Savage Hearts (Queens & Monsters #3)(76)

“Are you jealous of Spi—The Arachnid? Because there’s no need to be.”

“Anyone who wants what’s mine is on my shit list.”

What’s mine.

I close my eyes for a moment, letting that sink through me. “There’s nothing between us. There never was.”

“Maybe not for you.”

I’m curious what makes him so certain, but don’t dare ask. I mean, I’m brave, but that’s definitely not the hill I want to die on.

He snaps, “Next fucking subject.”

“Okay. Um…”

He lifts his head and glowers at me. “What?”

“Oh, pipe down, Hulk. It doesn’t have to do with another man.”

He doesn’t look like he believes me. He still hasn’t blinked.

Sighing, I say, “I thought you might like to know that I’m on Depo-Provera.”

“Is that a medication?”

Before I can answer, he lifts to an elbow and stares down at me, saying loudly, “Are you on a prescription I don’t know about? Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve gotten it for you! You could’ve been taking it this whole time!”

“Mal—”

“Christ, Riley, you have to tell me what you need, or I can’t give it to you. Despite what you think, I’m not a mind reader!”

I reach up and stroke his beard, smiling. “You’re a psychopath.”

“Don’t try to flirt your way out of this.”

That makes me smile wider. “Only you would think a woman calling you a psychopath is flirting.”

He scowls at me with flattened lips and flared nostrils, waiting for an explanation.

I say softly, “It’s birth control. A shot. I’m just telling you that so you don’t have to worry about getting me pregnant.”

The anger disappears. What it’s replaced by, I couldn’t say, because I’ve never seen this particular expression before.

After a moment, he only says, “Oh.”

“Okay, the way you just said that? It makes me think maybe you have genetically engineered super sperm who laugh at birth control as they fly past it on their way to inseminate eggs.”

“No. I mean, yes, my sperm are obviously super, but no to the rest of it.”

After a moment of examining his expression, I say, “Because your sperm don’t laugh is what you’re saying. Your sperm have resting bitch face, like you.”

His brows shoot up. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t get all in a kerfuffle.”

“Kerfuffle?”

“If you’d like a definition, it’s exactly what you’re doing now.”

“I’m not in a fucking kerfuffle!”

“Sure. Let me just wait a sec while my ruptured eardrums heal and we can continue this discussion.”

His face goes through a few expressions—fury, amusement, disbelief—then he flips me onto my belly and spanks my bare ass five times in quick succession.

It’s shocking.

Hard, stinging, and shocking, primarily because of how much it turns me on.

Heat blooms over my skin. My bottom feels like it’s on fire. Then the rest of me does, too, because Mal is looking at my wide-eyed face with hunger in his eyes.

“You liked that.”

His voice has gone low and gravelly. He watches me, licking his lips like a predator before a juicy meal.

My heart thrumming, I say breathlessly, “I’ll have to break my answer into two parts, because first, no, I didn’t like it. My brain is judging us both very harshly. My women’s studies professor from college is, too. But secondly, holy fuck, that was hot.”

“You’ve never been spanked before?”

I give him an incredulous look. “Who would dare spank the mouse deer with the tiny tusk-like fangs?”

The smile that spreads over his face is utterly debauched. He drawls, “What else have you never done?”

“None of your business, Romeo.”

He smooths his palm over my burning backside and kisses me gently on the shoulder. Turning his mouth to my ear, he murmurs, “You liked it when I had my hand around your throat, yes?”

I think of when we had sex on the living room floor. I attributed the intensity of that experience to the bear attack, but maybe having him squeeze my neck had something to do with it, too.

I came so hard, I saw stars.

He also did that when he broke into the safe house in Boston. Put his big rough hand around my throat and squeezed, threatening to choke me.

Right about then is when I stopped being scared and started acting feisty.

Holy shit.

Are Twizzlers not my only kink?

Biting my lower lip, I look at him and nod.

He lowers his head to brush his lips against mine. “Okay. That’s a good starting place.”

Do I die now, or wait until later when we’re doing whatever kinky fuckery I suspect he’s got planned?

I don’t have time to ponder it, because he rises from bed, picks me up, carries me into the bathroom, and fucks me again in the shower. He holds me up against the wall as he drives into me, biting my neck.

Maybe being adorable isn’t so bad after all.





Days go by. Mal doesn’t leave for the city again.