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It’s as though the closeness with Markus has awoken something inside of me, and now it won’t stop. Jagged and cutting, the sadness comes, it attacks.
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 NineMarkusI 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.
