“Hello, my sweet baby girl.”
The familiar timber of a deep, raspy voice I never thought I’d hear again drifted out of the speakerphone at the same time that two fat, overdue tears spilled from my eyes.
“Hi, Daddy,” I heard myself say. “God, I just can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you.”
It was the truth. There was no way to tell what direction this conversation would take, or if I’d see my father face to face, or whether my heart would ever mend after this call. But no matter where it would take me, I had the unwavering, steady hand of support of a man who would be there to let me face it on my own terms.
That was when I knew Caleb had my heart.
Epilogue
Eight Months Later
At exactly fifty-five minutes after his private plane had landed, Caleb strode into my office. I was officially his executive assistant and office manager now, a job that, when it came down to it, was exactly the kind I’d been hoping for. Caleb had won me over for the incubator project all those months ago. Thank the lord that I’d given him a chance too. I soon learned that once I allowed myself to let go of my fears and hang ups about working with the man I was romantically involved with, it was actually a great working arrangement. We learned from each other every day and were both mature enough to be professional once we walked through the doors of Caleb’s home office suite.
Well, most of the time.
I walked over to the middle of the room where my man stood, waiting for me to greet him like we always did.
“There’s my girl,” he said, reaching his hand into my hair and planting a firm kiss on my mouth, one that left me breathless every single time. “How bad did you miss me?”
“A lot, babe,” I answered, panting a little to catch my breath, and getting myself ready.
Like every other time, he bent forward slightly and pulled me up over his shoulder, my ass in the air and head halfway down his back as he carried me to his side of our now larger, shared office suite at his home.
Our home.
It was less than two months ago that I’d moved in with him. I’d been in his bed almost every night anyway. And when he’d gotten down on one knee, his eyes shining up at me as brightly as the huge princess-cut diamond engagement ring he held up toward me, I’d ecstatically said yes. And the official move came shortly after that. He’d even met my father. We had invited him over for dinner one evening. Dad had found some help for his PTSD, and was slowly making his way back into my life. Maybe he would be the one to walk me down the aisle, like I had pictured it when I was a little girl. His sweet girl.
“I sure hope your sweet ass missed me while I was gone,” he hollered lightheartedly, his free hand slowly dragging up my pencil skirt before he ripped my lacy panties away in one sharp tug.
“God, Caleb. Yes, I missed you so bad,” I moaned. I would never get used to how much that simple move aroused me.
He gripped a handful of my thick ass and maneuvered me onto his heavy, vast mahogany office desk. Wrapping my legs around his hips, he freed his dick and rubbed the tip against my swollen folds, his eyes dark with need.
“That’s it, baby. Open for me.”
He’d been home for less than five minutes, and already, he was lining up his cock at my opening and driving deep into me, filling me to completion, a silent reminder that with me, in me, he was where he belonged.
So maybe we weren’t professional at all in the workplace. But it worked. His business became more and more successful with every passing day. I was happy to be along for the ride, although he would often tell everyone who would listen that I was the brains of the operation. It was nice to hear, even if it was mostly him being sugary sweet to me.
With one hand in my hair and the other gripping my hip, he pumped into me, over and over, claiming every inch of me, and then some. And when he delivered one of those insistent kisses on my lips and trailed down to that spot on my neck that he knew made me lose all control, I surrendered to my pleasure and allowed my body to give in as I pulsated through an all-encompassing, soul-deep climax.
With an effortless motion, as soon as my heavy breaths started to settle, he eased out of me and turned me around, bending me over the desk. Oh my lord, how I loved it when he took me like this. It felt like heaven, the way his cock would hit me at a new angle each and every time, while his palms cupped my breasts, his fingers played at my nipples, and his lips molded to my shoulder or neck to expand the waves of my first orgasm into a second, and sometimes a third. It was as though his entire frame was custom-built to create worlds upon worlds of pleasure in me. And at those times, nothing else outside our own little bubble mattered.
What I loved the most was how whatever he did to me, or me to him, had a way of inching him closer to his orgasm. Stroke by stroke, touch for touch, and even the sounds of each word on our heavy breaths played their part, until his seed was coating my inner walls, and the mix of our scents hung lovingly in the air around us.
Today it was no different, and after he came, we rested in the same spot, our bodies one, our breaths one, just like the life we had started building together.
“Tell me about your trip,” I whispered when I could think and speak again.
“It was a trip. Like the others,” he answered. “And you should’ve been there like I asked.”
“One of these days,” I offered. “But I like missing you this much. If I joined you on those trips, we wouldn’t have these naughty reunions on this desk.”
“Baby, we can fit this desk on my plane, or a replica of it. And at any satellite office I need to visit.”
“Well, if you put it that way,” I teased, nudging my hips back to set his need ablaze again. It didn’t matter how spent or sore I was, another well of desire could spring up from deep within, just as he would be hard and ready to be back on the horse with the slightest hint of my growing need. “Take me, cowboy. Take me good and hard.”
“Happy to oblige my woman,” he chuckled low, taking me anew.
I was no longer fighting my past, or my fate. I wasn’t running from anything anymore. Now, with Caleb, I was running toward something good. I was finally ready to accept a bright, challenging and fulfilling happily ever after for myself, one that included lots and lots of naughty times with the older, wiser country boy who right-sized my heart.
The END, and … If you liked this book, you will love Joanna Blake’s Cuffed and Bella Love-Wins’ Wolf. Here are very short excerpts of each one, just for you!
Excerpt of Wolf - Bella Love-Wins
Rose
“How the fuck did you find me, little girl?” my tall, dark and dangerous stalker says from his spot at the large bay windows, his voice threatening.
I don’t answer him when he turns to face me. All I do is take him in. The setting sun creates a menacing silhouette of his body as light floods in with hues of gold, orange, and purple. He’s gigantic. He must be close to six feet five inches tall. His broad, muscular frame has a leanness to it. It’s not quite a runner’s build, but I can tell from the fit of his clothes that he has a rigid workout routine.
I scan his body from up in his thick, jet black hair, all the way down to his dark, polished military boots. On instinct, I know to assume that a man like him is packing hidden weapons, but a thorough visual inspection can’t hurt. I can’t help but appreciate what I see in front of me. From his spot at the bay window, the sunset hits his face at an angle, and the flecks of his eyes start to sparkle like diamonds.
Then I notice that he’s doing his own search of my body. His brows raise as he checks me out from top to bottom. Not that he needs to. That camera he’s been using to watch me has a telescopic lens that can probably pick up the finest freckles on my nose and cheekbones. I’m sure he’s seen a lot. Still, that predatory expression in his eyes makes me feel like he’s looking through me, beyond my clothes and possible weapons, beyond my hardened heart, straight to my soul. Heat washes over me under his gaze. My pulse jumps, and I gl
ance away from his face briefly to catch my breath.
Continuing my appraisal, his dark gray muscle shirt and black casual pants show the sharp lines of his fit body. There are no tattoos visible on his body, but I find myself wondering whether he has some elsewhere. I have no reason to, other than the fact that he looks like the kind of man who’d have one or two. His chest perhaps, or maybe something that takes up his entire back. I’d kind of like to find out first hand… if he doesn’t try to kill me first. Or vice versa.
I take one step backward, and that’s all it takes for him to react. He storms over to me, taking surprisingly light, ground-eating steps from the window that served as his perch to spy on me for the last week or longer.
He’s ready to attack.
But I’m ready too.
When his large, callused hand grips my upper arm, my other hand is quickly up at his collarbone. I angle my wrist, and a wave of satisfaction washes over me when my Bowie knife is less than an inch from his throat. But he’s just as quick as I am. I feel the hard steel of a handgun pressing on my ribs. I’m not afraid, though. Everybody dies, eventually. Plus, my odds are promising. I can slice his jugular in about the same amount of time it’ll take for him to let off a round from his gun. Maybe less. Except, keeping a knife at this particular man’s throat will take a hell of a lot of extra effort for me. He’s way over six feet tall, eclipsing my five-foot-one height by a huge margin. I may be small, but I won’t be intimidated. Years of mixed martial arts training, daily practice, and this knife are on my side.
“Who are you and why have you been watching me?” I demand.
He moves forward slightly, ignoring my sharp blade when it touches his skin. “It’ll take a lot more than a tiny pigsticker to scare me, Little Red,” his voice rumbles at me.
I’m not too impressed that he assumes he can call me Little Red. It’s a pet name that I only let Grams call me. Everyone else is at arm’s length, acquaintances who wouldn’t dare get that comfortable with me. And he’s not even that. At best, he’s a complete stranger. Worst case scenario, he’s my enemy.
“Haven’t you heard it’s not the size that matters?” I warn. “And by the way, that’s a nice drawl you have. I take it you’re a southern boy. Let me guess. Houston? Austin? No, wait. You’re either a Baton Rouge or Lafayette native. Am I right?”
“Good ear,” he confirms and presses up closer to me. So close that our bodies touch. So damn close that I look up and see not only his steel gray eyes but the slight trickle of blood at the spot where my knife meets his neck.
“You’d be surprised how much I can figure out about you from just spending a few more minutes here.”
“Show me,” he says, daring me to prove what I can do.
“You lace up your boots like someone with Special Ops training, tight to just below your ankle, with a few rows of the laces undone, just in case you have to wake up and shove your feet into them to move from one place to another at a moment’s notice. You cut your own hair, and I can tell from the slight nick on that one spot on your hairline. You also finished a military op very recently. Somewhere sunny, from the tan line of the chain you hold your dog tags on. Shall I go on?”
“Impressive.”
“Yes, but let’s not get too distracted. I asked you a question.”
“It doesn’t matter who I am or why I’m here,” he growls. “What matters is how much longer I’ll play your little game, and how much time you’ll have left if you keep digging that knife into my neck. By my estimation, it isn’t a lot.”
“Why you’re here is all that I care about. Although I’m starting to think it’s better if you’re not here at all.” I add extra pressure to the knife to get my point across. If I press much more, it’ll cut into his jugular and then it’s bye-bye, Mr. Sexy Stalker. “Do you like your life? Do you like breathing air? It’s a lot easier than choking on your own blood. Tell me what I want to know.”
I’ve been involved in mixed martial arts for a long time. At least ten years. But clearly, I don’t know it all. In a split second, he somehow pivots and finds a way to push the blade away. He instantly lifts me off the floor and turns me around. With one goddamned hand. I’m so angry at myself for giving him the leeway he needed to have this advantage over me now. I try to fight him off as my knife falls, but he’s too fast. He gets behind me, his gun digging into my side, and his big body has me jammed up against the wall beside the door I came in.
He gurgles out a low chuckle. “The only answer you’ll get from me is advice. Do you want to hear it?”
“No, I want you to fuck off and leave me alone,” I shout.
“Well here’s the advice, anyway. Next time you try to confront your pursuer, be ready for anything.”
“Let me go right this instant!” I scream, struggling to break free. “Or just kill me right now, because if you don’t, I’ll be the one after you, you big bastard.”
“If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t need to watch you for days or weeks before I actually do it. You’d be six feet under a week ago, long before you had a chance to figure out that I’m watching you.”
He wedges me against the wall with the weight of his body, and his free hand runs slowly up my arm.
“Stop that right now!” I shout.
Ignoring me, his hand moves up from the curve of my hips and past my waist. “Fuck, all these curves in this tiny body are enough to make me want to do more than just this weapons pat-down,” he whispers at the whorl of my ear. He stops over my breasts, massaging the flesh for a moment before slipping his hand past my collarbone and across my neck.
“Please stop,” I say as his straying hand comes to rest with his fingers buried in my long hair. This time I’m begging, but I hear the weakness of my voice and can’t help but become angry at myself. His touch ignites my body, sending heat and need to places I’ve never known could feel this hot.
“Make me,” he dares, and tugs my hair back, immobilizing my head, probably so I don’t reverse head-butt him in the face. I feel his lips at my ear and his hard cock at my back, and when his hips rock forward, I know it’s intentional, to make me fear for what he’ll do next, to show me that I’m at his mercy.
Reaching back with my arms, I catch fistfuls of his shirt and try to move him away, but it only makes him lean more of his body weight into me. I use one foot to back-kick his shins, but it’s no use. I have zero leverage.
“If you’re not going to kill me, let me go,” I ask again. A faint whiff of his woodsy cologne hits my nostrils, and I swear my body reacts with a tremor. Then I feel his mouth at my earlobe. He tugs the flesh with his teeth, and his lips slide down to my neck, sucking one spot so hard I’m sure it’ll leave a mark. I curse myself as my hips push back into him, getting a firmer feel of his dick on me. I want to resist. I want to fight with everything in me, but I have to admit, I also want to stay and find out what else he’ll do to my body. I should be ashamed for feeling this way about the man who’s been shadowing me all week. I just can’t help it.
“I’ll let you go, Little Red,” he growls. “But just remember. You might’ve found me, but I’m the one who marked you. Be grateful that I don’t follow my urge to fuck the fight out of you. Right here against this wall.”
His words hit me like a Mack truck, sending unfamiliar need coursing through my veins, all the way to my pulsing core.
Losing my parents so early on made me mistrustful and at a distance from most everyone. I’ve never had a man or boy put his cock this close to me, and I never had the desire to. Survival and blending in were my only two goals. I think my life or death instinct kept the boys away too. They looked, but they never made a move on me all through high school. I probably intimidated them. But this man, he’s not in the least bit afraid of me. I’m intoxicated. It’s as though his words, his body, his mere presence is a key that unlocks my body and makes it come alive.
“I’m going to count to three,” he continues in a threatening groan and tugs my hair a little
harder. “On three, I’ll let you go, and you’ll have five seconds to pick up your pigsticker and get the fuck out of here. Understood?”
“Dammit,” I answer, feeling my anger bubble up my chest for letting him have the upper hand this time. “Okay yes, but can I at least know the name of the man I plan to place at the top of my list of enemies? Just in case it isn’t clear, I mean you.”
“I can give you one of a dozen fake names. None of them will help you track me down. But as you asked nicely, it’s Thorne Pierce. You’ve been marked by The Hunter, Little Red.”
Holy crap.
I gasp and wish I hadn’t made a sound the moment after I hear it. I know exactly who he is, though I shouldn’t have been so obvious about it. I’ve heard of him. He’s a tracker, a mercenary, a cold killer with no mercy. His name is uttered on lowered breaths in underground circles, in places I make it my business to stay connected to, if only to be aware of them, if and when I become the object of a hit. To the outside world, where most people have the mistaken belief that what they see is all there is, this man is no one. A ghost. But I know better. And now, I’ve seen his face.
“One. Two. Three.” On three, he does as he promises, taking one massive step back.
I’m sure that his gun must still be trained on me. He’s not that stupid. Reaching down, I grab my knife, and I run. I’ll live another day. The first thing I need to do is get my grandmother and best friends out of harm’s way. After that, The Hunter will become the hunted, and I won’t stop until one of us is dead.
Keep Reading Wolf on Amazon
Excerpt of Cuffed – Joanna Blake
“Scream all you want, honey. No one’s gonna hear you.”
She tugged frantically at the cuff on her her ankle, then stopped to glare at me. Dammit, the old stereotype was true. Casey was even prettier than usual when she was angry.
Winning the Virgin: A Western Billionaire Cowboy Romance Page 9