Page 61 of Fangbanger

My chest is heavy.

Leah won’t look at me. She’s upset, her movements quick and jerky since we returned from Costco. I thought I did the right thing by protecting her, providing for her. Even when I’m gone, I’ll look out for her.

She punches the dough again, and I rise and swiftly move behind her. “Show me.” Suddenly, I am desperate to know more of her. Maybe I’ll bake bread when I’m gone—and give it to whom exactly?

I rest my chin on her shoulder. She stiffens. She fits me so well, my pretty mate. She smells delicious, like red fruit and human things—bodywash and the Halloween candy she snuck from her stash. Under that, warm skin and the heavy, drugging pounding of her blood.

“Marcus,” she warns unsteadily. I like that I can unsettle her. I nip at her shoulder, and she shudders.

“You’re grumpy tonight, mate.”

“Don’t call me that.” Her voice catches on the last.

“Leah,” I coax. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Her head dips. Tension vibrates over her frame before she grabs the dough again. “You make me want things,” she says shortly.

I narrowly avoid a stray elbow. “What things?”

She punches the dough, and I grab her, turn her until she’s looking up at me with shadowed eyes and an expression that says she’d prefer staking me to sharing her feelings.

“Coffee,” she says shortly, folding her arms.

“I don’t understand.” I cup her jaw. “Help me understand.”

“Having you here made me realize how it might be nice, you know? To come home after a long night and have someone there. Someone who would bandage me up and hold me and have coffee as the sun rose.” She squeezes her arms to herself. “I didn’t want those things before. Or I did, but not specifically. More…generically, I guess. But now you’re here and you’ve shown me what I could have, and when you’re gone—” She blinks furiously, then shakes her head and turns back to the dough. “Whatever.”

There’s an ache behind my ribs. I set my hands on her waist and my chin on her shoulder. I draw breath I don’t need so I can take her in with all my senses.

“I am sorry, Leah.”

She stiffens. Her hands slow on the dough.

“You can have those things.” The words are dragged out of me. I don’t want her to have those things with anyone else.

“I can’t,” she mutters. “What kind of partner would I make? I could be killed. I can’t keep normal hours. I can’t have a family.” With every sentence, she kneads the dough more violently, and the ache behind my ribs grows.

I have showed her all the best parts of matehood, and now I will take them away.

Your fault, my conscience whispers. You will hurt her, like you’ve hurt so many others. Your hands are stained with blood, and you do not deserve her.

“Leah,” I coax. “You’ll forget me. This week will be a blur.”

“I won’t,” she bites out.

I open my mouth to argue with her, but she whirls. Her eyes are wet. A tear tracks through the flour on her cheek. I freeze. I have never seen her cry, even when she has clearly wanted to.

“I like you, Marcus. More than I should. More than I intended.” She swipes angrily at her cheek. “More than I want to. Don’t you understand?” She plants a hand on my chest, like she’ll shove me away, but her fingers curl in my shirt. It’s a vise grip, and I never want her to release me. “I don’t want this with someone else.”

Me neither. I only want her.

40

LEAH

Marcus’s eyes flare before he gently lays a hand over mine. “I want you very badly,” he says huskily. “I want you more than they warned me I would, actually.”

My tattered heart leaps unsteadily in my chest.