Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
WREN
Home.
I haven’t stopped thinking about that word. That moment. That soft peck on my forehead.
That was last night, and I swear Sire’s innocent kiss still ghosts my skin. Welcome home, Wren Chapel. He’ll never know what that meant to me.
Everything.
Like everything I lost.
He chomps on an apple he grabbed in the produce section. “Do you need more Always pads?” Smiling, he casually points down the personal-care aisle of the grocery store.
Uh, what made Mr. Grumpy suddenly so sweet?
I haven’t seen him all day. It flew by while I took care of babies, and I loved it. I was in my element.
But this? It’s weird. It’s like he’s been smoking heavenly weed. He’s all smiling and shit.
He’s been looking at me that way since he met me in the preschool pick-up line. Sweetly, he took the baby from my arms like it was his, too, and I don’t want to read into it.
But I do.
“I’m good,” I answer.
“Motrin?”
“Got it. But I need this.” I grab a container of feta cheese. “It’s for your salads.”
“I don’t put cheese on my salads.”
“You do now.”
He chuckles. “Just keep it healthy.”
“Peach cobbler is healthy. Right?”
“Wrong.”
I reach for a box of butter sticks. And another. “If it’s fruit, it’s healthy. If it’s covered in butter, it’s even better.”
He grins, eyeing the baking goods I’ve loaded in the grocery cart. But don’t think I missed all the eyes on him today.
It’s not like you can ignore Sire. His height. His ink. His broad shoulders tapering to his narrow waist. He can’t hide the muscles under his hot combo of tight, grey dress pants, a loose V-neck T-shirt, and bright white sneakers.
He’s got a style you can’t ignore.
A body demanding your eyes.
A face possessing your soul.
People on the sidewalk greeted him on our stroll here. Cashiers waved when we entered the store. The manager rushed over to shake his hand. “Evenin’, Pastor Rutledge.” The lady in the bakery offered him a sample of salted brownies … and silently, her pussy if she could serve it on a platter, too.
Everyone knows him. Most want him. All worship him and eye me with suspicion, even though he’s politely introducing me as “Wren, a family friend.”
“Guess we should keep your last name hush-hush.” He teases, “Since you’re in hiding and all.”
From the bottom shelf, I grab the cheapest bag of sugar. “Puhlease. Like you aren’t hiding, too.” Not answering, he takes it, puts it back, grabs a bag of organic sugar, so I chuckle, “And that’s what I thought.”
From the middle shelf, I select the cheapest bottle of vanilla extract and add it to our cart. He puts it back, grabbing the most expensive kind, with his question, “Where did you get good instincts?”
“Nice try.” I use the bottom shelf as a step to reach the baking chocolate bar on the top shelf. “I’m not telling you where I’m from. Remember?”
But it’s my constant struggle. I’m too short, and who puts shit up this high? Stretching, I use sheer will to make my fingers grow two inches longer, my toes teetering on the edge of the shelf.
“Let me grab that.”
His big hand steadies my waist, making me gasp.
His touch, warm and soft, his masculine scent wrapping around me.
His gruff voice tickles my ear as he reaches over me for the chocolate bar.
“You’re going to tell me everything about you, Wren Chapel.
Because you know too much about me, and your instincts are right; that’s a dangerous thing. ”
Instantly, he pulls away, leaving my heart racing from his threat, his touch.
I step off the shelf and whip around to find his indigo eyes warning me.
“Fine.” I glance down the aisle. We’re alone, but I lower my voice.
“You want to know something about me? Okay. A social worker named me. It’s in my records.
She wrote that I looked like an abandoned baby bird and named me Wren.
And I got my last name because that’s what they usually do with orphans.
We’re named after where we’re found. Dix Chapel. Thank God I got the second name.”
His brows bend. “You were left in a chapel?”
“Yep. Wrapped in a blanket and left on a pew, and no one’s ever claimed me, and I don’t know where I’m from.
Brazil? Morocco? Lebanon? I’ve heard it all.
‘You’re so pretty. Are you Cherokee?’ and I can’t answer because I don’t know, which makes for really sad conversations because it’s none of their damn business that no one wanted me, so yeah.
That’s me, in an unknown nutshell.” I fold my arms. “Your turn.”
He swallows the last bite of his apple, his eyes darkening, but I don’t back down. I arch a brow.
“My father was an abusive and powerful man,” he shares. “When I was thirteen, my mom finally escaped him, and my brothers and I have been hiding here, with her, under different names ever since. That’s me, in a hidden nutshell.”
“Was? Is he dead?”
“I’ll kill him one day.”
“That’s not very godly of you.”
“Oh,” he smirks, “God wants me to kill him. He deserves it.”
I’m not shocked or scared. Oddly, I’ve never felt as safe as I do, standing in Sire’s shadow. “Is your father the Devil? The one you mentioned when you rescued me?”
“It doesn’t bother you? That I’m going to kill another man?”
“Way to change the subject and no. It doesn’t bother me. Grow up like I did—unwanted—and you realize there are no rights or wrongs. Just survival.”
“Damn, Wren.” He shakes his head. “With every minute you talk, I want to kill whoever hurt you. You know that, right?” His voice drops, ominous and lethal. “I’m going to kill him. Whoever tried to sell you into that hell. God has told me to do it.”
“I know and that’s why I’m not telling you his name.” Rage curls his lip, but I chirp, “So, where did you get your name?”
“Way to change the subject.”
“Tit for tat. So, what are you? An equestrian?” I scan his impressive form. “A sire is a stallion, right? One used for breeding, and you were named after one?”
With a sexy laugh, his rage evaporates. “Sire is also what you call a king.”
There’s a new, electric edge to him tonight—I don’t know what’s changed between us in twenty-four hours—but I want to dance on it.
With the extreme way we met, this feels fated, even fun, our layers quickly falling away. I’m not hiding where I’m from to play games with him. It’s to honor the one good person in my life so far.
The one good person … before I met Sire.
I’m not afraid to be with him. In fact, something tells me to tempt him if I have to.
“But stallion fits you, doesn’t it?” I let him witness my stare, boldly dropping to the bulge in his pants, my eyes groping his size. God, is it growing? I bite my lip. It scares and seduces me. “You are a sire.”
I lift my eyes from his swelling package and meet his evil smirk. It’s like he’s two men—a pastor and a predator. It’s so hot and haunting, that sweet spot between my legs tingles.
The heated look in his eyes traps me against the shelves. It reaches down between my clenched thighs, covered by jeans, grabbing my sex.
He leans forward, looming over me. “Oh, my innocent angel.” The deep timbre of his voice finds the tiny bud on my body I love to play with. “You don’t want to know how hugely fitting my name is.”
“What if I do?”
There.
I said it.
I know what he did last night. The walls between our bedrooms are paper-thin. Same as our bathrooms. I could hear him in the shower, and again, an hour later, in his bed. His muffled, manly grunts of lust made my insides flutter.
The need rushing through my body was unbearable. My legs opened, and I did the same thing, but I couldn’t be as quiet. The pillow couldn’t muffle my scream. I’ve never had a huge orgasm like that.
Did he hear me?
I never had a man in my mind. Sire. A name on my lips. Sire. A desire so painful, I had to satisfy it. Sire. He was all I could think about while I came so hard, it hurt.
It only made me more certain I belong with him.
“No way, Wren.” His face suddenly softens, his voice, too. “You don’t want me. You’re too young.”
I glare. “Funny, I’m not too young for other things. Like joining the Army and killing people or dying for my country. Let me ask you something personal.”
“In the middle of a fucking grocery store?” He grins. “Shoot. It hasn’t stopped you so far.”
“Do you believe I have a right to choose what happens to my body? If I get pregnant? If I get cancer? Good or bad, do you believe I’m capable of making those decisions for myself?”
He steps back. “Of course, I do.”
“Anything and everything because it’s my body, right?”
“Right.”
“Then don’t insult me and all women and treat us like a cafeteria line.”
“A what?” He half chuckles.
“A cafeteria line where you pick and choose when I get to make decisions for myself. It doesn’t work that way. It’s not logical. A woman either has complete power over her body or none. Otherwise, it’s patriarchal bullshit.”
His eyes sparkle. “So, you’re a feminist?”
“A woman is a fool not to fight for herself, and Nannie was a feminist, too. Old school. She marched for me to be able to stand here and tell you to go fuck yourself if you try to tell me what to do with my body. Which … by the way … wants to fuck you. I want you to be my first.”
“Jesus, Jesus,” he mutters.
“Amen.”
The pause he gives, searching my eyes, gives me hope.
I know this is right. I’ve felt it every moment in his presence; I belong with Sire.
And maybe this is the mark of my youth; I’m impatient.
My lonely heart won’t survive a slow burn.
Or maybe, I’ve been adrift my whole life, and he’s my shore.
You don’t wait to save your life; you grab safety the moment you have it.
Or maybe I want Sire so much, my stomach falls as he shakes his head.
“It can’t happen, Wren, and there are a dozen reasons why.” Pain creases the line cracking the already broken heart by his eye. “Sorry.”
“Fine,” I sigh. “Just don’t tell me I don’t know what I want. I heard what you did last night, twice, so don’t insult me and tell me you don’t want it, too.”
He doesn’t look mad, and I’m not angry, either. It’s odd. Honestly, it’s like neither one of us has the power to decide; it’s been decided for us. We belong together.
“What I want is on the next aisle.” He turns, walking away. “Right by the coffee, I want to find a filter for your mouth.”
But I wait by our cart.
Not embarrassed.
Not shy.
Not wrong, either.
I wait for him to turn around and smile. “What are you waiting for?”
Sweetly, I smile back. “You.”
He has to feel this. I know he does. He says it can’t happen when it already has. We’re already together.
He pulls up short, breathing like he’s silently praying on what to do next.
Then…
He beckons with his bandaged hand. “Come with me, Wren Chapel. God knows I want that, too.”