“Monster?” I whispered.
He growled, and the hand I held in mine pressed to my chest, pulling me into him.
“I love the way you say it . . .” he breathed out into my hair. “It was supposed to be a derogatory name I called myself in one of many moments of self-loathing.” His other arm went around me, as he hugged me from behind. “But you make it sounds soft like a caress. So. Fucking. Sexy.”
His heart thundered against my back as his face slid lower and he nuzzled my neck. My own heart sped up. The passion of his embrace washed over me in a hot, intoxicating wave.
The impact was almost tangible—my knees gave in and I braced myself with my hands on the cool granite of the kitchen island.
“Monster,” I whimpered as his large body enveloped me.
With an animalistic growl, he pivoted me to face him then lifted me on the counter. I wrapped my arms around his neck, crushing the soft mass of his mane.
Frantically tearing at my clothes, he found his way under my blouse and slid his palms up my back, pressing me closer to him.
For an instant, the sensation of his rough hands caressing my bare skin was invigorating. A light shiver prickled my arms, settling in a pool of warmth somewhere in my lower stomach.
“I want you so much, it hurts,” he groaned, rocking his hips into me. The hard bulge of his erection rubbed between my spread thighs.
Then, an icy flash shot through the budding desire in me, freezing my insides in a paralyzing fear at the sudden awareness of what was happening.
And the next moment everything felt wrong.
The strength of his arms around me turned from exciting to oppressively restraining. The touch of his hands on my skin twisted from caressing to intrusive in my mind. And the old hateful panic rose to the surface, suffocating any remnants of my arousal.
Hands on his shoulder, I leaned away from him.
“I can’t,” I rasped in a strangled voice.
I never could.
My throat began to feel like it was closing, making it hard to breathe as his hold on me didn’t ease.
“Don’t.” I shoved harder against him mechanically, all my focus on my next breath.
“That’s what I keep telling myself every fucking time you’re here.” His arms went even tighter around me, refusing to let me go. “Don’t touch her. Don’t look at her. Don’t breathe near her.” He inhaled deeply, rubbing his nose against the side of my face. “But you’re worse than a drug, my princess. Intoxicating and irresistible. More dangerous to me than any drug, too.”
“Stop it,” I managed a little louder, pushing against his fierce embrace. “I can’t . . .”
The sense of what I was saying seemed to have filtered through to him, as his arms finally loosened, and his eyes found mine.
“You can’t?” he echoed, his expression grave, the heavy fog of lust clearing from his gaze. “Of course you can’t.” He shoved away from the counter—from me—with force. “Who could fuck a monster?”
The real pain behind his crude words twisted my insides with sorrow for him.
For both of us.
“It’s not you!” I jumped off the counter. “That’s not what it is.”
“What then?” He lunged forward again, looming over me. His whole body vibrated like a tightly coiled spring. “Why did you have to come here, Sophie?” His voice was dangerously low. “Why couldn’t you just let me be the animal that I was? Why did you have to wake the man in me?” He slammed his hands into the counter top on either side of me. The sharp, black claws scraped against the granite with a screeching noise. “And now I have to see you, smell you, want you. Unable to touch you!”
His voice rose to thunder over me. I balled my hands into fists to prevent them from shaking. The tightness in my throat had turned painful.
“I may have the feelings of a man, but I don’t look like one. Is that it?” He lifted a hand to my face, the rough pad of his palm brushed against my cheek, and the claws sank into my hair. “ Why are you here, Sophie? What do you see when you look at me? A stray you found in the woods and felt pity for?”
“No, of course not . . .” I shook my head, but he didn’t seem to be listening.
His eyes flickered between mine, but I didn’t think he saw me. His self-hatred drove him so deep into despair, I wasn’t sure he could be reasoned with at all at this moment.
“You’d love to keep me for a pet, but you’re disgusted to have anything more!” he snarled wildly. “Isn’t that why you’re pushing me away?”
His fingers squeezed my nape, and I flinched inside.
All of this was happening too fast too soon.
But it didn’t matter.
Whatever budding attraction I might have for him couldn’t grow into anything more between us.
At the end of the day, I firmly believed, it was my fault all my relationships failed, often before they started. No matter what I felt towards a man, my response to his advances was never normal.
Because I was not normal.
Broken.
All emotions faded in me, leaving behind only panic and fear, along with the desire to flee that grew stronger by a second.
He saw my expression but misunderstood the reasons for it.
“The mere thought of fucking me repulses you. And now you look as if you’d just discovered your family pet has a much stronger urge to lap at your pussy than at your face.”
“Oh, God . . .” I gasped, yanking myself from his grip, his last words filling me with disgust and turning the situation into more than I could bear. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have come.” I exhaled, as my chest constricted to the point I wasn’t sure I would be able to manage another breath.
The urge to flee was overwhelming.
I needed air—I had to get away from here.
Shoving past him, I ran for the front door and grabbed the car keys from the stand at the entrance on my way out.
An icy wall of snow blasted in my face when I pushed the front door open, but I hardly felt it. My heart squeezed tight in my chest, and my eyes stung with unshed tears of disappointment and pain as I ran through the snowfall to the carport.
The aggression in his behaviour didn’t help. Although I had to admit something about the passion with which he expressed his desires felt alluring, the crude force of his actions seemed to be a sure way to set off a panic attack in me.
No matter what, it’s all my fault.
Always.
I jumped in the driver’s seat and started the engine, straining to see the driveway through the snowfall.
Everything inside me vibrated with nerves, and the view out of the windshield blurred as the tears welled in my eyes. Anger, disappointment . . . In him? In myself?
Sadness.
For the first time ever, I actually felt something for someone.
He’d called me his drug, but he had made me addicted to his company, too. He had made me want more—more of his presence, more of him.
I inhaled a shuddering breath, fighting the adrenaline shooting through my veins, and tried to make out the outlines of the tree trunks through the snow as I maneuvered the truck along the driveway.
A large shape jumped onto the driveway right in front of the truck.
I screamed, slamming my foot on the breaks. The truck skidded to a stop in the snow, but the dark figure didn’t move from its way. Folded in half in the middle, Monster smashed his fists on the hood.
Did I hit him?
My stomach churned, I threw the door open and jumped out.
“What are you doing?” My knees shaking, I ran to the front of the truck, yelling at him through snow and tears. “Are you okay?”
Big, soft snowflakes landed on my face and shoulders. The chill seeped through the thin material of my blouse.
He shoved away from the hood, fully illuminated by the headlights. His chest heaved—he had run to catch up with me—but he appeared unharmed.
I took a small step back.
&
nbsp; “Don’t go,” he rasped, his big arms hanging limply at his sides.
“I should leave.” I swallowed hard, speaking around the lump in my throat. “You’re right. It would’ve been better if I never came here at all. I just make things worse . . .”
I put my hand on the handle of the driver’s door, and his eyes followed my movement.
“No.” He shook his head, snowflakes flying from his mane. “I shouldn’t have said the shit I did—being near you drives me mad. When you pulled away, it hurt.”
He stepped closer.
“I don’t know how to fix this. Fuck, I don’t even know how to apologize properly, but I am sorry.”
Suddenly, he sank to his knees into the snow.
I gasped in surprise and swayed on my feet as his arms went around me.
“Please. Don’t leave.” He pressed his forehead to my stomach, his horns on each side of my waist, keeping me in place. “And you’re wrong, Sophie,” he gritted through his teeth as his arms tightened around me. “Everything—every single fucking thing—is so much better when you’re around. With you, I feel alive again. You make everything better. Even the pain.”
Shaking in the falling snow, I lowered my hands to the twisted spirals of his horns and wrapped my fingers around their bumpy surface, holding tight.
“I—I can never make relationships work, Monster, not even friendships, it seems. I always ruin things . . . I can never give you what you want.”
He lifted his head, and I slid my hands down his horns and into the warm, silky mass of his mane.
“I’ll take anything you give me, Sophie, for as long as it lasts. Every moment with you is worth an eternity alone here. Please, don’t leave. Not now. Not like this.” The genuine plea burning in his eyes gripped my heart. “Just say the word, and I’ll never touch you again. I won’t even come close enough for my breath to reach you.” He drew in a deep inhale. “Dammit! I’ll be your fucking pet if you wish—”
“No, Monster. Please,” I exhaled, cupping his face between my hands. “It’s not about it. Would you listen to me? That’s not what you are to me. And it’s not about your looks—”
I swallowed hard.
“It’s me, Monster,” I whispered with a sigh. “It’s always me.”
My whole body shook from cold or from nerves or both. Snowfall swirled around us, stealing whatever warmth my body still held.
“These panic attacks . . .” I said as my teeth began to chatter. “It’s all my fault.”
“No, it’s not.” He rose to his feet, without releasing me from his arms. Instinctively, I leaned into him to shield myself from cold and wind. “You did nothing wrong. I did.” His chest heaved heavily as he drew me closer, his chin pressed against the top of my head. “I am so, so sorry, Sophie. For everything I’ve done to you.”
“It’s okay,” I whispered, burying the frozen tip of my nose into the fur on his chest.
My words, however, didn’t seem to ease his thoughts, as his next sigh was just as heavy.
As I thawed slowly, wrapped in the warmth of his arms, a shudder ran through my whole body.
“Jesus, Sophie. You’re freezing.” With his arms around me, he walked me towards the driver’s door. “Get in the truck. I’ll meet you at the house.” He cupped my chin, lifting my face to his. “We will have that dinner.”
Chapter 19
WRAPPED IN A BLANKET, I was slowly warming up on the couch by the fire. Melanie’s stew simmered on the wrought-iron stand inside the fireplace. A side table was set with bowls, water glasses, and a plate with dinner rolls.
Monster went upstairs for a minute, and when he came back, he wore a pair of jeans. Unused of seeing any clothes on him, I might have kept my gaze a little too long on his powerful thighs, admiring the way the material hugged him in all the right places.
“Um,” I cleared my throat, catching myself staring. “Those look . . . nice on you.”
“Well, I figured it would be nice to get dressed for dinner. Right? I had to cut a hole for the tail.” He turned around, his bushy tail whipped across the back of his thighs. “What do you think?”
“Dashing.” I smiled.
He took a bowl of salad and sat on the other end of the couch.
We ate mostly in silence. My thoughts kept going through the argument we’d just had. His words wouldn’t leave me.
‘I may have the feelings of a man, but I don’t look like one’.
He did not look like a human, and there was no point pretending otherwise. However, as shocking as I initially found his appearance, it didn’t frighten or repulse me anymore.
In fact, I even wondered if his looks were one of the reasons why I was able to feel at ease around him, despite his volatile temper and gruff attitude. Normally, I felt rather self-conscious and uncomfortable in company of men, especially the handsome ones.
Besides, over the short time I knew him, I’d grown to appreciate the size and strength of his body and even found it attractive in its own fierce, untamed way.
“I just need you to know one thing,” I started after we had finished dinner and took our dishes to the kitchen to wash. “You may want me to call you Monster, but I don’t see you as one. When I look at you, I see a person, and it’s what you do that defines you.”
“What I do?”
“Yes.” I nodded and handed him a rinsed bowl to dry with the towel in his hands. “I see good in you, no matter how hard you try to hide it. There’s a struggle inside you, but I know you want to do a right thing.”
He placed the dish and the towel on the counter and propped himself with his arms against it. His head dropped between his shoulders.
“Do you, Sophie? Do you really see anything good here?” He shook his head and moved back to the fireplace. “Monster is not just my name,” he threw over his shoulder. “It’s who I am. Who I’ve always been, even when I looked like a man on the outside.”
“You did?” I hurried after him. “You were a human?”
He nodded, with a sad smile. “No fur, tail, or horns. A family, or something like it. School . . . You know.” He dismissed with a wave of a hand and sat on the couch.
“What happened?” I climbed over the back of the couch to sit next to him. “Did you get sick?”
“Sick?” He lifted an eyebrow at me incredulously, the familiar mocking expression returning to his face. “With what? A beastly form of chicken pox where your body gets covered with fur instead of a rash?”
“Well, what then?” I insisted, undeterred. “How did you grow horns?”
“Overnight.” He shifted to face me.
“Really? Overnight?” I repeated stunned.
“When I had every opportunity in the world, I made all the wrong choices, Sophie. Back then I might have looked human on the outside, but the way I am now would have been much more suitable all along. I drank, fought, and fucked all the way through high school. And in college, it got even worse.”
I clasped my hands in my lap and closed my eyes, trying to imagine his human form. If I shut his current appearance from my mind’s vision, it was actually fairly simple to visualize Monster as a wild college student on the path of self-destruction.
He would be one of the cool kids, I imagined—angry, sarcastic, self-assured, hiding the insecurities of youth well enough to appear confident.
“In my second year, I met a girl at a party.” He raked his fingers through his mane. “One of many parties, one of many girls. I, um, took her upstairs to the bedroom. She spent the night.” He cleared his throat. “In the morning, I was still asleep when she woke up and started cuddling, waking me up, too. I remember a hideous hangover—with raging thirst and headache—and the strong desire for her to leave me alone.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“I said something along those lines to her.”
Chapter 20
MONSTER. THEN . . .
“I thought we shared something special!” She seethed with anger, sitting up in bed.
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br /> Her small, perky breasts with dark nipples bounced enticingly, making him consider another round after all. However, the mere thought of moving made his head hurt, forcing him to abandon the idea as soon as it came.
“I felt something for you,” she wouldn’t quit. “You know I don’t normally jump into bed with the first guy I meet. I’m not some skanky ho.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” he groaned and grabbed her pillow to place over his ear in an attempt to muffle the noise she was making.
“You. Pig!” She jumped out of bed.
Her rapid departure jerked the mattress and jarred his headache. His stomach also lurched from the last night’s liquor.
Great!
She flicked the lights on.
“Fuck!” he pulled the pillow lower over his eyes to block the bright light that flooded the room.
“Don’t tell me you felt nothing! Last night was magical. No one has ever fucked me the way you did. It was wild! And . . . crazy. I love crazy. Isn’t it obvious? We’re made for each other.”
His irritation chased the remnants of sleep away. He rose on his elbows and opened his eyes again, wincing from the blinding light that pierced through his head with another stab of pain.
“That’s the way I fuck, babe. Glad you liked it, but it was no magic. And it meant nothing.” He rubbed his face. Now that she woke him up completely, maybe he should go get some water. Maybe throw up and take a piss, too.
Slowly, so as not to aggravate his stomach any further, he got off the bed.
“If it makes you feel any better, you’re not alone.” Blinking in the light, he turned towards her naked figure at the foot of the bed and met her furious dark amber eyes. “Chicks beg me to fuck them. All. The. Time.”
She jerked at his words, grabbed a throw pillow from the chest at the bed and hurled it at him.
“Asshole! You’re a disgusting animal.” Another cushion followed, hitting him straight in the chest. “Just because you’re good-looking, you think you’re so irresistible? You think you can get away with shit like this?”
“Hey!” He ran his fingers through his tangled hair, massaging his achy scull. “Good looks don’t hurt, but we both know it’s more than that, babe. Nobody forced you to throw yourself at me. Yet here you are. Thoroughly fucked and begging for more.” He smirked. Despite the raging hangover, he couldn’t resist taunting her. “Just like any other skanky ho before you.”
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