Taming Her Beast Read online

  “I know what you mean,” he agrees. “It’s good to forget sometimes.”

  “That doesn’t mean you’re off the hook, though.”

  “Hmm?” he banters, cocking his head.

  “There’s more to the story,” I say. “I can tell.”

  “Millie, if that’s true, then you can read me better than anyone on this planet.”

  “Well, isn’t that fitting?” I sass. “If I’m going to be the mother of your children, I’ll need to keep you on your toes, right?”

  Light swims into his eyes and I feel his body flame, a combustible heat moving through him as he leans down and our lips lovingly rush to meet each other, my hands snaking up around his shoulders.

  I moan – muffled – through the kiss when he picks me up, my legs wrapping around him naturally, feeling like those airy girls in high school, being carried through the corridors as though they’re made of clouds.

  But better, because they never had Markus freaking McCabe.

  I sink deeper into the kiss, grinding against him, heart hammering deep in my soul as something feral tries to unleash inside of me. My womb batters down the walls of my anxiety, screaming at me to strip him here, take him now in the snow, sit on his fiery length until he shoots a river of lava hot seed inside of me.

  “Markus,” I gasp, when we pause the kiss, staring into each other’s eyes. “You can tell me anything.”

  “I’ve never talked about it before,” he says gruffly. “Well, except with Johnny. He’s my uncle. He raised me after …”

  “After what?” I murmur, the destruction of my home returning to me in vivid shades of memory, the door collapsing inward and the fireman striding in.

  My mom, my dad.

  All gone.

  He sighs and places me down, and together we turn and look once more at the glittering lake, a thousand points of winking light, ten thousand, a freaking million it seems like. There’s a whole pale night’s sky hidden beneath the film of crusty ice.

  “I don’t know how the fuck you do this to me,” he says, jaw working as though trying to banish some years long pain.

  And failing.

  “But maybe you ought to know just what you’re getting yourself into.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Markus

  I stuff my hands in my pockets, feeling Millie’s patient gaze on me as I focus on the lake. Something about nature has always been able to calm me, to quiet the demons that growl and bark from the eaves of my consciousness.

  “You asked why I got so angry when you called yourself … that,” I murmur.

  “Yeah,” she says, placing her hand on my arm, seeming impossibly warm against the contrasting cold of the lake.

  Her cuteness is like an eruption as she stands there in my jacket, her face ruddy from the cold, a few wisps of her hair coming loose and blowing around her face.

  “When I was a kid, my mom was anorexic, and – well – my dad encouraged it. I was too young to know what was going on, but all I remember is she was thin, too thin, and my dad would always call her fat, always belittle her. He was an evil motherfucker. I see that now. But when you’re a kid …”

  “You don’t know any better,” she murmurs.

  I sigh. “Exactly.”

  We pause, and then silently agree to walk a short circuit of the lake. She reaches across and interlocks her fingers with mine, squeezing supportively. I squeeze on even harder, hungrily taking her warmth, her closeness, her goddamn essence, not that I ever thought I’d be thinking such a thing.

  “This went on for years and shit got really bad,” I go on. “I guess that’s why you made me so angry back there. Not just because you’re beautiful, which you are … but because I don’t want you thinking that you’re not. I saw firsthand the damage that can do to a person. And then one day my mom left. She found a man who didn’t abuse her and she went to live overseas. I only found out recently that she lives in Australia and has a new life there, a husband and a piece of land they own and work on together. Johnny told me.”

  “Have you spoken to her?” Millie asks.

  I wince because I knew she might ask that. And I know I haven’t got the answer she probably wants to hear.

  “No,” I tell her. “It’s been three decades, Millie.”

  “It’s never too late,” she says fiercely. “I know if I had the chance to talk to my parents again …”

  “I know,” I say quietly. “I guess life is complicated sometimes.”

  “It is,” she agrees. “But maybe one day you can give her a call and just be like, ‘Hey Mom, no hard feelings.’”

  I laugh gruffly when she imitates my voice, over the top, deep and growly.

  I spin her into my embrace, where she belongs, where she can never stray away from for too damn long. Because it hurts, not holding this woman, this maternal beautiful sexy just-mine goddess.

  “That’s not how I sound, for the record,” I tell her.

  “I don’t know,” she giggles. “I think I got it pretty spot on.”

  I taste her lips again, an addiction I never want to quit, and then run my mouth down to her neck, kissing, biting softly, my manhood filled with so much tension I can almost feel her soaked wet slit grasping onto it, the way she’ll shiver and pulse with our pleasure …

  I listen to the way she moans now, rising carefree into the air, as though we can forget about the pain, forget about everything that doesn’t involve each other.

  “Markus,” she gasps. “Not here.”

  I pull myself away with an effort, my head swimming with naked vignettes of her.

  “Thank God you said that,” I snarl. “It’s so easy to lose control with you.”

  “What happened to your dad when your mom left?”

  “Is this your idea of dirty talk?” I banter.

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she says softly.

  I shrug. “It’s nothing out of the ordinary. People have gone through worse. Hell, you’ve gone through worse. Mom left and then Dad left, the cliché of going out to buy cigarettes one day and then just not coming back. Except he was going out to buy orange juice, so at least the motherfucker mixed it up a bit. I heard from Johnny later that he got mixed up with some bad folks and ended up OD’ing in some crack den somewhere.”

  I shrug again, as though if I do that enough I can banish all this nasty shit.

  “That’s horrible,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

  I make to shrug a third time, and Millie’s hands lash out, and clamp down on my shoulders, eyes dancing playfully.

  “That’s horrible,” she repeats forcefully, staring at me with more meaning than a near-stranger should be able to communicate.

  But that’s the thing.

  Millie’s not a stranger and she never has been, never could be.

  She’s my woman.

  Mine.

  I let out a shaky breath. “Yeah,” I agree. “It’s fucking horrible. Life can be like that sometimes. But if you’re expecting waterworks, you’re with the wrong man.”

  She wraps her arms around me and hugs me tightly, laying her head against my chest. For half a second I’m stunned, but then my natural instinct to be close to this woman takes over.

  I lift my hands and cradle her shoulders, running a hand through her hair, feeling her, treasuring her.

  “Alright, alright,” I laugh after a minute or so of the most intense closeness of my life. “I’m done depressing you. Since you’re not working today, why don’t we do something? Go somewhere?”

  “What did you have in mind?” she asks.

  “Well, I did have an idea,” I tell her.

  “Okay, Mr. Cryptic,” she says. “Care to give me any more information?”

  I smirk, glad that we have this dynamic of being able to be serious one moment and playful the next. Or maybe it’s something else. Maybe it’s that we’re silently agreeing to put aside heartache and pain and danger, and fall into the safety and security of ea
ch other.

  “Nope,” I say. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

  “Well, that’s easy,” she whispers. “I already do.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Millie

  “What about this?” I ask, standing in the doorway of the kitchen.

  Markus leans over the window, sleeves rolled up, his shirt riding up to reveal his hard muscled flesh as he secures the final fastening for the new window. We rode back into town to get his materials and then came back here to sort it before heading out …

  Where?

  For an early dinner date.

  That’s all he’ll tell me.

  “Wear something sexy,” he said as we pulled his car up outside Jackie’s place. “That shouldn’t be hard for you.”

  I giggled, slapping at him playfully, trying not to let the compliment rush around my head like an intoxicant. But it’s downright impossible where he’s concerned.

  Sharing our pasts has only made me feel closer to him like there are depths to him that only I’m privileged to.

  He’s like Crystal Lake, frozen on the surface for most people … but plunge beneath the ice and there are deep pools of intense light and darkness, a soul just waiting to be found and cherished and loved and—

  Loved? Slow down, girlfriend. You don’t want to scare him off.

  I clutch onto that voice within, knowing that it’s right, that if I were to toss the L-word at him he’d run a mile … and then several hundred more.

  Anyway, it’s impossible to love somebody after so short a time, right?

  Right?

  He turns to me, pulling me back to the present. His eyes widen, moving up and down my body with a conqueror’s roving gaze.

  “Jesus Christ, Millie,” he growls. “You look incredible.”

  I went for a dress I bought online a few months ago but always secretly thought I’d never have the courage to wear. Golden brown and form fitting, it cuts just above my knees and shows a dignified amount of cleavage. I have matching four inch heels, too, nothing crazy … but still a big deal for me.

  “Really?” I say, unable to hide the quiver in my voice.

  “Really,” he growls, turning the screwdriver one more time and then climbing down off the stepladder.

  The new window looks shiny and obviously new compared to the ones on either side of it.

  Shiny and new, like us.

  He puts the screwdriver down and runs the faucet, washing his hands quickly. The house is silent except for the hum of the refrigerator and the heater, a light wind outside. Jackie’s at work and Lava is staying at the doggy daycare in town since Jackie is understandably nervous about leaving him alone now.

  “Washing your hands?” I murmur playfully. “Somehow I didn’t expect a beast like you to stoop to such a thing. I guess you really are a gentleman after all.”

  “Not usually,” he smirks. “But I don’t want to get that dress all dirty.”

  I gasp as he surges forward, his hands gripping my hips and guiding me into the hallway, dark with only the light from the kitchen and living room filtering through. But in here, there are no windows, just us, and the intimate closeness that explodes between us.

  His lips are on mine, both of us moaning, our tongues battling together, as he slides his hand up my bare thigh, lifting the hem of my dress and dragging his touch toward my sex.

  “Fuck,” he growls, breaking off the kiss and staring at me. “Turn around and stick that ass out. I need you to cream like that for me, Millie, with those gorgeous hips thrust out for me, and that tasty goddamn cream sliding down your thick beautiful thighs.”

  Another gasp punches from my throat, even as a voice screams inside of me that I’m not ready for the real thing, the main event, not yet … and isn’t it unfair, taking and not receiving?

  But then all thoughts are blotted when my autopilot of lust takes over and I spin around, place my hands against the wall and arch my back, and push my hips out and feel the wetness of my sex soak into my panties.

  “Fuck, you’re already so wet,” Markus snarls, pushing aside any self-consciousness thoughts in that regard.

  I look over my shoulder at him, his black-silver hair dappled with sweat and swept to the side, his musky scent overwhelming me. His forearms pulse with their ginormous muscles as he slides both hands up my thighs and pushes up my skirt again, and then grabs my panties and slowly, pulls them down.

  “Fuck,” he grunts, pushing up my dress so that it’s gathered in bunches just above my ass.

  The bare air pricks at me and in a sizzling, illicit vignette I imagine Jackie driving up to the house, opening the door—catching us.

  “I’ll hear if anybody comes,” Markus says, and I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that he can intimate so much about me now, that our souls sing to each other even when our tongues are silent.

  “Find my hand, Millie,” he snarls. “Take your own pleasure. Fucking grind against my palm and get yourself off.”

  I feel my hips twitch before he’s even finished the command, as though my sex has a mind of its own, fueled by my womb and his words.

  We stare into each other’s eyes as I bring my pussy to his waiting hand, my vision shimmering in lust as I begin to writhe against him, moving up and down so that my clit presses against the firmness of his palm, and then I shift down, a little closer …

  “Oh, fuck,” we both say at the same time, mine a moan and his a snarl.

  He smirks and I giggle through the lust, and then we drift back into the intensity of the lust, his finger sliding into my hole as I take the reins and begin to buck up and down on his hand, chasing a tight orb of pleasure that dances and sears at the end of his finger.

  “Another … finger,” I gasp, stunned and delighted by the forwardness I’m able to summon in these moments.

  He lets out a carnal growl and then offers up another finger for me, but he doesn’t drive it inside of me. Instead, he holds it there erect, waiting for me to guide myself onto him.

  My eyes are too bleary with pleasure now for me to make him out, so I just focus everything I have on the heat between my legs, an exploding star that sends ricocheting flares through me, touching every part of me.

  My whole body trembles and my moans of pleasure turn ragged, disjointed, unable to find any steady rhythm as the euphoria inside of me does the same.

  A drumbeat of lust that lets me forget.

  The past, the future, any pain in the present—all of it floats away on a river of broiling desire.

  “F-f-fuck,” I gasp, the orgasm shattering inside of me and sending creamy pleasure flowing all over his hand, down my thighs, trickling like hot syrup over my skin.

  It should make me fizzle out in embarrassment.

  But the way Markus snarls urges me on, his voice deep and possessive, claiming my cream and my moans and everything else I have to offer.

  My breath shivers out as I slowly straighten.

  “I can’t believe we did that here,” I whisper.

  “I can,” Markus snarls, eyes fixated on me as I lean down to pull up my panties.

  My pussy gives another pulse when I look down and see the rock hard outline of his manhood in his pants, all tangled up and yet obviously huge despite that.

  “I feel bad,” I admit. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Not yet,” he snarls. “I’m saving every drop of my seed for your greedy pussy.”

  Take it now, my womb screams at me. Take every last drop.

  But I still feel a few whisperings of self-consciousness, just a few, and with a whelming of relief, I realize that I might be ready soon.

  Maybe even tonight.

  I wonder if it has anything with the idea of doing it somewhere other than here. Maybe I’ve always considered myself one kind of person – the quiet virgin, the lonely nobody – and changing that here would be too monumental, as though the walls would laugh at me because they know different.

  Or maybe that’s a whole lot of mumbo jum
bo and the truth is I just need to give myself more time to get ready.

  Because even in his pants he looks huge.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Markus

  “This place is amazing,” Millie says, looking out the window at the ocean view, a fine mist settling over it and snow lancing the air, whipping here and there as the late afternoon sun illumes it all.

  I drove by the restaurant on my way toward Stone Harbor last month, a log cabin style place with fur rugs and a crackling fire in the center of it all.

  The drinks are served in big steins and the chairs are like fur covered thrones. The main appeal, though, are the giant windows that look out over the ocean, making it feel like you’re floating atop a boat of mist.

  But the main appeal for me is the woman sitting across from me.

  Her golden brown dress complements her hair as it cascades to her shoulders, so wavy all I want to do is softly move my hands through it, feeling it shift like water. Her perfume fills the air and her face is colored every so slightly with subtle, gorgeous flourishes of makeup.

  I find it hard to contain the beast inside of me as we order our drinks, two non-alcoholic German beers.

  The waiter brings our drinks and leaves us with the menus, Millie pursing her lips as she looks over it.

  “So it seems this place is determined to serve absolutely zero healthy options, huh?” she says.

  “Damn right,” I smirk. “Real food only, I’m afraid. Why, were you thinking of getting a salad? Because let me tell you, if you were, I might just have to throw a temper tantrum.”

  “Hmm,” she says, in that teasing way I’m quickly coming to savor as an integral, magnificent part of her. “Now wouldn’t that be a sight to see? But I have to say, I didn’t take you as the tantrum throwing type.”

  “Oh, I’m not, usually,” I grin like a jackal. “But the thought of you sustaining those heavenly curves on leaves and greens makes me want to howl like the beast I am.”

  Savagery creeps into my tone, the same savage intent that filled me in the corridor at her friend’s house when she was bent over and riding my fingers, her wetness like a blanket of irrepressible heat against me. The way she twitched her hips, the way her ass cheeks shifted and bounced for me … goddamn, that could sustain a man through a hundred wars, just the memory alone.