by Jennifer Ann
Eventually she wraps her fingers around my shaft and gives my cock a delightful tug. I slip two fingers between her legs in return, moaning when moisture coats my fingertips.
“Shit, gorgeous…I’m not so sure we should do this right now,” I say against her mouth, feeling more reluctant with her determined touch. “Your wound…”
“We’ll buy more fucking glue. I need this so badly, Jace,” she pleads, her voice husky and wavering on a broken cry. “Oh god…please. I need to feel you as a reminder that my life isn’t all shit. Let me ride that beautiful cock again. Take care of me.”
Deciding it’s useless to fight the way my body wants her, I kiss her as I position myself over her, allowing us to join together with one gentle push. I forget about everything else as I completely lose myself in her wet warmth. She releases a little whimpering cry before sucking on my tongue, coaxing it to move along. Then her hands grasp my head as she tilts her hips, meeting my cock with each pump.
“I’ll always take care of my girl,” I groan. “Damn, you’re soft. So tight.”
Reminding myself that she’s delicate both physically and mentally, I continue at a gentle, even pace that’s in every way different from the savage fuck in the little shed and the dominance I showed when bending her over. This is slow and passionate, laced with reluctant fear of the unknown and our mutual determination to stay in each other’s lives.
Phoebe’s fingers are soon digging into my ass, encouraging me to thrust at a faster pace. I reach down to massage her clit as I do so, eliciting my name among a moan from her lips. I feel her tremble around my cock as I thrust a little harder, pushing inside a little deeper. When she arches her back, I can’t resist her hard nipples cutting into my chest and stop kissing her to take one between my teeth.
“Do me hard,” she begs, sounding close to climax by the hitch in her words. “Don’t worry…you can’t break me.”
My gut solidifies as I release her nipple. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
Next thing I know, she’s wrapping her arms around me and rolling me over to my back. Once I’ve checked to make sure her cut is still sealed, I watch in complete awe as she flips her long, blue-tipped hair over to one shoulder and straddles me, her brown eyes lit with want as they captivate mine. She’s beyond gorgeous. I almost blow my wad watching her slip down over my cock with her lip held between her teeth. As she continues to ride me while holding my gaze the entire time, I hold onto her hips.
“Touch yourself,” I growl, feeling dangerously close to coming with the mere idea.
Ever so slowly, her hands slide up along her body to cup each of her breasts. Her eyes close before she tilts her head back and begins to toy with her nipples, pinching them with her thumbs.
Groaning, I guide her hips to drive into me harder. “Goddamn, you’re so damn beautiful.”
I bring my thumb down to rub circles against her hardened bud until she’s gasping and panting for breath, riding out my cock and hand together. As each of her cries becomes louder, I quicken my strokes. When she finally shatters, milking my cock for everything it’s worth and quivering in my arms, I allow myself to release along with her. But when I start to pull out, she locks her legs down at our sides, shaking her head.
She watches me intently, squeezing her walls around me as I come, making my climax twice as intense. The burst is so severe that it feels like a grenade has gone off inside my balls. I ride the powerful wave of ecstasy out between gritted teeth, pulling her down to lay beside me when it’s over.
“Holy, shit,” I utter through heavy breaths. “That was fucking amazing.”
“You’re fucking amazing,” she replies.
This woman is nothing short of perfect, even with all her imperfections. I suddenly want to give all of myself and the entire universe to Phoebe. I want to drag her off to a remote part of Mexico where we’d have all the time in the world to get to know everything about each other, all the time in the world to get to know everything there is about each other’s bodies.
“I could fall in love with you,” I confess, drawing her into my arms. Though I surprise myself by saying it out loud, in no way do I want to take it back.
Her eyes close as I kiss a path across her face. “Shhh. Don’t ruin a perfectly beautiful moment with a bullshit fairytale.”
“It’s not bullshit.”
Eyes still closed, she shakes her head. “It has to be. It’s too early for that kind of talk.”
“One day you’ll understand how I feel,” I finally concede. She’s been through too much shit to believe she’s entitled to a happy life, so I’ll simply have to prove it with my actions. “Who left you, gorgeous? Who made it so hard for you to believe that someone wants you in their life?”
“My brother,” she mutters, opening her big brown eyes to look up at me, sadness pouring from them. They well up with another wave of tears as she explains, “He was the only constant man in my life who never did anything to hurt me. My dad left before I was born, and I didn’t meet Kory until middle school. Sometimes he was more like my dad than a brother, protecting me from Ellen’s douchebag boyfriends, and everyone else who tried to hurt me. For as long as I can remember, he promised that one day we’d leave Chesterville. Together. He joined the military after high school so he could save up real money, and said he’d come back for me after he’d served his term. But Logan just…gave up on me.”
My heart slams to a standstill in my chest. Jesus, tell me she didn’t just say that. Bile burns my throat. “Hold on. His name was Logan?” I confirm in a shaking voice, propping my head up on my hand. It has to be a coincidence.
Her eyebrows squish together. “Yeah, Logan. L-o-g-a-n. I always thought it was a relatively simple name.”
Sitting upright, I grab both of her arms, shaking my head. A piercing ring echoes through my ears, distorting the sound of my ragged breath. “What’s his last name?”
“He and Ellen have his dad’s last name…Matthews. Why? Why are you looking at me like there’s an alien bursting from my chest?”
13
Jace
Phoebe’s stare pierces a hole right through me as she sits upright in the bed, unmoving. “I don’t know what’s going on, but my Spidey senses are tingling,” she says. “Something clearly isn’t copacetic. You’re seriously starting to freak me out.”
“I didn’t know…” I stammer. “You said your name was Phoebe Carson…and your mom is Ellen…all this time and I didn’t know…”
She shrugs. “Yeah, Carson is Ellen’s maiden name. Well, technically, Leonora’s maiden name, but she doesn’t let anyone call her that. The only noble thing she ever did for me was refuse to reveal the sperm donor’s name.”
Taking her face in my hands, I inhale a deep, stuttering breath. Moisture pricks my eyes as I work my jaw, trying to keep my shit together. “Phoebe…”
“You’re really starting to give me the willies, Jace. What’s going on?”
“Bugsy—your brother—I…know him.”
Breath held, her eyes flicker back and forth between mine before she pulls away and busts out laughing. “What the shit are you talking about? I told you his name was Logan. I mean, I might be laughing right now, but you’re so not funny.” She then slaps my chest lightly and adds, “Seriously. Stop being such a dick.”
“Bugsy was his nickname. The guys gave him shit for being exceptionally good looking and charming, but he was still able to slay every exercise the first week of bootcamp. Someone decided he was like that gangster they made a movie about back in the nineties.”
The fading smile on her lips becomes stiff. “That…I mean…holy shit, Jace! Are you saying you’re a Marine too? Are you sure it was my brother? Logan Matthews?”
“He mentioned Chesterville a few times, and talked about his little sister non-stop. I don’t remember him ever saying a name, but the way he always described you—fuck.” Pausing, I rake a hand through my messy hair. “Bugsy never said you were smoking hot. And I was exp
ecting a little girl. I always pictured you as being at least ten years younger than him.”
“Try three,” she grumbles, rolling her eyes. When she lays her hand on my chest, I wonder if she’s going to shove me or drag me in for a kiss. There’s something uneasy in her expression that translates into…fear? Paranoia? “Do you know where he is? Is that why you came to Chesterville?”
“Fuckin’ A, Phoebs. I didn’t know it was you.” Trying to keep my shit together, I shake my head back and forth. “What were the chances it’d be you?” I pull in a deep breath. “Last I saw him, we were deployed overseas—”
“In Afghanistan,” she finishes. “That’s where he was the last time we heard from him. Before he went…missing.” Springing from the bed, she massages her temples so quickly that I can’t help wondering if she’s panicked. But why? Does she already sense on a subconscious level what I’m about to tell her? “What do you know? Why are you here?”
I slide off the bed to retrieve my bag from the motel desk. Dumping the contents onto the mattress, I rummage through the bundled wad of cash and my clothes until I find what I’m looking for. Phoebe’s eyes pull together with confusion when I set her brother’s dog tags in her hands.
“These better be yours,” she warns, blinking down on them.
“I found them in our chief’s things,” I tell her in a quiet, level voice. “I don’t think your brother deserted like everyone thinks. I think whatever went down that day was buried because someone fucked up. I think…” I swallow past the thickness in my throat and finish by saying, “I think Logan is dead.”
Curling her fingers around the metal tags, she stutters on a surprised yelp before meeting my crushed gaze.
“What happened over there was a total clusterfuck,” I whisper, slipping a hand behind my neck. Memories of that day come back to me with blinding clarity as I slowly let them seep back in.
Guns and cries piercing the sky.
Bodies falling to the ground, stained with blood.
The stench of death.
“We were on leave for the weekend…we had all been drinking…the insurgents came out of nowhere. It was a fucking bloodbath. The chief was every bit as drunk as the rest of us, but he was still spewing orders. There were civilians killed…one was an American journalist…there were dead bodies everywhere. Our medic was shot, so I did what I could to help the injured. I lost track of the other guys in the madness. For the longest time we were worried that Bugsy was taken prisoner by the insurgents, but our chief swore up and down that he saw him driving off in a jeep. He could’ve easily been swept up into the cleanup pile of bodies without the rest of us knowing.”
I’m fairly certain Phoebe’s in shock the way she seems mostly unaffected by the news. The way she keeps blinking rapidly, I doubt she’s absorbing a single word. “If Logan’s really dead, wouldn’t someone have told Ellen?”
“Normally, yes. In Logan’s case…there was a lot of controversy surrounding his disappearance. It never made sense to me that he’d just run like that. Your brother wasn’t like that. He was brave…honorable.”
An odd, strangled laugh flies out of Phoebe’s mouth, but I continue.
“Your brother didn’t deserve to be swept under the rug. If he died serving his country, he was entitled to a military funeral. You and Ellen should’ve received a death gratuity. After I was sent back to California, I kept my ear to the ground and asked questions, suspecting something more was going on. Turns out the chief has a drinking problem and he was under speculation for what happened. After all the red tape and government nonsense, they basically dropped the issue. No one wanted to get their hands dirty by pointing fingers at a decorated officer. I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands.”
Eyes as wide as saucers, Phoebe drops down to sit on the mattress. “What did you do?”
“I followed the chief home off base one night, got him to pull over. He swore up and down there wasn’t any foul play with your brother, but I could tell he was lying when he refused to look me in the eye. And he had been drinking while on duty…I could smell whiskey on his breath. I told him that I’d turn him in if he didn’t come clean, and he pulled a gun on me. My knee-jerk reaction was to knock him out and take control of his gun. I considered shooting him for what felt like the longest time, to make him pay for fucking Bugsy over, then I remembered he had a big family, and couldn’t go through with it.
“I don’t know if someone called nine-one-one, or if a cop just happened to be driving past, but when I heard the blip of a siren and saw the flash of lights, I took off running. I hitched a ride back to my place to pack a bag and then cleared out my account at the bank down the street before anyone caught up with me. I bought the motorcycle with cash and fled San Diego. I’m so used to carrying a weapon that it didn’t occur to me until I was past the California border that I still had the chief’s gun. Last I checked with one of my buddies, they have a warrant out for me on assault with a deadly weapon and felony reckless evading a police officer.”
Phoebe throws her hands over her mouth, leaving her brother’s tags to dangle from her fingers. It guts me that I have to be the one to tell her, the one to break her heart.
“I’m sorry, gorgeous,” I manage in a thick voice. “When I met you, I didn’t know. I couldn’t have imagined…”
“This is why you’re on the run?” she asks, finally pulling her hands away from her mouth. “For trying to uncover what happened to my brother?”
Crouching down in front of her, I take one of her hands and press her fingers to my lips. “If they catch me, I’ll probably be sentenced to hard time. But I had to tell Bugsy’s family the truth before I went away. He was my Marine brother…I had to make sure they—you—were taken care of. I wanted his family to find peace.”
She sets a hand on the back of my neck and drops her face against the top of my head. I lean into her touch as my shoulders shake with a silent sob.
My eyes open to sunlight flooding the motel room. Wrapped securely in my hold, Phoebe’s warm breaths fall down on my naked chest. She didn’t cry after I told her everything. Instead she comforted me with kisses and caressing touches that led to a long session of gentle lovemaking. She’s so fucking strong and brave…just as her brother had been. I don’t get how something that feels so soft on the outside can be made of steel.
I’ve never felt this way about a chick before Phoebe. It’s like I can’t imagine another fucking day without her. But when she passed out in my arms, I knew without a doubt that I’ve fallen in love. I’ll do whatever it takes for us to be together.
Though hearing her mention fate reminded me of the last conversation I had with her brother, it seems that’s the only logical explanation that brought our journeys together. More specifically, Logan’s fate brought us to this point.
Then she’s stirring in my arms, making these cute little noises that pool all my blood to my dick. “Hey, beautiful,” she greets me in a husky, sleep-induced tone. “Is there something on my face? How long have you been staring at me?”
“Long enough to realize we need that ring if we’re going to hide out in that shack on the beach.”
Her lips curl with a bright, sexy smile.
As we start up the stairway alongside Ellen’s garage, I’m on high alert. We’re too fucking exposed in the daylight. For the first time since I tossed the chief’s gun into Lake Mead, I regret not keeping it for protection. Since we left the motel, Phoebe has been especially quiet. And jumpy.
With her hand on the doorknob to her apartment, she slowly spins around to look at me. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes are wet. Though it would be completely understandable if she was finally feeling emotional after what I had to say about her brother’s disappearance, this is something else.
“Jace, there’s something I have to tell you.”
Before she can say anything more, the door to the apartment swings open. Ellen leans against the doorframe, wearing a disgustingly skimpy tank top that re
veals most of her bra, cell phone pressed to her ear. The skin on the back of my neck prickles. This can’t be good.
“The hottie didn’t leave town after all,” she says dryly, dragging her lewd stare up and down my body. After ending the call, she slips her phone into her bra and gives me a sickening smile. “What’s wrong, sweetheart? Were you hoping for a go with a real woman before you split?”
“A real woman wouldn’t talk about her daughter that way,” I snarl, pulling Phoebe up tightly against my chest. “What are you doing in her apartment?”
“I own this place. Just like I own her.” From the slur of her voice, she sounds drunk.
“No you don't,” Phoebe snaps. “Not anymore.” Snatching my bag, she turns to brush her lips over my jaw and whispers, “I have to use the little girl’s room.”
Wiggling from my hold, she pushes past her mother. Stepping into the apartment, I catch Phoebe’s darkened gaze before she closes the bedroom door behind her. Ready to kick Ellen out so I can hear whatever Phoebe was about to tell me, I turn to the older woman. “Why are you here? What do you want from Phoebe?”
“I’m trying to understand why Decker is so determined to get his hands on her.”
“Because he’s psychotic,” I say with a growl. “He tried to kill her last night.”
“There’s more to it. You don’t know her like I do.” Pursing her lips, she takes a step closer. “She’s planning to fuck you over, handsome. Why do you think everyone in her life eventually leaves? I’m the only one who can tolerate her bullshit.”
Though I’d never hurt a woman, none have ever pushed my buttons this hard. I have to swallow past a sudden urge to slap the living shit out of her. “I won’t let you manipulate her into being your puppet any longer. You’re not fit to be a mother. Child services should’ve taken her away from you the day she was born.”
Ellen laughs in a bright cackle. “So she told you about her little secret? How adorable. Maybe the two of you should get married so you’re allowed conjugal visits.”