Oceans Untamed (12 page)

As he cleared his throat and indicated a path back up toward the car, he knew he was doing the right thing, but he could sense her confusion, her longing.

She wanted him to make this better.

She believed that he could.

Her faith wasn’t misplaced; by letting her go, he was fixing
everything.
 

“Where are we going?” Monroe asked, her voice taut with apprehension.

“I’m taking you to the hotel,” he said. It was a partial truth. He was going to pack up her suitcase and get her off the island. With any luck, Spencer would still be in town, finishing up his so-called horrible date. Spencer could fly under the radar, get her to another island and use a bigger plane to get her
to Miami. Koenraad would book her a flight to New York from there. She would be safe. She would be gone, out of his life, though there was no guarantee she’d want to see him even after he’d fixed the mess he’d made in Tureygua.

He didn’t know which would worry him more: if she argued with him or if she didn’t.

He’d find out soon enough.

Given what had happened the last few hours, he didn’t
think it was a good idea to leave her alone while he sprinted to the mansion to get his car.
 

The alternative wasn’t exactly palatable, but it was efficient. He pulled Menendez’s car up the slope. When he turned it on, it hesitated, wheezed, and clunked, then sputtered to life. Both the headlights were out.

Monroe looked warily at it.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We’ll only be inside a few minutes.”

“As long as you don’t put me in the trunk,” she said, her voice shaky. But her gait was steady as she walked around the abused vehicle and slid into the seat.

He felt her tensing up beside him as he drove down the dark roads. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I can see perfectly well.”

“I’m not worried.”
 

He wanted to ask her why she’d stopped breathing, then, but he knew what she was doing. She was
denying that he was different. She was pretending he wasn’t a shark.
 

He had to admit, it hurt. She’d been the first person to truly see him, and now she acted like she hadn’t. Not that he didn’t deserve it. He’d never blame her for trying to protect herself. Look what lengths he was going to for his son. He wanted to take her hand, to talk things out, but he could tell she didn’t want to be
touched.

Driving the whole way to the hotel like this didn’t seem fair to her, and there was a good chance he’d get pulled over once he got close to the town, so he stopped at his mansion. Spencer had left Koenraad’s car near the gate and had taken the convertible.
 

“You changed the codes,” Monroe said as the gate opened.

“I didn’t. I switched it back to biometric authentication. It scans my
retinas. It’s an extra security precaution, but I’d disabled it because… well, because it’s slow and I’d gotten lazy.”

She huffed. “All you had to do was tell me not to come out here, Koenraad.”

He drew in a sharp breath and released it slowly. She couldn’t possibly think he’d done this because he wanted to cut her out of his life, especially considering he’d been minutes away from claiming
her as his mate.

First she’d rejected him as a shark. Now she was rejecting the tenderness he’d shown.

He needed to let her go. She was furious, and she was a danger to herself and to Brady. It wasn’t easy, but he held his tongue.

His other car could have sat outside the gate, but a few minutes apart would do both him and Monroe some good, so he walked out to get it. When he handed Monroe her
bag, which had been in the back seat, she barely looked at it.
 

He chose his Mercedes SUV to drive to the hotel. It was solid and comfortable and spacious inside, and he sensed that Monroe was more relaxed as she climbed inside.
 

They drove in silence, Koenraad wondering how he was going to tell her that he was sending her home. He couldn’t know what she was thinking, but her heightened pulse,
coupled with the way she sat shifted on her seat as if she didn’t want to look at him, gave him a pretty good idea.

“I’m sorry…” He stopped himself there. If he wanted her to leave and not look back, he needed to let her hate him.

It wasn’t a stretch. He deserved it. He never should have introduced her to Brady.
 

Over the past few days, he’d come to realize that he wanted to reveal himself
to Monroe, and that was why he’d taken her to the crater, to the water. That was why he’d pulled her underneath. He’d wanted her to see him, just as he’d wanted to see her.

If he was capable of that, he couldn’t be sure he hadn’t subconsciously wanted to chase her away.

Not the attack. Never that. But maybe he’d thought that meeting Brady would send her running, that learning that he had a troubled
child would show him how things stood between them. If she ran, she wasn’t for him. If she stayed, it would be with full knowledge of the situation.

He didn’t think that was what had been on his mind, but he couldn’t know, couldn’t trust himself where Monroe was concerned. She’d been pushing him, wanting him to expose more of himself. Literally. She was exceptionally curious, and from the moment
she’d learned that male shark shifters possessed two cocks, she’d wanted to see his. She’d wanted to see the barbs. He hadn’t intended to show her anytime soon, but after the attack…
 

Guilt had made him show her. After she’d gotten over her shock, then she’d wanted more. To touch him. To have all of him inside of her. His blood, still fresher from the transfusion than he ever would have guessed,
had healed her hand immediately after she’d touched him.

Because of that, she’d begged to have him inside her. It had provoked the shark in him and had turned him on. She wanted him so badly she was willing to bleed for him, to be cut, to suffer. She wasn’t just willing; she craved it. He’d smelled her arousal and had known the truth: Monroe was a hell of a lot kinkier than she looked.

And he
suspected it was a revelation to her, too.

So was it about her? Or was it about him? Did he bring this out in her just like she brought out his desire to shed the secrets and lies?
 

He was uneasy as he drove into the hotel’s underground parking lot. Monroe was still facing away, but she’d sucked her lower lip into her mouth, and he could hear the tiny vibrations as she nibbled on the thin, delicate
skin.

Thinking of her mouth reminded him of how she’d begged to suck his cock, and how heartbroken she’d been when he’d stopped her.

One thing was indisputable: they were perfect together in bed. They exploded… And they’d only explored a small fraction of the possibilities.

He shut off the engine and pushed open his door. When the door slammed, it seemed it was closing on his hopes and dreams,
too. But that was his own damned fault. A shark like him, with secrets as big as his, didn’t get to hope. His dreams were for Brady, and that was how it should have stayed until he’d found a cure.

“Koenraad?” Monroe asked, her voice uncertain. He could tell she’d worked herself up to whatever she was going to say.

He didn’t want to hear it, so he pretended to be distracted.

She wasn’t fooled.
He smelled her flash of anger, and he smiled because even though she’d been slow to understand that he could sense her emotions on a level no human could, when she got it, she really
got
it. Which meant she was well aware that he was pretending not to hear her.

“I’m surprised you didn’t valet park,” she said, a defiant tone in her voice.

He stiffened slightly, then shrugged it off. She was going
to find out in a few minutes anyway. “I don’t want anyone to see you leaving the hotel. It’s for your own safety.”
 

“Is that how it is?” she murmured. “Rather than talk this out, you’re sending me away.”

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s how it is.” He headed into the elevator, and he could feel her eyes burning into his back. Something told him she wasn’t admiring his shoulders, that she wouldn’t be
thinking about him in that way for some time, if ever again.

In the hotel room, Monroe packed her bags quickly and efficiently. She set aside the things he’d bought her—the dresses, the bikinis, a sun hat, a green
Touch Paradise in Tureygua
T-shirt that he’d had to buy because it brought out the warm fire of her brown eyes.

“I’m done.” She stood before him, her chin high, her breathing calm
and steady. Koenraad’s gaze flickered to the things she’d left on the bed.

“You forgot a few things—”

She defiantly raised her bags, to show him. “No, I didn’t.”

And that was that. He grabbed up the suitcase that he hadn’t even unpacked the night before, and he held the door open for her.

In the garage, he loaded their things into the back of the SUV. Monroe stood, watching quietly. “You can
get in,” he said. “I’ll check out.”

“I’m coming with you.” She held up the purse clutched in her right hand. “Half the bill is mine.”

“Monroe—”

“I’m not negotiating on this.”
 

He could hear in her voice how much his rejection had hurt her, and he instinctively knew how much it meant for her to pay her own way, that it would allow her a clean break.

But he couldn’t let her do it, not when
he was well aware of how she struggled financially. “I chose this hotel,” he said. “Paying for it is the least I can do.”

She headed for the elevator. With a sigh, he locked the SUV and followed her. “It’s already paid for, you know.”

“Which is why you’re going to tell them to split it in half and give you a partial refund.”

He had no intention of doing any such thing, and when the receptionist
gave the total for the room, which included an inflated replacement cost for the bike, Koenraad heard Monroe’s breath stutter out.

But her fingers were steady as she slid a credit card across the counter. Koenraad stood apart, hands shoved deep in his pockets. A quick phone call after she was gone and he’d get the charges reversed to her card, and there wouldn’t be a damned thing she could do
about it.

Come to think of it, he’d have the things she’d left boxed up and shipped to her apartment. He might include a few extra gifts, and if she wanted to chuck the lot into the trash, that was up to her. But he suspected she wouldn’t.
 

He wondered what her home was like. She’d said it was small. Was it cluttered? Sparse and clean? Did she have plants on the windowsills? A rusty fire escape
she climbed out onto when she wanted a bit of fresh air?

One day, when this nightmare was over, he’d show up at her doorstep.
 

“There seems to be a problem with your card,” the receptionist said. “I ran it twice. Maybe your bank doesn’t know you’re out of the country?”

“I’m sure that’s it,” Monroe said unconvincingly. Her movements were stiff as she dug through her wallet.

Funny how much he
wanted her to turn toward him, her brow furrowed cutely, and ask for help. But he knew she wouldn’t, and he also knew she didn’t want him witnessing this, so he strolled toward the bar. The glass doors were closed tightly, but he could see the bar was packed.

Snatches of conversation jumped out at him when he opened the door.
 

“… Flights canceled until tomorrow afternoon at least…”

“Can’t get
through to my mother.”

“Is it getting any coverage back home? They preempted the game here and I about lost my mind. I had to leave my hotel room to get away from it…”

As he entered the bar, he caught a familiar scent.
Tara
. He didn’t know her, but because she was Monroe’s best friend, he’d deemed it wise to make a note of her scent and sound. She was in a far corner with several other people,
some of whom he recognized, some he didn’t.

A glance behind him showed that Monroe was still at the receptionist’s desk, but now she was on the phone.

He couldn’t help the small twist of remorse he felt. He should have insisted, but she was weird about money, for amounts big and small. She’d almost caused a scene when he gave her money to buy an ice cream cone. His perfect woman had one flaw.

Two flaws, if he took into account that despite everything, she still seemed open to working things out with him. Given how that was in his favor, or would be, once he got his life back, he wasn’t going to complain.

He wove through the crowd until he reached Monroe’s friends. Tara was deep in conversation with a slight, dark-skinned woman, and she broke off when she saw him.
 

Her gaze darted
around, no doubt searching for Monroe. He wondered what Monroe would tell Tara about their sudden breakup.

Tara’s eyes widened. “You own planes! For the love of all that is good, can you please fly us out of here?” She sounded a little hysterical. That didn’t surprise him given the tumultuous cocktail of scents she was giving off.

“I can’t,” he said. Spencer would be able to get a small plane
out without trouble, but Tara’s group was too large.
 

“Or a boat?” A man he hadn’t met before had materialized at his shoulder. He wore a Harvard baseball hat and smelled faintly of sour sweat. “I’ll pay well for a crewed charter. Or I can captain. I’m licensed.”
 

Koenraad looked around at the assembled group, and a smile spread across his face. Here was the answer to his problems.
 

“It so
happens that I do have a boat,” he said, and a small cheer went up among Monroe’s friends. He used his hands to indicate they should keep the volume down. “And I’ll let you borrow it free of charge under one condition.”

Chapter 15

Monroe signed the two credit card slips and returned them to the receptionist, then she turned to look for Koenraad.

He’d wandered away, thank goodness. Both of her banks had been “unable” to authorize a transaction over five hundred dollars, so she’d had to split her section of the bill in half. It had been utterly humiliating.

Then she saw him through a closed set of glass
doors. He was heading toward her, moving through the crowd easily, a smile turning his angular face breathtakingly gorgeous. She wondered what he was so happy about.