Lord Have Mercy

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  I agreed with him.

  I blew out a relieved breath, then stretched up so that I could reach his mouth with my lips.

  “I love you, Flintstone.”

  His hand fell to my ass, and he squeezed it lightly as he said, “You better.”

  When our mouths met, I meant it to only be a peck on the lips.

  What it ended up being was a heated kiss that rocked me to my core.

  Granted, I hadn’t had sex with the man in well over eight weeks.

  Broken ribs weren’t conducive with sex.

  But now those ribs were fairly healed, and his hand was roaming around to the crack of my ass, and I started to feel a flame being fanned to life deep inside of me.

  He wasn’t even touching me inappropriately, and my mind was going crazy.

  I dropped down a little more solidly on top of him and straddled his thigh as I deepened the kiss.

  It went from ‘this is really nice’ to ‘this is getting out of control’ in about two seconds flat.

  “If you’re going to stop this,” he growled against my lips, pulling away only slightly. “Then you better do it now, because if I get to the point where I stick my dick inside of you, you’re not getting away until I finish.”

  I giggled.

  “I’m not that mean, Flint,” I told him, sitting up and straddling his hard thigh.

  Seconds later my shirt was gone, and my breasts fell free of their confines.

  His hands went to my sides and traveled up my chest and stopped just underneath the heaving swells.

  “I want to fuck your tits,” he said gruffly. “I want to fuck everything.”

  I shivered at his words.

  “Let’s just focus on my pussy for today, shall we?” I said softly. “Because I’m honestly just as deprived as you are, and I’m needy.”

  He growled something low in his throat.

  “I can do needy,” he teased.

  Chapter 22

  Twinkle Twinkly little bitch, mind your own business you nosey snitch.

  -Coffee Cup

  Flint

  As I stepped out onto the front porch and looked at my truck, I felt a freedom that I hadn’t felt in quite a long time.

  The chair that had been a constant pain in my backside—literally and figuratively—was now gone. Kind of.

  Actually, the damn thing was sitting in the back of my truck, Camryn having put it there last night just in case I needed it.

  The van that I’d rolled up to the school in was now gone also, and I had my truck back. Freedom.

  Not that I didn’t love having Camryn there every time I wanted to go somewhere, always there to lend a hand or just listen to me bitch. But it was seriously nice to have the freedom to get up and leave if I wanted to.

  Even if when I walked, it felt like I was doing so on baby deer legs.

  I was going to work. I was going to do what I wanted.

  I was free.

  Smiling a little, I made my way down the porch steps, my cup of to-go coffee Camryn made me in one hand, and my uniform in the other.

  I wobbled slightly on the last step, cursing when a splash of coffee hit the skin of my hand.

  Dooley was at my side, looking back at me in concern.

  Then, just as suddenly, he wasn’t.

  He went from being docile and happy from having been fed a piece of buttered toast by Camryn on the way out the door, to snapping and snarling at something next to my truck.

  A high-pitched man’s scream followed moments later, and I hurried as fast as my legs would take me to the side of the truck.

  “Stop!” a wailing man’s voice screeched. “Stop!”

  A metal bar hit the ground, and vaguely I heard the front door being yanked open.

  I knew that Camryn was at the door watching, worried and concerned that I was taking too many steps too soon.

  But now she had reason for concern.

  Now there was a man beside my truck with my K-9 pinning him to the freezing concrete, and a metal bar that was now next to my feet that I could only assume was meant for me.

  “Camryn, call 9-1-1!” I shouted.

  I heard her running footsteps, but not the closing of the door, causing me to curse and move until my body was situated between the open door and the man.

  The man who was still on the ground with Dooley growling on top of him.

  I growled low in my throat as I thought about my morning being fucked up—again.

  Luckily, this time it wasn’t going to end up with me spending months in the hospital and recuperating.

  Thank God.

  I stepped around Dooley and hit the flashlight app on my phone, blinking owlishly when I realized that the man Dooley had pinned was none other than Carver Brown.

  “What the fuck are you doing here, Carver?” I barked.

  Obviously, nothing good.

  If he’d had good intentions, he sure the fuck wouldn’t have been hiding in the darkened shadows of my truck with a metal bar in his hand. He also wouldn’t have waited until I was nearly on top of him to announce himself.

  Thank God I had Dooley with me.

  If he hadn’t been there…

  I shuddered to think what would have happened.

  “Cops are called!” I heard Camryn call from the porch steps.

  She didn’t come down, and I was thankful.

  Carver may be pinned to the ground, but I didn’t want to take the chance that he was actually more dangerous than he let on.

  The sirens in the distance had me backing away, not wanting to be confused for the intruder that meant to hurt me.

  And by the time Schultz showed up, looking hacked off and tired at the end of his shift, I couldn’t help but grin.

  “What’s up, buddy?” I asked casually.

  He looked from me to the perp on the ground, to Dooley and then to Camryn and back.

  “Why is it that you always seem to get into trouble?” he goaded.

  And that was when it clicked.

  ***

  “Ask him where his Suburban went,” I said softly.

  Schultz looked at me in surprise.

  “What? Why?” he asked.

  “Just do it,” I ordered.

  Schultz shrugged then walked into the interrogation room.

  Carver Brown, after being deemed healthy by a paramedic, was taken straight to an interrogation room the moment he walked into the police station.

  I’d followed behind with Camryn at my heels, calling my sister and her not-boyfriend Croft with orders to open the gym.

  After hearing that I was almost brained with a lead pipe—that came with us as evidence—she was more than understanding.

  “Do you think he’s what woke me?” Camryn asked. “It was only about thirty minutes before.”

  “Possibly,” I said. “But we won’t know until Schultz begins to question him.”

  “He’ll lawyer up,” she muttered. “He’s too bitchy not to.”

  I snorted, nearly inhaling the coffee that was pressed against my mouth.

  “Jesus,” I muttered.

  “Why’d you want to know about his Suburban?” she questioned.

  I looked at the window that Carver was seated beyond and said, “I don’t know.”

  Well, I did know.

  It was a hunch.

  But I was going to follow it even though it might be a possibility that my hunch was wrong.

  “Huh,” she muttered, side-eyeing me with a look that said she didn’t believe me.

  My lips twitched. “Just give me a few minutes. If I’m right, you’ll know any second.”

  She sniffed, then sat back in her chair as she looked at the window right along with me.

  “Hello, Carver,” Schultz said as he tossed the file folder down onto the table in front of the man. “Can you tell me why you were hiding beside Officer Stone’s vehicle with a lead pipe in your hand?”
>
  Carver said nothing.

  “No?” he asked. “This would all go better if you just cooperated.”

  Carver snorted. “I want my lawyer.”

  Schultz sighed. “Do you have one in mind, or do you want one appointed to you?”

  Schultz was nothing if by the book.

  “I have one,” he muttered, then rattled off the number.

  “I don’t know what that says about you that you have your lawyer’s number memorized,” Schultz muttered as he jerked his chin up toward the two-way glass. “But I’ll get him here. In the meantime, I’m just going to talk. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

  Carver remained stubbornly silent.

  If he was smart, he’d continue to stay that way until his lawyer arrived.

  “I was informed that you used to have a black Suburban SUV.” Schultz leaned one hip casually against the metal table. “Is that true?”

  Carver damn near jolted straight out of his chair as he whipped around and looked at Schultz with a panicked expression on his face.

  Schultz didn’t miss it, and I didn’t, either.

  I sighed and stood up, walking out of the observation room and to the interrogation room’s entrance.

  I didn’t bother to pause outside, instead pushed straight in and closed the door behind me.

  The minute Carver saw me, he flinched.

  “Tell me why you did it?” I suggested. “I already know that it was you. It’s all making sense now, only I don’t know what I ever did to you to warrant being run over by your SUV.”

  I could practically hear Camryn’s gasp of outrage through the wall.

  I just hoped she stayed put and didn’t try to burst through the door causing me to break off my line of questioning before I got what I wanted.

  Luckily, my girl stayed where she was, though I could tell she was fuming.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Carver lied, looking away.

  I looked at Schultz and gestured for him to leave, which he did moments later, leaving me alone in the room with Carver only.

  “I know you did it,” I said softly. “I also remembered seeing you parked across the street from me the day of the accident.”

  He flinched.

  “You didn’t mean to run me over that day,” I said. “At least, not at first.”

  He drew in a deep breath.

  “It’s because of Nivea, isn’t it?” I asked.

  He swiped at his face.

  “What’d she do to make you run me over with an SUV?” I asked.

  I knew why he was going to come after me with the pipe.

  That was because I’d seen his new car today, and he’d seen my wheels turning.

  I hadn’t realized they were turning at the time, but the moment I laid eyes on his vehicle, something had clicked for me.

  And he’d seen that.

  “I…I…” he started, then stopped.

  “You what?” I pushed.

  “I didn’t mean to?” he lied.

  “I know you didn’t mean to.” I hesitated. “At least not at first. But something happened, and you got mad.”

  “I got really mad,” he whispered. “Like that time I hit you in the nose.”

  That time he punched me and I let him.

  “Okay,” I said. “But what happened?”

  He drew in a deep breath and sat up straight, but just as he was about to tell me, the door burst open and his lawyer walked in.

  “Don’t say another word,” he ordered.

  But Carver ignored his order.

  “I hit you,” he said. “I aimed for you with my SUV. And I hit you. Ran you over. When it pinned you to the ground, I ran. W-watched from the woods as they kept you alive.”

  My eyes met Schultz’s, who was standing right outside the interrogation room door.

  “Sir,” Carver’s lawyer tried to interrupt.

  “She…she…” He blew out a deep breath, then inhaled just as sharply before saying, “She told me that I’d never be you.”

  We all waited for more of an explanation, but none was forthcoming.

  “That’s it?” Schultz said indelicately from the doorway.

  Carver’s eyes went to him, then to me.

  “Do you know what it’s like to be second fiddle to him not once, but twice?” he asked. “It’s humiliating!”

  “So you ran him over with a goddamn Suburban?” came Camryn’s indelicate screech from behind Schultz.

  Schultz, showing some of his brains at this point, caught her before she could make it inside.

  That didn’t stop her from throwing her water bottle at Carver’s head, though.

  “You stupid piece of shit!” she snarled. “You almost killed the man I love!”

  Pride burst in my chest at seeing the anger that rocked her small frame.

  Hell, even Dooley looked like he was pissed, and he didn’t even know what was going on. He was likely just reading the tension in the room, and clearly saw that Camryn was upset.

  “I think now’s the time that we listen to our lawyer,” the lawyer suggested to Carver.

  Carver finally looked at him and nodded. “Yeah, think that’s for the best.”

  I nodded once, having gotten all that I needed.

  There would still be questioning. There would still be a trial later on. There would still be time served.

  But in the end, he would get his ass dealt to him, and I still got to live to see another day.

  I was counting that as a win.

  I made it through the doorway and caught Camryn as Schultz let her free, pulling her along with me as I made my way out into the front room.

  Then, feeling the box in my pocket burning a hole, I brought us both to a stop.

  Then, in front of the entire police station, I got down on one knee and proposed to my woman.

  “Camryn, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” I whispered huskily.

  She drew in a shaky breath and then let it out.

  “Yes,” she whispered, sounding so happy that she was about to burst. “I will!”

  Epilogue

  If you like your toddler staring you straight in the vagina when you’re putting in a tampon, then motherhood is for you.

  -Camryn’s secret thoughts

  Camryn

  The door to my classroom burst open and my husband of eighteen months hustled inside, wearing a shit-eating grin on his face.

  “Hello, class,” Flint called out. “How’s everyone doing today?”

  Today was the first day of school, and every single student was staring at the spectacle he was making of himself with wide eyes.

  When Flint came to a stop next to me, a pillowcase in one hand and a bottle of sweet tea from the gas station in the other, I blinked at him owlishly.

  “Ummm,” I said, standing up from my seat.

  A seat that I’d been forced to take because my legs were swollen so badly that it was either sit or deal with ankles the size of a tiny house when I got home from school.

  “Hey, baby,” Flint said, pressing his mouth to my cheek with a quick brush of his lips. “I brought you something. Will you hold on to it for me?”

  He held out the bag, and it was then I noticed that it was…moving.

  “Uhhh,” I hesitated. “Why?”

  “Because I felt like you were the most qualified,” he answered, dropping his bottle of sweet tea down onto the counter beside my cup of decaffeinated coffee and pressing his palm to my belly.

  I rolled my eyes.

  He was always doing this.

  It didn’t matter where we were, or who we were with. If he had a spare second, and I was close enough, his hand was on my belly.

  He loved feeling the baby move.

  He loved it even more when she kicked against his hand.

  That’s right.

  I said she.

  There was
going to be a little Pebbles Stone soon.

  Though, that wasn’t going to be her name.

  We hadn’t actually agreed on one just yet, but it would come.

  You know…a month after she was born, if how we were going was any indication.

  “So what’s in the bag, Officer Stone?” my transfer student from the UK asked, sounding all prim and proper.

  ‘Officer Stone’ grinned. “Look.”

  Then my husband opened the bag and showed the kid.

  “Is that…a baby kangaroo?”

  Flint grinned. “Yeah. Can you watch it for a little while?”

  That last part was directed toward me as he held out the bag.

  I blinked. “Flint…I’m not exactly sure how to take care of a kangaroo. Does it need to be fed?”

  He shrugged. “Honestly? I have no fuckin’ idea. I found it out in the parking lot, and I had to steal it away from a couple of freshmen that thought they’d take it home.”

  I just shook my head.

  “Did you call the game warden?” I asked. “Who do you call about a kangaroo?”

  “I called the game warden, who got me in touch with the zoo who had a baby kangaroo go missing last night when a couple of teenagers vandalized an exhibit. That’s the next item on my agenda…find those kids.”

  I just shook my head and waved him off, curling the kangaroo in the pillowcase up tight to my big pregnant belly.

  “All right, Flintstone. I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

  He winked and then he was gone, leaving me to turn back to my students who were all practically bouncing in their seats. “One at a time. Form a line. Get your look, and then go sit down. I’d like to get to know you all.”

  Every last one of my students got up to look.

  ***

  Six hours later, I was in heaven.

  “Oh God,” I whispered. “That’s the spot.”

  Flint chuckled against my side.

  “I’m ready for this baby to be here,” I declared. “Why are you laughing?”

  “You sound like a contented cat,” he teased.

  I kind of was.

  He’d just made slow, sweet love to me and then had started rubbing my back.

  There was literally no better spot on the planet that I could be.

  “Ella?”

  He grunted out a negative sound in his throat.