by Sadie King
Beast in the Woods
Filthy Rich Love - Book 3
Sadie King
Beast in the Woods
Lucas
My fortune was built on taking what I wanted when I wanted it. When I meet the wide-eyed Mya she seems like an easy victory. I’m drawn to her innocence and her curvy body. But she’s woken something deep inside me, something primal, something that would ruin her innocence without thinking twice.
It breaks my heart to push her away, but she deserves better than a beast like me.
Mya
Since I became legal guardian of my little sister three years ago, she’s caused me nothing but stress. Now that she’s a rebellious teenager, I’m forever running around after her trying to keep her out of trouble. Then I meet the mysterious heir to the Bancroft fortune with the wicked reputation, and suddenly I’m the one being led astray.
It’s Halloween, the moon is full, and the beast inside him is craving my body. Luckily, I’m ready to discover my dark side.
Beast in the Woods is a short and steamy romance featuring an alpha male and curvy younger woman.
Book three in the Filthy Rich Love series. Each book in the series is a standalone. No cliff-hangers!
Copyright © 2019 by Sadie King.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover designed by Designrans.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, companies, locales or persons living or dead, are entirely coincidental.
www.authorsadieking.com
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Fox in the Garden is a bonus book in the Filthy Rich Love series, exclusive to email subscribers.
William
When I escape for some air before the most important business call of my life, I don’t expect to find a woman dancing barefoot in my Zen Garden.
The last two years of my life have been spent working toward this business deal. But now, all I can think about is her.
Ariel
Dad’s drinking is getting worse, and it’s starting to lose him clients. So I step in and take over the gardening business. But who knew our most profitable client was such a silver fox?
He’s older than me, confident and handsome. The kind of man who knows what he wants and isn’t afraid to take it. And I think what he wants is me…
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Contents
1. Mya
2. Lucas
3. Mya
4. Lucas
5. Mya
6. Lucas
7. Mya
8. Lucas
9. Mya
10. Lucas
Epilogue
Conductor of Hearts
Chapter 1
1
Mya
The mansion looms thick and black against the darkening sky. It sits on the edge of the woods, and the thick trees cast black shadows across the moonlit lawn. There’s a faint light in one of the upstairs windows, muted by a half-drawn curtain.
A shiver runs through me, and I pull my cardigan closed. It catches on the cat’s tail I’ve got pinned to the back of my uniform, so it doesn’t quite close around my chest.
My footsteps clack angrily on the pavement, the only sound in the deserted street, as I pass the black wrought iron fence that runs around the property. Intricate patterns with spiderwebs growing between the swirls adorn the fence, and I’ve often stopped to admire them and wonder who lives in such a lonely looking place.
But tonight my thoughts are consumed by my sister. She’s somehow managed to pick up a gig tonight, waitressing at a private party on the edge of town. If she thinks I’m letting her go out alone to a stranger’s house in the middle of nowhere, she’s crazy.
I’ve finished my shift at the diner early so I can go with her and make sure she doesn’t get herself into any more trouble.
I’m so consumed by thoughts of my rebellious little sister that I don’t notice the shadow moving by the grand entrance gate.
A demon jumps out from behind a pillar. I scream! The demon bursts into laughter and high fives a zombie lurking by the gate.
“Good one, dude,” he says to his friend.
“Stupid trick or treaters,” I say under my breath. But I can’t help but smile; it serves me right for walking alone on Halloween.
I go to step around the boys, but the one dressed as a demon blocks my path.
“Hey, Cat Girl, want to stick around and help us play a trick?”
“Not really,” I say, eying him warily.
“We’ve been ringing this gate for ten minutes, and no one’s answered.”
“Maybe they’re not home,” I say.
“This guy’s always home,” says the zombie. “He just likes to live in the dark.”
I raise my eyebrows at him skeptically.
“My mom used to be his cleaner,” he continues. “She never saw him. Never spoke to him, never even knew his name.”
“So how did she know he was home?”
“She used to hear him howling.”
My skin prickles, and I pull my cardigan around me again.
“That’s just a silly story,” I say.
“Are you calling my mom a liar?”
“No,” I say warily. “But what kind of a man howls? It’s not very likely, is it?”
“Maybe he’s not really a man?” says the demon.
“He’s big, apparently, tall as one of those trees in the woods.”
I roll my eyes. “This story’s getting better and better.”
“It’s true!” protests the zombie. “My mom says so.”
“I thought she never saw him?”
“She did his laundry,” says the zombie angrily. “Everything in giant sizes, she said. And she did see him once walking out from those trees. Just after she’d heard howling coming from the woods.”
“It could be wolves,” I say.
“Nah, they all died off years ago. And another thing; there’s a whole wing of the house she wasn’t allowed to go in. She used to see bats flying out of the chimneys.”
He reaches into his bag and pulls something out of it. “So, it looks like it’s a trick for him.” He launches the object in his hand, and an egg splatters onto the gate.
“Hey, don’t do that.” I step forward and trip over his bag, grazing my knee on the pavement. The boys laugh as I pick myself up.
“Why not? The guy who lives here is obviously loaded, and he can’t even spare a bit of candy for the local kids?”
“You’re hardly kids, are you?” It’s hard to tell under the masks, but judging by their builds they look like teenagers to me.
The zombie picks up another egg and aims it at me.
“You rather we play a trick on you, Cat Girl?”
My heart races, but I won’t let this upstart of an adolescent threaten me. I’ve had plenty of experience dealing with wayward teenagers.
“You can throw that egg at me if it makes you feel better, but it’s not going to get you any candy.”
There’s a thump on the top of my head and the dull crack of an egg breaking against my skull. Gooey raw egg trickles over the band holding up my cat ear
s and down my hair.
The zombie doubles over laughing as the demon comes around from behind me and high fives his friend.
Teenager assholes.
“That’s for calling my mom a liar,” says the zombie.
I take a deep breath and casually wipe egg from my forehead.
“You’d better run along home to your mom,” I say, “because she was right. I know the man who lives here too.”
I fix them with what I hope is an intense stare. “You never see him during the day because he’s half vampire, half wolf. He hunts at night, feeding on the blood of teenagers he finds making out in the woods.”
I’m warming to my theme, and I start walking slowly toward them.
“The howling your mom heard happens every time he makes a new kill.”
The boys start backing away. One of them stumbles over the lip of the pavement.
“When he can’t find what he needs in the woods, he ventures into town and stalks the kids he finds out after dark. That’s why these gates are so thick. They were built to contain him.”
The zombie pushes up his mask, revealing a terrified face underneath. I wonder if I’ve gone too far, but then they turn and run.
“You’d better get home before he finds a way to get out!” I call after them.
I laugh to myself and do a little victory dance, spinning around with my hands in the air. I freeze mid-spin. Standing on the other side of the gate is a huge figure, half-man and half-beast with yellow eyes glinting out of a rugged wolf’s head. For the second time tonight, I scream.
2
Lucas
It’s not the usual reaction I get from women, but then I’m not usually dressed for Halloween.
I should pull off the mask and put her at ease. That would be the gentlemanly thing to do. But then I’m no gentleman, and she has just been throwing eggs at my property. So I let her scream while I survey the damage.
Thankfully she calms down quickly and seems to realize I’m a man in a mask and not actually the mythical creature she was conjuring for her friends.
“What the hell are you doing sneaking around dressed like that?” she says.
“What are you doing throwing eggs at my gate?” My voice is muffled by the mask, and she has to come forward to hear me.
“I wasn’t throwing eggs. Those stupid kids were the ones throwing eggs. You’re lucky I scared them off with my story.”
I laugh. She actually believes it was her that scared them off and not me appearing silently behind her.
She steps into the light cast by the single lantern on the gate, and my heart stops for a moment. She’s beautiful. A curvy figure with long dark hair and wide brown eyes, her face unadorned by any make-up. I can see the flaws of her skin and the natural color of her lips. It’s such a pure, natural radiance that for a moment I’m struck speechless. Then I notice the egg trickling down her forehead.
“They did this to you?” I growl.
She nods. “Yup, I got egged. Bloody teenagers.”
I laugh for the second time in as many minutes, which is unusual for me.
“Come inside. I’ll clean you up.”
I can feel her hesitation. This is probably the time to lift the mask and show her the man underneath. But there’s such an innocence radiating from her that I don’t want to reveal my impure self. With the mask on I can be whoever I want to be. When she sees me as I am, I’ll just be a man with all my faults, and my faults are many.
I push the button, and the gates slides silently open. A glob of egg drips off the railing and splatters onto the pavement.
I hold out a hand to her. It looks big and beefy even to my eyes, but at least she can see there’s no wolf fur sprouting from it.
She accepts my hand, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Her hand is small and warm in my meaty palm, and I lead her through the gate and toward the house.
“What were you doing walking on your own in the dark?” I ask.
“I didn’t know there was a curfew,” she says, sticking her chin out defiantly. She’d probably look quite tough if it wasn’t for the egg yolk snaking down the side of her cheek.
“A young woman like you needs to be careful walking alone at night. You could run into trouble.” I realize I sound like I’m lecturing her, but I suddenly feel very protective of this tough-talking young woman with the innocent eyes.
I keep her hand in mine as I stride to the house. It’s warm and comforting, and she doesn’t try to remove it.
The old wooden door creaks as I push it open, and I feel her hesitate again on the steps.
“You want to call someone and let them know where you are?” I ask before we go into the house. She nods and gets her phone out.
There’s a sudden emptiness when she takes her hand out of mine. The lack of warmth leaving me feeling bereft.
As she taps out a message, the hair on the back of my neck starts to prickle. She’s probably texting her boyfriend, some preppy college undergrad. I clench my fists and a growl escapes my throat. She looks up, startled, and I turn the growl into a cough. I don’t know what’s come over me. I’ve had my fair share of women, but none of them have made me feel this sudden animal possessiveness.
“I’ve let my little sister know I’ll be late.” She slips her phone into her pocket.
“Your sister,” I say dumbly, the anger draining away immediately.
“I told her if I’m not home in fifteen minutes to send the police to your house.”
She laughs nervously, and I realize how unusual it is for a girl like her to walk into the house of a stranger wearing a wolf mask. Only on Halloween. I don’t know if I admire her bravery or her stupidity, but I’m not going to turn her away.
She’s woken something primal inside me, and I know I should send her home with her innocence intact. That would be the right thing to do. But when have I ever done the right thing? I’ve inherited a fortune built on taking what you want; it’s woven into my genes. God knows I’ve tried to escape it, but I’ve accepted it now. That’s who I am. What I want I take, and right now I want this woman.
3
Mya
What the hell am I doing? I ask myself for the umpteenth time as I cross the threshold into the house of a complete stranger whose face I haven’t even seen.
“Come through to the kitchen,” he says.
His voice is muffled by the mask, giving it a sexy rumble and causing me to lean in close when he speaks. Every time I do, I catch an earthy scent of pine trees and sweat that’s making my heart race.
Yup, he scared me half to death, but from the moment he stepped out of the shadows and I realized he was a very tall and well-built man, and not actually a beast, my heart hasn’t calmed down. Then he wrapped his big manly hand around mine, and I almost swooned. I’m not a small girl, but he made me feel tiny and delicate. It was both disconcerting and delicious.
He leads me through to a kitchen, switching lights on as he goes. There’s a slab of cured meat hanging from a hook above the kitchen island and a magnetic strip with knives stuck to it, the sharp blades glinting in the light. I wonder again what the hell I’m doing here.
But there’s something about him that makes me feel safe. Like no harm could come to me when I’m with him.
“Sit down.” He pulls out a rustic wooden chair, and I swish my tail aside to sit.
He pulls out a chair in front of me.
“May I?” he asks, indicating my knee. I nod, and he picks my leg up to inspect the scrape. The reaction is instant and electrifying. His hands on my knee sends a sexy shiver right through me. He’s taking a long time looking at my graze, and I’m wondering if he also feels this current that’s flowing between us.
“Do you wanna take the wolf mask off now?” My voice is barely a whisper.
I like to think he grins at me, but I have no way of knowing. The yellow eyes stare unblinking from above the top of the mask. God knows where he actually sees from; I think it must be the gap
ing mouth.
Slowly, he lifts the mask and puts it on the table.
He looks nothing like the man I imagined; he’s gorgeous. Dark shaggy hair flecked with silver; deep lines trouble his brow as if he’s permanently wearing a frown. His eyes are deep blue, and they rest on mine, alert and wary and full of depths, as vast as the stormy ocean whose color they resemble. They’re eyes that could turn piercing and cold in an instant, and eyes that I could stare into all day wondering what it is that makes him so wary and what causes him to frown so much.
“Hi,” I say. “I’m Mya.” His face relaxes, and he extends a hand.
“I’m Lucas.”
We shake hands, and there’s no denying the tingle I’m getting every time we touch.
“We’re gonna have to rinse this cut out,” he says getting up from the chair.
“Do you live here alone?” I ask.
“All alone.”
He throws me a hand towel, and I wipe the egg out of my hair while he fills a bowl with water.
“Must get lonely.”
“Not really. I have the bats for company.”
“So the stories are true!”
“What stories?” he asks
“Your cleaning lady is spreading the most terrible rumors about you.”
“How do you know they’re just rumors?” His eyebrows shoot up wickedly, and I can’t tell if he’s joking or not.
“She says there’s an empty wing of your house that she’s not allowed in.”