Page 19 of Hunted Bride

That’s what stops me—knowing that she’s not ready for me yet.

Abruptly, I set her on her feet. She stares at me like a baby deer set free by a hunter.

“Well? Are you going to run, Mouse?”

She bolts.

I don’t chase her directly. Instead, I turn the other way and saunter back to the kitchen. She comes charging into the living room, looking behind her, and doesn’t see me standing there until she whips her head around. Seeing me there in front of her, she windmills her arms in an attempt to change direction.

Too late.

I catch her by the throat. She grasps my wrist.

“Got you again.” I grin, though she can’t see it. “Third time, I take you wherever I catch you.”

I give her a light squeeze and let her go.

Milena bolts past me and down the stairs to the recreation level that opens out to the pool—or would, if it wasn’t bolted shut. Interesting decision. I follow deliberately, without haste, my footsteps thudding on the stairs.

On the lower level, she’s run to the far side of the room with Alisa’s billiard table between us. That’s more like it. A challenge.

“What if I surrender?” she asks raggedly, brandishing a cue stick at me.

“I breed you.” I stalk closer. She edges around the table, staying as far away from me as she can. Her bathrobe has come loose at the neck. Her bra cup is visible. Black with red flowers. She wears sexy lingerie under those dowdy clothes.

She does it for me.

Maybe she fears me. But she wants me, too.

With her, I’m my truest self. I show her the side I can’t show my family. The part of myself I bury beneath jokes and banter.

“I’m not having a baby with someone whose name I don’t know. Whose face I’ve never seen,” she says. “That is one fantasy of yours that will never come true.”

I could tell her who I am. Maybe that’s the way forward. Confess everything. If she wanted to be with me, our families might come around to the idea of us marrying.

We’ve only just met, but we’ve known one another’s most intimate secrets for six years. Been a constant presence in one another’s lives. Her, unwillingly.

That’s what makes me decide against the idea. If I’m going to die for what I’ve done to her, I want to leave her with my child. But I need her to choose me.

She’ll never do that.

Not after everything I’ve done.

This is the closest I’m ever going to get to making Milena mine. One night and one more day for me to fulfill every filthy fantasy.

Then, I walk away.

Let her go.

I’ll have to content myself with the fantasy of leaving her pregnant with my child.

Who are you kidding? You know you’re never going to stop watching her. Especially if she has your baby. I warned her that if I caught her, I would never let her go—but I never had a plan to actually keep her by my side. I still don’t.

I lunge right. She scrambles away, circling the green-topped table in a panic. The thing is too big for me to vault over. A large light fixture hangs low over the game.

I put my knee on the rim. Preparing to climb across it to get to her. Milena’s eyes flare wide. Her pupils are dilated. Now, she’s ready. A pink flush crawls down her throat to the tops of her breasts. Milena lets out a feral growl and tries to poke me with the cue stick. I yank it out of her hands and snap it in half. Toss the pieces aside. She glances down, grabs a billiard ball and throws it at me. She misses by a mile.

I laugh. “Is that all you’ve got?”