Married to the Virgin Beast

My pink little toy is buzzing its way across the hardwood, and I can't reach it in time. Wyatt Calder fills the bedroom doorway. Six foot three of him. Not moving. His eyes go dark.

The kind of dark that skips dinner and goes straight for the throat. Thirty days ago, my ex stood in front of me and called me a golddigger.

That same week, the man across the table slid a card between my fingers. "Six figures on it," he said. "Add more if it's not enough." I married him on a dare. My own dare.

Thirty whole days. Every one of them, he's gone before the sun's up and back after dark. The money lands on time. The husband, I never see.

So tonight I finally dig the toy out of the back of the drawer. That's when he catches me. He crosses the room. Picks it up off the floor. Folds my hand inside his.

And in a voice like gravel and heat, he asks: "Wife." A pause. "You want to... use me instead?" Chapter 1 I draw romance for a living. The filthy kind.

Big, rough, countrystrong men who can sling a woman over one shoulder and haul her up the stairs without breaking stride. Then I went and married one. A real one.

Six foot three, hands like bricks, a ring that cost more than my car, and a wedding inside a week. Thirty days ago. And thirty days later, I have not been touched. Not once.

Widowed. That's the word for it. I'm a newlywed, and I'm widowed. Day thirty, I woke up alone in the middle of a bed the size of a small country. Correction. A great big farmhouse.

The sheets beside me were stone cold. Perfect. My bargain husband was out in the dirt again, gone before the sun cleared the fence line. Farming, farming, farming.

What was buried out there anyway, a gold mine or a girlfriend? I flopped over with a groan. My phone was buzzing itself off the nightstand. Bestie: [SIENNA. The sketches??

The roughguy hero for the new series?? My readers are foaming at the mouth, post them—] I sighed, gave up, and sent the roughs over.

Page after page of thick, straining muscle and testosteronepoisoned country boys. Three seconds later she detonated. Bestie: [I KNEW IT. Confess.

You used your husband as the model, didn't you.] Bestie: [Those PECS. That forearm.

He looks like he could scoop you off your feet onehanded and go all night without breaking a sweat—] Bestie: [So is married life to a mountain man as good as it looks??

Give me the firsthand content, I'm starving—] I stared at the words strobing up my screen. Then I thought about the last month. The whole polite, roommateshaped nothing of it.

Something in me snapped. Me: [Content? I'm WIDOWED. Do not disturb.] Bestie: [??? ] Bestie: [I'm sorry. Widowed?? Have you SEEN him. Shoulders like a barn door.

Man looks like he could drop a bull with one punch. He doesn't have some kind of... problem, does he?] My stomach dropped. Because. God. Wyatt was almost thirty and had never dated.

Not once, ever. What if she was right? What if all that gorgeous, bulldropping muscle was strictly for show? And here I'd thought I'd gotten a steal.

Turns out you get what you pay for. Wyatt and I met the way our grandmothers would've approved of. A setup. My aunt's handiwork. We met exactly once. And got married.

Back then I'd just been dragged through the mud, my ex and his family calling me a golddigger over a lousy little payout. My aunt was livid on my behalf.

She had someone better in mind. "I know a young man," she told me. "Never went to college, but he leases a few thousand acres out in Cedar Hollow.

Clears more in a year than you'd ever guess." I wasn't interested. I pictured a sunburned goodoldboy with a gold chain and a belt buckle the size of a dinner plate.

Then I walked into the coffee shop, and a sixfootthree wall of a man was waiting by the door. Chest cut hard under a plain black tee. Buzzed hair. A jaw you could set a level on.

Like something I'd sketch myself and my readers would lose their minds over. "I'm— I'm sorry.

I'm late." He got it out stiff, but the voice under it came low and warm, and it did something to the back of my neck. "Had a thing out in the fields." The whiplash left me just sitting there.

My aunt had said he was honest. Bad with words. Never had a girlfriend. Handsome, though. Really. And steady, in a way that settled something. But I'd just had my heart kicked in.

I was running on ash. The meal was painfully quiet. He barely started a sentence on his own. I'd ask, he'd answer. Short. Clipped. Like every word cost him a telegram fee.

His eyes went to the table. Then the window. Anywhere but my face. Honest, all right. And God, was he bad at this. I was halfway to inventing an excuse to bolt when my ex called.

Bad timing, like always. "Sienna." That oily, reasonable voice. "Look, my mom says forty grand is the absolute most we'll do. And you'd move in and give us a baby first.

To prove you're serious. It's the smart way to—" "Smart my ass." I hung up. I swiped at my eyes, a mess in the middle of a public café.

Across the table the big man went rigid with panic. His huge hands scrubbed back and forth over his knees. "You— I'm sorry.

Did I— was it something I said?" "Don't— please don't cry." Sweat beaded at his hairline. He was so rattled he forgot to even hand me a napkin.

I dragged a hand down my face and looked straight at him. Something reckless and furious climbed up my throat. "Wyatt.

Right?" I heard myself say. "If I married you, would you give me a real ring? A real one?" The second it was out, I wanted the floor to open up. God. I sounded completely unhinged.

Chapter 2 His dark face went red to the ears. "Six— six figures," he said. "On a card.

Would that— is that okay?" Then, terrified I wasn't satisfied, he pushed on in a rush. "If it's not enough I can add more.

I've got savings." "After we're married, you handle all of it.

The money, all of it." A breath. "Long as you don't mind I never finished school." That same afternoon he drove me straight to a jeweler and bought the ring.

Then a whole case besides, every piece the most expensive in the place. The clerk told him he was generous.

He went red again. "It's what a man does." And so, out of pure spite and a broken heart, I married a man I'd met exactly once. Wyatt had no family left.

He'd built himself a big, proud twostory house out in Cedar Hollow. I'm a freelance illustrator. Clean country air, room to breathe. I told myself it was a fresh start. Except.

Our wedding night, once the last guest was gone, he looked at me and said it flat and wooden. "You... get some rest." Then he took a pillow and disappeared into the guest room.

And every day after: out the door before first light, home after full dark. Rain or shine. Never once broke the pattern. Was there treasure buried in that dirt?

Because his own wife couldn't get so much as a second glance. Click. The lock turned, cutting my sulk short.

Wyatt came in smelling of earth and sweat, a clear bag swinging from one hand. "Freshpicked. Try some." Grapes, peaches, a melon. Dewy, still cool from the field.

I peeled a grape and bit down. Sweettart juice cracked open on my tongue, the real kind, nothing like the store. Fine. Maybe there was treasure in that dirt.

He came out of the bathroom in a clean tank top. "Good?" I nodded around another grape. "Mm.

Good." The corner of his mouth ticked up, just barely. "Good, then eat more." ...Right. "Beef and noodles okay for lunch?" "...Sure." He turned into the kitchen.

A few minutes later a bowl landed in front of me, beef and noodles thick with gravy, the whole kitchen gone warm with the smell of it.

I took one bite. "Good?" he asked again. "Good." "Then eat more." "..." The man was hopeless. Truly, bonedeep hopeless with words. Snowball bounced around by my feet.

Wyatt got up, filled the dog's bowl, then cleared and washed the dishes with quick, sure hands. "Sienna.

Heading back out to the fields." My head came up. "You're not going to rest a while?" "Bringing in a crop soon.

Want to be there for it." "Wyatt, you really don't have to come home to cook for me at lunch. I can throw something together." I knew for a fact he paid a cook for the field crew.

He just smiled a little. "It's fine." And then he was gone again. I let out a long breath. A month married, and the most I'd ever gotten out of my husband was lunch.

Chapter 3 Full and warm, I crawled back into bed. Say what you want about the country, but I'd been sleeping like the dead out here.

Wyatt had also quietly fed a solid five pounds onto my frame. I woke to cicadas screaming right outside the window. I was going to grow mold. I could feel it.

Even Snowball was out pawing up the yard. I clipped his leash on. "Come on. Let's get you out." The town was laid out nicer than I'd expected.

Wide, flat paved roads, big oaks leaning in over both sides. Past the row of mailboxes, a knot of neighbor ladies swung their heads around in unison. "Well, would you look.

That's Wyatt's new wife, isn't it. Pretty little thing." "Heard she's a college girl, from the city. You can tell. Got that polish.

Not like us dirtlot folks." I gave them an awkward smile. Snowball wagged like he'd been personally complimented. "Would you look at that.

Even the city dogs come out whiter than ours." "Fat as a tick, too. That one needs walking?

Ours just run themselves." Right on cue, a pack of scruffy farm dogs came tearing out of a side lane, chasing each other. Snowball spotted them like longlost family and lunged.

I wasn't ready. The leash snapped tight and yanked me clean off my feet. "Where do you think you're going—" The dumb animal had no business being that strong.

He blew straight through my grip and bolted for the pack. I went stumbling after him, and one flipflop launched clean off my foot.

The neighbor ladies about fell over laughing. "Is she walking that dog, or is it walking her?" "Honey, just let him run.

They sort themselves out." Snowball wriggled loose of the leash entirely and joined the barking parade, over the moon. Face on fire, I went to fish my flipflop out of the road.

I hadn't even caught my breath before it got worse. The whole pack, all at once, leapt into a mud pit and started rolling.

I watched my little smiling angel turn, in real time, into a mud demon. "Snowball. Get back here. You are filthy—" I shrieked and ran at him. This time he listened.

Heard me calling and came at a dead sprint. Straight up onto me. Then shook off a full spin of mud. "No. No, do not come near me—" "Off.

Get off—" And just like that, I was a mud creature too. The ladies were folding in half.

Right as I hit the exact bottom of wanting the ground to open and take me— A big hand closed over the scruff of Snowball's neck. "Quit it." Low. Flat.

All threat. "Act up again and you're stew." "Well, if it isn't Wyatt, home already!" one of the ladies hollered, grinning. "Come haul your bride on home, would you look at the state of her." "That's right, new brides are tenderskinned." Wyatt bent down.

Scooped the mudcaked dog up onehanded, easy as a sack of feed. Then held his other hand out to me. It was a big hand.

Every knuckle carved clean, the palm ridged with calluses worn in from real work. I put my filthy hand in it without thinking.

It closed around mine, warm and rough and absolutely certain, and for half a second I forgot to be embarrassed. Then the moment passed, and off we went.

A sixfootthree mountain of a man, a muddy dog in one hand, a muddy wife in the other, all three of us slinking home.

Chapter 4 "I am never taking you anywhere again." Back home, I jabbed a finger at Snowball, hopping mad. "You are going to be the death of me." Snowball let out a small guilty whine and slunk behind Wyatt's endless legs, just a muddy little head poking out.

Wyatt dragged out the hose and the pressure nozzle. "Don't be mad. You shower. I've got the dog." I looked down at the disaster that was me. Fine.

What was the point of holding a grudge against a dog. I bolted into the bathroom. Hot water sluiced the mud off. I reached for a towel. Empty rack. Great.

Too busy being furious, I'd forgotten to grab one. Out here it was just me and Wyatt in the whole big house. Was I supposed to make a naked run for it? Absolutely not.

I dithered, then cracked the door and pressed my face to the gap. "Wyatt. Could you— could you grab me a towel?" "Mm." The low answer came from the other side. I shut my eyes.

Mortified. This was a whole new low. A hand slid through the gap, knuckles sharp. "Sienna. Towel." "Thanks." I snatched it, scrubbed off in a hurry, dragged my clothes on.

My pulse was doing something quick. I opened the door. Smack.

Walked facefirst into a solid wall of man. "Ngh—" I clutched my smarting nose and complained before my brain caught up. "Why are you— why are you so hard?" The second it left my mouth I wanted to bite my tongue off.

Sienna. What in God's name did you just say. The breath above my head went suddenly heavy. He'd clearly just showered too.

Bare from the waist up, nothing but a pair of gray sweat shorts. Under bronze skin, the muscle sat in hard ridges. Not the puffedup proteinpowder kind.

The real kind, cut lean and mean out of actual labor, all wire and force and something almost feral.

The kind of anatomy I'd redraw six times and still never get right. "Did it— hurt?" His voice came out rough, his gaze dropping down over me.

My mind wandered somewhere it had no business going. "It's— it's fine." "Mm." A low sound in his chest. He turned sideways and cleared the doorway.

I tugged my pajama top straight. "So. I'll go to bed, then?" He just looked at me. Said nothing. A few seconds crawled by before he ground out a single word. "Okay." Okay?

So he really felt nothing. Or he really couldn't. I flopped facedown onto the bed. My head was full of nothing but the hard heat of walking into him.

The more I turned it over, the warmer I got. I opened the saved folder on my phone. Dug the toy out of the very back of the nightstand drawer. If you want something done right.

And then, right as things were getting good— Knock, knock. I nearly gave myself whiplash shoving it all under the pillow.

Wyatt pushed the door open, worry all over his face. "Sienna. You okay? Why's your face so red?" Nonono. He heard. He absolutely heard.

Sienna, you can never show your face in daylight again. "I'm— I'm fine.

Just hot in here, maybe." I had a death grip on the blanket, guilt stamped all over me. "I— I turned the AC on.

It'll cool down in a second." A few suffocating seconds of quiet. "Oh." He said it. And didn't leave.

His gaze moved over the wrecked bed and landed, at last, on my hand fisted in the blanket. "Vegetable crop came in today. Payment just cleared.

Hundred and fifty grand." He held a card out to me. "PIN's your birthday." "Oh. Okay." I took it, blank. Chapter 5 Leave, please, just leave, I'm begging you— And then. Clatter.

The little thing under the pillow chose that exact moment to slide out. Onto the floor. Still. Buzzing. My vision went black. Wyatt's feet stopped. He hesitated a beat.

Then bent and picked the little pink thing up off the floor. "What is this?" My scalp prickled. "A... a massager," I said, tiny. He looked up. Took a step closer.

His voice dropped low and rough, heat rolling off every word. "Yeah? How's it work?" Shame and temper flared up together. How does it work. He knew full well.

Playing dumb— And anyway. If he couldn't get the job done and I handled it myself, so what? It wasn't like I was cheating on him. The more I thought about it, the madder I got.

I snatched it out of his hand and flung the blanket back. "You use it like THIS." He stood there. The whole man just froze. "So— so that's... what it is." ...No?

He genuinely didn't know? The second it landed, I wanted to drop dead where I lay. That little display of mine had been a touch too bold. Kill me.

I hauled the blanket up over my head. "Just let me die a minute." "I'm sorry." The apology came low, thrownoff. "I— I really didn't know that's what it was." "The shape.

Like a pen. I thought it was for your neck." ... Right. I'd badly overestimated the worldly knowledge of this purehearted farm boy. Fair, honestly.

A man so decent he'd never even dated couldn't be expected to know that particular piece of high tech. "It's too hot in here.

Don't go smothering yourself under there." He reached to tug the blanket off my head. Red to the roots, I wouldn't let him near it.

And in the tugofwar— my hand brushed something rockhard.

My gaze dropped to a very sudden situation. "You... there's nothing wrong with you." He looked honestly lost. "Why would something be wrong with me?" "Then why have you slept in the guest room since the wedding?" He picked his way through it, careful, like the ground might give. "We got married after meeting once.

I was scared. Scared I'd rush you.

That you'd end up hating me." "I thought you still hadn't let go of your ex." The little knot of shame and hurt in my chest came loose, most of it, all at once. "Who on earth would still be hung up on trash like that?" I threw the blanket off and sat straight up, staring him dead in the eye. "So.

You're not— there's no can't?" His eyes went dark. He leaned down, close, the whole shadow of him dropping over me. "Can or can't." His big hand closed around my wrist.

The heat of it scalded. "You'll know once we try." He held my eyes, voice wrecked clean past reason. "Wife. You want to use me?" My throat pulled tight. I swallowed hard.

The air was cooked right up to the edge. Use. Use him, absolutely— And then, a few minutes later. "Ow. OW.

That hurts—" "Wyatt, how are you this—" "Do you even know what you're doing—" "Get out!" Sweat sheeting off him, panicked, lost. "Okay. Okay. Don't— don't cry." "We'll stop.

We'll stop." Like a big dog that knew it had done something wrong, he backed off, guilt written across his whole face.

I sagged into the mattress, failure cresting over the top of me. And then my brain started right back up, uninvited.

The internet said it hurt at first, that you push through and it might ease off. Was I just being a baby about the whole thing? Except his was also, genuinely, terrifying.

Chapter 6 I tossed and turned, wide awake. Maybe... we try again? I could hardly be the one to bring it up. Beside me, his voice came careful and small. "Sienna. I'm sorry.

It's all my fault." "Don't worry. I won't touch you. You just... get some sleep." Me: ??? "Go sleep in the guest room." So annoying.

He nodded, obedient. "Okay." And actually got up and went. I could have screamed. What breed of oblivious was this man?

Next morning I woke to the empty space beside me all over again. Out in the fields. Obviously. Right as I thought it, the front door opened.

He came in carrying half the morning market. Biscuits and sausage gravy, hash browns, fried dough, a big fried chicken cutlet. All the farmersmarket stuff.

Every one of them my favorite. Strange. Why was he still home this late? The food smelled too good. I never got around to asking. Just put my head down and ate.

He watched me, working up to something. "Good—" "Good, and I'll eat more." I cut his fixed line off before he could land it. He swallowed the words back, sheepish.

The quiet went strange. A few seconds later, he came out with it. "Sienna. Does it... still hurt?" "Huh?" I blanked, not tracking.

He lifted his eyes to mine, open and plain. "Last night. I didn't mean to—" A bite nearly went down the wrong pipe. My face flooded scarlet. "Cough— no. No.

Doesn't hurt anymore." He reached over at once and patted my back. "Good, then." The whole chaotic, dramatic disaster of the night before flashed through me and I shortcircuited.

We finished breakfast in silence. He got up and washed the dishes. Fed Snowball. Wandered a couple of laps. Mopped the floor. Dragging it out. Just not leaving. Bizarre.

I came out of the bathroom and caught him still circling the living room. "Wyatt.

You're not going out to the fields today?" He caught me around the waist from behind, chin tucking into the crook of my neck, breath scalding. "Sienna. Let's try again.

Please?" Me: !!! "It's— it's the middle of the day. Can't it wait for tonight?" His arm tightened. Shameless. "Nothing to do in the fields today." Try that on someone who'll buy it.

A man practically grafted to that dirt for a solid month, and today, all of a sudden, nothing to do. "I studied hard last night. I mean it.

It won't hurt this time." There was something almost pleading in it. Me