The Hunted (Sleeping With Monsters Book 2) (9 page)

“I want more. Even if you
don’t,” he said.

I swallowed, tense, hoping.

“Come here, Max. Obey,” he
said, trying out the words as if for the first time.

I crawled up the bed to be
beside him. I still had my jeans on, I hadn’t wanted him to see how hard
sucking on him made me.

He rose up beside me, pushing
me down. He was breathing hard, turned on by the power of taking control over
me – as turned on as I was to relinquish it. He wanted to be an alpha, and I
yearned to have one care for me.

He leaned over and rubbed me
through my jeans. “I want to fuck you, Max. Not just your mouth – your ass.” 

If I currently had a tail, it
would’ve dropped. I’d never let a human mount me before. I’d only taken
desperate fuckings from other weres who would pretend not to know me five
seconds after they came.

“You can’t –“ I said, biting
back all the rules and reasons.  

“I don’t care,” he said,
looking down at me with a cruel smile. “You like me when I’m willful and
arrogant. You like being needed – being used.” He leaned over me, chest to
chest, his hand still hot over my cock. “I need to fuck you Max. I want to use
your ass.”

I made a strangled sound, and
inside me my wolf crouched and whined. We both wanted this. I started panting
as he undid the top button of my jeans, yanking them down, exposing my swollen
cock. He bent over then to kiss me as I’d so often kissed him, sucking my head
with his soft lips as his fingers stroked my shaft.

“Vincent –“ I gasped.

“Yes,” he said, not in
response, but in triumph.

I squirmed out of the rest of
my jeans without thinking. It was now now now – I turned over, presenting
myself to be taken, ready to feel him inside of me.

“No,” he chided,
pushing me down and rolling me back, exposing my belly, my cock swinging across
it like a pendulum. “Like this,” he said, moving to kneel in front of me.

“Why?” Weres didn’t
fuck like that, was this a human thing?

He smiled at me softly.
“So I can see your face when I’m fucking you,” he explained, his voice low, as
he slid himself in.

He fucked me more
slowly than weres fucked. Weres were all dominance and violence and getting
themselves off. If Syd ever knew how many of his pack had broken rank to
roughly fuck me, he would have never let me leave alive.

But Vincent was
thorough, and as his hard cock slid in and out of my ass, he reached for my
cock and stroked its shaft and I moaned. I brought a hand up to take my cock
from him and he stopped thrusting.

“Stop,” he commanded,
and I set my hand down, staring up. “You’re mine. All mine,” he said, stroking
me as he took another thrust.

It’d never been like
this before at all. Ever. No one had ever told me to just relax, to just let
myself be fucked. It was hard to go with the moment until he started taking my
ass in earnest, while still holding on to my cock. I whined and he grunted as
the tension between us grew, the friction of his cock inside me and his hand
fucking my dick -- I felt my balls begin to lift and knew I was almost past the
point where I could stop – all I knew anymore was that I didn’t want him too --
my ass clenched around him tight, as tight as his hand pulled on me, and he
fucked me hard as he gasped, shooting his load deep inside me while mine spilled
out all over his hand.

He leaned over me, holding
himself up with his clean hand, looking down at my sweaty face. No were had
ever wanted to see my face while fucking before – nor had they wanted me to see
theirs.

And then he grinned,
mischievous, and painted a mark on my chest with my cum as though he’d claimed
me. I knew then, even though he had no mating knot to tie me with, I was
chained.

That night I slept outside his
room, guarding his closed door.

#

I raced through the
forest on all fours, feeling the power surge through me, baited on by the
waxing moon overhead, until I found myself in a clearing with a naked man.

I concentrated. The fur twisted
in and manskin spread out, and we were both naked.

Karl looked at me
appraisingly. “Living rough’s been good to you, Max.”

He was as tall as I was, but
doughy and pale. There was gray around his hairline now that hadn’t been there
when I’d last seen his human form, years ago. “City life’s making you fat.
Why’re you here Karl? Other than to check up on me?”

He gave me a smug look. “Thought
you’d like to know your old employer’s died.”

I didn’t say anything at
first. Karl was an asshole, and I wouldn’t put it past him to come up here just
to try to get a rise. But then I saw the gleam in his eye, him preparing for
joy from causing me pain. “What? How –“

“Come on, you knew his line of
work..”

“But –“ I felt as though I’d
been punched in the chest by a giant and the world was swinging round.

“We’re still looking for his
bitch – she was going to turn evidence in. She got him killed.”

I tried, and failed, to get
control. I thought I might throw up.

“Did you know of any hideouts
he had? Places she might have known about to go hole up?” he pressed.

I somehow managed not to sway.
“I haven’t seen him or spoken to him in seven years.”

“I know. But you two were
friends. Better than friends,” he said, with that same smug expression. “I
remember seeing you two –“

I stared at him with dead
eyes. “That’s enough.” My voice was like a whip crack in the night, we both
could hear it echo.

Karl leered, unstoppable. “How
long’s it been since you got fucked out here, Maxie? You still like it rough?”

“Shut up, Karl.”

He reached for his crotch.
“How about a suck for old times sake? You used to love my cock.”

Hackles on my wolf’s neck
rose. “I’m different now.”

“My wolf could order you to do
it.”

“But right now I’m a man,” I
said, flexing my muscles just enough to be a threat, not a challenge. 

He snorted. “Whatever, I have
pussy at home to fuck. You think of anything, you let me know though.” He
rolled his shoulders, and descended back to the road.

I stood there until I heard
the sound of his car drive off.

Why didn’t she tell me?

I stumbled through the trees
as a human, feeling the branches rake and tear, stones cutting the bottoms of
my feet. She knew, of course she knew, no wonder she’d been so coy. I’d thought
she thought I was strange – not that she was hiding his death from me. It was
impossible. It couldn’t have happened. Not Vincent, no – I fell to my knees on
and howled like a wolf singing out my pain until I changed back into one and
hurtled through the forest at full speed.

She’d lied to me – and if
she’d caused his death, I would kill her for it.

Chapter Seven

After finding his
clothes in the forest, I decided I’d take my chances at the airport. I packed
my bag and tossed his entire cabin, looking for keys. There were two closets at
the back. One of them was full of camping gear and clothing for cold weather –
the other one was full of what I realized with horror were traps. At least
fifty of them, all tangled up, chains ending in silent toothy metal grins. I
shuddered – what the hell kind of person had all these? And why?

I closed the doors,
grabbing the copy of National Geographic I’d found underneath a folded parka. His
keys might be out there, in the pocket of his jeans. Maybe I should go back and
try to get them?

But I heard a foot on
the stair. I fell into the couch, and flipped the magazine open.

“You’re back,” I said
as though I’d been expecting him all along. I used the voice I used to use with
guys before Vincent, breathlessly excited.

“See?” he said, holding
a headless rabbit up.
He’s a mostly naked man who wrenches the heads off of
small animals, and has the props for a horror movie in his closet. Wonderful.

“I’ll be back,” he
announced, grabbing a really big knife and taking it outside.

I stayed in for a
moment and breathed.
Baby, I don’t know why you wanted me to play Little
House on the Prairie with some weirdo, but a girl’s got to have standards.
My head was still on my shoulders, and I knew what to do. I’d kill him with
kindness, at least until I found those keys. I steeled myself and went outside,
where he was cleaning his catch.

“Is there anything I
can do to help?” I stood just out of arm’s reach, my chest out, my voice soft
and seductive.

“Not really,” he said, without
looking over – until I was frowning.

“I don’t like feeling
useless,” I said, dropping the act.

He paused to think. “You can
stoke the fire. And find a can of beans in the pantry – don’t worry about the
expiration dates. And when we’re done eating, you can take the dishes down to
the creek and wash them.”

“Okay,” I said and nodded. It
was a start. And the creek was the same direction as the truck was – maybe he
was the ‘leave the keys in the sunshade and the doors unlocked’ type.

He gave me one tentative
double-take before I went back inside.

Rabbit meat was surprisingly
delicious – that, or not having eaten anything in a day’d made me hungry. I’d
learned not to be picky a long time ago -- you ate when you could eat with what
was still open when you walked the street. I never wanted to eat Taco Bell
again. 

He was watching me – too
closely. I stopped gnawing a rib or a leg, I didn’t know, and smiled at him.
Get
on his good side, Sammy.
Assuming that he had one. “This is pretty good!”

“Yeah,” he agreed.

He was hard to cozy up to when
all his time up here had made him forget how to talk. I didn’t want to just
throw myself at him again – once could be a lucky accident, twice would be
setting a precedent. Instead I took my empty plate over to him, and leaned over
to take his. Flash a little bit of cleavage, then I’d be off to do women’s
work. “I’ll be right back.” 

He glanced at the window.
“Don’t bother. It’s almost dark.”

“It’s not that far –“ I
protested. I didn’t want to spend another night here if I didn’t have to. He
was stronger than I was, but once I was off in his truck he wouldn’t be able to
catch me. 

“I’ll take you there tomorrow,
and make sure you know the path.” He took the plate from my hand and roughly
set it down.

Goddammit.
I pulled
away from him and he grabbed my hand – and the look he gave me just then – I
recognized it. It stabbed me worse than a knife could. He was completely
tortured. Scared. Lost. I knew what that look felt like inside. “Sarah – where
is he?”

And maybe I’d been running
from this, too – maybe more than the naked-rabbit-murdering. There was no way
he wouldn’t ask about Vincent eventually, and I knew I couldn’t lie to him, not
when he was looking at me like that. I bit my lips, trying to think of words to
say that wouldn’t hurt him, when I was saved from answering by the distant howl
of a wolf.

“Fuck.” He turned toward the
window, stood, and pushed me back. “I’ve got to go.”

“What – why?”

“No time to explain.” He
started for the door, and then turned and looked at me. His face was completely
different now – the hurt was gone, replaced by rage and anger. I gasped.

“What’s wrong?”

He lunged for me like
he had the night before, too fast for me to react, and slammed a hand across my
face. “Shut up.”

I started screaming and
didn’t stop until he gagged me.

What the fuck, what
the fuck, what the fuck
– my ankles
were tied to each other and my hands were laced through the metal headboard of
his shitty bed and then I heard him lock me in and leave me. I thrashed,
listening to more howls in the distance – what the fuck was going on?

At first I thought he
was going to – my teeth ground around the fabric he’d shoved inside my mouth.
It’d happened before. It was a risk you took every time you went out on the
streets. There was always some guy who thought he deserved to get what he
wanted, more than you deserved control of your life.

#

“How much do you think you’re
worth to him?” Philly the Chicken Man asked, leering down. He’d boosted a
frozen chicken delivery truck early on in his career, and after that the name
stuck. It didn’t match him physically, he was a musclebound 6’4”, but it suited
his courage just fine, because here we were, inside a shipping container
together, alone.

He’d yanked the gag out of my
mouth so I could talk. “Come on, bitch – how much’re you worth to him? You
gotta know.”  

I didn’t say anything and he
hit me.

It wasn’t unexpected. I wish I
could lie and say it didn’t hurt, but he hit me like you’d hit a man, a full
fist. I could feel my jaw rattle and it made me bite my tongue. Blood welled
inside my mouth – and I spit it at his feet.

He laughed at my small
defiance. “That’s how it’s going to be?”

Philly was on the outs with
the family. I didn’t know the specifics, only that a deal he’d been responsible
for had fallen through, and others had taken it poorly.  

He paced back and forth in the
small room like a caged tiger, one hand in his pocket fondling his phone. He’d
picked me up off the street in a van. I hadn’t been paying attention because
the streets didn’t feel dangerous to me anymore, ever since I’d become
Vincent’s girl.  

It’d never occurred to me that
being with him might make me a target.

“He’ll kill you if you don’t
let me go right now. Blindfold me, take me back, drop me off, and I’ll ask him
to let you live. He might even listen.”

Philly paced the other way.
“He’ll kill you, he’ll kill you –“ he said, mocking me. “Is that your only
threat?” He fished a pair of pliers out of his coat. “If he doesn’t call me
back soon, I’m going to pull all your teeth out and make you blow me.”