The war had been building for over a month. The ventilators were left to do their job, but the squeak of gurney wheels on linoleum, the tip-tap of computer keys, the murmurs of the hospital staff all held a thread of the Thing I thought I’d banished. I could have a conversation with Greyson, but only if I concentrated on not hearing the Thing in the boiling pasta water or the radio news. Every day, it got a little stronger. Every day I was a little more tense, a little more afraid, a little more uncomfortable. The Thing got harder to box away and cart off. Harder to hide behind a wall. Impossible to ignore. I was pressed in on all sides by a Thing I couldn’t even define.

And what had become more and more clear was that it wanted my wife.

---

“Caden!”

I was in the changing room, getting my scrubs off, when Bob Abramson, the hospital director, came in. My senseless, gland-centric reaction was anger. He wanted her too, but for different reasons.

“Bob.” I got my suit out of the locker.

“Are you going to the fundraiser tonight?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Tina Molino from the psych hospital’s going. You should introduce yourself.”

I slapped my locker door closed so hard it rattled. “I know her. She had a lot of questions about military trauma. I guess the Gibson wing’s going through then?”

“Anything’s possible with funding.”

“I know you’re eyeing my wife.” That came out wrong. Wrestling with this Thing and trying to have a conversation with my boss was crossing my wires.

He overlooked my words in favor of my intentions. “She’s got the right history. She understands the military. Has done a ton of PTSD work. We could really use her.”

“Really?” I slid the padlock in the loop but didn’t close it. I hadn’t finished with the locker, but had slammed it closed to make a point. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I was jealous. Not sexually jealous. I was jealous of her time and attention. “Well, you can talk to her about it, but don’t expect much. She’s busy.”

“The best ones are.”

Getting snippy with the hospital director wasn’t my best decision and it wasn’t something I had control over, though of course, in the moment, it felt like the purest form of control. That was the thing about impulsive behavior. It hid behind a mask of power.

Greyson could handle herself. Everyone who wanted her for anything needed to be far away from me.

“Look,” I said, “it’s been a long day.”

“No need to explain. You’re barely out of your scrubs and I’m bugging you. It’s fine. Say hello to Dr. Molino anyway.”

“Yeah. Sure. Of course.”

He left with a spring in his step. Nothing wiped the smile off that guy’s face, but he was a shark. If he wanted Greyson for this psych unit, he’d have her. I knew it, and so did Abramson.

Opening my locker again, I got a whiff of her perfume. I couldn’t resist taking it after I’d decided to starve the Thing out. Maybe that was why I’d failed to eradicate it.

I got dressed and walked out with Greyson on the brain. When the door whooshed closed, the sound was a sigh of longing for the only woman I’d ever loved. I locked it away.

---

I could put on a suit and knot a tie. I could put jeweled links into a starched cuff. I could shower, shave, comb my hair, but it was all a lie. It was all a costume, a mask. Under it, I was no more than a knot of bodily needs and overwhelming sexual urges. My mind was a set of neurons firing commands to my glands, and the glands sent emotions through my bloodstream.

She was mine.

Not his.

The Thing was male, and its strength was its persistence.

The neurons said I had to have her in my line of sight, but I’d bring the Thing right to her.

The only way to keep it away from her was to keep my distance.

But the animal said no. The animal I was knew that wouldn’t work because she was mine.

Navigating between all these urges was exhausting. But as I entered the fundraiser, I took a breath. The exhaustion was under my suit. Behind my smile and polite words. No one could see.

She was with her brother and Jenn. Her hair was piled on top of her head and her earrings dropped down the length of her neck. She wore nude lipstick, and under the satin bodice of her gown, her nipples were hard. She was the picture of grace and charm, with a smile that transformed everyone around her and eyes that comforted people into talking.

The Thing saw her. In the bouncing acoustics of the room, it whispered its longing.

“Hello.” Colin shook my hand.

I hadn’t even seen him coming toward me. Just her. Only her.

“Nice to see you.” I angled myself so I could see her over his shoulder.

“I’m hitting the bar, can I get you something?”

“I’m good, thanks.” I patted his shoulder and headed for her, crossing half a ballroom without acknowledging another soul.

The Thing got more vocal, hiding in the voices of the guests and the strings of the musicians’ instruments.

I could smell her from farther away than normal. Apples. No matter which perfume she wore, she smelled of the first bite of an apple, breaking taut skin with teeth, juice dripping down my chin. She was the satin skin and the crisp meat of the fruit. She was the hard seed and the tenacious stem.

I found her.

Ronin.

Laughing.

Arm around her shoulders.

He’d touched her. He’d had her. He’d licked the apples off her skin and touched her body. He wanted her again. Of course he did. She was beautiful and sexy. Any man would want her. I was filled with an unreasonable fury. A foul grimace in my soul. A call to action lubricated by rage.

I headed for them, bumping into a woman from pediatrics. I excused myself, and when I turned back, Ronin was gone.

In the seven steps to my wife, I came to some sort of sense.

Ronin was not a threat.

On the flip side, I was losing my fucking mind.

Kissing Jenn first was a delay tactic. I needed a moment to reduce my pulse rate. It didn’t work. When I kissed Greyson’s cheek and she slipped her hand in mine, the animal threatened to burst out of his suit.

I always desired her. Every minute. But this?

I wanted to drag her out by her hair, respecting the norms of privacy only because I wouldn’t be able to finish in the middle of the ballroom. I wanted to squeeze her flesh, mark her in bruises, leave streaks of semen on her. Make the Thing scream in horror and curl up in a ball far away.

I couldn’t live like this anymore.

But I was in a public place.

The suit was who I needed to be.

The suit was armor against the horrifying sight of the animal.

I didn’t look at her. Didn’t touch her. I focused on the distance between us and the eyes of a hundred people. I listened to Bob Abramson talk about money and bullshit, concentrating hard enough to make a decent show of being civilized.

In the dark, during the fundraising video, she leaned into me, taking my hand. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

“Caden.” My name was more than a statement. It was a comment on how well she knew the animal, and how well she loved it.

If eyes could listen, hers did, gazing at me in the darkness. I couldn’t lie to her for much longer.

The entire invite list was watching the video. The bar was empty. The hallway lights were dimmed. The kitchen staff moved constantly and quietly to set up the buffet.

I laced my fingers in hers. She had a gold band we’d gotten out of expediency. No big sparkling rock. No sign I’d ever courted her properly before marrying her.

My father always said a man didn’t skip steps if he wanted to do something once.

I slid my cheek to hers and whispered in her ear, “I want to destroy you.”

Her hand tightened in mine so tightly I could feel our bones. Her glands must have fired, because the apples and the perfume melded and became something so uniquely her my balls ached—but not for simple release. For something more. An agreement of ownership.

Waiting wasn’t an option.

Pulling her by the hand, I headed for the hallway.

“Caden,” she said when we were away from the event, “slow down.”

I didn’t. I couldn’t. I pulled her down the carpeted steps to the lower level, stepping over a velvet rope at the bottom. The lights were out in the hall. Three doors led to three empty event rooms.

“What’s with you lately?” she asked.

“Are you saying no?”

“I’m asking a question.”

I backed into one of the rooms and pulled her in. It was dark but for light coming from under the doorways on each side. The Thing cowered in the shadows, emitting fear like a pheromone. Good. I walked in deeper, eyes adjusting quickly enough to avoid the tables and stacks of chairs on wheeled dollies.

“So am I.” I faced her. “Are you saying no?”

“What are you hoping I’ll say yes to?”

“I’m going to pull that dress up until I can get to these hard nipples.” I pinched them through the dress and she gasped. “Then I’ll bend you over one of these tables and fuck you so hard walking’s going to hurt. Are you saying no?”

“I’m not. But I want to know what’s going on with you.”

“Pull your dress up before I shred it.”

Scaring her wasn’t my plan, but there was fear in the air. I had no choice but to breathe it in.

The fear didn’t come from her. As she pulled her dress over her waist to show me her thong and the lace edges of her stockings, she bit her lower lip. The fear I detected was in the shadows.

I stepped behind her.

The Thing was going to watch me.

I pushed my hand up between the fabric and her skin, taking that taunting nipple. I twisted it. Pulled. She gasped.

“Say stop if you need to.” I drove my other hand under her thong and ran four fingers over her soaking cunt.

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” I pushed my cock against her ass, speaking into her ear.

“Stop. Don’t stop.”

“Does it hurt?” I abused her nipple again.

“Yes.”

“I should stop?”

“No.”

I looked over her shoulder, into the shadows, and asked, “You like it?”

I pinched her clit, and she released an nnn sound through her teeth.

“Yes.”

Yanking my hands away, I pushed her into a table, bending her sharply. When she tried to get up on her hands, I shoved her down by the base of her neck. Her earring fell over her jaw and clicked against the table.

Her ass was round and smooth in the dim light. Too perfect. Too well-formed. I slapped it. She gasped, trying to look back at me. I pushed her down harder and slapped again.

A little voice made me want to check on her again, but I slapped her one more time and she smiled.

That was all the answer I needed. I forgot about the Thing. Forgot about how much it wanted her. There was only Greyson and me in a dark room with our suddenly elastic boundaries. I ripped her thong at the crotch.

Unleashing my cock, I slapped her ass one more time before I set myself at her entrance. She braced, and I jammed into her. She grunted, because beneath the dress and the sparkling earrings, she was an animal too.

I took her, pressing her down at the jaw so I could hook my thumb in her mouth. “Who owns you?”

“Oh, God,” she said around my thumb, eyelashes fluttering.

“Wrong answer.” I thrust deep and hard. “Who owns your body?”

“You.”

“Don’t forget it. Do you hear me? You’re mine. Your cunt is mine. Your tits are mine. You’re going to come and that’s mine.”

We didn’t talk like that, hadn’t until that moment, and it was satisfying, as if I’d been waiting to say it for too long.

“Say it.” I fucked her like a punishment, grinding deep. My thumb slid out of her mouth.

“My body is yours.”

“That’s right.” I reached around and found her clit, flicking it. “Who owns this?”

“You.”

“Say it.” I rubbed it with all four fingers.

“My cunt is yours. Only you, Caden. Only you.” She’d gone a step further than I asked, and my blood raced. Still, she went on. “I’m yours.” She stifled a cry.

“You’re going to come.”

“Yes.”

“It’s mine.”

“Yours.”

She was so close. I leaned down and bit her trapezius as it tightened. Right at the base of her neck, clamping down until she jerked, and I growled in my throat, holding her still.

The whirlwind gathered and the Thing wept.

When I let go, she had a wet arc of marks where I could see them. Perfect. Driving deep into her, I took her clit until her legs went stiff and her mouth opened in a silent scream.

Yes. That was mine. Her mindless pleasure. Her hooked fingers. Her red ass. My bite mark. The cyclone of desires surrounding us flipped me over again. I was her lover and her tormenter. Her husband and attacker. Her pain and my pleasure spinning in a centrifuge.

“I’m coming inside you,” I spit out. She had to know or I’d keep spinning. “Because you’re mine.”

Filling her, I claimed her inside and out, and the whirlwind stopped.