ROMANCE: Mason (Bad Boy Alpha Male Stepbrother Romance Boxset) (New Adult Contemporary Stepbrother Romance Collection) (109 page)

I forced the thought out of my head. I wasn’t an equal, not if I wanted this to go away. I closed my eyes and steeled myself, and I turned around again.

“I was home, doing my duty. As a wife.”

If Donald had any kind of thought about the last bit, he didn’t show it. In fact, he looked more amused than anything else, and his eyes traveled slowly over my body. It made me feel exposed. And at the same time it made me want him to reach out to me and touch me. My skin screamed for him again.

I pushed it away.

“I am busy,” I said, hoping he would get the hint that I wanted him to leave. He didn’t. Instead he leaned against the doorpost and jammed his hands into his pockets.

“Come out to dinner with me,” he said.

I couldn’t believe he was being that straightforward.

“I’m married,” I said. “I don’t want anything to do with you.”

“It didn’t feel that way in the forest. I distinctly remember—“

“Will you shut up?” I said, trying to look around him to see if anyone heard. I felt a blush creeping up from my collar. I ignored the flame that ignited inside of me when he referred back to our interlude and crossed my hands over my chest like I was trying to cover up. “That was a mistake. I don’t even know what happened there.” Donald straightened himself out and took a step towards me. I could feel his presence like a physical force. I swallowed and focused on the words I was trying to say. “I am married with a husband that deserves my loyalty.” Donald took another step forward. He was so close now I could smell the cologne on his skin, the animal scent that clung to his skin, the wilderness that was a smell that belonged only to him.

“Don’t,” I whispered, because I knew I wasn’t going to stop him. He reached back without looking and knocked the door so that it swung shut. The lock turned by itself, like he’d locked it with him mind, and I could feel the tingle of his magic in the air.

“You can’t use your magic on me,” I said. I’d felt it in the forest, He’d hunted with the magic that trapped his prey in a force so he didn’t have to go through the trouble of the hunt. “It may have worked before—“

“I never used my magic on you,” he said. His voice was deep, a low growl in the back of his throat. He inched ever closer to me as he spoke, and I felt my resolve weaken.

“In the forest,” I tried again. “You made me…” I couldn’t finish my sentence. His face was so close to mine, his black eyes staring into me, and I lost my train of thought.

“I didn’t nothing in the forest that you didn’t want me to do. Just like you want me to do now.”

He was reading my mind. I felt offended.

“You can’t just read my mind, that’s invasion of privacy,” I said but my voice didn’t sound nearly as defensive as I wanted it to. Instead it was thin, more of a question than a statement. I had to tell him to stop. He had to get out of my head, because the fact was that my body wanted his. Every fiber of my being cried out for him, the magnetic pull so strong I couldn’t fight it. I shifted to the other leg, my thighs rubbing against each other. It didn’t help my cause at all.

I was hot for him and his body so close pushed me over the edge from want to need. I glanced around the copy room. The blinds on the windows were all down and turned so no one could look in.

Donald reached out, putting his hand on my hip, and pulled me to him. He kissed me, and I didn’t hesitate or try to stop him. I kissed him back, fiercely, my body betraying the hunger I’d tried so hard to hide with my words.

So much for staying away so long. It was like time hadn’t passed at all.

He leaned against me with his body. He was strong and lean, and I could feel the muscles ripple under his skin, through his shirt, when he pushed me back against the machine. I surrendered myself to him. He was demanding, and I submitted. Not because he was a wild predator and our hierarchy demanded it, but because I wanted it. I wanted to be his.

He knew what I wanted. I could feel his mind inside mine, his conscious mind probing the corners of mine. His hands slid over my body, tracing the contours of it. I was against the copy machine – I couldn’t remember how that happened – and his body was against mine, all over me. It was exactly where I wanted to be.

He burned with intensity when his hands found spots on my body Lashan hadn’t touched in years. His eyes were open and he looked at me, and I fell into them because I knew he would catch me.

Thoughts raced around in  my mind feverishly and I kept remembering in the back of my mind somewhere, that I was still married.  I pulled away. Donald's eyes burned through me but he kept his composure.

I, on the other hand, felt like my world had been rocked off its axis and I didn’t know how I was going to act normal for the rest of the day. I fixed my pencil skirt and buttoned up my blouse.

“You should redo your hair,” Donald said. I knew I looked like the hot mess I felt.

Donald turned and unlocked the door, using his fingers this time. He opened the door, and glanced back at me before he disappeared. I was left behind in the wake of destruction. The air in the copy room was thick, emotions hanging in the corners like fog, and the smell of betrayal, lust, and freedom all mingling, pinching my nose.

I shuddered and walked back into the real world.

4

I got on the shuttle that would take me home. It was a normal routine, I was on the curb at three, and I stepped into the shuttle, greeting the same man I always did.

But everything felt off. There was an electric hum in the air, and my skin prickled. My stomach was a knot of nerves and I tried to untangle my feelings in all of it. Donald was a hurricane in my life, pushing everything just a little bit off-kilter. I hadn’t been happy with my life before, but I’d been able to deal with it. Now everything felt just so much off-balance that I had to really focus not to lose it. And I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to face my life anymore.

You’re being an idiot, I told myself. You’re being irrational. A stupid affair. Not even. A once off thing, and you want to wash everything down the drain. Your life is a good one and I tried my best to believe it.

But it wasn’t just Donald. It wasn’t just my eyes that were suddenly opened to the fierceness that life could hold. I’d been passive for so long.

When the shuttle pulled up at the corner and I stepped out, the air was charged. This wasn’t just Donald. I was sure of it now. As I walked home, the atmosphere pressed down on me, heavier and heavier as I got closer to the house. I swallowed hard and focused on breathing. In. Out. In. Out.

Vampires could feel a lot of things. I’d pushed my senses away. It was my job to be the housewife. Lashan was the ruler of our little kingdom. It was the man’s job to protect his own. But my senses were alive and tingling now, and I had a very ugly feeling that something was about to go wrong. It was like a bad aftertaste in my mouth, something I couldn’t swallow away.

When I opened the front door, Lashan sat in the armchair that faced the television. His back was to me. I jumped, unable to stop the fear rippling through my body before I got a handle on it.

Calm. I had to stay calm.

“You’re home early,” I said, dropping my keys on top of the little wooden stand instead of putting it in the drawer as I usually did.

“Where were you?” he asked. His voice sounded far away, like he was talking through cotton.

“I was at the butcher. I wanted to make something special tonight.” I’d said the first thing that came to mind.

“And?” He stood up, and the air around us shifted. I realized that the force I was feeling came from him.

“And what?” I asked, forcing myself to stay confident. Lashan would read insecurity.

“What did you get?”

I swallowed, mind racing. I had nothing to show for my supposed trip.

“I couldn’t find anything that suited my taste. I wanted it perfect.”

Lashan walked around me, circling like a vulture. His eyes were scrutinizing.

“You were at the butcher’s for five hours, and you have nothing to show for it?” he asked. His voice was low, almost a soft purr, but I knew better than to take his calm attitude at face value. When Lashan screamed and shouted and threw things around he was more bark than bite, and it would blow over almost as quickly as it started. It was when he was quiet and pensive like this that he was really dangerous.

“Five hours?”

“I came home at ten.” He stopped in front of me. His hands hung idly by his side, but his left hand twitched slightly before it was still against his thigh. Again I focused on breathing regularly.

“This is ridiculous,” I said. I shook my head and walked away from him towards the kitchen. He grabbed my wrist before I got very far, and yanked me back. His fingers curled around my wrist and he squeezed hard. There would be five little round bruises tomorrow morning.

“Let go of me,” I said hoarsely, looking at his hand, and then up into his eyes. They were furious. Dark and foreboding, and I didn’t know what to make of them.

“Where have you been?” he asked again.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked, hoping that answering a question with a question would throw him off track.

“I expect you to be home when I get here. I don’t work myself to the bone every day so you can go out and have the time of your life.”

“I’m allowed to have a life outside of this house. I’m your wife, Lashan. Not your maid.”

“I will not be made a fool by you because what I give you is not good enough.” His words left me cold. I wondered how much he knew. Until a week ago, the only thing that I had done wrong was not tell him the truth about where I was every day. I didn’t lie, I just omitted it. But now? I’d done everything wrong.

“Made a fool?” My voice was tiny.

“I have a merger to think of. What do you think those people will say of my ability to run a firm if I can’t even keep my wife under control?”

Relief washed over me that he didn’t know about Donald. And almost immediately it was replaced by anger.

“Control?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “This is about you controlling me? Since when am I an object of possession? I have the right—“

“After what I’ve done for you? You have no right at all. I didn’t marry the girl my parents chose for me. I married you even though you had no bloodlines to speak of and your idea of riches was ‘a large family’. I didn’t have to take you on.”

“Well, how noble of you to pity me,” I spat. The anger had changed into full on rage. Who the hell was he to make it sound like he’d been doing me a favor when he’d married me?

“I loved you,” I said, barely audible. I didn’t look at him.

“What’s that?” he asked, leaning closer. His eyes were still full of menace.

“I said I loved you!” My voice was rising, I was screaming now. “I loved you; I married you because I loved you. Your money was just a bonus, but I would have been happy to go without it if it meant that I could have you. You used to mean something to me.” I could feel the emotion bubble up in my throat. My voice cracked. “Why did you do it? Was it so that you would look merciful? Was I your charity case?”

He let go of me, shoving my hand away from him. He turned and walked away from me.

“I don’t have the time or the energy for this kind of nonsense,” he said. “We’ll talk about it again when you’ve pulled yourself together and you can be rational.”

I shook my head. Something snapped inside of me.

“No.” I said. “I need to leave. I need space to think this through.”

Lashan stopped in his tracks, his back still to me, but I could see how rigid he had gone.

“What?”

“I said I won’t do this anymore. I’m not a maid. And you can’t wear me on your arm like something expensive you can brag about.”

Lashan turned around, a lazy grin on his face. “Oh, sweetheart,” he said in a syrupy voice. “I didn’t realize you saw yourself as expensive.”

I heard a loud crack, and something else snapped inside of me. Something bigger.

“You bastard!” I shouted and flung myself at him. I was ready to claw his eyes out. To hit him in the face. To leave marks on his skin. But he was a lot bigger and stronger than I was. And faster. Before I managed to do any damage, he moved towards me and pinned me against the wall.

It hurt. His nails dug into the skin on my arm where he held me with one hand. His other hand was around his throat and his face was pushed up so close to mine. I couldn’t breathe; his hand was an iron clamp, choking me. It was ironic how many times he’d been this close to me and I’d embraced him as a lover.

White spots danced in my vision, and everything was laced in black. Lashan’s eyes were empty. Merciless. I saw death in them.

I heard a wild roar, and raw power gushed through me, spinning around the room. Loose papers flew up in a whirlwind of emotion. I wondered vaguely when Lashan had become so powerful.

But then Donald was in the room, big and angry. He was still in human form, but he seemed bigger than usual. My knees buckled, and when Lashan saw we had company he let me go. I sank to the ground, coughing and heaving. My throat was raw.

“Who are you?” Lashan demanded. He didn’t look scared.