C H A P T E R  N I N E

MILLER

“Fuck.” I slam my hand onto the steering wheel, replaying the words from Lela’s note she left on the counter.

Something she obviously didn’t understand. About me.

About us.

I’m not letting her go.

I’ll track her ass from California to Maine. I’ll not live one day of my life from this moment on without knowing her head is safely lying next to me in our bed.

Not.

One.

Day.

There is no shame in my obsession. I’m proud as fuck I can’t stop thinking about her. I’ll stalk her until I throw her ass over my shoulder and carry her back to where she belongs.

Riding my dick every day for the rest of our lives.

After I dealt with Gavin and his three-bimbo entourage, I couldn’t get rid of the egomaniac fast enough. I headed back to the cabin. Desperate to see her. Make her smile. Make love to her slow and easy after our last round of fast and hard earlier that day.

Except... Her truck wasn’t parked out front.

The cabin felt empty the moment I stepped inside.

I didn’t even have to look around to know she wasn’t there.

I felt the emptiness. It was no longer home. It was just a house again.

From there, it went downhill.

The note.

Her backpack.

Her.

Gone.

No way had I tasted the greatest happiness of my life just to let it slip away.

I’d jumped into my Jeep and tore down the road. The address on the Dan Sullivan paperwork she left was the only clue as to where she might have gone.

Her note was short. Too short. Making my heart nearly shatter when she said something urgent had come up, and she’d be in touch to reschedule.  She said a replacement was set to arrive but that she still wanted to come back to work with Little Shit.  Thus, the reschedule.

Yeah, reschedule.

Like I was just a fucking client.

Now I’m tearing around in my Jeep looking for her. The dirt roads are dim.  It’s late afternoon but the pending storm has it looking more like dusk, my headlights casting shadows along the edges where darkness settles among the trees. The rain has just started too.  Blowing by in waves and curtains. But I don’t care how long it takes or how many roads I have to travel. If she’s not there, I’ll just keep searching.

I’m not going back to the cabin without her. Because without her, it’s not a home, and I’ll never sleep another night there until she’s safe and sound in my arms again.

I look in the back seat at the box I’ve got buckled in. Little Shit wouldn’t stop whining and crying when I was in the house frantically looking for Lela. So I brought the pup with me. We are both desperate to find her.

I took Lela’s cut-up clothes that I’d saved and put into my dresser drawer and threw them into the box with Little Shit. As soon as I did that, she fell asleep, curled up in Lela’s scent. I can’t say I blame her; all I can think of right now is curling Lela into my arms and never letting her go.

For a split second, I wonder if she’s got someone else. A boyfriend. A husband. Did guilt hit her? Things moved so fast. Could her offhand joke about having a man in her life contain some truth?

Fuck. Could I have been mistaken about us? About what I felt? About what I thought she felt? The insanity of how fast things went hits me.

If there is such a thing as instant love, I’m sure that is what we felt. Or what I felt anyway.

No. There is no mistake here.

No fucking way. If she had someone else, I would have felt that shit the moment she walked in the front door, would have scented it like a fucking wolf. But something is wrong, and I’ll track her ass down until my last breath to find out what it is.

My phone rings and I look down but don’t recognize the number. I hit the button to answer it, wondering if it might be Lela. But all I hear on the other end is rustling and crunching sounds, and then it goes quiet.

“Hello?” I say, squeezing the steering wheel with my other hand, annoyed at the interruption, convinced it’s either a wrong number or some sort of sales call. Fuck, I don’t need this right now. “Who is this?”

The next thing I hear is her voice. Lela. My heart nearly leaps from my chest with joy until I note the fear in her words.

“Oh, no. Shooooot. No!” It’s her, then a scream and a slamming sound as the phone hits something.

“Fuck! Lela! Where are you?”

A crashing sound. Crunching metal, a slam then more silence. I hear her moan, and I think I may come apart.

I keep the phone to my ear and keep screaming her name as I punch the accelerator. I have no idea if I’m heading closer to her or farther away, but I know I have to keep going.

I have to find her, wherever she is.

Rain covers my windshield. I flip the wipers on high, and there is nothing on the other end of the phone for a minute except something that sounds like steam escaping from a pressure pipe.

Then, it’s her again.

“Goddamn it.”

Her voice is far away, and I can’t hear exactly what she’s saying. She’s not holding her phone, but I’m screaming her name, hoping she will hear me.

I come up and over a hill. The road is soaked as a torrent of rain comes down. A crash of thunder and I hear the same echo of thunder on the other end of the phone, at exactly the same time. She’s somewhere nearby, but even with that knowledge, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack.

I see a glimpse of something in the distance, through the trees as I round a corner. White headlights off the road, lighting up a ditch tall with reeds and scrub trees. I push the Jeep faster. It’s shaking as I move to the wrong side of the road, trying to get my headlights to shine on the ditch.

It’s her rust-colored truck. Fuck. I can barely breathe. Thinking she may be hurt has me ready to fly apart into a million pieces.

I slam on the brakes, making a controlled skid off to the side as I get close, too desperate to get to her to take any care over my own safety. I hop out of the Jeep, rainwater crashing over me, and call out her name, running toward her truck in the light from my headlights.

“Fuck. Lela!” I yell into the rain and scramble down the side of the ditch as my heart pumps hard. I watch steam rising from under her hood. “Please be alright,” I whisper to no one, then just as I’m about to pull her door open, it pops just a crack, and I see her face on the other side.

I’m on her in a second, pulling her out of the wrecked truck, squeezing her then running my hands up and down her face.

“Are you okay? Does anything hurt? Jesus, Lela, answer me!”

She looks dazed. She’s shaking, and I gather her against me and fight off the catch in my voice. “Please, you have to be okay,” I mumble into her head as I kiss her and decide right then I am seriously going to make those shackles and chain. I can’t take being away from her ever again. “As soon as I saw you were gone, I came looking. I’m sorry I was so late.”

“I’m fine. I wasn’t going that fast. I just reached over to call you, to tell you I’m sorry, to explain everything. The road was slippery. It was a stupid thing to do. My foot slipped off the brake, and I stomped down. Thought I was braking, but I hit the accelerator instead. There was that huge telephone pole on the far side of the ditch and...” Her voice quivers, and it breaks my heart.

“I thought I was going to lose my mind, thinking you were gone.”

I check her over again, making sure I see not even a scratch or bruise. When I’m satisfied it’s safe to move her, I scoop her up and carry her to the Jeep.

“Do not fucking move.” I buckle her in and shut the door.

I run to her truck and get all her things out. Her phone, which is on the floor on the passenger side, has a big crack across the screen. But if that’s the worst that comes from this then I’ll take it any day. I turn off the ignition and check to make sure everything’s safe. The truck is far enough off the road no one will hit it, and I will dispatch a tow truck as soon as I get her safely back home.

Inside the Jeep, I look over to see her looking back. Both of us are wet and frazzled, but she’s more beautiful than ever.

“You brought Little Shit.” She smiles and reaches back into the box.

“She wouldn’t shut up until I put your damn clothes in there with her.”

She smiles, and I slip my hand behind her neck, her damp hair curling around my fingers.

“I’m sorry I took off.”

“Uh-huh. We’re going to talk about that. But first, I just need to get you home and get my dick inside you. I need to feel you, Lela, to satisfy myself that you’re safe and well. I need to know you’re mine forever.”

The last word has her eyes wide as I pull the Jeep forward and turn us around. Heading back to our home where I plan on making love to her for the rest of today and all of tomorrow. Hell, I’ll keep on until she never dreams of being this far away from me again.

“This is just crazy, though. Us. It’s going so fast. I couldn’t stop thinking about that before I left. That this was sort of insane. Don’t you think so? That it’s so hard to believe we could be so real so fast?”

I reach over to rub her knee before I ask, “Do you think that puppy loves you? That he’s bonded to you in the short time you spent together?”

She nods in the dim light from the console, and I move my hand from her knee to pull at her fingers and press her palm to my lips.

“So how are we any different? I know I love you, Lela. I knew it from the first moment at that fair. Now that I’ve had you, there is no such thing as too fast. I know what I know. My heart is telling me everything is perfect. Right now. Tell me you don’t feel the same way. Tell me you won’t run out on me again. Because you know just like I do that we are bonded together already. That you’re mine and I’m yours.”

I’m ravenous for her. My dick is full and thick, pushing against the fabric of my pants.

“I’m yours,” she whispers and pulls my hand to her own lips, licking each finger lightly then sucking my middle finger into her mouth.

I nearly drive us off the road again.

“There is nothing but fast when it comes to us, Lela. When I made love to you the first time, it meant something to me. More than you could know. You have made me a part of you, and I gave you all of me. I want you to have it all, and I’m the man to give it to you. I’d love to go slow with you, but that’s not going to be possible, I’m afraid. So hold on, because this ride is just beginning.”