by Dani Wyatt
“Is your name really Shirley?” she asks with a tip of her head and a squint of her nose which is decorated with the cutest few freckles I’ve ever seen.
“Miller,” I answer. “My name is Miller.”
A look of shock crosses her face. “Are you kidding me?” Her question is full of a revelation bigger than the knowledge of my first name. Her eyes glisten, and she bites her lip before continuing. “I can’t believe you’re here.” Her wispy voice sends fire through my veins.
“Yes. I’m here. And this time, nothing and no one is dragging you away.”
C H A P T E R F O U R
LELA
What is happening?
And I don’t mean just the fact that I’m standing here boot to boot with the forger, and his name is Miller for heck sake.
Although just those two things are pretty dang peculiar on their own.
I mean, standing here face-to-face with him, the man I’ve thought about every single day, ever since we spoke those few words and kissed under the summer sun. I was so flustered I couldn’t remember my own name that day, then when it finally came to me, my father and the Royal Parade swept by and I was gone.
But it’s not just the huge, unbelievable coincidence that’s got me slack jawed and disbelieving.
I also have no idea what is happening to me.
I’m melting into his hand, which has been affixed to the side of my head since the moment he charged toward me at his door. My arms beg to be thrown around his neck and let him draw me in as close as physically possible. I want this human contact like I’ve never imagined before. This man I don’t even know, and yet I feel like I belong here with him for the rest of my life.
It’s crazy and stupid, but there’s a kind of gravitational pull between us and I’m not sure how long I can fight it.
I’ve never been careless as a character trait, especially with dating and men. But something tells me I’m about to sidestep careless and go directly into reckless because there is a growing hum between my legs that is quickly taking over the decision-making portions of my addled brain.
“I followed you...” he says, his voice somewhere between a caveman and an angry father. “...that day.”
I drop my eyes because the look he’s giving me has me nearly falling to my knees ready to fulfil any wish he may utter. His dominant energy wraps me in an odd sense of comfort and belonging. The same way it did that day when we met.
“I came back to find you too, but you were gone,” I admit, trying my hardest to look back into his face. It’s hard and rough, but it’s also as sexy as any I’ve seen before. Not perfect. Not symmetrical. Not refined. But one hundred percent male. “Then I had to go. I had to leave.”
It’s true. My dad made me eat a turkey leg and slug down a warm Guinness with some of the regulars we’d gotten to know over the years, then I made an excuse and rushed back to the forging demo area. I just wanted one more look.
But he wasn’t there.
I waited five minutes. Then ten, but Dad was waiting and we had to go.
“I wish I could have stayed,” he says, and I shake my head. It doesn’t matter. We’re here now, face-to-face, and I’m awestruck.
He is not just big, not just a massive iron lump of a man. He’s bigger than any man I’ve encountered in all my life, and that includes all the rig workers over the years. But it’s odd because he’s also gentle. I feel the enormity of his heart. It’s in his near-black eyes. Those deep, soulful eyes of a wild stallion. Long black lashes framing his intense gaze.
His heart shines through his eyes, and what I’m feeling is a sense of awe.
“Wow, it’s just...” I start to speak, not sure what I’m trying to say.
He quickly makes it a nonissue as he brings his hand from the side of my head to press two fingers against my lips. Then he traces them around slowly, my panties soaking up the wetness that’s undeniably generating from between my legs.
I didn’t pack enough panties.
He is pure masculinity, condensed and bottled into a human-shaped package. The flannel and jeans are just the beginning. The few days of beard that covers his jaw calls for my hands, as do the waves of his deep brown hair. He’s rugged but somehow neat at the same time.
Glancing just past him into the open room behind, I see there is a casual order to everything. Stacks of books are placed carefully, regimented, on carved log tables. There are pictures on the walls, all hung perfectly level. Coasters collected into a neat stack. Nothing out of place. It’s inviting, a low fire crackling in the stone fireplace between the kitchen and the big great room into which the front door opens.
His hand swoops around the back of my neck, pulling my attention back to him.
Only him.
The rough calluses that cover his palm scrape softly against my skin as he pulls me forward with a restrained urgency, kicking the front door shut behind me.
“Wh-where’s Little Shit?” I manage. Rattling around in the back of my brain I try to remember why I’m here.
“Soon enough. She’s sleeping for once. Get in here.” His order is stern and sends a shiver down my back to wrap around my belly.
He guides me from behind by the back of my neck farther into the room. He brings his other hand forward to relieve me of the client folder I’m gripping, discarding it in mid-step onto a worn, brown leather chair as we pass by. The only thing that’s out of place in this entire room. Maybe this entire house.
Next, his hand is on my backpack. He’s lifting the weight of it from my shoulders, and I wiggle out of the straps, eager to be free, then out of the arms of my jacket as he pulls it off along with the backpack. He drops them onto the smooth wooden planked floor as he continues our forward motion, driving me on through the room to wherever he chooses.
For a split second, I remember all the gawking women at the fair. I wonder how many others have been here, how many of his other fans. He’s smooth.
Too smooth, in fact.
Maybe this is just his act, and I’ve fallen for it.
All this alpha-ness.
The strong hand at the back of my neck spins me to face him. Inching the small of my back into the cool granite edge of the counter. His hands grip on either side of me as his elbows lock, centering me in the cage of his body. I’ve never felt safer or in so much peril.
“I only know your first name. I want it all. What’s your full name?” He groans the words as if in pain.
“Lela Marshall,” I mumble, my insides doing their best impression of a fish flopping around on a dock. “My name’s Lela Marshall.”
His eyes drift half shut, and he leans in another inch, taking a deep breath above my hair. Goose bumps rise on my forearms as the cool granite digs in across the small of my back through the thin fabric of my shirt.
“Well, Lela Marshall. I’m going to kiss you now. Not asking, but letting you know, because there is no more wait left in me.”
I gulp a mouthful of air as his eyes pin me, and his full lips open, showing off the glint of white teeth. A thousand thoughts are spinning around in my head. Something tells me I should protest. Surely play coy or push back, something to slow this down.
But I don’t. Instead, I stop thinking altogether, my hands coming up to drape around his muscled neck. He flinches at the contact, and I feel the hardness under my fingertips.
His eyes go black, and I wonder for a moment if I’m in the hands of a dangerous man. Panic sets in, but my hands stay planted, somehow continuing on their own as the battle inside me rages on.
“You don’t know if I have a boyfriend...or maybe I’m married...” Even as the words slip through my lips, I know they’re a mistake. The forced lilt in my voice is a dead giveaway. I’m a horrible liar, and from the quick flash of anger behind Miller’s eyes, I’m hoping he can see through my flimsy protest.
He cocks an eyebrow and regards me for a moment. Then the spark of anger in his eyes shifts toward amusement, and I realize he’s reading me just fine.<
br />
“I don’t kiss married women, and my senses tell me you are not one. And quite frankly, if you had a man before you stepped onto my porch that would be over as of this moment.”
As I start to respond, his mouth is on me. Those full, warm lips are greedy. His tongue comes forward, and I struggle to get a breath. His taste is coffee and sex. My knees shake and my thighs quiver. A tightness starts in my core, I bust out a Kegel clench that has me on the verge of an orgasm.
C H A P T E R F I V E
MILLER
My dick is forged steel. Sure, it’s been fucking hard ever since I laid my eyes on her, but nothing like this.
This kind of hard-on exists only for her. Well, in three months they’ve all been for her, but right now even my dick knows the universe is speaking and it’s saying that’s all mine.
My mom used to tell me stories about the men in her family. Back then, I didn’t believe that shit. She told me the Rhodes men knew when they found their mate that it’s like a sixth sense and that’s it — there can never be anyone else. Since my father was missing in action, I took my mom’s name. And now the Rhodes legend which I’d formerly dismissed, I now know to be gospel.
This acute awareness of her consumes me—that there is one woman for me, only one, and she’s right here. Right now. And there is no question left. I’m taking what’s mine.
I’m ready to gnaw her clothes off and fill her with so much cum she’ll be giving birth to a litter nine months from today.
My tongue pushes between her lips, and the taste of her has me seeing red, planning our fucking wedding. I swear to Christ.
Visions of her wearing white and saying “I do” fill my head like a long-lost dream.
Her tongue meets mine, and my hands fly to the back of her head. My fingers tighten in her hair, gripping and holding on for dear life. She tastes like sweet tea and fresh honey. The lust of summer mixed with the freshness of spring.
My erection nearly tears through the top of my pants trying to get at her. I wonder if she’s wet. The thought of it has me ready to nut in my pants.
The little moaning, gasping sounds she’s making as our tongues do a few laps with each other, back and forth, are music. My gut is tight. I’m already desperate to keep her here. To be sure she can never leave.
I pull back from our kiss, needing to see her face. To know she wants me like I want her.
Her cheeks have turned a deep, rose red, more than a blush, and her shimmering blue eyes are half lidded as I devour the beauty of her face. I loosen my grip in her hair even as my mind is filled with the image of me pressing her to her knees, her plump lips opening to take in every inch of my thick cock.
Fuck, I need this girl.
This is beyond wanting. Need. No doubt in my mind I need her in order to draw my next breath.
The tension in my muscles feels as though I’m holding a pose for the judges at Mr. Universe.
I can’t relax. I won’t relax. Not until I’m inside her, showing her just what it’s going to mean to belong to me.
Because she does.
She belongs to me.
“Wow.” She brings the back of her hand to her lips.
For a moment, I’m pissed because I think she’s going to swipe it across her mouth and wipe away the wetness of our kiss.
Instead, she presses her knuckles there, her eyes close for a moment, and she breathes long and slow. Her hand flips over, and she sets her fingertips to her lips, as though she’s holding our kiss in place.
Savoring us. I nearly come undone at the beauty of the moment.
“I have a single question for you,” I rumble, standing as close as I can to her without touching. Staring down as she gives me a wary look upward, waiting for what I’m going to say next. “Since that first day we met...”
I trail off, suddenly terrified I won’t get the answer I need. My chest constricts. I swallow hard and throw it out there because I have to know.
“Have you ever touched yourself thinking about me? Imagined me inside you?” I’m fixed on her face, watching for the truth there.
My bold question has her mouth dropping open, her lips quivering in an uneasy smile, but her eyes answer me with a twinkle, staying pinned on mine. The relief floods my body, even as blood fills every remaining micro vessel of my cock. It’s bent at a painful angle inside my pants. The length I know will fill her. The thickness will hurt her, but she needs to be mine in every way. I will be as gentle as I can, but even now I know it may not be possible to make it easy.
I want her like an animal. I want to keep her tied to my bed and fuck her until her belly swells and the only word she knows is my name.
“Yes,” she whispers, tugging her lips to the side.
So fucking cute. Damn, she’s perfect.
Her single-word answer confirms what I already know, and her hand leaves her lips, reaching out to touch the side of my face.
That’s all I can take. My arms are around her waist, swooping under her ass, kissing her again while lifting her. Spinning us in a circle and before I know it, I’ve got back through the great room and close to where she stepped back into my life.. She weighs nothing, less than nothing, and I slam us so hard against the back of the front door a picture of me standing with Greg crashes to the floor.
Her legs are clutched around my back, locked in place. I press my hardness into her, digging my erection into the heat radiating between her legs, grinding us tighter.
“You have no idea what you do to me. What you’ve done to me since I kissed you that day.” I say watching the way her pupils dilate then contract with my words. “I hope you’re ready.”
“I hope you’re ready.” Her playful jab is paired with her hands at the back of my neck, pulling my face to hers.
We are nose-to-nose as I shift her body up and down against me. “I haven’t been with a woman in years. I now know why that is, why I’ve kept that part of myself locked away. I was waiting for you. Maybe that sounds crazy, Lela Marshall, but since that day I saw you, I’ve been out of my fucking mind.”
I grab a chunk of her hair and tug her head roughly to the side. The sudden need to expose her neck, to bite into her like a wolf with its prey overwhelms me. My tongue tastes her flesh, and then my teeth grab the soft skin and squeeze.
Her yelp at the sting of my bite, the surprise, the lust, only increases the frenzy growing inside me. She tastes and smells like every dream I’ve had in the last few months. She’s driving me wild, but I still need more.
I need her to carry my scent on her from this day forward.
I need the world to know she belongs to me.
That I’ve claimed her.
Spread my seed on her from her locks of golden hair to the tips of her toes, inside her pussy, her cunt, and her ass. Have her swallow my cum for breakfast so she has me inside her all day. I’m going to fill her and cover her with me until there is no doubt who owns her.
Finally, I release her flesh from between my teeth, pulling back to stare at her. I could look at her forever. She’s a masterpiece, and I want to memorize every detail. I lean in, her back already hard against the door, pressing in further as I take a long moment to admire what’s mine.
Her eyes twinkle, and her plump lips curve upward. “Are you going to kiss me or just hang me on the back of this door like some old jacket?”
Her sassy smirk lights up the room and warms my heart.
“Oh, I’m going to kiss you, all right. But not where you might think.”
In one swift movement, I bounce her ass up, getting a better grip on her, my hands digging into the soft flesh.
Her erupting giggles flutter around the room like sexy butterflies as I lift and maneuver her until her thighs are on my shoulders. My face is positioned perfectly, centered between her legs where the scent of her cunt hits me like a sledge to the back of the head. I’m gone. A dark circle of wetness there nearly has me dropping to my knees.
I give her a few inches to lean back agains
t the wall, centering her weight fully on me as I move my face closer.
I gather my composure just long enough to drop a hand to the side sheath pocket on my pants and take hold of the burl wood handle on my four-inch drop point blade. I bring it up slowly, letting her see the flash of silver, watching the look in her eyes, before connecting the blunt side of the knife with the outside of her thigh.
“I won’t hurt you.” I watch her face and see no fear. “I will never hurt you.”
Her eyes go wide when the cool metal connects with her skin and heads north. The thought of cutting her shorts off has a fire igniting inside me. I’ve dreamed of this moment. Tasted it.
Neither of us breathes as the first zip of the razor-sharp blade comes up and under the hem of her shorts.
“Be still,” I order. I’m a master with a blade, but if I were to harm her, I would never forgive myself. “Trust me, Pip.”
In a few strokes of my custom blade, her shorts are loose. I manage to scoot her around enough to tug them free, with just the red silk of her panties between me and paradise. I make quick work of those, exposing her gloriously, making her shiver.
“Pip?” Her breathy voice is tipped with confusion.
I pause, then fill her in on her nickname. When I’m done, the smile that blooms on her lips makes my heart sing.
“That’s perfect.” Her head falls back for moment against the wall as I watch her draw a slow deep breath.
When she looks back down, only then do I continue to move the blade.
I watch her eyes as I finish up with her shirt, leaving it hanging open down the front, then I set about the slip of her bra. One more cut and I return the blade to my pocket, all the while keeping her centered on my shoulders, her body secure and safe above me.
My left hand holds her sweet ass, steadying her as the other comes up and tugs at the remaining shreds of fabric until her body is free. The juice from her wet cunt shines on her outer lips, smooth, inviting, glistening like silk. A glimpse of the soft, inner pink folds reveals a masterpiece, and it’s just inches from my mouth. Both my hands settle on the swell of her ass, holding her firm and balanced as I prepare to make her mine.