Holiday Loves
Page 15
When I was standing before her, Dru smiled at me and said, “Hi, handsome,” and lifted her arm above her head.
She was holding mistletoe.
Never one to miss an opportunity, I put the bags on the ground, then placed my hands on her baby bump and kissed it softly, whispering, “I love you,” to the baby, before standing tall and moving my hands. One went around Dru’s back, while the other caressed her face.
I looked into her eyes, enjoying the desire that pooled there, knowing later I’d be enjoying another positive aspect of my wife’s pregnancy, fantastic sex.
I brushed my lips gently against hers before deepening the kiss and cradling her against me.
When we both started getting grabby, with my hand on her breast and hers on my ass, I knew it was time to stop before we got carried away and ditched out on our own Christmas Eve festivities.
I broke the kiss and rested my forehead against hers, and we struggled to catch our breath.
“I love you,” Dru whispered, her words music to my ears.
“And, I love you,” I replied. “Merry Christmas, baby.”
“Merry Christmas, Mick.”
* * *
The End
* * *
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More of You
A Deleted Scene
A.L. Jackson
* * *
The television droned in the background, flickering into the darkness as I took a deep pull from my beer and stared at the letter spread out on the table in front of me. Wind howled at the windows outside my empty apartment, lashing at the roof as if it was offering a warning.
I roughed a palm over my face and pushed out a strained sigh as I reread the words I’d all but memorized.
I know you warned me. I should have listened, but I can’t change that now. The only thing I can do is call in that favor. You once told me you owed me your life. I never counted it a debt.
* * *
It was the least I could do. The right thing to do. The only thing I could do.
* * *
Like you wouldn’t have done the same. Hell, you saved my ass a thousand times.
* * *
But now?
* * *
Things have changed.
* * *
I’m cashing in on that debt.
* * *
If something happens to me? I need you to promise me you’ll take care of her. Take care of them. I can’t live or die thinking they might be in trouble. She doesn’t know. Keep her from that. Knowing who I really am will break her. It’s my last request. One I don’t deserve. But one I can only fucking pray you’ll grant.
* * *
I might deserve this.
* * *
But they don’t.
* * *
Protect them, man. Keep them from what I’ve done. It’s the last thing I’ll ask.
I picked up the picture that had dropped out when I’d torn into the letter, studying it in the jumping, twisting shadows.
Beauty stared back. Smiling and innocent.
My insides curled in anger and bitterness and a volatile kind of loyalty.
I’d known he was asking for trouble. Hell, we both sought it for most of our lives.
But he’d gotten reckless.
Careless.
Greedy.
That was the one that would strike down a man every time.
Now he was gone.
And he’d left me with a burden I wasn’t sure I could bear.
Standing, I moved into the vacant bedroom of my apartment, the walls written in a cold vacancy, and I stuffed clothes back into the duffle bag I’d barely had time to unpack.
Forever a wanderer.
No place to truly call my home.
My missions were made up of bullets and operatives and blood.
I faced those things without fear in my feet.
Little did I know this would be the one that would bring me to my knees . . .
* * *
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The Elite Kings: Malum - Pregame
A Deleted Scene
Amo Jones
“Love is savage, love is blind,
love is something they may not find…”
Droplets of water slide down the glass, reminding me of that one time my sister and I stayed up late, waiting for my mom to come back from shopping. We sat near that window for two hours. I may have only been four years old, but I remember the memory so vividly that it could replay in full HD inside my head for the rest of my life. On repeat. Constantly. With every detail, every smell, every slight tick of the old clock ringing inside my head.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
When she walked away from us, she didn’t just take herself, she also yanked away parts of my sister and me, and more viciously, my father.
That’s when the beatings started.
That’s when my dad turned alcoholic.
I don’t remember much of him before that day, but every day after that day is burned into my skull like a boulder cemented into the ground after a volcanic eruption.
“Are you okay, Puella?”
Releasing a thick inhale of breath, my shoulders relax, and I feel as my muscles release their tension at the mere sound of his voice.
Licking my lips, I turn to face him, my hand resting on top of his. “I’m okay, Daemon.”
His eyes drop to the baby in his arms, my baby, and then come back to me. His beautiful eyes light up when they rest on me, like they’ve been dead all his life until this moment.
“We’re not too far away from being done, Tillie. You’ve done really well,” Tinker assures me softly from somewhere between my legs. I’ve managed to numb out the pain, or maybe it’s because I’ve just pushed out a monstrous sized baby girl, but whichever is correct, I know that I wouldn’t have the strength to do this if it wasn’t for him.
Daemon looks back at me, his eyes twinkling in a way that I pictured her father’s eyes would twinkle. “She’s beautiful, Puella.”
I chew on my lip nervously as he places her small body onto my chest. She lets out a small crackle of a cry, her fist going to her mouth as her little head shakes from side to side.
Tinker comes up beside me, removing her surgical gloves. “Aw, she’s hungry.”
“I don’t know how to do that.” Because I don’t. I actually didn’t think I had one maternal bone in my body, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that I will protect this child until the day I die.
“It’s okay,” Tinker sa
ys, propping the baby up so she’s closer to me. Her little face looks squashed against my boob. “She will know what to do. It should feel uncomfortable at first, but it should not be painful. If it’s painful, hook your pinky finger into her mouth gently and unlatch your nipple from her, and then start again. Her mouth should cover all of this part,” she gestures over my breast.
I do it again, this time following closely to Tinker’s instructions, and her little mouth latches on. My nipples turn hot, like water is rushing to the tips of them, and then her loud drinking breaks the silence.
Tinker giggles. “She’s hungry!”
The other nurse who was helping stitch me up downstairs packs up and leaves. It’s not until she’s out of earshot when Tinker says, “They’re coming, Tillie. They’re all coming.” Her tone remains balanced and even, she could have been talking about the weather that’s how calm she was.
I freeze. “What?” For months now, my brain and my heart have been at a tug-of-war of feelings where Nate Riverside-Malum is concerned. Some days, the bad ones when I’m locked in my room in Katsia’s mansion in Perdita, I have nothing but the memories of Nate and I playing on repeat. I’ve used our time together, the feelings I had for him, as a comfort. I undoubtedly fell in love with Nate, my heart and brain know this. Right down to the very veins that run through me. It has and always will be him, but I’m not naïve. I knew what I was getting myself into the day I allowed myself to open the gates of my feelings towards him.
Nate is a player.
And he may fuck hard, but he hates harder, and I have no doubt at all, that he would absolutely despise me. Not because he probably thought I ran from him, but because I have now, in his mind, hid his own daughter from him.
“Tinker,” I whisper-yell, my grip tightening around my daughter. “What do you mean they are coming? The Kings?”
Tinker runs her finger down my daughter’s face and smiles lovingly while answering, “Yes. You don’t understand, Tillie. Katsia wants to hurt this baby.”
“Hurt?” I almost screech. The mere thought of anyone coming near this baby with ill intent has my claws rearing to the surface.
Tinker shoots a look at Daemon.
Daemon grabs my hand. “I have a plan, Puella.”
My eyes zap around the room, unconsciously looking for an exit. One door that leads to the main hallway that is most likely heavily guarded as every sector in this shitty big house.
“There’s no other option, Tillie. Hear Daemon out, okay?” The door opens and the nurse from earlier comes back in, clutching a phone. I tense, but Daemon rests his hand on my shoulder.
“Trust me, Puella?” he asks, his eyes searching mine. His endless black pits that I have no doubt hide some of the most disturbing secrets known to man.
I swallow and then nod. “Yes. I trust you.”
He presses a kiss to my forehead and reaches for the phone the nurse is handing to him. She clears her throat. “You have roughly around five minutes before they ask why I’m back in here. Please hurry, Daemon.”
I tilt my head, examining her. Was she a good one too? Seems there was only Tinker and Daemon, but maybe I was wrong. My attention falls to her name badge. J E S S I C A is sprawled out in black block letters.
Jessica.
“He’s not answering his phone.” Daemon hangs up, his eyes going to Tinker nervously.
“We have to buy time.” Tinker’s attention goes to the nurse. “Can you buy us some time?”
The nurse looks reluctantly at us all, so I take this moment to get her attention. “Jessica? Please. If there is anything that I can ever do for you, I will be forever in your favor.”
“Okay,” she exhales. “I’ll say that you haven’t had the baby yet and there are complications, but you should know, that I do have to deliver the baby to one of the Lost Boys after birth. Me not taking her already has put me and my family in grave danger, Tinker.”
“I promise you, Jessica. You and your family will be protected through this,” Tinker reminds her confidently. I know we have her when the corners of Jessica’s eyes relax.
“Okay.” I look around my room again. The room I’ve been hidden and kept in for the past months. I didn’t really care before when it was just me. Even though I was pregnant, the reality of having a child wasn’t real—now it is, and I will undoubtedly do what I have to do to get us out of this situation.
“Okay, what are we going to do. She has to take her to a Lost Boy. Then what?”
Daemon looks up at Tinker, then back to me. “You don’t have to worry about that part, Puella. It will be me that she will come to. I will make sure no harm comes to her and that she is returned to you safely, but we need to keep her quiet and still until The Kings arrive. Do you understand?” He runs his fingers through his hair, his eyebrows pulling together in stress.
I reach for his hand, stopping his movement. “I understand, Daemon. I will do anything you need me to do, okay?”
He nods and then drops his hand. The phone he’s holding lights up and he quickly answers it, speaking in Latin.
Tinker comes closer to me. “Nate is going to be angry, Tillie, but only because he doesn’t know how to harness his feelings. There’s so much that you don’t know about yourself and your lineage of family. So much you have to learn, even train in, things that if you allow it, Nate could train you in. You can’t fight this lifestyle, Tillie. Don’t do what Madison did and ignore the signs, or not ask the questions. You, your family, you hold power in this world. Take that power by the balls and own it.”
“What are you talking about, Tinker?” Maybe she has finally lost the screws that were loose inside of her head.
She offers me an apologetic smile, though I’m not sure what she’s apologizing for. “It’s not my place, but truth is coming and when you reign, it’s going to cripple the system.”
Before I can ask what she is talking about, Daemon cuts in. “It’s done. They will gear up.” Daemon’s eyes come to mine, and my grip around my baby intensifies. He notices. “I promise, Tillie. I won’t let harm come to her.”
My throat swells as a single tear falls from my eye and rolls down my cheek, falling to my chest. “Promise?”
Daemon nods. “I promise.”
Daemon leans down, kissing my head. “Have you named her?”
I shake my head, swiping the tear. His hand comes to her cheek as he whispers, “Micaela.”
When the syllables fall from his mouth, I knew instantly that it was done. “Micaela,” I repeat, smiling. I look up to Daemon out of the corner of my eyes, my heart thundering in my chest. Daemon and I have had a strange relationship since I’ve been on Perdita. Not sexual, just connected. On a deep level, a level I haven’t felt since—for a very long time. Where Nate and I had an intense deep connection, it was also sexual, fire, explosions and a mixture of hate. Daemon and I, it’s pure, tame, calm. It was something more than friendship, but less than lovers, though I loved him dearly.
“Do you trust me, Puella?”
“On one condition,” I whisper, slipping Micaela into his awaiting arms. “Don’t die.”
Intimo
The Intimacy Series Prequel
Giana Darling
Intimo.
The Intimacy Series. Prequel
* * *
Copyright 2018 Giana Darling
Published by Giana Darling
Edited by Ellie McLove
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.
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If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy.
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Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
* * *
This book is a work of
fiction. Any similarities to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
* * *
She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
I knew a lot of beautiful women. Not only because I was Italian and my country was a great producer of three things––carbs, cars and gorgeous people––but because my mother and my three sisters were, biased or not, the most beautiful women I’d ever met.
Until I saw her.
I shouldn’t have been able to discern the curve of her delicate features in the murky half-light that illuminated the car from the passing streetlights, but she was sitting behind my seat, wearing a shade of white that picked up the light like a beacon and made her shine like an angel.
She looked like one.
My hands clenched reflexively on the steering wheel as I thought about peeling her slim form out of the fancy silk dress she wore. She’d be slight and pale all over, I knew, pure like freshly fallen snow.