Cabin Fever

by Shani Greene-Dowdell et al.

  DeAngelo ignored us both. “I’m glad you guys figured it out. Is there by any chance proof that she…”

  When he went quiet, Brocklyn bellowed, “Lo, say something!”

  “Dammit, Brock!” his brother cursed. “Wait! This bitch is strong. Lady, after what you’ve done to my brother and me, I’m this close to smacking you, so quit—”

  “Fuck you!” she spewed, deafeningly.

  Yeah, no, no inside voice for her.

  “No thank you,” DeAngelo lobbed back, not so calm anymore, and gritting his teeth. “That would be what started all this shit. Brock, I’d apologize for saying this was your fault, but I’m busy. Now. Stop. Kicking. Me. Karena.”

  “It’s okay, DeAngelo,” Brocklyn told him. “Just stay safe and yes, Deidre figured it out, so there’s probably evidence… Right?” He directed at me who nodded.

  “Let me up, your no good bastard!” was Karena’s response. “I love you, DeAngelo!”

  Some tussling and grunting went on, on the other end. A bit more high-pitched talking from Karena and then, Brocklyn, who was terrified. I was ready to just give him the phone, I wanted to still be able to hear after all this was over.

  “Stop that shit too,” DeAngelo ordered her.

  Karena didn’t listen. Brocklyn’s agitated state increased, affecting mine by proximity. He needed some answers, and to see what was happening in Louisville.

  Before shoving him the phone, I sequestered it for myself. “DeAngelo, if you can, turn your phone’s recorder on to catch anything incriminating she says.”

  “As I said, I’m a little… busy… right… now with holding it and her. Dammit, stop wiggling!” We gave him time to get a better grip. “Sheesh, it’s hard work taming a psycho.”

  Karena had a whole lot of wailing and cussing to say about that for everyone to hear in a ten-mile radius. Flipping over the iPad in my hand, I tapped into Devereaux’s cameras. In HD, we watched DeAngelo detain Karena on his desk, as in they both were on top of it.

  I craned my neck to get a better view at something on the floor beside his desk then whispered, “Is that a…”

  “Fuck!” whooshed softly from Brocklyn pointing at the gun laying on the floor beneath DeAngelo’s feet.

  We knew how Karena got to him, she was armed, likely emptied the office without trying. She hadn’t come to play games, was face down, writhing wildly under my boss. He had one knee in her bare back. She came dressed to impress, seduce. Instead, he death gripped both of her hands behind her. She wasn’t going anywhere, wasn’t taking it lying down either. Technically, she was, but she resisted to fix that to no avail, upsetting the two no bigger than dental floss strips of fabric meant to hold her breasts in place.

  “DeAngelo,” I tested the speaker system of his cameras, voice resounding around the room. Good.

  Brocklyn’s eyes tried escaping their eye sockets. Karena stilled, looking around, red skirt settling around her.

  DeAngelo’s head jackknifed up. “Deidre?”

  “Yep. You can use both hands to hold her. I got this.”

  He set the phone down, freeing his other hand.

  Time to play with this bitch’s mind and freedom like she had everyone else’s.

  “Hey, Karena,” I directed at her. “I was wondering what you’d think you were going to do with my lover when you walked into his office. Your antics got me sent away.”

  Everyone except me chorused, “WHAT!”

  I smiled at Brocklyn and mouthed, “Wait for it.”

  I pointed at the red dot blinking at the bottom of the iPad. Simultaneously, Karena went off like she never had before.

  “You whore! HE’S fucking mine! He’s FUCKING mine! He’s fucking MINE!!!” She was little more than raging, trapped beautiful woman gone animalistic and would come out the corner fighting only with her mouth. “I’ve got everything he needs!”

  “Which my man paid for, bitch,” I stirred the pot.

  DeAngelo eyed the camera in his office overlooking them. Karena writhed as a piercing scream left her psychotic lips. He held her firmly. No one uttered a word, letting her have the floor to speak just as I had premeditated.

  Her head bobbed up and down with her struggles to get free, long flaxen hair falling in her face. She quickly head-tossed it behind her back. “If I can’t have him, nobody will! You think I can only move millions one firm to another!” BINGO! “I’ll take your whole identity and give it away to charity when I find you, bitch!”

  I believed her. Security and the cops both burst into the room. It was anticlimactic for me. I knew she had a lot more to get off her chest, and she did as they cuffed and fought to drag her literally screaming and kicking out of there. The whole anti-theft system threaded throughout the three-story red-brick building was filming as she pleaded with DeAngelo to not let them take her. To love her again. To be with her like they were in school. She’d waited for him, wanted to take care of him. I speculated she had a psychotic break recently and gone off her rocker.

  A dark-haired female in dress pants and slacks stayed behind to chat with DeAngelo, whipping out a pad and pen.

  “Nina,” breathed Brocklyn. “The FBI’s in the house. I think I’m okay.”

  “Well, that happened.” I blew out so much air I was convinced I caused a tornado in China. “Anybody need a drink and I’m not talking about a Pepsi?”

  Brocklyn ogled me as if I had grown two heads. On the iPad in my peripheral, Nina spun in panicked circles, trying to find the owner of my voice. DeAngelo tapped her on the shoulder mid spin to get her attention. He probably needed a drink too. Brocklyn clutched me to him so fast I nearly dropped the tablet as his voice rumbled in my ear.

  He was still stressed and needed to talk it… Yeah, no he was growling it out. “Thank you, Deidre. What was the point of monthly meetings with finance if everything she did still slipped by all of us? Four fucking people in my firm alone missed this for two damn years!” He was so distraught I wanted to cry, which might set him off. He was upset as it was, so holding him tight would have to do.

  “Brocklyn, sweetheart, listen,” I crooned to him.

  “I am.”

  I stroked his back. “If you didn’t look at all her expenses over the years altogether, one submitted weekly report wouldn’t have rang any bells. What’s a trip a week out of the town if you’re sending her to clients and she pops by somewhere else? What’s a receipt with just the amount spent on it that credit card machines spit out if the things she bought isn’t itemized on it too? She’s clever as hell and if she hadn’t pulled that one last hooray with the embezzling to get DeAngelo’s attention and I suspect you out of the way because your relationship was too tight for her liking, she would still be attacking your companies unknowingly. She was jealous and collecting things for her seduction kit like that dress. That was one hell of a dress by the way. Probably designer and one of you paid a boatload of pennies for it. Anyway, I think today, it was do or die for her. He would be hers or he would be no one’s because he’d be dead.”

  “Obviously, she’s not as clever as you,” he injected.

  “Oh, she’s cunning. Using people’s tendencies to not believe what’s staring them in the face against them is genius. My intuition’s on point though,” I joked, hugging him, who was spiraling at the near loss of his brother, tighter.

  He didn’t speak, so I did.

  “She hid her crimes in plain sight behind the day to day operations of your business, Brocklyn. No one can see everything. But, she’s going where she belongs now. You’re free to rebuild your life, financial team and get an in house IT department that is vigilant. That’s what matters.”

  He pulled back to look me square in the face. “As long as I’m doing all those things with you.”

  “I’ll be glad to stick around and see where this goes.”

  I guessed he was too, because he kissed the ever-loving shit out of me then.

  When he was done, I recommended, “Let’s go home.”
/>   “Only if we get to come back here sometimes.”

  “Well,” I sighed happily. “you know my conditions on that.”

  He bust out laughing, as he should be doing instead of unfairly fighting for all the things he had worked for. And he never would have to fight alone if it was up to me.

  Epilogue

  ~Six months later~

  Life was good. No, life was fantastic. We came to the cabin this time with guests just to hang out. Brocklyn must’ve been hosting because he was missing from his side of the bed. Preparing to get up too, I sat up, stretching an arm up into the morning rays beaming through the window of the same room we first made love in.

  The sun glinted extra hard off something above me, the sparkle hitting me right in the eye. “Goddamn. What did I ever do to you?”

  Without lowering my arms, my hand blocked the sun trying to blind me. I blinked rapidly to clear my vision, and leaned away from the bright light, looking cautiously back at what the hell ever it was reflecting for all it was worth. I noted two things at once: a ring with a big rock on my finger and Brocklyn beside the bed on one knee, smiling roguishly.

  Baffled but suspicious, I asked, “What the hell is going on?” I could hazard a guess, but this girl didn’t just go assuming things. No need to learn that lesson twice.

  He shrugged and took my free hand into his. “I think you know. Deidre, when you walked into my life and then ran out of it, I knew you were special, not like the others. Here is where I discovered my heart will only beat for one woman. You. Here, where it all started, is where I ask you to be mine for eternity and keep my heart beating. I promised to never love another.”

  I took a page out of Karena’s book and shouted, “Yes!” Then, I lunged across the bed to climb him like a ladder as he stood up. “I love you too, Brocklyn!”

  “So, we heard,” DeAngelo voice’s streamed through the closed door between us. Clapping ringing on the other side of it brought our fantastic moment to a halt. “Congrats, you two. Are you ever going to call him just Brock?”

  Their mother, Madeleine laughed. “Hush, DeAngelo. She can call Brocklyn whatever she wants now.” A sweet lady with a ‘take no shit’ attitude.

  We hit it off immediately when she returned from her cruise to look after ‘her boys’ as she called them, after being informed of Karena’s mechanisms to strongarm one of ‘her boys’ for herself and have the other locked away.

  Brocklyn’s family wasn’t our only guests, and I knew why he suggested a weekend getaway with everyone now. The sneaky sweetheart wanted to propose.

  Gruff Cheyenne was here too and she wouldn’t let us forget it. “Do not start the hanky panky… Jeez, DeAngelo! Congrats! I said it! Happy, man?... Good! Now, you two on the other side of this damn door, come eat! I’m so ready to get the hell out of these woods! There’s nothing to do here… but eat! I got enough hips and ass already.” Indeed, she did, and DeAngelo had taken notice.

  Wrapped around each other, Brocklyn and I both bust out laughing at our family. My family. Finally.

  The End…for now.

  Dear Readers,

  If you’re still rocking with me through all my crazy, I love you from the bottom of my heart.

  Falon Gold

  Want to know what I’ll release next?

  Follow me: https://www.facebook.com/falongold/

  Hot Sext

  Francesca Penn

  Hot Sext Synopsis

  When Luca Girelli is forced to read a book he never would have picked on his own, he quickly learns it speaks to a part of him that he has been suppressing. Now, he has turned his attention to one woman he feels can give him what he needs...the author.

  Elissa Donovan isn't looking for love. If she were, she isn't looking for one of her Alpha's to walk of the pages of one of her erotic novels. Luca Girelli, however, will show her what happens when he wants more than an autograph.

  Prologue

  Verona, Italy

  Luca

  “Come on, Luca! We’re going to be late,” Alicia chides as she pulls me along.

  I don’t give a shit. There are plenty of things I’d rather do than spend the night at a book club meeting.

  “I don’t want to go, so…”

  Alicia stops to stare at me. Her brown cat-like eyes gleam with a challenge. Somehow, I’m tired. I’m only going as the last effort to say I tried.

  She thinks fighting all of the time is sexy. The smallest thing can create a series of arguments. “Luca, you promised,” she whines. It’s the usual step before the fights.

  “I am going,” I offer to defuse it. “I’m just saying, don’t rush me. We’ll get there when we get there.”

  She huffs and power walks ahead of me. Moments later, I enter the bookstore where she’s already said ‘hello’ to her friends and the poor guy they’ve roped into this adventure of looking for the next hot book. Renata and Paola—Alicia’s best friends—exchange looks with her, and I feel this is a trap. I can’t prove it, but I think they’re trying to prove something to us men.

  I shake Stefano and Giulio’s hands as I take my place on the sofa next to Alicia. Renata passes out the books, and my eyes roll heavenward when I see a half-naked man on the cover. Of course, it will be in the romance genre. I don't know why I’d expect different from these three. Alicia and I had a debate about the unrealistic expectations of romance, just the week prior. Short story: I’m not a fan.

  “What’s BWWM?” Stefano asks as he turns the book over in his hand. His expression mirrors how I feel.

  This is bullshit.

  “It means black woman white man—an interracial relationship.”

  “So, this is a veiled attempt for us to understand black women more?” I want to know.

  “I understand them perfectly,” Giulio jokes with a suggestive lilt to his words, earning him a push from his girlfriend Paola.”

  “Women are women,” Alicia chimes in. “We want most of the same things.” I smell her sweet perfume when she leans in and whispers. “Behave, and I’ll do that thing you like when we get back to your place.”

  I have no idea what the fuck she’s referring to. I like everything she does equally. It’s all just ‘okay.’ Something’s missing. I’m not sure what it is, but I plan to find out.

  ***

  I’m hooked. I’ve been in the same spot—which isn’t like me—for the explicit intent to finish this book. Damn, Drax is my kind of guy. Originally, I’d planned to skim the book, just to have enough information for the discussion. But this isn’t a typical romance. There’s killing, ill feelings, and fucked up people, situations, and parents—and the sex...it’s spectacular. It speaks to me in ways I didn’t understand. By the end of the book, I get it. It’s what I want.

  I’m half-way through the book when the commotion at my front door means Alicia has arrived. The door slamming expresses her anger about something. Looks like we’re about to have our millionth argument.

  “Asshole!” she yells the moment she finds me.

  Studying her, I take in her long, flowing hair, red lips, dress, and heels.

  Date night?

  A glance at my phone confirms my theory—twenty missed calls and text messages.

  “I’m sorry, Alicia. My phone was still off from earlier.”

  She’s not listening, her mind is already amped for an argument. She watches the book as I close it and place it on the table. This time it’s my fault, and I’m willing to make amends.

  “You and those fucked up books! You left your real-life girlfriend alone for dinner to read that crazy bitch’s book. You’re hooked!”

  I’m immediately offended by the name-calling, and I don’t know Ella Royal. My desire to avoid the argument dissipates.

  “Don’t talk about her like that! YOU wanted me to read it! Too bad it wasn’t the kind of bullshit romance you’d hoped it would be, but I like it. I already apologized for forgetting.”

  She screeches like a crazy person and advances with her
fists in the air. She hits my chest a few times before I react. I’m numb and sick of her shit. If Alicia wants angry sex, that’s what she’ll get. Gathering her wrists, I push her into the wall, then pin them above her head. The impact shocks her. I kiss her open mouth, sticking my tongue inside to feed her my anger.

  Alicia bucks against me, trying to get out of the kiss. I grab her chin hard and stare in her eyes. I know something inside me has shifted, and it brings me relief, freeing part of me that I’ve ignored for far too long.

  “You want angry sex, don’t you?” I taunt.

  “You’re hurting me—too rough, I don’t like it!”

  Letting her go, I run my fingers through my hair and take a deep breath.

  “Get out. Don’t come back.”

  She flinches as if I’d hit her. “What!”

  “We're not going to work. We want different things. I’m tired of the fights.”

  I’m also tired of the boring sex, not feeling like I can be myself, and sticking around, knowing you can’t give me what I want...

  The tears start, but I don’t feel anything. I’ve never loved her like I should. I can’t love her.

  “But, our love!”

  “That’s the problem. There’s no love.” Her anger is deserved, but I need her to know the truth. “Goodbye, Alicia.”

  I stare at her form as she storms out, cursing me and my entire existence until I hear the door slam. I wait a few minutes and shake my head in disbelief.

  Still nothing.

  Sighing, I return to my chair and pick up my book. Flipping it over. I study the biography on the back while tracing my finger over her photo.

  “Okay, Ella Royal. You have my full attention.”

  Chapter 1

  Elissa

  "The end!" I cheer as I type the words in my ninth book.