by Angel Payne
She needed no other stimulus. In three clean moves, my little jungle girl tossed the robe, shoved down the shorts then flicked away the tank top. As she straightened, the room grew brilliant with the dawn, amber and peach rays turning her nudity into a living work of art. I stared with no more grace than a dork in an art gallery, afraid to move my hands for fear of smearing the paint.
She cocked her head and inched a tiny smile. “All better?”
I still couldn’t speak. She was beauty that defied words…a perfection I seriously didn’t deserve.
I gave up on constructing a sentence, let alone speaking one. At least movement returned. Slow slides. Reverent touches. Taking the time to remember every part of this, knowing it would be one of the things that brought a smile to my face when I prepared to meet my maker. I glided over the cream perfection of her thighs, into the adorable dip of her navel, across the curves of her rib cage, up to the stiff peaks of her breasts. With every inch I covered, Margaux inhaled with pleasure, transforming from jungle girl to dawn goddess…my own Aurora of light and desire.
“You take my breath away.” My voice was rough with need, born in a part of me so deep, I couldn’t identify it—nor wanted to. The words consumed the sublime tension before I dipped my lips to her nipples. The erect tips tasted as good as their cinnamon-sugar color, her taste bursting on my tongue. The warmth of her body spread into mine, inundating me…hardening me.
“You take my breath away, too.” She squeezed my dick even tighter, rolling her thumb through the hot moisture that pulsed there, far beyond my control…almost beyond my knowledge.
“Christ,” I grated. “You make me lose my mind, woman.”
As her eyelids dipped, heavy with arousal, sunlight glinted on the tips of her lashes. “That’s the general idea.”
“Not yet, it isn’t.”
Her gaze widened again. I was ready with a stare of pure intent. The lip service of my apology wasn’t going to be enough. I needed to show her, in vivid detail, how precious a treasure she was to me…how I’d spend the rest of my life adoring her, pleasuring her.
She had time for a short, giddy yelp as I swung her around then swooped her down, across the dining room table. “Michael! What the—”
“Ssshhh.” I positioned her ass at the edge, with her legs dangling over. They didn’t hang for long. With commanding yanks, I hooked her thighs over my shoulders—before my knees hit the floor. “Let me worship my sweet Tarzan girl.”
A laugh sprang out of her, more brilliant than the entire sky beyond the windows. “Am I supposed to give one of those wild yells, then?”
“Not yet.” I burrowed my nose between her trimmed ginger curls, inhaling her intimate scent. “Not until I find your magic forest jewel.”
A startled cry burst from her as I started exploring, using the tip of my tongue. “F-forest—j-jewel?” She tried to laugh. It was a cute little gurgle, instead. “You did not just s-say that!”
“What? You want me to quit my…quest?” I nipped at the sweet pink layers that led the way to her deepest core. Took another deep breath. She smelled so fucking good, a mixture of eucalyptus and musk and woman. And wet…she was already so wet, her cleft dripping with rivulets of the smoothest, sexiest cream. Was there any bigger turn-on than knowing I’d done this to her?
“I—I didn’t say to quit.” Her hips jerked off the table. “Ohhhh…damn! Michael.”
“Mmmmm.” The more I sampled of her pussy, the deeper I craved to feast, to lick, to bite. Her body was a fruit that never ceased amazing me, seducing me, fulfilling me. At moments like this, I had to wonder if the fruit Eve had offered to Adam had truly been an apple. If that temptation had been anything like this, I didn’t blame the guy for giving in, eternal damnation be screwed. “You’re so perfect, sweetheart…such a delicious pussy…all for me.”
“Yes.” Her heels dug into my back. Her hands tangled in my hair. “All for you. All…for…ahhhh!”
Her shriek took over as I pushed past her hood with my tongue, swiping fully at the nub beneath. I eagerly sucked her throbbing clit, detonating another scream, vibrating her whole body. I took her to the precipice, but let her hover in weightless wonder, like a diver on a cliff, waiting for gravity to take over the plunge. While the rest of her body froze, her sex kept trembling, almost reaching for me…
From the outside in, I wrapped both hands around her thighs. Gripped her hard…then slid my tongue into her tunnel.
She orgasmed around me like a perfect jungle princess. Her screams filled the room. Her hips lunged up. She pounded the table in a crucial cadence, a golden wild woman, frantic with lust.
I rose up while the tremors still consumed her, spearing my cock straight into her. We groaned together at the violent bliss. Her head fell back. She flung her arms in the same direction, seizing the edge of the table to brace for my next thrusts—
But this morning wasn’t about fucking her.
It was about giving to her. Connecting with her.
I went completely still. Let her feel my cock expanding, flesh to flesh, heartbeat to heartbeat, inside her. Only then did I start to move again, rolling into her like the waves into which the diver had plunged, deep and slow and hard.
She rolled her head back up and squeezing her hands, still locked behind my skull, even tighter. Her eyes, so brilliant and pure and green, threw open the depths of her soul for me. For the first time in my life, I opened mine the same way. As our bodies locked and twined, our hearts meshed and grew…a force that slammed me like a punch. My senses reeled, making me lean over, my body seeking the only stability that made sense.
Margaux. Getting deeper into her. Clinging harder onto her.
“Don’t look away.” It was an open plea and I didn’t care.
“Never.” As the vow left her, she lifted her hips higher. I let my head dip between my shoulders, taking her mouth and her tongue, drawing in as much of her as I could. Her body gripped mine tighter, pulled me down farther, but it still wasn’t enough. Would it ever be enough?
“Fuck,” I gritted.
“I know, baby,” she rasped back. “I know.”
“I need to crawl inside you.”
“I need to wrap around you.”
“Take it from me, Margaux.”
“Give it to me, Michael.”
Her whisper told me everything—that she knew I’d surpassed referencing my body and now petitioned her with the fabric of my spirit, my heart, my seed. Her eyes gave me her understanding as her body gave me her surrender, taking me in, taking me higher…taking me to completion. With my stare fastened to hers, I came in a burst of light and fire and need—and for a brief flash, of fantasy. Just the thought of my liquid life forming a life inside her…I reeled all over again. Never had I wanted a truth to be more real.
Never had I known, with more clarity or conviction, that I’d met the woman I’d love for the rest of my life.
* * * *
“Oh my God, Michael!”
Though I chuckled externally, my mojo did a touchdown dance. I loved making this woman feel good. I loved it even better when I made her groan like that—even with her clothes on.
I kneaded my thumbs harder into the arch of her foot. Her head fell back, over the couch’s arm. “So the cramp is better?”
She flashed a contemplative glance. “If I say yes, are you going to stop?”
I leaned over to nibble the top of her foot. “I have a hard time stopping anything when it comes to touching you, sugar.”
“Just the way I like it.” She snuck her teeth over her bottom lip. I watched, heating from the inside out, flowing the frustration of my cock into my rubs on her foot.
“You keep that up, and there won’t be any way to keep me down.”
Her chest heaved a little, as if contemplating a bite of the sinful fruit I offered. “I could call in late…”
“And Claire wouldn’t guess why?”
She huffed. “Like she hasn’t done the same thing a t
housand times?” Using the line to distract me, she slipped her other foot in place of her first. “But, ugh, you’re right. Talia and I have a meeting with the special events company handling the cosmetics launch in Vegas, then we have to decide on color names for the lipstick line.”
I stroked into the valley beneath her toes. “Color names?”
“Yeah, like ‘Rocket Me Red’ or ‘Scarlet Charisma,’ only multiply that by a couple hundred. We have to whittle it down to ten.”
I forced a serious façade. “How about ‘Come-Fuck-Me Crimson’?”
“Beast.” She rolled off the couch as I gave in to a snicker.
“Your beast.”
“Truth.” She pulled me up then stood on tiptoe to peck me on the lips. “I’m sure you have a busy day to start, as well.”
“Hmmph. Yeah. A very busy day. It’s going to be a jam-packed bundle of thrills.”
She sighed and twisted her ring. “I’m sure this isn’t any easier for Quade and Rin—but you can’t blame them for asking you to lie low until this shit is ancient history.”
I scowled as I slipped her shoes onto her feet—a pair of glossy black stilettos that turned her legs into pure sex and her toes into lethal weapons. “You’re right. And I should be damn grateful they still believe in me.” I caught her eye again, forcing a quick smile. “But a man of leisure I am not, sugar, unless those hours are spent servicing you.”
Margaux allowed her gaze to travel off my face and over my bare torso. I hadn’t hit the shower yet, so my track pants were the foot massage therapist wear for the morning. “If this is your idea of man of leisure, you need to reconsider that offer of being my official boy toy.”
My grin turned genuine. If there was an upside to the Declan mess, it was the extra hours I’d spent having my ass kicked on Pacific Beach by Keir Healey, a buddy from college who ran his own personal training company. Admittedly, the extra fitness kept me from going stir-crazy. Now if I could only do something as worthwhile with my mind.
Today, I decided, I would.
“Sorry, sweetheart. The boy toy fantasy will have to wait.” I rose and held out a hand, helping her do the same. “I’m going to call Doug today. Arrange a time to meet at his office for those updates.”
She looked up at me with distinctly shiny eyes. “For that, I’ll gladly back-burner your harem pants and monkey vest.”
I lifted a brow. “Show me a monkey vest and we’ll be visiting the school desk again.”
“Promise?”
I yanked her into a kiss, deep and wet and languorous, while I still could. Once the berry stain hit those full lips, I had to share them with the world at large. “Off with you, wench,” I teased. “The Stone empire awaits the jewel in its crown.”
She gave a sassy smirk. “I think my brother may have something to say about that.”
“Well, your brother isn’t here, is he?”
She giggled, the sound swelling my heart. “Incorrigible.”
I pulled her close again, hoping to sneak one more peck before the stain came out, but somebody knocked on the front door.
Correction. Pounded on the front door.
“What the hell?” I muttered.
Margaux’s brows pushed together. “It’s too early for deliveries. Even if it wasn’t, I’m not expecting anything.”
“Maybe it’s priority from the office?”
“Or Doug?”
She issued that while reaching for the doorknob. I snatched her elbow, yanking her back. Her hopeful mention of Doug turned into my sinister suspicion of other parties involved in this tangle—actually, only one party.
“Wait,” I gritted.
“What?”
“It won’t be Doug.”
The apprehension in my voice sharpened her gaze. “Then who?”
I tucked her behind me as I peered through the peep hole.
Puzzlement eclipsed my alarm. “There’s nobody there.”
“Huh? But—” She fell silent as I unlocked the door then cracked it an inch. “What…the…”
I was right. There was no one standing there.
But there had been. The ding and swoosh of the elevator doors were proof that a strange Santa Claus had arrived at our place a few weeks early.
Strange, indeed—for Santa had forgotten his sack, seemingly hauled all the way down from the Cayamaca Mountains.
Its exact origin was emblazoned in huge red letters across the heavy brown burlap—three words I’d seen so many times, they were part of my blood.
PEARSON’S APPLE FARM
“Well.” Margaux cocked her head and looped a lopsided smile. “I guess you were the one with the surprise shipment.”
“Surprise is right,” I replied, dragging the bag in.
“Care package from the hill. That’s so cute. Maybe Di’s worried I’m not feeding you enough.”
“My mother loves you and you know it. Besides, this doesn’t feel like produce—unless they’ve started growing coconuts and didn’t tell me.”
She kicked off her heels and braced her hands to her hips. “What do you mean?”
“I mean it’s fucking heavy, especially for a post-season haul. If it’s apples, I’d be really surp—”
I was cut off by a long, taut moan.
A moan from the inside the bag.
A moan…I already knew.
With boldness only possible because of denial and stupidity, I plummeted to my knees. Margaux followed, helping me wrench at the sack. I yanked at the ties with focus born of panic, watching my hands as if through a tunnel. The distance didn’t help the dread, confirmed in all the darkest reaches of my gut, via bile that ate my body and raged through my soul—forcing me to heed instincts that had, long ago, reaffirmed my uncle’s evil for all it really was.
Margaux shoved the burlap aside—
Revealing a woman.
Hair that was the shade of mine—sort of. In the places it wasn’t matted with blood.
A face that had laughed with me, smiled for me—barely recognizable through a maze of cuts and bruises.
Arms that had always been my shelter, my strength—now twisted, limp…lifeless.
No.
“Mom.” I reached for her. “Mom!”
No.
I gripped harder. Harder.
You shouldn’t. Don’t disturb her. Get help. Call for help.
But I’d always been the help. I’d always been her help. We’d always been there for each other, shelter and comfort and strength for each other.
Not this time.
Where had I been when she’d needed me this time?
“Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom!”
Please.
Please.
Please.
Wake up.
Wake up.
Wake up.
“Mom!”
It was the bellow of an animal. The howl of a creature lost to the worst kind of rage and despair—because it was directed at the stubborn monster inside as much as the fucking beast who’d ordered this done to her. Perhaps had done it himself.
That answer didn’t matter anymore. Who had delivered this damage—it wasn’t important.
My mother was half-dead. Perhaps more than half.
And I was just as guilty of the violence as Declan.
Chapter Twelve
Margaux
“She’s alive.”
It rushed out of me nearly as one word, a burst of triumph after pressing a finger to her neck and feeling the sketchy flutter of her pulse inside her clammy skin.
Not clammy. Wet. Di was taking a bath in her own blood.
But she was alive.
Barely.
I looked to Michael. Every cell of my body wanted to crawl into his lap and hold him. He looked like he’d just stared death in the eyes, lost the contest then retreated into himself, shoving back against the sofa. With knees clutched to his chest, he started mumbling to himself—fast, furious words I couldn’t make out.
But one of us needed to th
ink. To move into action.
“Michael? Michael!”
He didn’t rip his gaze from his mother. Shock, disbelief, grief—probably a mix of all three—had already taken him hostage.
This shit was on me.
I answered that charge with a steeled murmur. “Do this, girl. You know you can.”
I scrambled to the foyer credenza then whipped out my phone. Dialing emergency professionals should’ve been my first instinct, but it wasn’t. I needed calming courage. Now.
My thumb jabbed the speed dial for Andre. I didn’t wait for him to finish his greeting.
“Can you come up to the condo? Are you nearby?”
“Yeah. I’m on my way over now. Everything okay?”
“No.” I fought to ignore the tremble in my voice. “Just hurry. Please.”
I hung up with him then frantically punched in three more numbers. It seemed like forever until the line connected.
“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”
“Y-yes. H-hello. There is a—well, a woman—my boyfriend’s mother—here. On the floor. She’s been badly beaten.” I almost laughed. ‘Badly beaten’ was a fucking joke compared to the carnage across Di Pearson’s body. “Sh-she’s unconscious. Can you help me? Please?”
“Yes. Can you confirm you are at seven-zero-two Ash Street?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the El Cortez.”
“Does that fucking matter?”
“Can you give me your unit number, Miss?”
Oh. Right. It did matter. Breathe. Breathe. Think. Think. “I’m on the fifteenth floor. I’ll have my assistant meet them in the lobby. They can’t get up without a key card.”
“Emergency services can, ma’am.”
And apparently, Declan Pearson—or whoever had carried out his dirty work.
“Oh.” Every word I stammered felt like pushing out a boulder. “Okay.”
“Stay on the line with me until they arrive. Is the woman breathing?”
“Y-yes. I think so.”
“Can you check? Take the phone with you, if you can.”
I leaned over Di. Took a second to brush a hand over her forehead, cheeks and neck. She was even clammier—and so damn cold. “She’s breathing, but it’s not right. It’s soft and shallow, not regular…like in a regular pattern. God, I’m not making any sense.”