I rolled my eyes, despite my heart racing in my chest. “Sure.”
He licked up to my calf. “Like sunshine and cool spring water. I want to devour you.”
My mouth went dry. I shivered.
“Roman…” My voice was unrecognizable, breathy and full of desire. It was full-on sex kitten, come-hithering my man to me.
One knee on the bed, Roman moved closer to me.
“Megan? Are you here?”
Roman’s head snapped up, the look in his eyes ferocious.
I jerked out of the bed, in a full-on panic, and grabbed for my yoga pants. “Oh, shit. Oh, no.”
“Megan?!” My husband’s voice called up the stairs, his footsteps following.
Roman pushed the door closed and looked back at me. “I wasn’t finished.”
I wanted to laugh at the poutiness to his voice, but my husband had just about walked in on us doing…that. I fell into the wall trying to jump into my pants and grunted. Turning my back to Roman so I didn’t have to know that he’d seen that, I finished tugging them on and ran my fingers through my hair.
“Megan? Is that you?”
I turned, but Roman was already opening the door. I couldn’t see around Roman, but judging by the startled yelp, Dylan had just come face to face with him. Fuck.
19
Megan
“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my house?” Dylan demanded to Roman, like he wasn’t an entire head and a half shorter than the man.
I stuck my head under Roman’s arm and held out my hands, not wanting the weirdness to escalate to something worse. “What are you doing back in my house, Dylan?”
Dylan acted as though he’d been slapped. His head jerked back when he saw me, and his face pinched as though he’d been sucking on a lemon. “You… What were you doing in there, Megan?”
“Something private that you interrupted.” Roman’s voice was a pure growl, the heat that always radiated off him growing stronger.
“Excuse me?” Dylan gathered himself quickly. “That’s my wife you’re talking about.”
I squeezed out of the door, planting myself in front of a very angry Roman. “Maybe we should take this downstairs?”
“Fine.” Dylan stomped down the stairs, shooting dark glances back at us periodically.
I looked back at Roman and winced. He was not happy. “I don’t know what he’s doing back here.”
He looked over my face, like he was searching for something, and sighed. “I know.”
“This is so awkward. I didn’t think I’d have to face off with him in front of you.” I looked up at the ceiling and groaned.
“You would prefer me to leave?”
The hurt in his voice surprised me, almost as much as the alarm I felt at the thought of him leaving. “No! No. I’m not saying that.”
He rolled his shoulders and blew out a breath. “Good.”
“Okay.” I nodded and turned to the stairs. “I guess we just go down there and see what he wants?”
With a hand on the center of my back, Roman led me down the stairs and into the kitchen. Dylan was looking through the liquor cabinets, slamming doors when he couldn’t find anything.
“Yeah, empty. But you should know. You cleaned it out completely.” I crossed my arms over my chest and prayed for strength.
Dylan scowled and pointed at Roman. “What is he still doing here?”
Roman growled, something I realized he was prone to doing, and actually curled his lip and bared his teeth at Dylan. It should’ve been weird, but it actually looked rather natural on him. It was, however, scary as hell. Probably more so when it was directed your way.
“Dylan, what are you doing here?”
“I live here, Megan.”
I scoffed. “No, actually you don’t. You literally don’t. All of your stuff—and some of mine, I might add—has been removed.”
He glared at Roman but didn’t say anything else to him. “That wasn’t me. It was Brandi. She told me I should take everything and I fell for it, Megan. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
I scrunched up my face in confusion, suddenly feeling as though I’d been teleported to an alternate reality. “What are you talking about?”
“She took everything. Apparently, it was her way of paying me back for not telling her about you.” He looked away. “I don’t know what came over me. I just had a hankering for something different, or so I thought. She wasn’t it, though. I want you back, Megan. You’re my wife. We’ve been together for twelve years. We shouldn’t let anyone else get between us.”
My brain reeled. “She took everything?”
“The money, the stuff, all of it. I woke up this morning to a rude note. She split—took it all. I came back here immediately when I realized the mistake I’d made. I knew right away I’d messed up.”
“You knew ‘right away’—after you woke up and she’d cleaned you out and dumped you?”
“Well, I knew yesterday.”
I shook my head and sat down on one of the barstools. “Dylan, you stole from the business, left me to board up this home and the shop myself, took things from this house that didn’t belong to you, and that’s not even the worst! You’ve also been cheating on me for who knows how long, and when you left me to pick up your slack, I was nearly killed.”
“Yeah, you stupid sonofabitch. I found her half-drowned in the ocean.” Roman shook, his big hands balled up on the counter next to me. “The only reason I haven’t snapped your scrawny ass in half yet is out of respect for Megan.”
“Who the hell are you?!” Dylan tempted fate. “And why are you still here?”
“Stop. Dylan, you need to leave. You don’t live here anymore. That was your choice, and I am not taking you back.”
“Oh, I should have known. Just like your parents, huh? Give up on marriage at the first sign of trouble, is that it, Megan? You won’t even honor our marriage by giving me another chance?”
I froze. Dylan was playing his trump card, and it felt like a gut punch. As if that wasn’t enough, the icing on the cake was when he pulled out his wallet and slid across a picture of the two of us on our first date.
“I still carry this. I still love you. I don’t care if you slept with him. I don’t care. We can get past all of this. We can rebuild the shop. I’ll do my part. I’ll do more than my part. You deserve more.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head harder.
“Megan, please. We can make it work. I know you don’t want to follow in your mom’s shoes. You give up on me, how long until you give up on the next guy? And the next? How many more men will you go through, just like her? It’s easy to walk away, but anything worth having is worth fighting for.”
I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was Roman’s hands. Still balled up, still tight, the veins strained. He was clearly holding himself back. He wanted to punch Dylan, I knew. Yet, he didn’t. He was just waiting—giving me the chance to be in control.
My heart pounded. Dylan was right about one thing. I was willing to throw everything I’d worked at for the past twelve years away for a chance with Roman. Looking at him, touching him, was such an uplifting experience, it was like magic. Yes, I felt like there was magic happening when I was next to him. He was everything I admired. He behaved honorably to others, and to me as well. He said kind words to me, and his actions backed those words up. I’d never been treated so well by anyone before.
Could it be real, though? How long could it last? How was it possible that a man like Roman wanted to enter into a long-term relationship with me? It wasn’t that I lacked self-esteem entirely, but I wasn’t blind, either. He was stunning. I was…average.
He suddenly swore from beside me. Looking down at his watch, he swore again and then shot a deadly glare at Dylan. “I have to leave. I will be back.”
“Don’t bother.”
Roman eased me off the stool and, with an arm around my waist, pulled me to the door with him. “Something’s going down at th
e office. It’s urgent or I wouldn’t dream of leaving right now. Don’t make any decisions while I’m gone. Please. I can see the wheels in your head turning and I know he’s getting to you, but what he’s saying is complete bullshit. He’s trying to play you. You don’t belong with him, Megan. You deserve so much better.”
I felt like crying. I stared at my feet until Roman slid a finger under my chin and raised my head.
“Look at me. This I will promise you right now. If you chose me, there will not be another man after me. I’m not a twelve-year kind of guy. I’m a forever kind of guy. Just, please, wait for me to return.”
I wanted to hold onto him, but he pressed a kiss to my forehead and was gone that fast, leaving me there with Dylan, who had no qualms about hitting below the belt to get me back.
There I was, the same large-stature woman with small breasts and big hips, who’d walked in on her husband as he went to town screwing his slender, beautiful mistress in our bed. A week later, I was still the same woman with a flabby belly and cellulite thighs, but now there were two men fighting over me. Life made zero sense.
20
Roman
I ripped the roof off the house without a strain. Throwing a slew of trashed shingles behind me, I growled and tugged at a beam that blocked my way in.
Roman! Calm yourself before you bring the entire house down on them!
I let out a wild roar in Serge’s direction, unable to heed his command at that moment. I knew, deep down, that he was right. The family trapped in their bathroom could easily be crushed to death if I didn’t handle the extraction delicately, but I was riled to the core.
Konstantin moved in next to me and grabbed a beam that was starting to slip. “Go!”
I lowered myself into the house and cleared a path headed in the direction of their screams. Dmitry and Alexei were right behind me, both offering support when the house shook. Serge grabbed me and yanked me backward just as I was about to pull the bathroom door open.
“Stop!” He jerked his chin up and gestured to the beam over the door. It was balancing precariously and would have undoubtedly cracked my skull if I’d followed through and opened the door.
The realization should have sobered me. It should have forced me to stop and pay closer attention to what I was doing. It didn’t. I couldn’t focus on anything other than the fact that I’d left my mate alone with a man who didn’t deserve her but had a claim to her anyway. A man who was talking out his ass a mile a minute. It had been so obvious to me that he was saying whatever he thought would get the reaction he wanted from her, with no regard for the truth.
“You go and help Konstantin support the structure until we can get them out!”
I growled but did as I was told. My bear ripped at me, demanding to be let out. I knew exactly what he’d do—run back to Megan’s house and tear her weasel of a husband to shreds. Unable to maintain control, I felt claws begin to extend from my fingertips.
“What the fuck happened, brother?”
I shook. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold myself together.
Seconds later, the team emerged with the family—all injury-free. Good. We could get the hell out of there. The house didn’t stand on its own for much longer, and as it collapsed in front of us, the family cried. The parents hugged their two children close and thanked us profusely for rescuing them and getting them all out safely.
My mind was elsewhere. I kept seeing Megan with that slimy little asshole. Would she buy into his manipulative bullshit? I knew he was only looking for someone to sponge off of and Megan had a heart of gold. He had nowhere to sleep and no money, but it was what he deserved. A taste of his own medicine. He’d had done to him exactly what he’d done to Megan. Karma. It pissed me off how he thought he could just waltz right back in and pick up where he left off.
I would dedicate myself to caring for Megan and respecting her needs and feelings. He never would. She didn’t necessarily know that, though.
“You and me need to have a talk, Roman.” Serge glared at me and pointed to the team’s van. “Now.”
The rest of the guys climbed into the back, as though that would give Serge and I any privacy. Not from shifter hearing, it wouldn’t. I sat fuming, terrified that I might be losing my mate. I needed to get back there as soon as possible and fight for her.
“What the fuck is going on with you?”
“You know damn good and well what.”
Serge nodded. He knew because he’d acted the same way when he met his mate. We’d been on a mission and he’d nearly blown the whole thing to hell after meeting Hannah. “I have a feeling. Mate?”
“Yeah.”
The guys in the back cheered, but Serge growled. “What’s the problem, then? And there is a problem, isn’t there, Roman?”
I growled. “There is. She has…a husband. He left her, and she almost died because of his lack of concern.” I released a slow breath. “He just came back. Says he’s sorry. Says he loves her.”
“Well, that explains why you almost got an entire family crushed to death.”
“She’s my mate. Mine. The fucker walks back in acting as though nothing ever happened. He’s trying to trick her into thinking he cares and that she needs him.”
Serge sighed. “Man, she’s yours. No matter what the asshole says or does.”
“What if she picks him?”
“She won’t. It’s not going to happen. If she’s truly your mate, she’s going to feel the same for you as you feel for her. She just won’t understand it the same way. Non-shifters don’t really listen to or trust their instincts the way we do. They also lie and deceive, so…” He shrugged. “I wish I’d have explained everything to Hannah earlier. It would’ve made things easier.”
“Yeah, might I suggest you not give her your claiming mark until she understands why you do that?” Alexei called through the back glass.
Serge stepped on the brakes hard enough to nearly slam Alexei’s face into the glass. “Shut the fuck up.”
I looked out the front window, thinking. “Should I tell her? Everything?”
“Are you sure she’s your mate?”
Scowling at him, I debated throttling him. “Are you sure Hannah is your mate?”
He snarled back at me. “Point taken.”
I sat there and tried to think it through. If she understood what was happening between us, maybe it would help her make her decision with more confidence. Maybe she would understand that we were meant to be together.
“Explain it to her. Just do it as gently as possible. It’s a lot for a human to take in.”
I nodded. “Let me out near Latte Love coffee shop.”
“Do I look like a chauffeur?”
“Serge.”
“Fine.”
I was nervous about revealing my shifter nature to Megan. She was my mate, though. That had to make it easier for her to understand everything. She was made for me, a shifter. That had to mean something.
When he stopped outside of Lotte Love, Serge clapped me on the shoulder. “Good luck, brother.”
“Give her your cub eyes if you have to.” Alexei grinned. “It works for me.”
“Shut up.” Dmitry punched him and shook his head. “She’s all yours, brother.”
I rolled my shoulders and walked toward her house. With each step, I felt more tense. I didn’t want to lose my mate before I even got the chance to show her what a life together would be like. Growling at myself, I broke into a run. This had to work.
21
Megan
I’d left Dylan in the kitchen while I started the generator and took a long, hot shower. I figured, what else could he steal? I emerged, to find that he’d lit candles and produced a bottle of wine from somewhere. When I came back to face him, he was in the shadows of candlelight. I flipped on the lights, willing to suck power from other things in the house to avoid sitting in the dark with him.
“Oh, okay. I just thought the candles added a nice ambiance.” He crosse
d his ankle over his knee and stretched his arms out along the back of the couch, cockily sure of himself, which pissed me off.
“You can stay.”
He grinned. “You’re making the best choice, Megan. I—”
“ONLY until you find somewhere else to live.” I balled my hands into fists to help me contain my emotions. “You’ll need to figure something out with the bed in your room if you decide that staying here for the moment is best for you. It was damaged in the storm.”
Sitting up, he shook his head. “Megan, let’s talk about this.”
“Okay.”
“I apologized.” He waited.
“And?”
“Well, I meant it. I am sorry. I shouldn’t have gone the route that I did. I should’ve come to you when I felt dissatisfied.”
I nodded and stared over his shoulder. “You should have. You didn’t have to blindside me, Dylan. You didn’t have to cheat, you didn’t have to steal, and you didn’t have to evacuate the island without the slightest concern for my safety or wellbeing.”
“What do you want me to say here?”
“Nothing. There’s nothing you can say. It’s just as much my fault that it’s come to this. I don’t think I ever really saw you until this past week—not really. Every glance has been through rose-colored glasses. I’ve been in complete denial about the person I’d been living with—married to.” I scrubbed my palms down my face. “We don’t love each other. Maybe we used to, I’m not even sure. Did we just stop at some point? If we did, it was long before Brandi or Roman. If you loved me, you wouldn’t have treated me so cruelly. If I loved you, it would’ve crushed me when you…well, you know. Honestly, though, Dylan, I feel relieved.”
He leaned back on the couch, his kind expression replaced with one of disgust. “You feel relieved?”
“Yes. Relieved. Free. Like maybe I have a chance to actually be happy.” I met his eyes. “I spent most of our marriage feeling inadequate and doing everything you wanted because I felt like I had to…to earn your love. I didn’t think there was any other way because I wasn’t pretty enough to keep you, or thin enough, so I figured I’d just bend over backward doing what you wanted for the rest of my life and that would ensure a long, happy marriage. You let me do that. You let me feel those things. And I wasn’t happy at all.”
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