Marked (Primal Obsessions #2) - Cara Wylde Page 0,49

you. You can still have a life out there, among your people. And this…” I motioned at the small cabinets, the ancient oven, and the old, creaky bed my cub had snuck into. “I know this is not what any woman wants. Especially if she’s human, pretty, young, and can have any guy she chooses.”

“No. Oh my God, don’t ever think that. I love your place! I never wanted anything fancy myself. When I got married, I had nothing. Jack didn’t have much, either. We built our home from scratch. I was so naïve… I saw the red flags before we got married, but I went ahead and said ‘yes’ anyway. Because I was so desperate to have the kind of life I saw in movies and read about in books. I wanted to build a home with him, a family… And when things got from bad to worse, I kept hoping. I kept trying. God, he hated me so much.”

“Why would anyone ever hate you?”

She sniffed loudly and wiped a tear off her cheek. My heart ached for her. I couldn’t believe I’d had this woman in so many ways, fucked her until neither of us could move or breathe anymore, and I knew so little about her. She was finally opening herself to me, like a flower in bloom. She’d been too shy and scared to tell me about her past before. But now that she was in my arms and she knew I would never hurt her, she was ready to pour her heart out to me. And I was there to listen. I would never judge her. And what was there to judge? She’d done nothing wrong.

“He wanted children. And I wanted children, too. We tried and tried…” She shook her head. “Nothing. He blamed me. I suggested we should go see a doctor and find out exactly what was going on, but he refused. In his mind, I was the one at fault, and he didn’t need science to confirm it. Or infirm it. No, that was out of the question. In hindsight, maybe it was better that we didn’t do a fertility test. If he’d found out he was the one who couldn’t have children, he would’ve just beaten me harder. Because Jack could never be wrong. He could never be at fault.”

“But that’s… stupid.” I pulled her close and sniffed the top of her head.

“Stupid, cruel… I don’t know anymore. All that and more. He made no sense.”

I moved lower, burying my nose behind her ear.

“When we were young, I used to think he was so cool and collected. He was older than me and seemed to know what he wanted and how to get it. I hope my memory isn’t playing tricks on me now, because… well, I’ve heard that time tends to do this to people. Years pass, and we don’t remember the bad things we’ve gone through as vividly as they were. They fade, and only the good memories remain. So, I hope I’m not saying something completely ridiculous right now, but once upon a time, Jack was on okay guy. But then he was deployed to the Middle East, and when he came back, he was changed. I couldn’t recognize him at all. He started drinking, spending so much time with his buddies… We lived on a farm, but we didn’t grow any animals. He just used all that land to build himself a sort of training field. Almost every day of the week, he called his friends over, and they shot their guns and drank until they couldn’t see straight anymore. A few times, I remember I was genuinely scared they’d end up shooting each other by accident. God, they were awful!”

“I’m so sorry you had to go through all that,” I whispered as I moved even lower and sniffed her neck. “They didn’t touch you, did they?”

“No! Jack was so jealous and possessive! The guys knew. They never even looked at me. They treated me like furniture. And when they needed hot dogs and beer, they treated me like a servant. But they never touched me.”

“And he thought you couldn’t have children because of you…”

“That’s right.”

I inhaled deeply, then once I was convinced my nose wasn’t wrong, I pulled away and looked her deep in the eyes.

“You’re fertile.”

“What?”

“Right now. You’re fertile, and I can smell it.” The last words came out as a growl. I was hard. I took her hand and placed it over my erection.