ROMANCE: Mason (Bad Boy Alpha Male Stepbrother Romance Boxset) (New Adult Contemporary Stepbrother Romance Collection) (108 page)

In the distance I saw the shuttle that would take me home. Two shafts of light fell on the road in front of it, lighting up the tarmac. Just as the shuttle pulled up in front of me, Donald put his hands on my wrist. His fingers curled and locked around me. I looked up at his eyes, and when I looked into the pools of black a shudder ran through my body.

His hands were so big he could snap my wrist in half if he just clenched a fist.

“Unhand me,” I said hoarsely, but the command came out more like a question.

“You’re capable of so much more than you give yourself credit for,” he said. His words burned inside of me. What was he talking about? He dropped my wrist and turned on his heel. I stared after him, watching the way he moved. He carried himself with pride. His big body moved with languid grace, but I didn’t doubt for one second that if he had to jump into action he would be as deadly as he was regal.

“Are you coming?” the shuttle driver asked. I nodded and climbed into the shuttle. When I sat down, I rubbed my wrist. I could still feel his skin on mine.

The shuttle stopped on the corner, and I got off. It was a quick walk to our house. After changing into a floral housewife-dress, I cleaned up, swept, wiped down a counter or two, and prepared a meal. I made sure there was a lot of raw meat for Lashan. I’d stopped at the butcher the night before.

When Lashan came home, he didn’t kiss me, not even on the cheek.

“How as your day, honey?” I asked.

He groaned and sat down at the dinner table. I put his plate in front of him and took my own seat across from him.

“It was hell. The merger is a rotten mess, and they’re not budging on the negotiation.” I vaguely remembered him telling me something about his company merging with their competition.

“What does Monroe say about it?” I asked. Monroe was his boss, and the one name that I remembered.

Lashan took a bite of his meat. He opened his mouth to speak, but then glared down at his plate.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Fillet,” I answered, cutting my own meat into neat little squares.

“It’s not fresh.”

“No, it’s not.” I was very careful not to look up from my plate. “I got it from the butcher yesterday. He’d slaughtered the day before.

“Dammit!” Lashan dropped his fork on his plate. “I have a horrible day at work and I come home, hoping that my wife will understand. And this is what you give me?”

“Lashan, don’t be—“

“I’m going to the office,” he said, cutting me off. He left me alone at the dinner table, and disappeared into his office. I looked down at my plate. I had suddenly lost my appetite. I got up and cleared the plates, scraping the food into a container and putting it in the fridge. It would probably spoil long before Lashan decided my food was worth eating.

My skin itched. I felt like it was too tight, shrinking against my body. I untied the apron around my waist and let it fall to the floor. I leaned against the window, pressing my cheek against the cold glass. The night was calling me. I looked at my watch.

It would be sunrise in less than an hour. It was dangerous for me to be out that close to dawn. If I got stuck, I had a real problem. A lot of the creatures we mixed with could handle sun, but vampires weren’t that lucky.

In the bedroom I dressed into my running clothes. I had to get out of the house. The walls were closing in on me. I felt like I was suffocating. When I broke free of it and ran into the woods that started at the perimeter of our property, I felt like I could breathe again.

I ran, my shoes beating a muffled tattoo in to the mulch underneath my feet. I jumped between trees, reducing myself to the animal inside of me. I relished the open air, the trees that wouldn’t judge me. I ran until my muscles screamed and my lungs cramped and I became sufficiently numb. I ran, leaving behind a perfect life that didn’t want me.

When I couldn’t run anymore, I stopped. I leaned my hands on my knees, trying to breathe around the searing heat that twisted through my lungs. My legs trembled. I was in a part of the forest I hadn’t been in before. It was live with birds, singing a welcome song to the dawn.

The light was already changing. Instead of the inky black that colored the trees into shadows of the night, it was a silvery gray now, making the forest look like something out of a story book. I knew I had to get home, but there was something magical in the air, gluing me down, keeping me there.

I noticed a dark shadow in between the trees. At first I thought it was a clump of underbrush, something like a handful of berry bushes. They were scattered throughout the forest. But then the shadow moved. I was rooted to the spot, staring at the bulk of darkness that moved slowly through the trees. I strained my ears, but it wasn’t making a sound. Somewhere in the back of my mind a little voice told me to run, to get out of there. But there was a magnetic quality to the air, something that bound me to the forest and kept me there.

The shadow moved closer to me, and I started making out it’s against the brighter light of the impending dawn. The black mass took shape. Strong shoulders, thick brown fur, and a muzzle.

It was the biggest bear I had ever seen.

When it saw me, it blew hot air through its nostrils, no doubt picking up my scent. Its lips curled back, revealing a row of sharp, pointed teeth. I had to run. I knew I had to. But I was stuck. It dawned on me that the magnetic attraction, the inability to run, came from this bear. It wasn’t an ordinary bear. It used magic to catch its prey.

And I was going to be the next meal.

The bear roared a sound that rumbled form the deep recesses of its bowels, and tearing through the forest. It whipped around me, every fiber in my body numb with fear.

When the roar stopped, everything was quiet. The birds had stopped singing. An eerie silence filled the forest, thick and palpable. I couldn’t breathe. Shrewd black eyes stared at me from the mass of brown hair.

The bear moved toward me, so fast it closed the gap between us in less than a second. It towered over me, pinning me against a tree. I gasped for air, the magic wrapping around me like a wet blanket. I couldn’t breathe. This was the end. This was where I was going to die.

But then the bear started to change. The hair on its body shrank away from its skin. The muzzle shrank, and teeth blunted. The black eyes held my gaze all the time, but it became smaller and smaller. I was riveted. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the transformation.

I’d grown up with mystical creatures, but I’d never actually seen a shift.

And when I blinked, it was over. The bear had shifted into a man. And not just any man.

It was Donald Crowe.

He stood, his body still towering over mine, but as a man’s now, large and capable. He wasn’t wearing much, only a torn pair of pants. I wondered vaguely where it went when he was a bear. He stood over me, panting. His eyes were dark and black and mesmerizing, and he looked at me, into me.

The atmosphere was still charged, but with something else now. Something hot and heavy. My hand moved by itself, without me remembering that I told it to. I put it on the bear skin on his chest. It was hot, slick with sweat. His chest rose and fell under my fingers. Something passed between us.

He leaned in, and kissed me. His lips hard and strong against mine. The power of his magic surged through me, but not to paralyze anymore. It was strength, surging through me. I wasn’t prey, not now. I wondered when the last time was that I felt like that. If I ever did

His tongue pushed into my mouth, and he pushed his body up against mine. My hands slid up and around his neck, my fingers knotting in thick brown hair on his head. Somewhere at the back of my mind I was telling myself I was being a fool, I was kissing a stranger. I had a mate. I shouldn’t have been doing this. But the urgency in my body, the ache to be consumed by this man, overrode any other thought, and I let it go.

3

“What’s wrong with you?” Lashan watched me at breakfast. I was disorganized and uncoordinated. Nothing like my usual self. I tried making myself a smoothie as I always did, but after I sliced open my finger with a knife and dropped the milk container on the floor, I gave up. That wasn’t what had Lashan suspicious though.

I’d put a plate of fresh rabbit on his plate. I’d caught it the moment the sun was down.

I hated killing. The smell of fresh blood, as much as it tweaked my appetite like it would for any other vampire, also nauseated me. I didn’t like taking a life. But Lashan needed a wife to take care of him. He deserved that much from me.

“I thought you’d be happy,” I said. “You were complaining so much last night.”

He frowned and watched me for long enough to make me squirm, but I put on a blank face and cleaned up the milk on the floor.

Eventually Lashan stopped and started eating. He made little grunts as he did, and it grated me. I push the irritation away. Lashan was happy. That was what mattered.

When he left for work, I didn’t walk to the bedroom and change my appearance so I would fit into a business world I was hiding from him. I fetched the mop and cleaned the kitchen, polishing until it sparkled. Next I tackled the lounge and worked my way through the house. The bathroom, the office, the bedroom, everything Lashan thought I was doing every day.

I didn’t need to go to the office. I had been wrong all these years to go behind Lashan’s back. I told myself it wasn’t because I felt guilty. Donald had just opened my eyes to who I really should be. I squeezed my eyes shut, and ignored the flutter in my stomach. I felt his hands on my skin again, his lips against my neck. His strong body covering mine and reducing me to a trembling puddle of urges and cravings.

I shook my head. No, not that. I didn’t want that.

I managed to stay away from the office for three days before Charlene phoned and asked what was wrong.

“I’m sick,” I lied. “I’ve been in bed with a terrible virus.”

“IS there anything I can do?” she asked.

I shook my head to convince myself. “I’ll be alright.”

“When are you coming back?”

I had to at some point. Even if it was just to wrap up the loose ends. I couldn’t stay on, of course. That just wouldn’t do.  “I’ll be back after the weekend.”

The weekend was hot and heavy, with nights weighed down with humidity and low clouds that only threatened with rain, but nothing came of it. The entire time I was hot and bothered, and I struggled to be the model wife around Lashan’s friends. I found their conversations boring, pointless, self-centered. I found their company empty. And when I looked at Lashan it was like I was looking at a stranger.

When Monday finally rolled round, I was relieved to see him walking out of the door. I felt like I’d been smothered.

The moment he was gone, I walked to the bedroom and went through the motions I’d gone through for four years. I got dressed, did my make-up, changed myself into the woman they knew at the office, and walked out the door to meet the shuttle on the corner.

“Good to see you back,” the doorman said and smiled at me. I was painfully aware of his lack of fangs. Sometimes I wondered how so many predators could get along without a fight.

I kept a sharp eye out, but to my relief I didn’t see Donald anywhere. Charlene hugged me when I stepped into my cubicle and handed me a stack of papers. She’d been covering my shift while I was gone.

“Thanks for this,” I said. “What’s been happening?”

“Oh, the normal. Ring is out on to kill, as always. He’s talking about taking down the next company. I don’t know how he sleeps at night.”

“What are the other directors saying about it?” Mostly the directors didn’t really agree with Ring but he was the boss so they let him dictate to them. But now and then there was a ripple when one of them actually said something.

“Oh, they’re okay about it. I think they’re too scared to cross him, if you ask me. Only that new guy, Donald.” My skin broke out in shivers at the mention of his name, and my stomach did an involuntary flip. “He’s been a grumpy old bear.”

I smiled at the analogy. Charlene had no idea. The speaker on her desk went off and we heard it all the way across the hall. Charlene rolled her eyes.

“Better go, that’s Ring summoning me.”

I nodded and watched her walk away.

The day went on without much excitement, and towards the end of it I fell back into my normal routine. I loved my job, and I hated the idea that I would leave it soon. It was an escape from my life, and I knew I needed one. The few days at home had gotten to me more than I thought. Being back in the office was like breathing fresh air again.

“I was wondering when you’d decide to crawl out of your hole again,” a deep voice rumbled behind me. I was alone in the copy room, trying to get the damn machine to work. I spun around, seeing Donald in the door. He blocked the whole thing with his frame.

“I have nothing to say to you,” I said in a calm voice, even though my heart was going wild and I suddenly felt short of breath.

“Where were you?” he asked like I hadn’t said that. I turned my back on him and focused on the machine again. A wave of heat surged from him and circled me. In predator-prey relationship the lesser didn’t turn its back. But I didn’t see him as my superior. That morning in the woods he’d changed all that by making me an equal.