Miss Taken (7 page)

SEVENTEEN

Luke saw pain flash through her brown eyes. She smiled, but he knew she hurt at the memory of her parent.

“Mom loved doing things just with me.” She sighed. “She said I was like her and living with my father would destroy me slowly.”

“What about your brother? It wouldn’t destroy him as well?”

“No, it wasn’t that. My father was raised to believe women needed to be taken care of, that they were weaker than men. He raised my brother in the same manner. My mother died when Peter was still a baby. He only remembers my father’s examples of how to treat a woman. Peter and I used to get along when he was little, but then my father slowly drove a wedge between us. Don’t get me wrong, I still love my brother, I just can’t stand being around him for long. My father was a hard man, it was always his way or no way.”

His chest clenched at her words. The idea that living with her father would hurt Kira in any way angered him. What kind of a man tried to destroy his children?

“Why? He was your father. Surely he loved and protected you.”

She started walking beside him again, only slower. “My father didn’t love my mother. He married her because she got pregnant with me. It was one of the reasons she was always so unhappy. She had no other family. No one who could help her and she wasn’t like me. My mother was a gracious and beautiful woman, but she didn’t know how to survive on her own. She wasn’t going to let that happen to me, though. My mom raised me to be independent. She saw what life with my father was like and she wanted better for me. ”

“In what sense?” He wanted, no, he needed to know more about this complex woman. She had so much more in her than he could have imagined. The lion in him had claimed her the moment he got her scent, but the more he spoke to her, the more Luke, the man, wanted her.

She glanced at him with a grin. “I’m stubborn. I won’t let anyone tell me what to do. He, my dad, tried to do just that from his grave.” She cleared her throat. “I have to get married or I lose what rightfully belongs to me.” She shook her head. “I didn’t marry when he ordered me to, and I sure as hell won’t do it now.”

“You were engaged?”

She glanced at him sheepishly. “Three times actually.”

“Were they your father’s choices and that is why it didn’t work?”

“Two of them were my choices; they wanted to change who I was. The third was my father's choice and he was just like him.”

“Are you against marriage?” He wondered how she’d feel about being mated. Would she object to his claiming her as his woman?

“Not at all. If someone is in love and wants to get married, more power to them. I’ve seen what a fucked up marriage can do to people and their kids. I refuse to sign myself up for a life of misery with someone whose only wish is to not see my face every day, thank you very much. If I get married it’s because we are in love. We are equals in the marriage. I don’t want to be less than my husband.”

He nodded. “I can understand that.”

He opened the back door to his cabin for her to enter. She removed her coat and gear. He took it from her, hung it by the door. A good fire would help warm her faster. He rushed to the living room where he’d left the fire with only a few logs and added more. The fire came to life and heat poured into the surrounding.

“Kira,” he called.

She strolled to his side. “Oh, fire. Thank you.”

She sat on the rug he’d taken her on. The memory of her beautiful curvy body rocking over him, taking his cock deep and listening to her moan made him hard exceptionally fast. This wasn’t the time to think about that, but the lion inside was at the peak of his sexual need. Taking her again would drive him to want to mate her more.

“Come sit,” she said, patting the rug by her side. “Or did I scare you with my talks about my dad.”

He dropped by her side, watching the fire light her features. “My birth mother wasn’t the right woman for my father either.”

She glanced at him, her beautiful arched brows rose high. “What happened?”

“They were in lust. She got pregnant. He kept me and she left to figure out her life.” He’d been a baby when she left so he had never gotten a chance to know her. Did he miss knowing who she was? Not really. His father had been amazing and once Luna came into the picture, she’d given him more love than he could have asked for.

“Was it hard growing up without your mother around? I still miss my mom every day. She was the light in the darkness that was my father's home.”

“Not really. I couldn’t miss what I didn’t know. Luna filled her role, and has been the best thing to ever to happen to our family. I try not to think about my birth mother, she never tried to contact me or my father since they day she left. We were better off without her.”

“That sucks,” she said. “Some days, it’s best to be alone than in a relationship like that.”

He turned to face her. “Maybe. But what do you do when you find the person you know is right for you?”

She frowned. “I don’t know. I guess it depends on the situation.”

He lifted a hand to her face, rubbing his thumb over her rounded chin, and sighed. “You’re mine.”

She pulled back, a deep frown covering her brows. “I’m what?”

“Mine.”

She laughed. “Does that work with most women?” She shook her head. “Never mind. Look, you’re hot as fuck. You really are, but you can’t just tell me I’m yours and expect me to be at your beck and call. Life doesn’t work like that.”

He raised his other hand to her breast and watched her suck in a harsh breath. “Your body disagrees.”

“I don’t care what my body says,” she replied stubbornly. “I’m not a commodity. You can’t just say I’m yours and that’s gonna be it. Lust is all fine and good for great sex, but I won’t go into a relationship with a guy just because we’re good in bed.”

“We’re more than just good in bed,” he leaned forward and brushed his lips over hers. “We are fucking fantastic.”

EIGHTEEN

She licked her lips, loving the taste of him on her mouth. Okay, so yes, they were fantastic in bed. “That’s still not enough. I don’t know how shifters do things, but saying I’m yours because we had sex is not really a way to get me to agree.”

He frowned. “You’d deny this, us, because we just met?”

She thought about it. Her parents had chemistry at some point or her mom wouldn’t have ended up pregnant. But going from having chemistry to a horrible marriage proved to Kira, she needed more than good sex in a relationship. And that meant they had to get to know each other. “It’s not about having just met. Or maybe it is. Either way, I won’t make any decision having known you a handful of hours. I know next to nothing about you. Tell me who you are, what makes you tick. Give me something more than we are compatible in bed.”

His cell phone rang and he stood to grab it from the table.

She took a deep breath and wondered why his whole ‘mine’ thing had made her so excited. She wasn’t the kind of woman who approved of the Neanderthal method. She didn’t belong to anyone. She made her own decisions. Her heart said “yes please”, but her mind screamed “you don’t know him.” So why did her pussy throb when he looked deep into her eyes and said the word? Why did her body buzz with a new growth of desire the more he repeated it?

She knew the answer. She was fucking crazy. His bite had done something to her and now she was into the whole animal sex and claiming thing he was talking about.

He returned to the living room a moment later. “Are you up to going back out in the morning?”

She nodded. They’d been out a few hours and now she wanted to take a hot bath and eat. Her stomach chose that moment to grumble. “Is there something I can eat? I’m starving.”

He helped her stand, his hands lingered on her body, seared her to the bone, made her nipples ache.

“It will take a few minutes to make a late lunch,” he said, his low rumbly voice warming her to the core.

“I’m just going to take a hot shower really quick and then we can eat,” she said.

Once showered, she glanced at the clothes on the bed. He’d come into the room again, taken her dirty clothes and placed a pair of sweat pants and a T-shirt on the bed.

He was so thoughtful. And possessive. She’d seen him glancing at her like she was his. Normally that pissed her off. A woman wasn’t anyone’s property, but when Luke looked at her like that. It made her feel desired and all kinds of turned on. It made her feel like her curves turned him on and he wanted to keep her just as she was.

Having been big all her life, men didn’t usually give her the “I want to fuck you all night long” look. They usually gave her the “you’re cute” look. She wasn’t stupid. She was more than curvy. She was big. Real big. That meant society placed a different view on larger women like her. From a single glance, they thought she was lazy and ate too much.

What a lot of her exes came to find out was Kira was an active person. She loved to dance and walk and swim. She didn’t sit around eating to gain weight all the time. That didn’t matter, because when someone who didn’t know her saw her, they judged her based on what they thought all large people did. So she’d stopped caring what others thought. She was a big girl because it was the way it was.

She’d learned to love herself as a kid. Her mother had taught her to.

“You must love yourself, Kira. Always. Nobody can show you love if you don’t accept it from yourself first. Never let anyone tell you that you are not beautiful, hija. Everyone is beautiful in their own way.”

“Papi says I’m too fat. He says I have to lose weight for boys to want me when I grow up.” She held her favorite stuffed animal in a death grip. Her insecurity at an all-time high for an eight-year-old.

“That’s not true. You are a beautiful girl. You do a lot of sports and you are careful with your meals. You are just bigger because there is more of you to love.” She smiled. “When you meet the man who loves you just as you are, then you know you found the right one.” She patted Kira’s hand. “I love you as you are. Whoever comes into your life will do the same or they will not be worth your love.”

* * *

She returned to the kitchen after she donned the sweats. The scent of steak sizzling and bread baking made her mouth water.

“Are you actually baking bread?” she asked. “Like, for real, bread?”

He laughed at what her face must look like. “Yes. I had taken some rolls out this morning and shoved them in the oven. They’re ready. So is the steak.”

“You know,” she said, sitting at the already set table, “now I know yesterday wasn’t a fluke. You really do cook.”

“Why would I lie about cooking?” he asked, confusion clear in his words.

“Men will say anything that will get them some…er…some.”

He glanced at her lips and shook his head. “I don’t need to lie to get you naked, Kira. I just remind you how much you enjoy my tongue on your clit. My fingers in your pussy and coming on my face.”

Okay, yes. That was definitely enough to get her all hot and bothered.

“Did your mom teach you to cook?” she asked, ignoring his words and hoping he didn’t know she was clenching her thighs together.

“Yes. When Luna became my father’s mate, she took the mother role,” he said, placing plates with steak on the table and turning to grab the basket with the rolls. “She loved having me in the kitchen and I loved being there with her.”

He placed a pitcher of lemon water on the table and sat. “I loved her, too. I was a kid and she was my mom. I wanted to spend time with her.” He laughed, the smile changing his face from hot to gorgeous. “My father used to sit at the kitchen table and watch us. He said she was going to turn me into a chef.” He put a roll on his plate and met her gaze. “Secretly, I think he loved seeing us bonding. I didn’t have that before and once Luna was in our lives, our family felt… complete.”

“She sounds like an amazing woman. She was obviously a good influence on you, not to mention she taught you how to cook.” Kira grinned impishly. “Are you sure she wasn’t grooming you to make a good husband?”

She smiled at his memory. The image of a little Luke trying to cook made her giggle.

Luke laughed. “She just might have, I guess we will have to ask her next time she stops by. Trust me, that will be sooner than later. She worries about me and Bastien in these storms.”

“Bastien and you seem very close.”

“We are. Luna kind of adopted him as her son, too.”

“Did you guys grow up here together? I can imagine the trouble the two of you got into together.”

Luke chuckled and turned to her with a devilish twinkle in his eye. “You don’t even want to know the trouble we got into. My father used to say that the day Bastian and I became friends, our guardian angels took to drinking.”

“Where’s your father now?”

“He died during a trip to visit a friend. Their pride was attacked and my dad fought alongside them.”

NINETEEN

She hated her question had taken the smile off his face. Her heart hurt over the pain she saw in his eyes. “I’m sorry. That had to be tough. How old were you?”

He took a drink of his water. “It was five years ago. Luna became my world after that. I didn’t want her to feel alone.”

Wow. He truly was a wonderful guy. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “It’s okay. What about your dad. You said he died trying to control you.”

She sighed. “Unlike the father you had, my dad was a control freak. He wanted his way or the highway. He was always so angry.”

He glanced at her, still not eating. “Angry?”

“Yeah. I often thought it was my fault. Because I was so big and he was always telling me nobody would love me being so fat.”

His brows drew into an angry frown. “You know that’s not true. You’re beautiful exactly as you are.”

Ah, yes. The same words her mother said to her. Somehow hearing them from Luke felt like a balm to her soul. Like maybe her mom hadn’t been a tiny bit biased. “I know. I realized later he was angry because he couldn’t divorce my mom. He’d turned her small family business into an empire and if he divorced her, she would keep it. The business belonged to her, but he was too paranoid to think she would never take it away from him. She had such a kind heart.” She shook her head. “So he went and had another kid with her to keep her busy. Of course, since it was a boy, he decided
he
needed to learn the business.”

Even after Kira had worked her ass off for him during the summer. Took on every menial job available to learn the business. He had given Peter her business because she refused to do what he said. He’d given her bad-at-managing-money brother the business her mother left to Kira. The entire thing frustrated the hell out of her.

She glanced up and met Luke’s gaze. Her vision was drawn to the window behind him. “Is it snowing?”

He looked over his shoulder. “It is.”

“We’re going to be buried in here.” She couldn’t really feel upset over the snow. Not when she was with Luke. There was something about him that not only turned her on, but also soothed the restlessness inside her. She wasn’t ready to marry the man, but he had potential for a lot more than stuck-in-a-cabin sex.

“I have been meaning to ask you,” she said, finally eating more of her delicious food. “You don’t have many electronics in here. Why?”

He raised a brow. “I don’t need anything more than my phone. If I need to get my laptop, then I do.”

Okay, so he had a laptop. “But you have no TV. I get a lot of people don’t have TVs, but I had yet to meet one.”

He curled his lips into that sinful smile that made her think of oral sex. “I can think of more fun things to do than to watch TV.”

She’d done it to herself. “Speaking of more fun, what’s up with the crazy ex?”

He ate in silence and for a moment she thought he might not answer. “She had other ideas.” He pinned her with his stare. “I don’t want her and she is having a bit of trouble accepting that.”

Happiness filled her chest. She shouldn’t be excited he said that, but she was. He wanted her. Kira. Not the bitchy brunette with the ability to turn into something that could tear her to kibbles and bits in two point three seconds.

“What kind of shifter are you?” she finally asked.

“Lion.”

“Ooooh. The king of the jungle.” She grinned. “I bet you get that a lot.”

“No. I don’t.”

She laughed at the horror in his face.

“Relax. I won’t start singing ‘In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight’,” she sang.

“You do realize that story is about a child. And it’s a cartoon,” he said, his lips twitching holding back a grin.

“Yes. I do. It’s very immature of me, but it’s still fun.” She grinned wider. “Guess I shouldn’t call you Simba, either?”

He groaned in exasperation. “Please, don’t you may not like the consequences otherwise.”

Kira laughed in delight at his easy bantering. She decided to spare him more teasing, she didn’t know how much he could handle yet and she did not want to end up regretting it later.

“Do we need to bring in more wood before we can’t get out the door?”

He nodded. “I’ll go now.”

She glanced at his empty plate and gaped. How the fuck had he eaten that huge steak so fast. She then peered at her own plate. She’d gotten one third of the way and couldn’t eat any more. “I’ll come with you.”

“No. You’ll end up wetting your clothes again with the snow.”

“I want to help,” she stated.

He growled softly. For a second she thought he might argue with her, but instead, he sighed. “Fine. I’ll pass them to you at the door and you can take them to the fireplace.”

It took fifteen minutes of passing logs until they had enough for the night. She had a feeling they were slow in the process because he’d given her so many small logs.

His phone rang as he locked the front door to the cabin. She watched him strip off his shirt and felt her mouth for drool.

“Hi, Mom,” he said and headed for the stairs leading to the second floor. She followed after him, stopping by the entrance to her room. She wanted to go with him to his room, but then they might do something bad, like having more awesome sex.

She had to remember why that wouldn’t be a good thing. Her pulse jumped and her temperature spiked thinking of him naked.