My men know to be most scared of me when I speak quietly.
And I’m speaking very, very quietly right now.
“Gone?”
Rage steels my muscles. The likes of which I’ve never known. I’m not sure what I’ve walked into here, but I don’t like it. I don’t like the sputtering man sitting on the floor with his hands zip tied behind his back. I don’t like the way the receptionist looks so nervous. I hate that Meadow isn’t here where I left her. Yeah, that’s going to be a huge problem for someone.
Someone is going to pay.
“What the fuck do you mean, ‘she’s gone’?”
Gregory, the man I trusted to guard Meadow, one of my most reliable employees, shifts in his size fifteen loafers. “It happened fast. I wasn’t sure whether I should stay with him.” He points to the short, sniveling guy on the floor. “Or go after the girl. She wasn’t injured much, so I knew she’d be okay. And I suspected you’d want to question this—”
I hold up a hand, my voice emerging choked. “She wasn’t injured much? MUCH?” I bellow. “You better not be serious.”
“I’m not sure what happened, boss,” Gregory says quickly. “I carded him. Randall Tate. He checked out as the owner. Next thing I know, the receptionist runs out telling me to come quick. When I make it inside, the girl—Meadow—was on the floor trying to get away from Tate. I put a stop to it, but she ran…”
Denial sweeps me, leaving volcanic lava in its wake.
Meadow. On the ground? Attacked?
I’ll never forgive myself for leaving her in danger. If I’d known she had to fear her boss, I would have taken a wrecking ball to this building—with him still inside of it—before I ever let her return here. The fact that she spent a single second afraid has woken a beast inside of me and he’s scratching, wanting to explode out. To wreak havoc and seek vengeance.
Tate immediately silences when I train my focus on him, his skin turning a chalky pale. “You,” I whisper. “You’re already dead.” Without taking my attention off of him, I point at the receptionist. “You. The story. Now.”
It pours out of her, like she’s just been waiting for her turn to speak. “He—Randall—never leaves Meadow alone. He’s always hitting on her and…she hates it. She can usually avoid him, but today he followed her into the hallway and I heard them arguing. Randall found some check in her pocket and he was under the impression it meant…well, that she was—”
“Your whore,” Randall spat. “That’s what.”
My almighty wrath makes me shake. I’m always calm. Always keep a clear head. But I swear I could breathe fire right now. Unwanted thoughts careen against the walls of my skull. My Meadow. In fear. Disrespected. Not here for me to confirm she’s okay. I can’t stand it. And my rage propels me toward Randall where I knock him out cold with a right hook to the side of his head.
He falls to the side. I wish he was still conscious, so I could hit him again.
“He ripped up the check…” the receptionist finishes in a hushed tone.
Inconsequential. Meadow will never want for a dime as long as she lives. The check was a mere formality. I’ll write her a hundred more of them if it makes her happy.
“Bring him to the den,” I manage around the pressure in my throat. “I’m not done with him.”
Gregory moves fast, obviously grateful for the reprieve, though I’m far from done with the bodyguard, either. I would be sending a message to everyone in my employ that if Meadow was ever put in peril again, heads would fucking roll.
As soon as Randall’s body is dragged out the exit of the spa, I carefully place a flattened palm on the receptionist’s desk, well aware that it’s shaking but unable to do anything about it. I’m going to be a wreck until Meadow is back in my arms. Or for however long it takes to forget my fear when I walked into this place and heard the words she’s gone.
My hand curls into a fist and I barely resist slamming it down. “Meadow’s address. I need it. Immediately.”
“Already wrote it down,” she says, handing me a slip of paper.
Taking the note, I open my mouth and close it. “How…hurt was she? Is she really all right?”
“Yes.” The girl nods. “Meadow might be short, but she’s a badass, Mr. McManus. If you don’t mind me saying so. N-not a mark on her.”
I let out an unsteady breath and stow the address in my pocket, but not before I see my future wife lives in the shittiest of shitty buildings. As if I need any more years taken off my life today.
I leave the receptionist with a thick wad of hundreds, thank her for her loyalty to Meadow and leave, climbing into the back of my waiting SUV and barking the address at my driver.
Meadow would be safe in my bed, living in my home, by tonight.
I’d soothe her, I’d reassure her, I’d vow to never let harm come to her again.
I sure as shit didn’t expect her to be so opposed to my plans.
“Meadow, open this goddamn door or I’ll break it down.”
“I want you to leave,” she calls back from inside her apartment. “I’m not interested!”
I don’t believe this. She won’t even see me.
Her denial skewers me in the chest.
“Look, I know you’re upset with me, gorgeous. But I never, ever would have left you in that place if I’d known you could get hurt.”
“I’m not your responsibility. I knew what Randall was like—I’ve been dodging men like him my whole life. It’s nothing new.”
I’m surprised my roar of outrage doesn’t bring down the building.
“My decisions are my own and I made a bad one when I accepted that check from you. Now I’m fired, jobless and broke. But I would rather be that way than let someone take care of me. I can do that myself. I will do it.”
I bang my head against the door. Of course the woman I fall in love with has an independent streak a mile wide when I’m a possessive, controlling bastard. From here on out, it’s going to be constant fireworks between me and this girl, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. “Meadow, baby,” I cajole. “Just open this door so I can make sure you’re okay. Huh? Don’t you know I lost my mind when I found out that fucker attacked you? Please. I need to see you.”
All of that was the stone cold truth, but apparently demands weren’t going to make her open the damn door and I’ll need to employ a different method.
“I’m fine,” she hedged. “Just go home and forget me, please.”
“Forget you?” I near-shout, before reeling my temper back in. Doesn’t she realize I became her servant the moment she flashed her challenging eyes at me? The moment she dared to mouth off to me?
“Open this door. Please. I just want to see for myself that you’re fine.”
A short pause. “And then you’ll leave?”
God will forgive me for this one white lie.
Hopefully Meadow will, too.
“Yeah. Then I’ll go.”
I send a quick text to my men downstairs, telling them to watch the exits downstairs, in case Meadow tries to make a break for it at some point.
Meadow opens the door and cocks an irritated hip, looking like fucking dessert in a tiny red romper, with ruffles and shit on it. She wasn’t lying. There are no visible injuries—thank God—but her eyes are puffy and I make a note to be extra vicious when I get my hands back on her ex-boss. No one makes my girl cry. “See?” Meadow says. “I’m fine—”
Her statement ends in a squeal when I step into the apartment and throw her sexy package of a body over my shoulder. “Where’s your suitcase, gorgeous?”
“You—you lied to me!”
I start in the direction of the only other room in the place. “You think I’m going to leave you in this shit hole, Meadow?” I deliver a gentle slap to her ass, biting my lip over the resulting jiggle. “Suitcase. Where is it?”
“I’m going to murder you!”
“Many have tried,” I drawl. “All have failed.”
Her struggles cease momentarily. “I-I…really?” She sniffs. “You don’t have to be so cavalier about it.”
“Is that worry, I hear?” My heart is tripping over itself at the grudging concern in her tone and I want to see it on her face, badly, so I pull her down off my shoulder. Just enough to put her eye level and leave her toes dangling near my shins. “I’ll be a lot more careful with a beautiful wife at home, won’t I?” I murmur against her lips. “See? You coming home with me is a matter of life and death.”
“Oh yeah?” Her blue eyes flash. “Who’s going to keep you safe from me?”
A chuckle escapes me, but it turns into a groan as I rest her back against the hallway wall. “I’m obsessed with you, Meadow. You know that?” I settle her pussy on my hard dick and rock upward, hissing at the warm welcome her body gives mine. “Tell me you’re really okay. I’ll tear out my heart if you’re in an ounce of pain.”
“I’m fine, I promise,” she says, gasping at another upward grind of my hips. “You should see the other guy.”
“I will be seeing him,” I promise darkly. “And I’ll be the last thing he sees. You know why, Meadow?”
Her attention drifts to my mouth and I watch her pupils expand. With need. “Why?” she whispers.
“Because I’m your protector. Your provider. Your first and last fuck.” With every title I list for myself, I give her a thrust of my rigid cock, sliding her up and down the wall. “I’m the hand that feeds you, I’m the one who kills for you, the one who dries your tears.” I trail my tongue slowly up the side of her neck. “I’m your king and you’re going to be my queen.”
“S-sounds more like king and subject,” she breathes, rolling her hips in time with mine, face flushed. “Sounds like you want to control me. I won’t be controlled.”
“Not without a fight, you won’t.” I pin her to the wall hard and start to dry fuck her hard, fast, my teeth snapping at her neck. “You found the one man capable of handling you, gorgeous. And handle you I will.”
“No you won’t,” she hiccups, her mouth opening on a moan, writhing her pussy on my lap like an exotic dancer with a hundred-dollar bill on the line. “I’m not going w-with you. You just want to break me.”
“No, Meadow,” I growl into a rough kiss of her mouth. “I want to make us both whole. Now come on your man’s dick. Come like an obedient queen.”
The shudder that moves through her is violent, a sign that she’s close to the end, and I drive my hips all the harder, my tongue and teeth and lips exploring her neck, her ear, her cleavage. “Oh. Oh! I’m…I’m going to…”
“Call me your king when you cream, Meadow.”
“No,” she gasps.
I stop thrusting and she cries out, clawing at me, trying to rub her little cunt on me, but I back my hips up. “Who am I?”
“My king! My king!”
I’m only back to bucking against her for two seconds, before her thighs hug my hips and squeeze, her tits popping out of her neckline with the intensity of her back arch, her full-throated scream. I wrap a hand around her exposed throat, squeezing, and suck a nipple into my mouth. Drawing deeply. Her feet scramble in response on the backs of my thighs and I can’t prevent my release anymore.
“Fuck!” I spew semen into my pants while still ramming her, because I want her to feel what she did to me. Want her to know she made me come in my pants like a goddamn college boy. Want her to know she’s the fucking one. The only one who will claim my come from now until forever—and I’ll be the only one who she paints in hers. “Go on, little virgin queen. Give me everything your pussy makes. All the tasty wetness. It goes on this king cock. Every time.”
She sucks in a breath and climaxes again, seeming almost outraged by how easily I made her do it, and God. God. I’m past the point of obsession. I’m in so fucking deep with Meadow, I don’t think I can make it another day without her wearing my ring. I need her to be mine, in every single way.
I press my mouth to hers. “Suitcase?”
“In the bedroom closet, my king,” Meadow breathes, slumping lifeless into my arms.
I stride to the bedroom with my treasure in my arms, victory singing in my blood. Little do I know I am far from understanding what true victory means.
