But even the word finally doesn’t make sense here, because I’ve only wanted her for…
Hours.
It seems impossible.
It feels like I’ve been waiting my whole life for Macie.
“I know I had to have her,” I finish, keeping it clean for Moms’ sake. “I know it makes no sense. But I’ve never felt more certain about anything.”
“I can hear it in your voice,” Mom murmurs. “I’ve never heard you this passionate before, even about your practice. You have to try and make this work, Miller.”
I laugh, my voice low and gruff, as I turn and pace across my apartment. I throw myself on the oversize leather couch. Somehow this place seems far bigger than it did this morning, as though thoughts of Macie and the family she’s going to give me are making me lonely.
“What the hell do you think she’s going to say if I call her up and tell her any of this?”
“I didn’t say you had to tell her,” Mom counters. “But you have to pursue this. I know you better than anybody. Wouldn’t you agree?”
I think about the people in my life, the acquaintances, the friends, the colleagues, and I know she’s right.
After Dad died I closed off parts of myself, a defense mechanism to stop myself from feeling that sort of pain ever again.
“Yeah,” I say.
“And I know you’ll never be able to forgive yourself if you ignore this feeling.”
“So you’re saying it makes sense?” I ask with disbelief writhing through my voice. “Come on, Mom. I must be going crazy.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t going crazy,” she says with a teasing note. “But maybe it’s a good kind of crazy. Maybe it’s the kind of crazy that will bring us happiness in the years to come.”
I know what she’s envisioning, the same thing I am.
A family, laughter, the picture-perfect future we’d both started to believe was impossible for me.
Because the truth is I’m usually a cold bastard.
But there’s something different about Macie, something special, and I can’t get her out of my head.
Not that I want to.
“Just call her,” Mom says. “Promise me that, okay? One call.”
I sigh, nodding, knowing she’s not going to quit. “Okay. I’ll call her. But I know she’s going to be pretty damn freaked out if I let her know how I feel.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” Mom says. “Or perhaps she feels the same. You won’t know unless you try.”
“I’ll call her, alright?” I laugh at her insistent tone.
“When?”
“In a few hours. I’ve got some work stuff to take care of.”
I know I won’t be able to focus on my work after I’ve spoken to my woman after I’ve heard her voice whispering to me down the phone.
“Make sure you do,” Mom says. “Because I can hear it in your voice. I can hear… I don’t know. You sound like you did when you were a boy, before your Father, God rest his soul…”
She trails off, a croak creeping into her voice.
“I know, Mom. I’ll call her. I swear.”
Unusual nerves make my stomach tighten.
I never normally feel like this, so vulnerable, so human.
But then I’ve never had Macie as my obsession before.
Chapter Five
Macie
I pace up and down in my bedroom, tapping a pen against my teeth, my laptop open on the desk. I’ve got the curtains closed and the lights off, the only source of light coming from my laptop screen, a glowing white rectangle.
Usually, I’m a sprinting sort of writer, manic finger-hammering out sessions, and then I go back with a meticulous eye and edit.
But this evening I find myself doing everything except for writing.
I abandon my laptop and give my two-bedroom apartment a tidy up. I’m renting this place with the money from Jackie’s will, but I haven’t splurged too much. It’s a simple apartment, with an office and a bedroom kept neat because that’s my habit.
Neat house, neat mind, Aunt Jackie used to say, and it’s a lesson that stuck.
What she usually left out of her pithy statement was the fact she had cleaners to handle all of this for her. I suppose I could pay somebody to tidy my apartment, but it just seems so indulgent when I can do it myself.
Once I’ve finished the dishes, I return to the bedroom, glancing at the word document on my laptop.
The…
That’s the only word I’ve written all night. It’s freaking pathetic.
But every time I sit down I find my thoughts straying to Miller and the way he glared at me as I left his office, as though I’d somehow offended him, and now my overactive mind is preoccupied with going over the meeting with forensic precision to try and work out what I did.
But I can’t think of anything.
Was it how nervous I came across?
Or maybe he could tell how badly I wanted him and it disgusted him.
I’m supposed to be working on the fourth chapter of my fantasy romance novel, about a woman who falls for a giant, born from a race who, sometimes, are born somewhere approximately human-sized. I already have all the chapters mapped out so it’s a simple case of breathing as much into the scene as I possibly can.
But every time I try to write about this woman and this giant, my fingers itch to do other things, to take me to other places that have nothing to do with my fantasy world.
Or maybe that’s wrong.
They have lots to do with fantasies, but not the exact fantasy that I am supposed to be plucking into existence.
I sigh and slam the laptop shut, pulling out my cellphone to see if Lexi has texted. When I see she hasn’t, I think about messaging her. But my best friend is on holiday with her boyfriend in Australia, and I don’t want to impose too much on her. She and Ryan have been doing so well lately, after a few roller coaster ups and downs over the years, and I don’t want to spoil that.
No, I need to deal with this on my own…
Not that there is a this.
It’s all in my freaking head.
Either that or it’s burning around my body in patterns of surging starlight, making every inch of me ultra-sensitive and alive to the tiniest friction against my body, as though I could pull on a T-shirt and cause an orgasm to thunder through me from the contact of the fabric against my nipples alone.
Knock-knock.
I pause at my bedroom door, staring across the apartment at the front door. It’s double-locked like it always is, but still, a note of fear moves through me.
I try to tell myself it’s not Derrick, that Derrick moved to Canada a year ago and he’s probably moved on to some other poor girl now, but the words ring out hollow in my mind.
Knock-knock-knock.
The noise gets louder, as though whoever it is – it’s Derrick, a vicious voice hisses – is getting tired of waiting. And soon they might simply kick the door down.
I hurry across the apartment, reaching over the kitchen partition and taking a knife from the block.
I know it’s probably going to turn out to be an over the top reaction, but the anxiety flurrying through me makes it impossible to do anything else, and there’s no way I’m taking any chances.
“Hello?” I call, creeping closer to the door.
“Maintenance,” a man says gruffly.
He’s got an East Coast accent, not Derrick’s deceptively friendly Canadian… that’s why he moved back up there, to be with his sick mother. Which seemed strange to me because Derrick is the least caring person ever.
He is probably hoping to work her out of her inheritance.
“I didn’t call maintenance,” I murmur, not trusting the relief that moves through me.
“There’s a possible gas leak,” the man snaps. “Miss Grahams, there isn’t time to argue. Please open the door.”
“I don’t smell any gas,” I say.
Part of me aches with the thought I’m making a fool
of myself, that word is going to spread around the building that apartment ninety-seven put everybody’s lives at risk because of some silly unfounded fears.
And yet another part of me sends urgent signals through my body, rivaling even the signals I feel toward Miller, screaming, Stay safe. Don’t you dare open that door.
“You’re not here for the gas, are you?” I say, my voice trembling when the man doesn’t answer.
“I have a note for you, Macie,” the man says, his voice low and gruff.
“Who are you?”
“He said to tell you it doesn’t matter who I am. I don’t know you. I don’t know him either. He said to tell you… fucking hell, he said to tell you I’m just some homeless worthless bum, and maybe he’d slit my throat after I gave you the message. He said I had to say that or I wouldn’t get my money.”
My throat tightens, my skin pricks like thousands of sharp needles are being jabbed into me.
“What note?” I murmur.
“He said I had to give it to you in person.”
“He’s not a freaking psychic,” I cry. “How would he know?”
“He said…”
“What?” My voice is shaking now, my words bubbling up like hot lava, burning my insides. “What the fuck did he say?”
“He said he has your place bugged.”
My blood turns cold, my mind stampeding ahead to try and figure out if this is possible, if he could’ve been here.
But even though I double-lock it when I’m inside, I don’t when I’m outside. And when I take the trash out, do I lock it at all?
No, the answer is no.
Which means it’s possible.
It’s also possible that he’s just trying to scare me, but that doesn’t do much to calm my hammering nerves.
“I’m not opening the door,” I manage to say, my heartbeat shattering in my chest. “So you can slip your twisted note under the door or you can go to hell. I don’t care.”
He sighs. “Fine. But if he doesn’t pay me…”
He leaves the threat unfinished, but I’m not worried about him. I’m worried about Derrick, about the sick lunatic who’s returned to make my life a living hell for the second time.
How can I possibly become a mother with him stalking me?
The man pushes a folded-up piece of paper under the door.
I wait until I hear him walk away, and then dart forward and grab it, being careful not to stumble with the knife in my hand.
I pick it up to find the familiar-looking handwriting – a jagged scrawl – taunting me from the paper.
I’ve come back to claim what’s mine. Don’t worry, my sweet angel. I’m watching you. Love, D.
I yell when my cell phone blares from the kitchen divider, dropping the note and the knife, my heartbeat feeling like it’s going to throttle me.
Who’s calling?
Is it Derrick?
Oh, God, why can’t he just leave me the heck alone?
Chapter Six
Miller
I sit in my office, my phone on speaker on my desk, gripping the edge of the desk like any second I could snap and flip it over as the phone’s ringing fills the air.
I feel like I could flip it just to release some of this pressure surging through me, the pressure pushing against me and trying to erupt out of my body.
I tried to focus on my reports and other work-related tasks, but the words blurred across the screen, transforming into shapes of Macie, of her wide hips, and her thick juicy gorgeous thighs.
I have to call her.
“H-hello?” she murmurs.
Something tightens in my chest, my body suddenly even more amped-up than it already was, everything inside of me roaring that something’s wrong.
Something’s wrong with my woman.
My plan was to ask her if she wanted to meet for coffee tomorrow, to test the waters, but the second I hear the anxiety in her voice I know I have to help fix whatever is making her feel this way.
Even if she doesn’t know how important she is to me yet, it doesn’t change the fact she’s the most important thing in my life, the person who’s going to bring my children into this world.
“Macie, it’s me,” I snarl, as though we’ve known each other for years.
And it feels that way.
“Miller,” I go on.
“Oh, yes, hello.” I can tell she’s making an effort to keep her voice level, but it wavers all the same, uncertainty quivering through her voice. “I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”
“It’s…”
I trail off, clenching my jaw as my temples pulse and my manhood does the same. Something is dangerously wrong with me, with how easily this woman – and this woman alone – turns me into a savage.
I shouldn’t be rock solid for her now, but I am.
Her voice alone provokes the beast inside of me, my body getting ready to fuck our future into her needy womb.
“Macie, what’s wrong?” I say instead, unable to stop myself.
“Huh?”
I smirk at the forced confusion in her voice, as though I can’t read every single piece of her already. It should be impossible, but I can sense the uncertainty, the fear quivering in the depths of her tone.
Even if she’s trying to hide it, I sense it, the same way a predator senses his prey.
“Something’s wrong,” I say evenly. “What is it?”
“It… it doesn’t matter.”
I lean forward, almost snapping the table in half.
“It does to me. Now, tell me.”
She gasps, and I know I’ve probably gone too far, that this is the moment she’ll tell me she’s uncomfortable having this conversation with me and she’d like to stop. But instead, she lets out a breathy sigh.
“It’s complicated,” she murmurs. “It’s probably something I should talk to the police about, but he’s clever. He knows how to do things so the police can’t help me. We’ve been through it all before.”
“I don’t understand,” I say, fire flaring in my voice at the word he.
Is some bastard bothering my woman?
“Like I said, it’s complicated.”
“Then I’ll come to you and you can tell me.”
This isn’t how I planned on this going at all. I was supposed to hold back from making any concrete moves like this. I don’t want to scare her away with the possessive certainty I feel for her but, at the same time, there’s no damn way I’m going to let some bastard make her feel like this.
“Really?” she gasps, her voice adorably naïve and shocked, making my helm throb against my pants. “You’d do that?”
“Yes,” I growl. “It’s the only right thing to do. If you’ve got some motherfucker bothering you, I’d like to be there.”
“Why?”
I bite down even harder, stilling the hundreds of savage reasons that rise on my lips, roaring out with carnal certainty.
“Because it’s the right thing to do,” I finish lamely.
But I can’t risk freaking her out over the phone.
She might tell me not to come and this bastard – this he who is bothering her – will be allowed to return and cause her more pain without me there to protect her.
I can’t allow that.
“Okay, if you’re sure…”
“I’m fucking sure. Text me your address. Now.”
“Whoah, okay, bossy.”
There’s a note of sass in her voice… a note that appeals to me, that I’ll enjoy taming once we’ve progressed our relationship to the bedroom. I can imagine her saying other, more carnal things in that same feisty tone.
“Just do what you’re told, Macie,” I say with a bantering note in my voice.
She lets out a short breath of air. I don’t think she even knows she’s doing it. It surges through my body, that noise, making me think of all the things I could do to get her to make it again.
I imagine kicking down her door and charging at her, spinning her around be
fore she’s even had a chance to say hello, and tearing down her pants and panties.
I imagine fucking her raw and roughly and possessively, showing her in the most primal way possible that she’s mine.
“I’ve sent it,” she murmurs.
“Good,” I snarl. “I’ll be there soon.”
I hang up the phone and then check my text conversation with her, seeing she’s been an obedient little minx, and sent her address like I told her to. My balls grow heavy when I think about her obeying more of my commands, think about her doing every little thing I roar at her, commanding her to bend to my will like the supplicating sexy thing she is…
Or I’m going to make her.
I study her address for a few moments, my mind flooded with protective thoughts.
Does she give her address out this easily to every stranger she meets, or can she sense there’s something between us as urgently as I can?
I let out a shivering growl as I turn and stride across my apartment, heading toward my bedroom.
Part of me wants to sort out this drumming lust that moves through me like a torrent. Part of me wants to pull my throbbing dick out and stroke myself as I picture her bent over my desk, that shy-as-fuck smile on her face, as I drag my tongue up her juicy thigh toward her even juicier sex.
But I know if I give in to this beast inside of me I wouldn’t be able to stop at just touching myself.
If I allowed the cage inside of me to bust open and for my real desires to unleash, it would turn into an impossible-to-ignore chant in my mind.
All I would hear is she’s-mine she’s-mine she’s-mine on a loop until the sound became so deafening I would be forced to act on it. I can imagine the cute surprised way her lips would part when I bring my hand down on her ass, spanking her lightly, but hard enough to show her who’s boss.
I groan, almost reaching down to grip my manhood.
How the fuck am I going to get through this without leaping on her?
I stop in my walk-in closet, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath the same way I did before a test in medical school.
Dr. Good: A Steamy Standalone Instalove Romance Page 3