by Unknown
“You don’t fucking touch her, ever. She’s mine,” Animal said to Mark, his hands clenched into fists and his chest rising and falling in quick succession.
“I beg your pardon! Animal, what the hell?” Sammy screeched from behind him.
Turning, he glared at her; how dare she yell at him. She was the one who was only five weeks out from their breakup and she was here with another man. She had no right to be angry with him for putting a stop to it. Animal didn’t acknowledge that the very reason he was here was to find a woman to have sex with and thinking those thoughts was like the pot calling the kettle black.
“Let’s go. Now,” he commanded, expecting her to do as she always did when he commanded and was not happy when instead she stepped back towards the table.
“No,” Sammy growled, her fiery blue eyes narrowed and her arms crossed over her chest, her breaths coming quickly. “I won’t be leaving with you.”
“You will or I will make you.” Animal knew that the words could barely be understood they were uttered in such a gruff voice.
“How dare you! You don’t get to do this, not after breaking it off like you did,” Sammy cried. They were drawing a crowd of curious onlookers but Animal didn’t give a fuck. He wasn’t about to allow her to stay here and he would carry her tight little ass out if it came to that.
“I dare because you belong to me, damn it!” he roared into her face, holding her arms and shaking her slightly.
Mark had gotten to his feet and he stepped up next to them, curtly telling him in a firm voice, “I don’t know what the hell is going on between you two but you need to get it under control now. This isn’t good for business much less our friendship. Get it figured out, but not here.”
“Good idea,” Animal growled, moving closer to Sammy with clear intent in his eyes.
“What––what are you planning? Animal, I am not in the–––hey, put me down right now.” Sammy screeched again, pounding on his back as he carried her thrashing body through the club as she tried to get away and yelled for him to put her down. Animal ignored it and carried her out to his bike where he forced her on it to head back to her house. Enough with denying who owned her because he was the only man who would be touching her and it was high time he made that very clear to both her and himself. He was done pretending that he could give her up. Five weeks of hell was enough.
Sammy was pissed as she clung to Animal on the back of the bike. Her head was pounding with the need to slap him in the face. How dare he carry her out to his bike like she was a sack of potatoes? The only reason she’d gotten on the bike like he demanded when he’d dragged her out there was because she wasn’t about to have it out with him in the parking lot in front of all the people who’d been out there to look on in avid fascination. Nope, she’d let him have it on the front lawn at her apartment before she locked his ass out.
They pulled into her drive and as soon as he shut off the bike she jumped off. Stepping several feet away from him, she stood with her hands on her hips and anger burning in her eyes.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Animal?” she demanded, fury boiling inside her. Her hands clenched into fists as she watched him slowly climb off the bike with a maddeningly casual look about him. He didn’t even care that she was pissed off, she realized.
“Nope,” Animal said, his brown eyes meeting hers in the darkness. She could just barely see the twitch that was developing over his right eye. “Get your ass in the house, babe.”
“Hell no! You did not just tell me to get into the house, did you? I cannot believe that––what the hell are you doing!” Sammy screeched when she was unceremoniously jerked over his shoulder again and his hard hand landed on her ass. She felt the blow echo through her, landing in her core with a hot little thrill of excitement.
Damn it!
She didn’t want to be turned on right now, not when she was so pissed off about the scene he’d played out at the club. Him acting like a neanderthal wasn’t sexy. Even as the thought flew through her, she knew that she was just lying to herself because it was fucking sexy.
Damn, she was too fucking easy.
Animal opened the door without asking for her keys and she realized that the son of a bitch still had a key to her place and had just used it to open the door.
“Put me down!” Sammy demanded, her hands punching into his ass because it was all she could reach from the angle she was currently in. He didn’t put her down but he smacked her ass again rather hard, making her almost moan from the sensations it caused inside her.
Shivering at the desires he unleashed in her, she hit him again. Animal growled low and deep but he never stopped moving towards her bedroom, where he thrust her down on her bed. She immediately sat up glaring at him. He stood at the foot of the bed, his nostrils flared and a wide stance to his feet as he stared at her with narrowed eyes that were slits of brown in the lamp that was on the bedside table.
“You can’t just cart me around like I’m your freaking property, Animal. I’m not yours. You left me remember.” Sammy felt that admission pull at her heart as she felt the pain of that day wash over her. It made her feel as if she was breaking apart from the pain all over again. Her heart thudded in her chest as her mind tried to sort out the feelings, which were all mixed up. Love and pain and desire all filled her in equal measure. They each wanted to take her over and she was being torn apart by their efforts.
Animal moved to the dresser. Pulling two scarves from a drawer, he moved towards her again. Sammy gazed at the scarves comprehending that he intended to tie her to the bed and those mixed feelings fought for control.
“No, oh hell no, you are not tying me to this bed.”
“The fuck I’m not. You’re mine! And tonight I find you with another man. Did he fucking touch you, Sam? Was he inside you?” Animal’s voice was barely human as he commanded her to tell him if she’d been with Mark.
Why should she tell him anything? Should she just tell him that she’d been with Mark and get this whole charade over with? Was this about him feeling she should have waited longer before taking another to her bed? She felt her heart clench as a sharp ache raced through her chest at the thought that he might only care because another man might have had her before he was ready to let her go.
“Tell me,” he roared, his hands clenching on the scarves as he moved closer. “Tell me if he’s touched you, damn it.”
“No, all right! Sarah forced me to go there tonight because she was tired of me sulking at home because I fucking missed you. Is that what you wanted to hear? That you fucking hurt me when you left and that I was depressed? Does that make you fucking happy?” Sammy couldn’t hold in the emotions anymore and tears sprung to her eyes, making her feel like she was falling apart all over again. He took a deep relieved-looking breath and the tension in his body that she hadn’t noticed until he released it left him.
He moved to the bed sitting on the edge beside her. She felt drained from this encounter with him because this relieved looking Animal proved that the whole Spangles scene was all about her being with another man so soon after he’d left her and not because he had feelings for her. She felt battered by the knowledge that she meant so little to him when the reality of why he must have been at Spangles hit her.
He’d gone there to get laid and that hurt so badly she felt like a blowtorch had been taken to her insides. Damn it, why did love have to hurt so much?
“Thank fuck. I didn’t want to have to kill him, baby,” Animal finally said, looking at her again with his eyes heavy and filled with desire. She wanted to turn away to ignore the need she saw there but she needed to have him touch her one last time even if it broke something inside her to allow it.
“That’s ridiculous, Animal. You wouldn’t have killed him,” Sammy responded after a long pause to evaluate what she wanted from tonight. She wasn’t ready to throw him out despite his atrocious behavior. He was an alpha male after all and she loved him in spite of that.
“You’r
e wrong there, babe. If he had touched you I would kill him. I couldn’t stand the thought of him with his hands on you. It makes me nuts knowing he’s had you in the past but after I’ve had you, fuck no, I would kill him. You’re mine.” Animal leaned forward, his body crowding hers back into the headboard of her bed. Her hands came up landing on his chest and she shoved him trying to push him away, but he didn’t budge. His breath caressed her lips and his mouth hovered a few millimeters from hers. Sammy shivered because she couldn’t concentrate with him so close to her.
“Stop, you’re only mad that I was at the club so soon after you told me things were over between us. Don’t think I don’t know why you were there.” Sammy couldn’t keep the hurt from her voice and it cracked on the last words as she choked them out.
“No, you don’t know why I was there.”
His words were low and deep sending a sensual chill of longing down her spine as she gazed into his eyes, her breath catching at the fire that suddenly sparked in them.
“I don’t?” she asked, her body almost shaking from the desire to feel his mouth on her own.
“No,” he told her, leaning in to brush his mouth over hers.
Sammy whimpered and her hands moved to his shoulders as she tried again to push him away, needing some space between them.
“I was there because every moment I was gone for the entire five weeks I thought of nothing except you and this bed. Just you. I went in that club thinking I could erase this need I have for you by taking another woman. Only none of them interested me. I was sitting there with a limp dick thinking I could force it to work if I could just find the right woman. Then I look over and what do I see? You. You with another man’s hand on your body and a smile on your face. You were laughing with him and suddenly I lost my shit. I lost it because I knew in that moment I wasn’t allowing anyone to touch you. I burned for you, baby. Every minute I was gone I burned.” Animal’s lips crashed onto hers after that impassioned speech and she whimpered as she allowed him to thrust his tongue inside her mouth.
Sammy was unable to stop her hands from moving to hold the back of his head to keep his mouth on hers because she was desperate for his touch after so long without him. She felt her heart rate pick up as desire filled her when he took control of her, grabbing her wrists as he tied her to the bed.
“Mine,” he growled as his hands roughly turned her, tying her to the bed with her on her knees facing the headboard. “Every fucking inch of this body is mine.”
Animal then began cutting her clothes from her body. Sammy froze when she caught a glimpse of the knife. Her body stiffened as old fears tried to force her to panic. She knew that Animal wasn’t going to start slicing her up like Tom had but the fear didn’t let her think rationally and she trembled, trying hard not to whimper.
“Shhh, baby. I won’t hurt you. You know that,” he whispered against her ear, his breath warm on the delicate shell. He put the knife away when she was free of the dress she’d worn to Spangles. Animal soothed her for a moment before his mouth caressed the dip in her spine.
“I know,” she finally managed to whisper, unsure if her voice was loud enough for him to hear her.
“I’m going to fuck you all night. When you wake up you’ll know who you belong to and no one will fucking touch you ever again,” Animal growled as his teeth scraped across the sensitive nape of her neck, making her whimper in lustful abandon.
Chapter 23
The sun was streaming through the window and Animal sighed, his arms around Sammy tightly. She was still asleep and he took in the way her dark lashes covered her soft cheek. Her bow-shaped mouth was parted just slightly as she breathed out cute little huffs every so often. He smiled; why had he thought for a second that he would be able to walk away from her? It was impossible for him to let her go and he should have known that before the scene last night at the club.
Over the past five weeks he had been tortured with thoughts of her. Of the way she felt wrapped around him when they made love, of the little dimple on her chin that he liked to lick, of the way she made him laugh, and finally just her being around. All of it had played over and over in his brain until he had thought he would go mad from the need thinking of her built inside him. He wasn’t a man who understood needing a woman for more than sex but he just might need her that way. It was strange to think that.
Brushing a strand of hair off her forehead, he kissed her lips gently before he thought of the way he had thrown Mark away from her. Damn, he would need to apologize to his friend over that. It had been a dick move but when he had gone to Spangles trying to get her out of his head by taking another woman to his bed and instead seen her with Mark, he hadn’t been able to stop his reaction.
The fact that he was the one who had broken it off didn’t matter. She was his and that was that; no other man would be touching her ever again. He just wouldn’t allow it to happen now that he had decided she was to be with him again. Animal knew he would have to patch her if he wanted that to be a truth no one could dispute. Even non-club members knew to leave a man’s old lady alone or they’d end up dead. That was what he wanted and he knew that he would get it.
He was still watching her and mulling these thoughts over when she stirred. Sammy’s hands stretched above her head and she moaned a bit. His cock jerked to attention at the sound as his head lowered and he kissed her lightly on the lips.
“Um, morning,” she said, her eyes popping open and a small shy smile covering her lips.
“Morning, babe. You okay?” Animal asked, knowing that he had been a possessive asshole the night before. Thankfully he hadn’t hurt her though and he vowed that from now on he would be easy with her; no hardcore stuff because he wasn’t able to control it.
“I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” Sammy asked, sounding truly confused.
Animal sighed, wondering if his keeping her was a good idea. She didn’t seem to have much self-preservation. The raging beast he had become last night should have frightened her. Hell, at one point he remembered holding her down with his teeth in her shoulder. It had been a barbaric claiming that hadn’t hurt her but had let her know to whom she belonged.
“You know why. I was an animal last night. I let the beast roam free because I became extremely possessive when I thought Mark might have touched you. Hell, from the thought that any man had touched you,” Animal told her, his eyes dark as he gauged her reaction to his words.
“The beast?” she asked, looking extremely confused.
She shouldn’t be. She should know what he meant. She’d seen the beast break free from his cage on more than one occasion, the first of which had been the night he had left a small welt on her hip. Animal watched her carefully trying not to worry about the changes he would have to make to his dominant personality in order to protect her.
“That’s what I call the rage I keep bottled up inside me, Sammy.”
“I don’t think I understand. You think you have a beast that is inside you?” Sammy asked, her face scrunched up in confusion.
“Yeah, it’s really just the part of me that flies into a rage every now and again. I feel it break free every time you are around another man. It’s unnerving really because I haven’t ever had this problem before with another woman,” Animal explained, shaking his head and trying to think of another way to describe it.
“Animal, please tell me that you don’t really think that you have a violent animal inside you that comes out and plays every once and a while,” Sammy demanded, now seeming to be a bit upset over the idea.
“It’s not really like I think there is an animal inside me, it’s more like a darker, deadlier part of myself that I sometimes can’t control,” he told her, leaning back with his arms crossed behind his head. She was on her elbow beside him and the sheet had fallen to reveal her breasts. Her rosy colored nipples still seemed a bit swollen from last night’s play and he reminded himself to get out the nipple cream later to soothe them.
Sammy wasn’t sure at firs
t that Animal hadn’t lost his mind. After all he was talking about having what amounted to a split personality. Only as she thought about it did she realize what it truly was and why he feared it so much.
Animal had done something so foreign to his nature five years ago when he had taken the drug Juice and hurt Lisa that he had split his emotions off, trapping them inside himself in order to protect himself from what he’d done. She didn’t have a degree in psychology so she didn’t know what they would call it but she knew that was what had happened. She could almost understand why he had shut down emotionally after what he had done.
Animal was a protector and to have been the one to cause someone to need protection must have broken something important inside him and he had never healed it. Instead he’d covered it up and pretended it didn’t happen, but it had and he had to deal with it in order to move on. His denial was going to have to change if she wanted this relationship to progress rather than break apart. Sighing, she leaned over him, telling him what he needed to know in order to find the healing he so desperately needed.
“Animal, that part of you that you keep locked away is your emotions. That’s why you worry so much about hurting me and it isn’t ever going to happen. What happened that night with Lisa wasn’t because you are a violent man and you wanted to do harm. It was a high from a drug that messes with inhibitions and the person’s vision of reality.” Sammy felt him stiffen beneath her but she knew she had to talk to him about this because otherwise she was going to lose him and after five weeks without him, she didn’t think she would be able to stand that. She needed him in her life and from the way he had reacted last night to her at Spangles with Mark, she knew he needed her too.
“It doesn’t excuse what happened, Sam,” he said from between his teeth as he ground them together and tried to move her off his chest.