming her breasts, watching us in the reflection of the window. She shivers and drops the dishes in the sink, squirming against me, her ass grinding hotly against my manhood.

  “I still can’t believe this is happening,” she whimpers.

  “You better start believing it,” I snarl, driving harder against her ass, dry humping her until the tension in my manhood feels like it’s going to send a wildfire scorching through me. “Where’s your bedroom?”

  “Upstairs, first door on the right. Let me just check on Lava then I’ll be up, kay?”

  “O-fucking-kay,” I growl.

  She smiles at me in the window. “You’re an animal, Markus.

  “Yes,” I tell her, “I am.”

  I walk up the stairs to her bedroom, that suspicion still niggling at the edge of my mind.

  She’ll tell you in her own time. Don’t push her.

  No—I’d never do that.

  And I get to taste her.

  That’s all I need, for now, just to see if her soaked slit is as tangy as her lips if I can feel her eagerness to give me a child in the juices I’m going to greedily slurp from her squirting lips.

  I walk into her bedroom, the bed a bit ruffled and unmade, her bookshelf showing thrillers, cookbooks, and autobiographies from chefs. There’s a small ensuite, well kept. I splash some water on my face and look at myself in the mirror, my eyes feral but focused.

  Ready.

  I love how casually messy her room is. It’s not over the top, but it shows that she’s not as chronically neat as I am, and that’s a welcome change.

  Partners need to level each other out, don’t they?

  I try to stop this train of thought, but it barrels ahead until in my mind we’ve already got a house full of children’s laughter and a white picket fence, things I didn’t even know I wanted until I laid eyes on my Millie.

  I pause when I spot her pink panties on the floor, all crumpled up, the sight of them filling me with the insane urge to lift them to my face and inhale, to get as cl
ose to her tasty honey hot as possible. I fight the urge, chuckling grimly at myself. I’m not about to become some panty-sniffing weirdo.

  But the urge is there.

  The things this woman does to me.

  Finally, she walks into the room, lit with the soft lamplight I turned on when I came in.

  “Shut the door,” I tell her. “Lock it. I don’t want anybody interrupting us.”

  “Okay,” she whispers, turning to do as I say.

  The moment I hear the click of the door, I surge over to her and grip her by those amazingly curvy hips.

  Her delicious whimper tells me everything I need to know as I guide her to the bed, squeezing with more possessive force each moment. Not hurting her – I’d die before I did that – but letting her know that she’s mine, every single part of her.

  “Fucking hell,” I snarl as she lies back on the bed, her legs spilling apart for me, thick and gorgeous despite the denim imprisoning them. “Do you have any idea how sexy you are?”

  She props herself on her elbows, causing her breasts to jiggle illustriously.

  “Um, no,” she giggles. “Do you have any idea how manly you are?”

  I smirk and fall to my knees, sliding my hands up her thighs and quickly unbuckling her belt. My hands can’t move fast enough as I tear down her pants and her panties, all tangled together, yanking them free so that her socks come with them.

  Then I lean back, staring, utterly captivated with the sight of her bare wet pussy waiting for me to lick every drop from it. Her thighs are as thick and juicy as I knew they’d be, her skin sinfully goose pimpled, ready for my touch.

  I feel like a beast who’s returned to his cave after a long fruitless hunt … only to find that my meal was waiting for me here the whole time.

  Her scent fills the air, pulling me toward her, a pheromone I could never ignore.

  I lean close to her center, breathing deeper each moment, inhaling all of her. Closer, until my mouth is pressed right up against her pussy and she lets out a shivering noise, half-shy, but with the sex goddess she’ll become lingering beneath the noise.

  I slide my hands up her legs and savor every panting breath she takes, shimmering in the air.

  I move my hand to palm her creamy slit, already so wet for me, hot and soaking my hand as I rub her up and down, smearing her wetness from her hole over her lips and her clit.

  I look up to see her gazing down at me, eyes wide, biting her lower lip as though she’s intent on piercing her skin.

  “Are you going to give me every last fucking drop, Millie?” I snarl. “Are you going to give me the best drink of my life?”

  “Hmm,” she whimpers, nods, and then smiles sassily.

  I can’t help but smirk in return, remembering our hmm banter from earlier today at the harbor.

  Before somebody slashed my tires.

  I push that from my mind, telling my suspicions that they have no place here, not now, not when I’m with my woman.

  I bury my face in her hole.

  I can’t hold back once I’ve got a taste of her, the sweetness of it like manna straight from a sinner’s heaven, filling my mouth and sliding over my tongue as I listen to her moans, getting louder, sweeter, wilder.

  I grip her thighs firmly, savoring the thickness of them.

  “I need to taste it,” I snarl, knowing that my breath must be whispering over her by the way she shivers. “I need you to fill my mouth with your come. Do you understand? I need you to squirt in my mouth.”

  “I’ll—try,” she gasps.

  “That’s all I’m asking,” I growl, and then take her again.

  I attack her pussy with an arsenal of tongue and hand, slipping my finger into her wet eager hole as I lick her clit, suck her lips, take every part of her I can, and praying that I remember how she tastes, how she feels, everything.

  She starts to buck against me, her hips twitching in a way that makes my cock twinge with solidity. I resist the urge to pull my cock out and take her right here, remembering her nerves from before.

  Instead, I take pleasure from her pleasure, slipping my finger deeper, swirling my tongue around her clit until her moans become hollow as if she can’t quite find her breath.

  “Oh—my …”

  “Do it,” I snarl fiercely. “Cream for me.”

  “Ahhh,” she cries.

  My tongue goes into overdrive as she begins to squirm, and then she pauses and I can feel her gathering her energy. I gorge myself on her, slipping my tongue inside of her, opening my mouth so my upper lip brushes against her clit.

  She moans again and writhes against my face, her delicious juices squirting out of her hole and into my mouth, right to the back of my throat. I swallowing deeply, taking them as quickly as I can, tasting her womb in the sweetness, as though her body is giving me a message that she’s ready—a message passed down over thousands of years, a primal fucking confirmation.

  I lift her off the bed and drag her closer to my mouth, drinking from her like I’ve waited my whole life for this because I have. I just didn’t know it.

  She reaches down and pushes against the back of my head, and that just drives me fucking feral.

  I can already feel her shyness melting away, something else taking its place, something that will carry us through countless years of carnal closeness.

  I slide my hands up to her ass cheeks, squeezing them and massaging them as I hold her up, drinking the last squirting cream of her orgasm.

  And then she collapses back, panting, her hands falling slack as I lean back and look up at her in wonder.

  “Fucking hell, Millie,” I snarl. “You’re so goddamn beautiful it hurts.”

  She smiles, despite the redness in her cheeks. “Thank you,” she murmurs. “But I think there’s something you should know before we go any further.”

  “Okay,” I say, ready for whatever it is.

  With her, I can face anything.

  “It’s just that—”

  A crash comes from downstairs.

  Glass shattering.

  I leap to my feet, instincts kicking in, running for the door.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Millie

  A twisted part of me is glad as we stand in the kitchen, staring down at the brick that lies on the floor amidst the shattered glass.

  Outrage, disgust, terror … they all simmer beneath the surface.

  But I’m glad because it means I can delay what I was going to tell Markus upstairs in the bedroom, lying there half naked, my core aching contentedly from where he assailed it with his tongue.

  Standing here now with my panties wet and clinging to me, I still find it hard to believe that we just did that, that we gave into crazy desire like that.

  I’ve never just let myself go before. I never thought I’d be capable of it.

  But with him, I feel like a different woman. He’s changing me already.

  And he will for the rest of our lives.

  I shoo that thought away, the same way I do every time those silly statements rise in my mind.

  I focus instead on the glass and the brick.

  Lava whines from the doorway behind us, pawing at it, but there’s no way we can let him in here until this is cleaned up.

  Markus turns to me, frowning slightly. “If I’m going to help you, I need to know,” he says.

  I tense up for a moment, wondering if he means the revelation I was going to give him upstairs. But then I realize he means the other thing, which he’s somehow sensed with his badass SEAL instincts.

  “Let me clean this up,” I murmur. “I don’t want Lava to cut himself.”

  “I’ll help,” he says.

  “Okay, there’s a dustpan in that drawer.”

  Together, we start cleaning up the mess, the kitchen cold where the winter wind blows freely in, causing the diaphanous lacy curtain to flutter around like a trapped ghost trying to escape.

  “It’s the reason I ran here,” I murmur as I hold the trash bag open for
him as he jostles the pan, sliding the glass into the bag. “I thought I’d gotten away from it. Him. I thought I’d escaped that part of my life. But first the door, then your car, and now this. It’s not a coincidence, is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Markus says, reaching over with his free hand, giving my shoulder a supportive squeeze. “All I know is I need the truth. I can’t let anything happen to you.”

  “Why?” I ask, disbelief pricking me.

  “Because I’d never forgive myself if I did,” he growls.

  I tie the trash bag and stow it in the corner, and then grab the vacuum cleaner.

  “That still doesn’t explain why,” I say, unwinding the cord.

  “Are you going to tell me or not?” he says, with some of the gruffness he’s famous for in Stone Harbor.

  “Yeah,” I sigh.

  Because I’m scared. And I think you can help.

  “I told you I was in an orphanage, right? Well, when I was about fifteen this man came to talk to us about drug addiction. You know, one of those programs to try and catch kids early.”

  “I know the sort,” he says softly or something that must pass as soft in his gruff voice.

  “You know what? Just let me clean this up quickly and then we can let Lava in. He’s going crazy out there.”

  Markus nods, unable to deny that the dog is eager to get in and help in any way he can. His panting has turned stressed and breathy, a whine beneath that breaks my heart.

  “I’ll go and keep him company,” Markus says. “I’m guessing he hates vacuum cleaners like any healthy dog.”

  I laugh. “Yeah, they’re the devil as far as he’s concerned.”

  We share a smile – I smile, he smirks – and then he strides across the room and all at once Lava’s stressed-out whines become happy panting noises. I catch a glimpse of him jumping up on Markus before the door closes behind them.

  I switch on the vacuum cleaner, happy to let the loud whirring noise blot out my thoughts.

  I push and pull it over the glass graveyard, doing it several times to make sure that no sneaky small pieces can hide anywhere.

  The insane urge to climb out of the window and flee this house, this conversation, this town comes surging over me. I haven’t even told Jackie the whole extent of what happened to me out west. She knows that I was running away from something bad, but not the specifics.