Forever (Eternity #1)

by Allyson Young

  “Don’t know what else to say, babe.” She punched the end-call button and hunkered down on the floor. The cell immediately shrilled. Dean.

  “You okay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Coming home.”

  “No. I’ll make dinner. It won’t be ready for awhile.”

  “Amy, I’m on my fucking way. Don’t you leave or call Sandra. This is for you and me to talk about.”

  “You didn’t talk to me about it before!” Her voice climbed the higher registers and she concentrated on her balance, her thigh muscles beginning to ache from the position.

  “It wasn’t something I thought you’d find out.” The sound of traffic in the background didn’t mitigate his blatant honesty, although why he’d withheld this from her…

  Speechless, she gulped in air. “I’ll be here.”

  “Will I need to watch that throwing arm of yours?”

  Ah, humor. Amy supposed she should recognize how their way of relating had progressed. Pity she wasn’t feeling in the mood to joke. She clicked off again, and dragged herself to her feet to go make a pitcher of margaritas, taking her time, forcing herself to calm down as she measured and double checked every ingredient. Maybe Mother Monica had something right after all.

  The first swallow tasted wonderful against her tight throat. She figured she’d wait until Dean got home before sorting through her jumbled reaction. Knowing him, he’d be flying along in that truck of his.

  Scrutinizing the frosty glass didn’t make things any clearer, and her outrage hadn’t been calmed by either concocting the drink, or drinking some of it. She took another swig.

  “Crack me a beer, sweetheart.” Dean came through the door, a man on a mission. Amy halted the next lift of the frosty glass to her lips, the anticipation of more of the sugar-rimmed edge, followed by the tart taste thwarted.

  Despite the shock of what she’d learned, the sight of him in those tight, faded jeans, leather jacket swinging loosely to reveal another fitted, black tee stirred her senses.

  Gray eyes watchful, he leaned down to pull his boots off. She got him a beer and set it on the coffee table. She made to sit in the leather chair but Dean forestalled her.

  “Ass on the couch, sweetheart. You’re not pulling away from me.”

  Well, shit. “You aren’t going to soften me up, Dean,” she warned, and defiantly took the far corner of the couch.

  “Didn’t think you’d find out, like I said, sweetheart, but I’ll say my piece.”

  She interrupted him. “Randy figured it out. You told him what you learned from me and he put it together, found out who Brent was. I asked you to leave it alone.”

  “And I considered it, for half a second. That kind of man, preying on women, he wasn’t going to stop, Amy. And the fucker hurt you.” The intensity in his voice made her flinch, and she took another drink before putting the glass down beside Dean’s beer. She’d lost the taste for it.

  “When did you find him?”

  “Couple of weeks after you told me—we had some other stuff going on or it would’ve been quicker. Randy can find anyone. He’s got contacts everywhere.”

  “Why Vegas?”

  Dean shrugged and reached out a long arm to snag her wrist, pulling her up against him. She didn’t resist, wondering why she didn’t. Maybe she was one of those people who secretly lusted for revenge and didn’t want to admit it? Maybe she was secretly thrilled that Brent had got his. “That was one of those things. Got word he was going, I know people there.”

  “And if it gets traced back to you?”

  “Never happen.”

  “And if it does? Just supposing? What if they connect the dots?” She could hear the bitter sarcasm in her tone and he pushed a hand through her hair to tip her head back. Instead of the icy glare she expected, the tenderness reflected in his gray eyes shut her up, until his next words.

  “Sweetheart, nothing’s going to happen to you.”

  Tearing herself out of his arms, she bumped the table, and her drink slopped every which way. Dean’s beer tipped over and she snatched at it, and then gave into her spiralling emotions. She hurled the bottle across the room, where it shattered with a gratifying smash and clatter, and tinkle of glass. Dean’s shocked face nearly drew laughter from her overworked brain, and she bit down against it, aware of how insane she would sound. Taking advantage of his apparent immobility, she jumped to her feet and set both hands on her hips, knowing she must look the quintessential fishwife.

  “Goddamn it, Dean! Are you so thick? It’s not me I’m worried about!”

  His big frame tensed, and his eyes went molten, and then he was on his feet, prowling to her. Yanking her against him, his mouth came down on hers, stealing anything else she thought she might spout in her indignation. His tongue worked against her own as he held her head steady for his kiss. All of the tension quite suddenly drained from her, and she sagged in his embrace.

  Pulling back, he stared down into her eyes. “Sweetheart. I’m sorry. I should have known you’d be worried about that, about me. But I promise you it’ll be fine.”

  Amy went with it, abdicating her stance, whatever it had been, bowing to the inevitable. It was done, and Dean would do what he believed to be right.

  He pressed her down on the couch cushion, never breaking the kiss. His hands smoothed down her arms and sides to slip beneath her shirt, branding her belly with heat and roughness, finding her bra clasp and popping it open. Her clothing was pushed up between them to bracket her throat, and Dean tore his mouth from hers to transfer his clever tongue to an exposed nipple, sliding down her body as he did so. A splinter of pain pierced the pleasure as his teeth nipped, then the two morphed and bloomed as he suckled and pinched the tender bud, rolling and tugging her other tip between a calloused forefinger and thumb. She arched into the sensation and spread her legs to the insistent nudge of his knee between hers, her pussy already creaming and soaking her underwear. He seamlessly switched breasts and Amy adjusted, wishing he had two mouths.

  Kissing his way down the center of her belly, wet, abandoned nipples aching and mourning, he worked the button and fly of her jeans and traced the exposed flesh above her panties with his tongue.

  “You smell so fucking sexy, sweetheart. Lift up.”

  One leg of her jeans slipped down and off, the other hung from an ankle as Dean tore the scrap of lace covering her crotch free. “Soaked.” He stared at her. “I freak you out, I think you’re scared and you are, but it’s for me. And still you’re drenched.”

  Hooking one of her legs over the back of the couch, the other bent at the knee to set her foot on the floor, Dean ran a finger between her folds. Peering up at him over the rucked up fabric below her chin, she met his gaze.

  “Want my mouth or my cock, Amy?”

  The long finger pushing up inside distracted her, as did the second one that joined it. He pressed his thumb on her sweet spot, a gentle pressure, just enough to hint at even better things to come. “Sweetheart?”

  “Cock.” She needed the closeness, the full body contact.

  His other hand went to his belt to free it as he continued to work between her legs. A moan built in her chest and worked its way up to spill over her lips. So close.

  “Hurry, babe.”

  Eyes darkening with his need, he opened his jeans and reached in to pull his cock free, the head glistening with precum, thick vein pulsing. His fingers left her wetness and painted a path over her mound and up to either breast before retreating to assist in the divesting of his jeans, shoving them down to his knees. He nearly fell onto her, a splayed palm on the cushion beside her head catching his weight. His cockhead slid into her, hitching at the initial stricture, then opening and stretching her sheath to accommodate his girth as he plunged deep to come up hard against her cervix.

  They both moaned and her eyes met his, falling into him.

  God, she loved his man.

  Her arousal plateaued with her thought. The sex was
slow and unhurried. He thrust and retreated, looking deep into her eyes. She could feel her release build from a slow simmer to an aching need to burst, and as the skin over Dean’s cheekbones tautened, she clenched hard around him. He ground his pelvis at the top of her apex and it was the touch she needed. Her climax peaked, sweet and full. He thrust twice more, and the heat of his cum, coupled with the prod of his cock deep within her channel, pushed her over again, hard on the heels of the first release, making her shudder.

  Dean shoved his arms under her to hold her through it and then lifted her and rolled to flatten her against the back of the couch, his softening cock still inside her, skin to skin.

  She tucked her chin into his throat and breathed in his scent, feeling his heart beat. After a time he stirred. “Okay?”

  “They could have killed him. I couldn’t stomach it thinking you—”

  “They knew not to, sweetheart. He just won’t raise a hand to a woman again. Literally.”

  She digested that and didn’t press for details. Dean dropped a kiss on her temple. “Dinner?”

  “I’ll get on it.” She supposed it was the least she could do after two orgasms, but really didn’t want to get up for the next decade or so.

  “Ordering in, sweetheart. What do you want?”

  ****

  As he consulted his phone for the number of the restaurant, and referred to the menu he’d unearthed from the drawer beside the stove, Dean wondered if he’d missed an opportunity to share all of the truth with Amy. It might have been too much for her to reconcile, right on the heels of learning he’d taken care of the asshole who’d hurt her. Still, he wondered if he’d fucked up.

  He thought back on his adult life. There hadn’t been any money for college, so Dean enlisted. He tested high, and after basic training got kicked into intelligence. That was an oxymoron in many cases, but he thrived in the military, on the routine, appreciating the cause and effect, despite the often resulting chaos. He became known for his ability to piece situations together, think outside the box, and excelled at interrogation, emotionally detached but skilled at faking it. He didn’t need to use his size and strength either, or at least, not often, because it was obvious what he was capable of to anyone with eyes in their head and working brain.

  The military-provided college education got him a degree in criminology and he was heading home after discharge, planning to apply at the police academy. An intense, solemn man, exuding power, approached him in the airport, had a quiet word, and Dean’s life changed forever. High stress, a demanding life on the edge and the money and lifestyle that came with it was offered and he took it, well aware of the danger. Hell, he jumped at it. He replaced the crime lord of his youth seamlessly; all of his bonafides, to fit with his new situation, polished and prepared and put in place by the man who became his handler.

  Dean weeded out the losers in the loosely knit organization and recruited others who were more competent. He led effortlessly, and his crew followed, people accepting that the kid from the old neighborhood got himself some good training in the military and used it well. If anyone noticed that street crime dropped in his territory, and the head of the competition, as well as his replacements, were incarcerated on a regular basis, it wasn’t traced back to him. The necessary violence was credited, however, and he used it to his advantage. He wasn’t an undercover cop—hell, he’d go to prison if the authorities caught him—although he was doing the work of one, without the rules and regulations.

  But all of it was with one long term goal in mind. There was a man who had managed to keep his identity secret, yet who was slowly building an empire of criminal enterprises on the west coast. It was a tantalising mystery to solve, a challenge Dean couldn’t resist, although it had taken far longer than he’d thought for that man to sniff around his enterprise. And now the time was coming…

  “Dean? When’s the food going to be here?”

  He yanked his thoughts to the present and hurriedly dialled and placed their order. Amy’s appetite sometimes rivalled his, and he’d kept his word insofar as helping her work off any unnecessary calories.

  Chapter Eight

  “I don’t get it. That’s the second place that’s pulled out of our action.” Dean shoved back from the desk and pushed out of his chair. Pacing sometimes helped.

  Randy lifted one shoulder. “I don’t even know how they were made, even, to be contacted. Burnett is chipping away at the fringes of the operation, buddy. And he’s ruthless. More’n you. Those little people are scared and it figures he’ll have convinced them they should fear him more than you.”

  Lowering his voice, although the place had been swept, and the rest of the crew were out “encouraging” the folks Dean had his thumb on, he had to ask. “You think Burnett smells something?”

  The man was like a ghost. Dean knew he existed, but few people ever saw him, and Randy had unearthed only one photo. A nebbish, unremarkable man, the kind you’d pass by on the street or lose in a crowd. But Dean would know him.

  “Don’t know how he would,” Randy said. “Just you and me are aware. Andrea thinks it’s me who crossed over, that I’m walking some kind of fine line. She’s okay with it and keeps quiet. And who would she tell without getting me killed?”

  “It must be interesting when Andrea and Amy get together then.”

  “She says Amy doesn’t bring up work, ever. Andi dropped a couple of thoughts one time, and she changed the subject.”

  Dean advanced on Randy. “Your woman playing some kind of game with mine?”

  “Hell, no. I think she was looking for any sign Amy knew about me, that you’d figured it out. It’s a fucking convoluted mess, Dean. Only I know you’re not really a career criminal. Andrea thinks I’m staying clear of the bad shit somehow, despite being an informant. I don’t like keeping the secret even though I know the reasoning behind it. Why won’t you tell Amy?”

  Jamming a hand through his hair, Dean turned on his heel and went to the coffee maker. “I’ve asked myself that. At first I couldn’t because we were new and she could have blown my cover. That’s why my previous connection with women was so perfect. No need to share. Now I feel I can trust her, and I don’t know how to tell her because she’ll be upset I withheld, didn’t trust her. It’s a big fucking secret for her to carry, as well.

  Randy muttered something and shook his head. He met Dean’s eyes. “I worry about Andi’s safety, too. Not a good plan to drag women into this.”

  “Can you imagine life without these two particular women?” Dean could hardly believe those words emerged, but he couldn’t imagine being without Amy.

  His woman was a never ending stream of surprises and pleasure. Nearly a year, and the sex never got old, the rush never dwindled. He wondered that he had the strength some days to get out of bed and tend to his business. Birth control early on made fucking her even better, seeing as he could ditch the condoms.

  But it was far more than the sex. She accommodated him, regardless of how autocratic he acted, as long as he was reasonable and she could make sense of it. Shit, she even took his old lady in stride. They never talked about his business despite the fact she found out his reach and power after the Whittaker deal. Aside from a couple remarkable displays of her temper, they rarely argued and her sweet, loving side was a soothing balm to his pocked soul.

  She told him, snuggled up to him in the dark, how he eased her burden of always having to take care, look out for herself. It humbled him even as he took fierce pride in providing for her, in meeting her needs and being a bulwark between her and the shit that could befall her. She loved him for who he was. Not only did she say it, it shone through her actions. Dean figured he’d soon come to say it back, allow it to fall from his mouth instead of biting it back, withholding that last part of him, a festering reminder of his past. Don’t love, don’t trust.

  “She’s something, your woman.” Randy was scrolling through a screen on his computer, multitasking. “Olsen snarked about you getting s
oft, whipped, at our July fourth party—drunk, the asshole—and she cut him a new one, cold as ice. Never raised her voice and he nearly kissed her feet apologizing.”

  “What the fuck?” That was news to Dean. Not that he was surprised about Amy dealing with Olsen on her own.

  “You went to get more beer. Helping out. You never helped out like that before, and people took notice. You do things differently because of her. In a good way, Dean, so quit with that fucking look.”

  “I’m fine with different, Randy. I’m not fine with Olsen.” And he’d be chatting with the man, only because Olsen bothered Amy.

  “She dealt, Dean. Double jeopardy, remember? Not something you support? And it’ll make others speculate if you intervene.”

  It didn’t take long for him to regain his senses. He didn’t always need to protect Amy. She had the tools and it would be good to remember that she chose her battles, like she did with him. An uncomfortable feeling of dread flitted through his gut as he recalled how sick she’d been several weeks ago. Some kind of flu. He’d driven her to the hospital himself, over her objections, calling Sandra to meet them there. Seeing her hooked up to IV bags freaked him. He held her while they shoved the needles she hated in, her silent tears chipping away at his control, wanting to punch the male nurse on her behalf.

  Sandra softened towards him that day, seeing his concern for her friend, but he’d have gladly forgone that change in attitude, rather than have his woman suffer like she did.

  They sent her home, rehydrated, the high fever broken, with a prescription for antibiotics to help with the chest infection, and she recovered quickly. Dean took turns taking care of her with Sandra, both of them ignoring Amy’s protests. Sandra had even attended the Fourth of July party, although she left early and avoided Enrico like the plague. The youngest member of his crew didn’t seem affected one way or the other, the tall, red headed piece of ass on his arm a standout among the other more conservatively dressed women. But Dean couldn’t help but note the way Enrico watched Sandra leave.