Her back arched, presenting them to me, but I was already moving on.
“Jerk,” she whispered without any heat.
I hummed noncommittally, dragging the prongs of the whisk from side to side across her waist. My hand curved around, lifting the front of her shorts so that I could dip the instrument inside. She grabbed my hand, pausing my descent.
Breath already coming from my nostrils with enough heat and force to power a turbine, I clutched desperately at my willpower and waited. And waited. When her fingers finally released me, there were crescent-shaped indents in their place. Pride had me standing taller, bringing my dick right along with me.
There weren’t many things I enjoyed more than wearing my woman’s mark on my body. Taking off my clothes and seeing the evidence that the other half of my soul was exactly where she was supposed to be.
With me.
Her knees shook as the whisk reached the lips of her pussy, and I banded my other arm around her chest to hold her up. Satisfied she wasn’t going to fall on her ass before I got her off, I started making slow, teasing circles while I trained my ears to the sounds she was making.
When a soft moan filtered out around us, I smiled into the side of her neck, running my teeth along the smooth column of skin.
She shivered, hand going to the back of my neck and holding me in place. All the while, my wrist rotated, swirling lazily along the place where I knew her body pulsed for me and only me.
Letting a low growl rumble against her flesh, I reached down and yanked her shorts to the floor before reclaiming my initial position. She stepped out of them willingly, spreading her legs wider. Granting me access with a sexy, heated glance thrown over her shoulder.
“We’re not going to be able to make eggs with this,” she said softly.
“Like I give a fuck.” I tapped the prongs against her pussy, hard enough to make her jolt. “I’ll buy another one.”
“That’s wasteful. What about—”
I clapped a hand over her mouth, sealing her words in. She bit down on the meat of my palm and I let her. The pain was a gift instead of a distraction. I only pressed myself harder against her, forcing her against the granite countertop mercilessly.
Movements turning brutal, I moved the whisk between her legs faster and faster until she was torn between pulling her hips away from me and chasing the feeling.
I stared at the side of her face while her lashes fluttered.
While the pulse in her neck beat hard enough for me to see it.
While her breaths came hot and heavy against my hand and she finally released her bite in favor of moaning.
“That’s it, pussycat,” I purred against her ear. “I love when you fight me. But I fucking love when you surrender just as much.”
Her heavy-lidded eyes landed on me.
Shut up and make me come, that angry gaze said.
I was all too glad to follow that command.
Pulling the whisk from between her legs, I tossed it to the side and shoved two fingers inside her soaking entrance. One of us groaned as I stroked her inner walls and I had no idea who it was.
She was so wet that her thighs were already coated. I had no problem digging the heel of my palm into her clit while I added a third finger. Feeling her stretch around me had me so hard that I thought I might faint from the way blood rushed below my waist.
“Right there,” she mumbled against my hand, briefly sinking her teeth into me again. “Right fucking there.”
I vacuum-sealed my back to hers as my fingers teased and stroked the sensitive areas I knew so well. The walls of her pussy clamped down on me and shuddered as they released. When they did it again, hard enough to force me from her body, I immediately switched my full attention to her clit, rubbing in small, tight circles while she screamed and came apart beneath me.
Josie let her body fall flat, breathing in short pants. My gaze dropped to her ass as I sucked her taste from my fingers and hooked my fingertips into my underwear. Thank the Lord I never wore anything more than this to bed. I would’ve ripped a perfectly good outfit if it meant being inside of her welcoming heat faster.
I spit into my palm and coated my length as I lined myself up with her entrance. She watched me from over her shoulder, a satisfied smile on her face. She never looked away as I buried myself to the hilt inside her, hands squeezing her hips so tight it was like I wanted to break her in half and mold her into shape all over again.
Careful.
I paused, buried to the hilt, trying to convince my fingers to loosen their grip. Heat curled in my chest, spreading across my lungs, up my throat. Her hair was golden brown and soft around her shoulders, the ends slick with sweat, and all I wanted to do was yank at it and fuck her like an animal.
I wanted to take her body to the very edge, threaten the drop, and then go crashing into the abyss.
“Let it out.” She reached back and raked her nails down my arms, drawing a hiss from me. “Don’t you dare start going easy on me now.”
“Pussycat…”
Josie didn’t answer me with words.
She caught my hands where they rested on her hips and held on as she thrust herself back against me, working her body up and down my length. I shifted on my feet, bracing as the wet, echoing impact carried throughout the house before being swallowed by the darkness.
The control I’d barely gathered spilled from me like grains of sand in a desert, never to be found again.
Somewhere in my chest, a gate creaked open, unleashing the inferno she would always stir inside me, now and forever. I grabbed the hair at the base of her neck, twisting end over end until her back was arched and her neck was pulled taut.
I held onto her hip with my other hand, grip bruising. With all the force in my body, I drove back into her, meeting her thrust for thrust until I wasn’t certain who was fucking who. The smell of sex and her own signature perfume pulled me further into our out of control whirlwind.
I pulled out suddenly and turned her around, lifting her onto the counter. In the next heartbeat, my dick had returned to paradise. The slow drag of her nails going up and over my shoulders sent tiny chills dancing through me.
“Much. Better,” she rasped between breaths, leaning forward to nip at my chest. “You can’t break me, Monster. But you’re always welcome to try.”
My balls ached, and I pushed that need aside. My hands dropped to her ass so I could pin her against me at the end of each thrust. I rolled my hips, cursing under my breath as her walls wrapped around me and refused to let go.
I released her hair and gripped her neck instead, but I didn’t squeeze. I lifted her chin and sealed our mouths together, tongue plunging. She rolled out the welcome mat for my invasion, opening wider until it looked as if we were trying to each other’s faces while our tongues rolled.
Josie cupped my face with both hands, slowing down the kiss. What started as all-out war turned teasing and gentle. My hand skated down her front. Roughly kneading her breasts. Dancing over the slope of her stomach. Playing with the soft curls at the top of her mound but not going any farther.
“Tease.” She grinned against my mouth.
“Wife,” I said against hers, not even pausing as I reached into the drawer again and pulled out a small box.
Her eyes bugged out.
I wasn’t sure if it was from my dick trying to pound through her walls and into her fucking stomach or the sparkling rock I’d just flipped the lid on.
“Seriously?” She gasped as I swirled my hips again. “You kept it here?”
“Not like you were going to find it.” I kissed her. Slow. Sensual. Filled with an ocean of feelings that I poured into her. An endless flood. “I love you. This was inevitable. Now, cum on my dick so I can get to the part where I make an honest woman out of you, Ms. Hamilton.”
“There’s something seriously wrong with you,” she said, even as her eyes closed and tension stole through her body.
Fingers digging into her hips, I suck
ed at the curve of her neck.
Josie whimpered and my dick pulsed, eyes rolling back in my head.
“I could get down on one knee, but that would mean stopping,” I taunted. “Is that what you want?”
“Fuck you.” She captured my bottom lip between her teeth, biting down until the salty, copper taste of blood filled my mouth.
She pulled away, lips curled in a snarl. A streak of red fell down her chin and green eyes glowed with pleasure. Savagely beautiful. Unrepentant. Filled with a ferocity that would've made Genghis Khan piss his fucking pants.
And she was mine.
All mine.
“Yes,” she hissed, pussy clenching at my length. She wrapped her legs around my waist and ground herself against me. “Fuck. Yes.”
I chased her down into oblivion, the pressure at the base of my spine detonating with enough force to leave the room spinning. Burying my head in her neck, I pumped lazily inside her, emptying every drop of cum in my balls. She placed wet kisses on my chest, tongue snaking out to taste my sweat. Her fingers played a soundless tune along my arms as we caught our breath.
When my pulse stopped thumping in my ears, I leaned my head against hers. “You didn’t give me an answer yet.”
And in typical not to be fucked with fashion, Josie glanced up at me and said, “Calm your tits, big man. I’m getting to it.”
She grabbed the box, sliding the ring out and onto her finger before I could protest.
“I think you just broke a tradition.” A smirk crept across my face as her eyes narrowed. “Somewhere out there, a witch just gasped into her bubbling cauldron and cursed us to have bad luck.”
Josie smiled warmly at the ring, then up at me. “Tradition can kiss my ass.” She threw her arms around my neck. “And I love you, but if you think this means we’re skipping the engagement party, you’re dead wrong. I’m going to invite everyone I know and a few people I don’t just so I can watch you squirm when they all come over and talk to you. That’ll teach you a lesson about being a smartass.”
I groaned and dropped my head to her shoulder, pulling her tight against me as our bodies cooled. “Baby…”
“Nope. Don’t ‘baby’ me. You brought this on yourself. Have fun dealing with the consequences.”
I leaned back and looked her up and down. Messy sex hair. A smudge of blood on her chin. Sweat making her formerly loose shirt stick to her curves. “From where I’m standing, those consequences are looking pretty damn good.”
Josie pushed me away and hopped down to her feet, steadying herself against the counter. “You won’t be saying that when I invite Jason to do the first toast.”
My eyes went wide. “You wouldn’t.”
She shrugged, waltzing away and making me call out to her.
“We’ll be there all day! He’ll go through every single story he can remember.”
She waved her fingers before she disappeared around the corner. “Your loss!”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, but nothing could stop the smile on my face.
Because no matter how you looked at it, I was winning hard as a motherfucker these days.
There was a place for monsters in this world after all.
At least there was for the ones that had met their match.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Epilogue
Three years later
Pregnancy cravings were going to get me in trouble, and not the fun, tied to the bed kind of trouble either.
This was more along the lines of: my husband is never going to forgive me.
Someone, somewhere is going to make a Wikipedia entry out of my life.
This is the part where the ground falls out beneath me and I hold a pitiful, wooden sign in the air before dropping like an anvil that would land with an unfortunately meaty thud.
“Come on,” I pleaded with the curl of smoke wafting towards the ceiling. “Don’t do this to me. He’s never going to let me live this down.”
Just in case it wasn't clear, I was currently begging an intangible object to give me a fucking break.
The smoke wasn't listening.
It spun higher and higher, flipping the middle finger at my efforts to avoid the nuclear fallout looming on the horizon. The stupid pan that had caught on fire was in the sink being doused in cold water, but the damage was done. Smoke kept curling and swirling, looping end over end. Things were officially counting down to doomsday while I could do nothing other than watch.
And to make matters worse, as if that was even possible, I was crying.
Fucking.
Crying.
Not the dainty mist of tears that could be waved away with freshly manicured nails, either. More than a decade had passed since I last had a manicure in the first place. Even the girls I considered sisters hadn’t been able to talk me into that silliness.
There were big, fat crocodile tears running down my cheeks and dripping onto my swollen stomach. No matter how many times I dashed at them, they kept coming.
Just like yesterday.
And the day before that.
And the day before that.
I was a regular leaky faucet and there wasn’t a plumber in the world who could do anything about it.
While we were lazing around in the living room the other day—Monster on the floor and me curled sideways on the couch behind him—watching the second season of a show about this grown man who had an imaginary best friend, he’d offered me a strawberry dipped in chocolate.
A strawberry my clumsy ass preceded to drop before it could make its way into my mouth.
A silly mistake, right?
Shouldn’t have been a big deal at all, right?
Wrong.
The moment I saw the splatter of chocolate on the floor and the sad, lonely strawberry sitting in a shallow puddle of dejected waste, the tears started flowing.
Did it matter that Monster had an entire container of strawberries sitting in front of him?
Did it matter that he already had another one dipped and ready for me before the first tear fell?
Of course not.
I’d cried, loud, ugly sobs that drowned out the TV and sent my husband climbing to his feet and pulling me against him. Straight into the shelter of powerful arms that never failed to make me feel like everything would be alright.
In case the pattern didn’t catch on yet, that only made me cry harder against his shoulder.
And I wasn’t even going to get into what it did to me when we passed a box on the highway while we were driving home about two weeks ago.
Oh, who was I kidding, yes I was.
It was raining.
There was a cat in the box.
I cried enough tears that I should’ve turned into a dehydrated husk in the passenger seat during the minuscule amount of time it took Monster to scoop the cat up and bring him home with us.
The visit to the vet had come later. Probably not the best decision either of us had ever made, but we weren’t exactly bastions of healthy judgment calls either.
We kind of had a whole thing with burning down buildings while we remained inside them.
Anyway...
Señor Snagglekins curled around my legs just then, tail rubbing. He was the color of fallen snow, except for the patch of black in the middle of his lower back. A back that was currently arched imperiously while he made figure-eights and purred with the gusto of a chainsaw left in the shed for a few dozen winters.
I got ready to reach down and scratch him through my tears, but being pregnant was seriously not as easy as Caitlin had made it look.
Bending over shouldn’t be an entire task, but at seven a half months, it definitely was.
My belly was big enough to throw my balance all the way off, so I had to hold onto the center island of the kitchen—cheeks flushing as I thought about the many, many ways this spot had been christened over the years—while I worked a slow route to the floor that wouldn’t leave me trying to figure out how to get up or send me racin
g to the bathroom.
Why didn’t Mom or anyone else bother to tell me how often I was going to have to pee?
One hand on my stomach, the other stroking chainsaw cat, I managed to distract myself enough to forget about the smoke.
Of course, that's exactly when the serpentine wisps reached the smoke detector and turned the house into a dance hall filled with shrieking alarms.
And louder than the wail of the alarm that sent Señor Snagglekins running for the emergency bunker I should've thought about?
A shout.
A curse.
Both of which were followed by pounding feet beating a savage rhythm against the floor above my head. Rounding the bend in the hallway. Stomping down the stairs.
I could feel him in the kitchen with me before I could see him from my crouch.
However these things worked, the burning connection between Monster and I hadn't diminished from cohabitation.
He appeared on my right, a living maelstrom of chaotic energy that made the hairs on my arms stand on end and sent the small life in my tummy shifting around. Months of stretchy pants and ridiculous food cravings weren’t the only things that had changed when I found out I was pregnant.
Whatever self-imposed leash Monster used to place on himself had snapped the moment the first test came back positive.
The primal side of him that I’d first seen the day he squared off in the ring—that same this is my world and you’re lucky I let you live in it attitude that made him a perfect fit for the Sinners—had come racing to the forefront.
Glasses? Broken in his fist.
Forcing himself to be polite to idiots? Not happening.
Fiercely intimidating anyone who so much as glanced at me wrong?
Well...that was happening a lot.
Jason had suggested he take an extended leave from the office after Monster nearly threw a guy out of a window for interrupting while he was on the phone with me.
Barefoot, Monster padded across the floor and flipped a switch to turn off the alarm before returning to my side.
How sad was it that I set fire alarms off enough for us to need a switch? More tears stung my eyes.
Monster: A Seven Sinners Novel Page 26