I groaned as he ripped me from him and used my hair to lift me to my knees.
“Now, sit on my cock.”
“Yes.”
Every description I could give to satisfy what if felt like to have Jack inside of me again evaporated. Cruel and kind. Loving and hateful. Fucked up and oh so right. Too many thoughts and emotions collided. I couldn’t breathe, but he gave me the breath of life. I came, and yet I still rose. I trembled and jerked on his cock, but he controlled every stroke, the depth, the speed, and the position. Lights danced behind my closed eyelids and sparks shot off in my groin.
“I. Love. You.”
He punctuated every word with a stroke, and I felt his words more than heard them. Between my legs, Jack promised me so many things and they imprinted onto my soul. We were shards of glass put together to make a new jar. Ugly and unpresentable, but sealed from letting anything spill out.
“Say it,” he demanded.
“I love you,” I wailed.
“Again.”
“I love you.”
“Don’t stop.”
“I love you. I love you. I love you.”
He filled me with his seed, and I clenched around his cock, too far gone to weather my climax with grace. My throat went dry but I croaked out the words. Forced them past my aching vocal chords because my captor had demanded it. He needed me to love him, so I did. Needed me to need him, so I was devastated without him. Jack needed me more than the words had ever hurt me, and in that need, I was restored.
22
Melody
“Ow.”
I tiptoed gingerly to the bathroom to run a nice hot bath. Sex with Jack should be an active Olympic sport, of which I was the only one who could get a medal in. Muscles I didn’t even know I had ached, and my legs kept giving out on me. It had taken three tries to stand up from bed. Jack wasn’t there, but I could smell him on his pillow, and the warmth left behind told me he hadn’t been gone long.
“Oh, well, shit.”
The bathroom should have been in a magazine. A large garden tub took up one corner of the room, complete with nobs for jets. To the right of it, a standalone shower with an overhead nozzle stood wrapped in charcoal tile. Next to that, on a platform elevated by two small steps, a glass sliding door gave glimpses to a massive walk-in closet. Across from the tub, a wide panel mirror took up half the wall with his and her sinks underneath.
“Toilet?” I wondered. I turned around, spied a door, and opened it. “Answers that question.”
After I started my bath, I handled the normal morning business before climbing into the water. Steam rose and water lapped over my pained areas.
“I’d marry that man for this bathroom alone.”
“Damn, and here I thought you loved him.”
I twisted and wrapped my arms around my chest, sending water sluicing over the side of the tub.
“We have to stop meeting like this, you know? It’s bad for my health,” I said. “But what are you doing here?”
Lana carried a huge metal case in her hand and rested it on the sink counter. “That man doesn’t tell you a thing, does he?”
“Does he look like he would?”
She shook her head with a small smile. “Time away heals everything, I suppose. I’m not built for surprises, and I probably would have cut his throat by now.”
“I’m still tempted to. Lana, not that I love having girl talk when I can, but the last time I saw you, you left me in my apartment with a message to wait.”
She sighed. “I had to get away, and getting away helped me clear my head. It’s still hard seeing him but not as much as I thought it would. But I’m here to get you ready.”
“For?”
She glanced down at my hands, so I did, too. Was a nipple peeking through? Nope. “Lana?”
“You agreed to marry him, right? Did you think he’d give you any time to back out? And every girl needs a maid of honor to help her get her shit together. I’m it, kiddo.”
My jaw dropped. I’m pretty sure I could’ve caught a few flies, but I couldn’t hide my surprise.
“Wait, you mean you’re here because I’m getting married? Today?”
“You going to scream if I say yes?”
“What do you think?”
“Maybe?”
I waited for five whole seconds before I leapt from the water. “I’m going to fucking kill him. Women plan shit like this, not just wake up to the news. I don’t have a dress, no one to do my hair, makeup. What about food? The decorations? That man is going to fucking get it.”
“Uh, Melody?”
“What?” I yelled, spinning back to face her.
“Think you want to get your clothes on before Jack goes on a rampage because every man has seen your lady bits?”
I screamed, dashed to my bed, and got under the covers. “I can’t do this.”
“Oh, no, that isn’t the answer when you’ve said yes to a Diamond Eater. Oh, girls.”
My bedroom door opened and a battery of women rushed into the room. “You’re shitting me.”
“Afraid not, sweetie. I’ve been tasked to get the bride ready and downstairs, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. You make this harder on me, it’s only going to be harder on you.”
“You can’t make me get married, Lana.”
“No, but I can hogtie you and drag you down there, then you can explain to the husband-to-be why you’re bare-assed like that.”
“You sound like you learned that from him.”
“I know what he likes.” She cringed. “I’m sorry, that sounded bad.”
“Lana? Are you the one marrying him today?”
“Of course not.”
“Then you don’t bother me. You loved him and you still helped me out. And when they called you to help with this, you came. I’m not saying I’d be comfortable with you in a room alone with him, but then, that’s the treatment for anyone besides his mother.”
Lana smiled wide and laughed. “Yeah, you’re the one for him, any way you slice it.”
I sat in a chair and got poked, prodded, stuck, and painted on for two hours. The women chatted around my head as they curled my hair and pinned it up on top of my head. Amanda, the new Second Lady, as Rex’s wife, painted my toe and fingernails as she hummed a light tune under her breath. I grew up without much freedom and few friends. On the streets, I was mostly alone if I wasn’t high. For the first time in my life, I was surrounded by women who could be themselves, without the poison of Jasmin and Samuel. Some of them who’d been around for it I still didn’t trust, but I could see they would try to make things better.
Of all of them, though, Lana would have been the one I could have been close to. I understood why she stayed away, and, honestly, I didn’t know how I could stomach her around if she wasn’t firmly attached to a biker. But despite the feelings she must have had, she never turned away helping the club. For that, she had more trust in my book than many of the others. So when she came back into the room in a beautiful mauve sleeveless dress and a garment bag in her hands, I felt grateful. She, along with Amanda, shooed the rest of the women out and helped me into my dress.
The one they’d picked awed me. Based a bit on the lace catsuit Jack loved me in so much, the dress used layers of lace to create a fitting silhouette before it flared around my knees and dropped into a train. One long zipper, from the slope of my behind to the nape of my neck, allowed me to get into the tight-fitting garment.
“He wanted everyone to see the baby bump,” Lana confided.
“He’s so happy to be a father soon.”
“I just got here last night. There is no way to have this done already,” I argued.
“You fail to realize who the President of Diamond Eaters is and the connections he has. While you were in bed last night, we were put on duty to make the preparations,” Amanda said.
“You’ve been up all night?”
“Not all of it. We took shifts, but he had businesses that owed him fa
vors, and they paid up. Your day is going to be beautiful.”
By the time I exited the bedroom, nerves set in. Roses petals tossed down the hallway made me swallow tears. The white runner down the stairs made my eyes prick. And when I got to the rear door of the house, Rex was there, waiting for me.
“I’m going to take my place up with your wedding party,” Lana said. She bent forward and kissed my cheek before whispering in my ear. “Love him hard, for both of us. I’ll always have your back.”
She backed away, but I didn’t miss the tears she tried to hide as she left.
“I should take my place, too. Need to make sure you have pictures,” Amanda said.
She pulled out a digital camera and snapped one of me in my dress, as well as another with Rex by my side before she left.
“I know it may not be traditional, Melody, but I’d like to know if it’s okay for me to walk you down the aisle? That man out there was the son I never had before Amanda and I finally had children. When his dad left, I did everything I could to stand by him. I’d like to do the same for you.”
“Nothing would make me more proud.”
He pulled me into his arms and hugged me tight. “You’ve found a way to love a man who never thought he could be loved. You taught him he was worth it when he wouldn’t believe anyone else. You ever need anything, I’m your man. Even if it’s to slap some sense into him when he’s being hard-headed.”
Rex stood at my side and I couldn’t speak. About any of this. Yesterday, I woke up afraid of the outside world because I didn’t have Jack in my life. I’d swallowed my pride and dusted off my degrees to find work. With no direct experience, it was hard going, but I was determined to find a way to survive for my child. Today, I was marrying the man of my dreams, gained an adoptive father and a family who would support me, and could step into the job Jasmin had vacated as the club’s accountant. What a difference twenty-four hours could make to a broken-hearted soul.
“Thank you, for everything. I know you helped him, too,” I told Rex.
He shook his head. “Only because he let me after meeting you.”
Rex put his arm around my waist and handed me a small bouquet of white roses tied with a bright-red ribbon. “Keep him sane, Melody.”
Rex’s whispered words faded as music started. Strings swelled in the air and motorcycles revved. As Rex walked up the aisle, bikers lined both sides of the walkway toward the altar. Jack looked right at me, his emerald gaze seeing through me, wrapping around my heart and dragging me toward him. With each step, I left the worries, fear, yesterday’s pain, and stress all behind. I walked steadily toward my future, toward love of my life and the start of a new beginning.
“Dear friends and family, we are gathered here today to witness and celebrate the union of Melody and Jack in marriage. In the time they have been together, their love and understanding of each other has grown and matured, and now they have decided to live their lives together as husband and wife,” the priest said.
His words afterward blended as I locked gazes with the man becoming my husband. I answered when appropriate and listened when I needed to. The deep timber of his voice vibrated as he answered.
“For the first time, I present to you, Mr. and Mrs. Jack Denison.”
He took me in his arms, and as his lips slid over mine, I decided every pain, every heartache I’d ever felt, didn’t matter. I was Mrs. Jack Denison, first as captive, now by choice, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
THE END
Thank You
Thanks for reading Going Under. I really hope you enjoyed it!
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About the Author
Writing professionally since 2008, LeTeisha Newton’s love of romance novels began long before it should have. After spending years sneaking reads from her grandmother’s stash, she finally decided to pen her own tales. As many will do during their youth, she bounced from fantasy, urban literature, mainstream, interracial, paranormal, heterosexual, and LGBT works until she finally rested in contemporary romance.
LeTeisha is all about deep angst and angry heroes who take a bit more loving to smooth their rough edges. Love comes in many sizes, shapes, and colors, as well as with—or without—absolute beauty and fairy tale sweetness. She writes the darker tales because life is hard … but love is harder.
www.leteishanewton.com | @LeTeishaNewton
Coming Soon
Vanquished – A Dark Romance
If I should die before I wake ...
Then my soul is Caesar’s to take. He pulls up down, he lifts me up.
And then he leaves me in the muck.
If should fall before I fly ...
Then they know it was a fault of mine. He taught me better, he led the way.
I just didn’t know how to stay.
And if I should not gain his heart ...
Fuck that, he made me this way. Curled my thoughts and twisted me.
He belongs to me, forever.
LeTeisha’s Bookcase
The Lost Series
The way to love isn’t always paved in sweet words and roses. Sometimes it’s hard. Other times it’s violent. More often than not, it’s filled with heartache before the healing can come. Read three stories of the struggle to find love in the darkness. Call girl Celeste is addicted to sex and dangerous situations, the chance to love never factored in One Hour Girl. River searched for a way to learn to kill, instead she fell in love with a killer in Scarred. Aeryn only know how to take a punch and fall down, but when he found the woman of his dreams beaten and tossed aside, he learned to stand up and fight in Phenomenal.
A SEALed Fate Series
All is far in love and war. Seven SEALs. Seven stories of blazing romance amid action. The intelligence community is facing an epidemic--someone wants them dead. It’s up to an elite group of SEALs to find out just what’s going on. Everything becomes personal when their loved ones are attacked.
Someone should have told the enemy, SEALs don’t back down. They fight back, and destroy.
Claimed Trilogy
All three Claimed Series novellas in one full-length work.
Follow Zelina’s struggle with Tarquin and Centurion in Theirs to Claim, a menage novella.
Jezzie must decide whether or not to submit to Andrzej in The Fire of His Claim, a BDSM piece.
Accepting Their Claim is the final work in this series, an MMF story of Sonja, Hideki, and Tobias.
Taken Trilogy
Now, all together in one location, The Taken Trilogy is here.
Selene fights to accept the creature she has become while Pietr attempts to earn her love and trust in Taken by Lust.
Sasha and Cirro have a connection which can’t be denied in Taken by Desire.
Can Maddy allow Connor back in her life after he’s hurt her so deeply? Find out in Taken by Need.
Follow the leopard shifters through stories of romance, murder, and suspense and fall in love with the characters in this series you just can’t put down.
Corporate Hitman Trilogy
Welcome to the world of Corporate Espionage and dangerous liaisons …
The Corporate Hitman trilogy features three men, GLITCH, SCRATCH, and JACK; each plucked from a different path in the life of crime. They’ve led lives of trauma and full of illegal activity, forced to use their talents to aid in the bidding of a rising corporate conglomerate.
Pierce ‘Eagle’ Eaglemor is the CEO of Hawk Global Industries and the mastermind behind the hitman crew. He searched far and wide to find the best of the best to do his dirty work. Now, instead of crime for play, these men commit crime for pay. But the old adage “there is no honor amongst thieves” rings true.
When the crew realizes their days are numbered, and the plan
s Eagle has for them are void of a happy ending, the three decide to get even. Together, they devise a plan to beat the master at his own game. In their quest to stay alive and bring Eagle down, love plays an unexpected role when Araceli, the Hacker, Monica, the FBI Agent, and Pristine, the Russian Sex Slave, enter the mix.
Three men, one common enemy, and one story that will blow your mind.
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