Claiming Her Beasts (Claiming Her Beasts #1) - Dia Cole Page 0,34

known, I’d never imagine he’d take my words seriously and do something so insane.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I was just kidding about wanting someone pierced.”

Reed’s blue eyes widened. “You mean… you mean…” His erection deflated. “Jesus, I feel like the biggest fucking idiot right now.”

I couldn’t take my eyes from the barbells. “I can’t believe you’d do something so crazy… so painful…”

He dragged in a deep breath. “Isn’t it obvious, woman? I love you. I always have.”

The raw emotion in his gaze took my breath away.

He loves me.

Wait. What? No. My inner alarm shrieked. This was supposed to be fun. No emotional attachments. Passionate love made people crazy. I saw my mother’s lifeless body in my mind’s eye.

I sat up in bed. “This isn’t happening.”

“What?”

“Leave.”

“But…” His face twisted with confusion and pain.

“Just go now,” I said so loudly the mirror over my dresser shook and the curtains over my window fluttered.

Reed slid off the bed and bent down to grab his pants.

Oh, God. He had the finest ass of any man I’d ever seen. Forcing my gaze away, I threw my comforter over myself.

“We’ll act like this never happened.” Things could go back to the way they were.

Reed shook his head. “I can’t do that. I love you.”

I scooted back on the bed until my spine hit the headboard. “Reed, I love you too—”

“I knew it. I knew you felt the sam—”

“—like a brother,” I lied softly. “Even though we aren’t blood siblings, I’ll always think of you that way.” It wasn’t true, but I needed him out before we did something we could never come back from.

“What about…” He motioned between us.

I tugged the comforter tighter around me. “A mistake.”

His eyes narrowed. “You liked me touching you. I know you did.”

I opened my mouth to deny it but couldn’t. “Just leave.”

“If I did or said anything to upset you—”

I interrupted him. “You didn’t. Just go.”

His shoulders slumped, and he turned toward the door.

“Don’t go anywhere, cocksucker,” a deep raspy voice ordered.

Reed spun around at the same time a huge, naked man emerged from behind my curtains.

Certain the guy was an alcohol induced hallucination. I closed my eyes and opened them again. The man was still there.

No, my shocked mind amended as I stared into his glowing yellow eyes. Not a man. A monster. A nearly ten-foot monster with jagged fangs and rippling muscles that enveloped every inch of his body down to the massive erection he sported between his brawny thighs.

I opened my mouth to scream.

The monster brought one of his fingers to his lips. “Neither of you move or make a sound.” His voice rang with an otherworldly tone that reverberated inside my head.

I tried to bolt from the bed and found I couldn’t move a muscle.

Oh, God! What’s happening? Fear skittered down my spine.

Reed was a statue next to my bed. His terror-filled eyes were wide. “Run,” he mouthed.

“I can’t,” I mouthed back. My breath came in sharp, shallow, pants. Somehow the monster was in total control. What will he do to us?

As if reading my mind, the monster bared his fangs in a smile made of nightmares.

13

Hunter

My dancer and her roommate stared at me with mirroring looks of horror. The frantic pounding of their heartbeats rang in my ears, while the acrid tang of their fear burned my nostrils.

Normally, I’d eat that terror and pain up like a pancake breakfast, but not when it was coming from her.

My mate.

I wanted her to look at me the way she had back in the club. I wanted her to look at me the way she was looking at that human.

Snarling, I scowled at Reed.

Color leeched from his tanned face. To his credit, he didn’t flinch from my gaze, but I sensed his rising panic and desire to protect my mate. It was the only reason he still drew breath.

When I’d first arrived at the house, I’d been enraged to scent a male’s arousal through her open window.

Driven nearly insane with fury, I’d dove through the window, intent on eviscerating my rival.

But then I’d clawed the curtain open and found my mate stretched out on her bed with her roommate’s face trapped between her thighs. Her gay roommate.

Shocked, I’d struggled to make sense of what I was seeing.

From weeks of stalking Lee, when I was supposed to be watching Javier, I knew everything about them. I’d seen the way Reed rejected every female who made a pass at him, and I’d seen the way my dancer bossed him