Go Away, Darling

by Alexis Anne

  He pressed into me, spreading me, filling me. “I’ll ask Ben and London to take Linc for the night.”

  I looped my legs around his hips and pulled him deeper into my center. The stretch took my breath away. I pushed on his shoulder and he spun us. Now I was on top, straddling him, knees on either side as I rode him slow and deep. He used the opportunity to play with my nipples, sending jolts of electricity to my core and causing my inner muscles to squeeze him tight.

  “Damn, Liv,” he breathed out.

  I glanced down at his handsome face. “What?”

  He shook his head, his eyes wide with wonder. “We’re going to have the best life.” He gripped my hips in his large, capable hands, and thrust up. “And I’m really not going to mind working on making babies with you. Not one little bit.”

  Epilogue

  Scott

  I knew she was there without looking. It had always been that way with Lucy. From the day I met her I could feel her presence. Like a lovesick fool I’d stared at her that day, unable to look away until I’d memorized everything about her.

  She was beautiful, yes, of course she was beautiful, but that wasn’t what captivated me. It was her no-nonsense confidence. Lucy was a brilliant ballbuster, she got shit done, but she did it with heart. She loved her friends and would fight to the death for them.

  I wanted that.

  Selfish bastard that I was, I wanted her to love me in that brash, brilliant way. But I knew it was selfish so I’d stayed away, working on myself, attempting to be less of a jerk and more worthy of her love.

  But at my core I was too weak. I couldn’t live without her.

  And that’s how we ended up here.

  “What are you doing up so early? It’s what? Two in the morning your time?”

  She stopped beside me, the wind making her bathrobe flutter around her body. “I took a sleeping pill when I got in. I’ve had ten hours of sleep.”

  Lucy was always so good about adjusting to time zone changes. She was a master of jetlag and a conqueror of travel.

  Or maybe I just thought everything she did was supernatural.

  “Mmmm.” I made some sort of noncommittal sound but kept my eyes trained on the horizon. The sun didn’t rise in the west but I enjoyed watching the sky change anyway. Besides, I couldn’t look at her. I knew the minute I did I’d dissolve.

  She arrived unexpectedly early while I was at the Anderson house helping Ben with a piece of furniture. By the time I got home she was asleep.

  “It’s beautiful here.”

  Not as beautiful as you. “I’m sorry I wasn’t home when you arrived.”

  “I took an earlier flight and didn’t tell you. It was my fault.”

  “Thank you for coming.” She didn’t have to. She could have told me to jump off a bridge—should have told me to go fuck myself. But she didn’t. She was never spiteful. A grudge holder, but not spiteful. I called her the honey badger. She was all sweet and adorable unless you crossed her.

  And then, well, good luck, mate.

  I didn’t understand why she hadn’t annihilated me.

  “We have things that need dealing with, Scott.”

  I winced at the business tone she took. “I should have come back. I apologize.”

  “Don’t apologize.” She waved me off. “Are you kidding? I’ve been trying to get you to take time off forever.” She turned to face me. “You needed time with your brothers and I’m happy you came here.”

  I couldn’t help it. I glanced her way and fell into the abyss. Her eyes always did me in. They took me to another plane of existence where I’d never made idiotic choices, where anything was possible. “It’s good to see you.” So good. She still had wrinkles from her pillow on her cheek and her hair was haphazardly looped into a bun on the top of her head, but my God she was gorgeous. My mind instantly ran through the catalogue of her face each morning she woke in my bed.

  Every good memory I managed to fuck up with my issues.

  She stepped closer. “I’m so fucking pissed at you.” Her voice was a soft whisper. “You left me. You walked out the door like…like—”

  I kissed her. It was stupid, I know. Insane. And yet I wrapped my arm around her waist and crashed my lips against hers, so hungry for her it hurt—physically hurt—to be apart from her.

  It took everything I had to stop. She didn’t push me away even though she remained stiff as I pressed my forehead into hers. “Like my pain was more important than yours.” I finished for her. I opened my eyes and saw that hers were closed. “I told you before our first kiss that I was a selfish asshole. That I’d hurt you. I can’t tell you how much I regret the things I’ve done to prove that true.”

  Her eyes flew open. “You let the past control you, Scott. It’s your only weakness.”

  She was wrong. I had so many, but that was one of my worst offenders. “Fuck the past.”

  Her gaze narrowed like she didn’t believe me.

  “I mean it. I’m done with it. I’ve let it go or told it to fuck off or just forgotten to care about it anymore. I’m not sure which. Maybe all three.” It was so freeing.

  She stared at me for several beats and then kissed me. Fiercely. Passionately. As if she were starved for this kiss. Then she shoved me back, panting. “You know what my weakness is?”

  She had no weaknesses. Not one. She was perfect and amazing and so much more than I deserved in a hundred lifetimes. If I could fix this I’d be grateful every single day, make her understand how completely amazing she was.

  I couldn’t stop staring into her fiery eyes. Fuck, how her passion turned me on, even when it was frustration at my bad choices.

  When I didn’t answer she grimaced, ran a hand down her face. “You,” she spat. “I see so much in you. Your heart, your kindness to everyone but yourself, I look into your eyes and I forget to care about my own heart.”

  I went to her, took her in my arms. “Thank you.”

  Anger, hurt, love . . . it all passed through her eyes in the heartbeats of silence. Then she took my chin in her hand and kissed me again. A light brush of her lips against mine. It was a tender, loving, intimate gesture that undid me, ripped open my heart and left me open and exposed. Without letting my chin go she whispered, “Prove it. Show me how much you love me. I’m going to hate you and not going to be nice while we fix the problems with the company.”

  Then she let me go, stepped back, glared at me. “You have one week.”

  Thank you so much for reading GO AWAY, DARLING!

  I hope you love Chris & Olivia. We’ll see them again in Kiss Me, Darling and Third Time’s the Charm.

  * * *

  And you can meet all the Mantas right now in The Wild Pitch Box Set! Find out how June & Roman fought a decades long family feud to be together, how Wes and & Carrie wound up married in Vegas, and what it took for Erik to convince Zoe that happily ever afters were real.

  * * *

  Grab The Complete Wild Pitch Series and read them all!

  * * *

  “5 Please-let-me-unread-so-I-can-read-it-again stars!!!”

  * * *

  Turn the page to read an excerpt from LAST FALL…

  * * *

  Coming soon!

  My sweet and sexy Calusa Key series returns again this fall with KISS ME, DARLING! Scott is ready to win Lucy’s heart and finally pop the question!!!!

  * * *

  Order Kiss Me, Darling!

  * * *

  The Calusa Key Series:

  Come For Me, Darling (Ben & London)

  Go Away, Darling (Chris & Olivia)

  Kiss Me, Darling (Scott & Lucy)

  Third Time’s the Charm (Berlin & Jack)

  The Wild Pitch Series:

  Summer Heat (A June & Roman Novel)

  Night Games (A Carrie & Wes Novel)

  Last Fall (A Zoe & Erik Novel)

  The Wild Pitch Box Set

  Mistletoe Key

  An island in the Florida Keys that celebrates year r
ound.

  * * *

  “Stuck Under the Mistletoe”

  a Jack & Berlin short story

  * * *

  It was a mistake to come home for Christmas. Of course it was also a mistake to agree to a divorce I didn’t want and to intentionally leave behind the place I loved. I was good at making mistakes.

  I managed to deal with the ache of leaving most of the time because I was too busy working my tail off to dwell and it was what she wanted. I might not like Berlin very much right now, but I’d always love her, and if this was what she wanted, then it was what I was going to do.

  No matter how incredible it felt when my feet sank below the surface of the soft sand, the chilly brown water rushing over them again and again as the tide sucked everything out to sea, leaving the weak, the old and the discarded, stuck and festering in the afternoon sun.

  That was me. I was that jellyfish, stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time, lured in by the soft sands and clear water only to captured by a piece of driftwood, unable to save myself when the tide I called Berlin Anderson left me behind.

  Also, apparently, making me into a philosopher of Mistletoe Key’s tidal symbology. Fuck. This is what coming home at Christmas did to me. It turned me into a sad, sappy sucker, wishing for a life he willfully left behind.

  My feet sank a little deeper and a part of my soul came back to life. The beach always fixed me. I thought for a while it would magically fix my marriage.

  No such luck there.

  “Jack! You dipshit! When did you get in?” The deep baritone of my ex-brother-in-law, Harrison, hit me just at the break between waves. Otherwise I might not have heard him. With the tide on the way out I’d wandered almost a quarter mile across the mudflats.

  I turned and braced my hand over my brow to cut out the glare of the sun. Harrison stood on a crumbling shell midden, barefoot—because no one ever wore shoes—and clutching a bucket. Probably had a couple fish in there.

  My stomach growled. I apparently missed the fresh seafood as much as I missed everything else.

  I carefully unsealed my feet from the mud crypt, shaking the sludge free before beginning the walk back to shore. Harrison waited patiently, setting the bucket aside for a big hug when I finally made it to him.

  “Long time. Long, long time.” He cracked my back with his big paw.

  “Yeah. Not long enough.”

  “Christmas with your mom?”

  I nodded. When I’d married Berlin it meant spending part of my life on Mistletoe Key. Her’s was an old Florida family, having settled several different areas around the peninsula including this island. They’d owned this house forever, her aunt being the most recent resident before Berlin inherited the house.

  She loved it here. I fell for it hard, too, and with my job coaching the Miami Pythons hockey team, it wasn’t too painful of a commute. My mom came to visit, fell in love with a bungalow on the town’s main square, and it was all over. The Cassidys officially became Mistletoe Key transplants, given extra rank because of my marriage to a legacy family.

  Then Berlin and I divorced, and everyone got the island except me.

  “I’m just here for three days. We’ve got a home game on Thursday.”

  Harrison grunted, grabbing the bucket and turning toward the house. “She know you’re out here?”

  I nodded again. “I texted her this morning asking permission. She said it was fine.”

  Our house—her house—stood a good ten feet higher than we were now, built on top of a shell midden before the religious group that settled the island in the late nineteenth century realized that what they were essentially destroying was a mound built by the real first settlers of Mistletoe Key centuries earlier. The sun setting behind it made the old house little more than a shadow.

  Probably better that way.

  “I miss you, brother,” Harrison said, a bit more wistfully than I expected. “Her new man, Ryker—who the fuck has a name like Ryker? Anyway, he’s a total bro. No fun at all.”

  Harrison was reserved on the outside, but he loved to get into trouble on the sly. He was a sneaky bastard and really great friend. I could only imagine how big he rolled his eyes when this Ryker asshole wasn’t looking.

  “Let me guess, he wears shoes?”

  “And polo shirts. Not even pink ones.” He made his eyes extra wide. “It’s like he doesn’t even know where he is.”

  The official dress code of the Keys was shorts, tank tops, and flip-flops. For dressy occasions women wore sundresses and men wore Hawaiian shirts. With flip-flops. If they wore shoes at all. Which was honestly a thing. You know how restaurants usually have signs that said “no shirt, no shoes, no service”? Not here. No one gave a flying flip about any of it.

  As long as you were happy.

  Happiness was the requirement around here. Which was why I was convinced the pina colada was invented. It made sad people less sad. What was it Jimmy—patron saint of the Keys—sang? Where we go I hope there’s rum!

  It was definitely one of the happiness ingredients here on Mistletoe Key.

  “So what are you doing down here, Harry?” The main Anderson clan called Calusa Key their home base. The island on the gulf coast was where Berlin grew up, but when she inherited her aunt’s house on Mistletoe Key she jumped at the chance to live on her favorite island—away from the constant attention of her sisters.

  “Berlin needed some help with a few repairs. We figured it would be fun to spend Christmas here for a change.”

  “London still won’t come home?”

  “Nope.”

  “The girls here?” Harry and Paris had two daughters.

  “Of course. I’ll bring them by your mom’s later when we get frozen yogurt. If you want?”

  I appreciated the way he asked. “Of course. I didn’t divorce them.”

  A pained look crossed his face. “Um . . . have you heard the news?”

  I didn’t like the way he asked that. Harrison Montague wasn’t the kind of guy who ever hesitated to say exactly what he was thinking. Not even when it was hard. The day Berlin announced she wanted a divorce? Harry punched me in the nose and told me it was my fault. Gave me a detailed list of all the ways I’d been a bad husband. Then he bought me a beer.

  Guys were like that.

  So if he was hesitating now, this news, whatever it might be, was big.

  “What news?”

  “Shit. She didn’t tell you. Shit.” He set his bucket down again. This time I got a look at the two very dead snapper inside.

  My stomach growled again. Why could my stomach be so happy to be back on Mistletoe Key when my head was clearly picking up on some serious warning signs?

  That warning beacon went into overdrive when Harry braced his hand against the wood railing and he looked me straight in the eye. “Berlin is engaged to Ryker. They’re getting married.”

  “Stop, Ma.”

  She fluttered around, shoving freshly baked rolls and butter at me as if food could solve a broken heart. “I thought you knew.”

  “How would I know that my ex-wife was getting married? We’re not friends.” Not for lack of trying on my part. “I don’t live here. There isn’t a divorce Bat Signal that goes up when your ex says yes to another man.”

  Mom whimpered and dropped into the chair across from me. “It was just such big news here. Berlin is an original—you know how people are about the locals. And Ryker Larson has become a big name here.”

  Yeah, yeah. Money does that. It gets you places you didn’t earn.

  “Well, I know now. Thanks for the butter roll.”

  At least that made Mom smile. “I’m sorry, baby boy. This has to hurt.”

  She called all her kids baby boy or girl. There were a lot of us. I used to joke she used the generic nickname so she didn’t have to remember our real names. I usually gave her a hard time because I was clearly no longer a baby or a boy, but at the moment I liked being “baby boy” because it reinforced the false idea that m
y mother was in charge and could somehow protect me from the very real pain I was feeling.

  Berlin was getting married.

  To a man who wasn’t me.

  Fuck that. Just . . . fuck that. “Where did I go wrong?”

  She slid her hand into her lap as she sat back and gave me her mom glare. “Do you really want me to answer that, or do you want me to tell you what you want to hear?”

  “They’re not the same thing?”

  She shook her head.

  Damn. Did everyone know I ruined our marriage except me? Was I seriously the only person who was clueless?

  I guess that answered most of my original question. “Give it to me, Ma.”

  “Well,” she said entirely too fast. Like she’d been waiting all three years to punch me in the nose just like Harrison. “You were selfish. You still can be, but not like you were.”

  I grimaced, but nodded. “I know. I was young and cocky and stupid.” I thought landing the youngest head-coaching job in professional hockey made me hot shit. Untouchable. My career was obviously the most important thing in the world. And Berlin was understanding.

  At first.

  Then she got pissed. At the time our fights seemed so unfair. I was doing something rare. It paid me a lot of money. Of course my schedule was more important than hers.

  It wasn’t until after I signed the divorce papers that I started to hear myself. More important. My career was never more important than her, but I sure acted like it.

  “Keep going,” I gritted out. As hard as it was to hear, I needed this. I wasn’t the guy I was three years ago. Divorce rocked me. Made me stop and take a long hard look at myself. I’d changed, but I also hadn’t had the courage to face what happened.