“You’re so fucked, Kari. You know that, right?” Kari lay down on the floor and let the tears fall. “You will need to guard your heart tightly. If you don’t, he’ll rip it from your chest while it’s still beating. And if he does that, you’ll be nothing but a shell of the self you are now. Broken and wondering how you’re all alone. Again.”
She knew a little about being a mate to someone. Not a great deal, but enough to know that she’d fall in love with him no matter what he did to her. It was written in the stars or some shit like that. As she lay there thinking of all the mistakes she’d made that brought her to this point, Kari wished she’d gotten on the bus yesterday and never looked back. But now—she had no idea why she knew this—it was far too late for her to run. Steele Bennett was her mate, and there was little she could do about it.
Chapter 3
The work could only keep his mind off her for so long before thoughts of her in his house would come to him. He knew she was in one of the bedrooms. He’d asked Izzy but she’d never told him which one, and he’d never asked further. But finding her and sinking into her were all he could think about ninety percent of the time. And the other ten percent had him wanting to taste her so deeply that he’d hopefully get his fill of her.
“She’s not coming to eat.” He looked up when Izzy spoke to him. They were sitting at the table about to have lunch. “Miss Briggs, she asked that she be left alone for the day. She said she’s exhausted.”
Steele stood up to go to her to…he had no idea what he was going to do, but Izzy pushed him back into his chair before he could take a step. She glared at him, and he felt his temper start to rise.
“Last time I looked, I was still owner of this house and you worked for me.” She huffed at him. “What is so wrong with her that she won’t come out of her room? And where the hell is she anyway? In one of the suites near my room?”
“No. She’s not even on the second floor. Any of the upper floors.” He started to ask why she’d given Kari the master suite when she poked him in the chest with her long finger. “You say whatever is rattling in that empty head of yours and I will take a switch after your hide. She’s not in your parents’ bedroom either. She’s in the little maid’s room behind it.”
“Why?” Izzy didn’t answer him, but he guessed. “You stuffed her in that room because it was as far from my room as you could get her, and that’s what you came up with. Damn it, Izzy, I’m a grown man, and I’ll have women in my bed if I want.”
“I would have put her in the barn if I had thought it would do any good, but I didn’t stuff her there. She asked to be there.” It took him a second to realize she’d requested to be away from him. Before he could tell her to move Kari to the room next to his, Izzy spoke again. “And she is exhausted. And hurt too. Did you know that someone tried to get at her where she lived before? Her ribs are all bound up. But she said she’d be fine. She’s…where are you going?”
He had no idea, but he had to see her right now. As he approached the door to the room she was in, he stopped. She was in there. Reaching his hand into his pocket, he felt the condoms. He’d only had one in his pocket at first, but he’d gone back to the box and taken out five more before leaving his room after he’d gotten back from the store. Right now, standing there knowing that she was on the other side of this door, he felt his cock swell with the need to empty in her again. With a bed close at hand, he wondered if it would be enough to take her so hard. Would he ever have enough of her? Instead of knocking, he pushed the door open and could only stare.
“Well?” He looked at her from the top of her head to her toes peeking out from beneath the too big robe. Steele didn’t know where it had come from, but he was pretty sure that no one in his house had it. The color was…blinding was all that came to mind. The neon green of it hurt his eyes and the pink, equally blinding trim reminded him of that stomach medicine he’d taken as a kid.
“Izzy said you were hurt.” He looked behind him for Izzy to confirm what she’d said, and found that he was alone in the room with Kari. “She said you were tired too.”
“I was just going to bed.” He looked over at the bed and thought of her in it. Naked. Screaming out his name. “Stop.”
Steele hadn’t realized he was moving until she spoke, and by the time he did get his feet to obey her, he was standing close enough to her to smell her. Lavender and mint…she’d put some on her body, or it was her shampoo. Moving his nose to see if it was her hair, he gripped her arms when she started to move back.
“You smell good enough to eat.” He wanted to test his theory right now. “Let me fuck you.”