Heart Song Anthology

by Carolyn Faulkner

  He flicked his tongue, then migrated downward. Kissing a line down her stomach he had to release her wrists to go lower, and immediately her hands found his hair, gripping her fingers through the long strands.

  He pressed back up, trapping her arms again beside her shoulders. “Be still, and enjoy your Valentine’s Day gift.”

  He slid back down and this time she laid obediently still, looking up at the ceiling of red, white, and pink balloons. She felt his fingers work across her abdomen, stripping her the rest of the way of her warm clothing. He then grabbed her legs and slid her closer to him, one leg resting on either broad shoulder.

  The first stroke of his tongue was euphoric. She reached her hands above her head and threaded her fingers through the sheets, gripping hard and fast, her head flinging back against the mattress as she moaned. His tongue found her clit with practiced ease, his arms wrapping around her legs to press into her stomach, further separating her lower lips to him and his explorative mouth.

  She groaned as he flicked his tongue, his breath coming in gasps. She looked down at him, her eyelids fluttering. His face, still shielded by a ski mask, was completely hidden between her thighs except for the flash of his baby blues, which gazed up at her, taking her in at the angle he currently had her pinned.

  The mystery of the ski mask somehow made her blood boil more. As if he were robbing her body, giving her pleasure by taking pleasure for himself.

  She moaned again, her whole body shuddering with that thought in mind. He lowered his mouth to cup her throbbing pussy, eating any and all of the juices spewing from within. He sucked her dry, then came to lay over top of her again, licking the moisture from his lips. “I’ve missed your taste.”

  Her face heated, her whole body caught in a blush beneath his intensely loving gaze. “I want you,” she breathed. “Now.”

  “You don’t make the demands here, baby girl. I do.” A sly smile pulled up both of his cheeks beneath the mask. God, she loved it when he smiled. So rare and yet so iridescent it inspired her own lips to lift upward. A feeling that could only be described as love fluttered through her gut. She loved him, that at least had not changed.

  Untangling her hands from the sheets, she reached up and removed his mask while he turned his head and kissed her palm.

  He kissed a line up her arm from her wrist to her temple. “You seem a little overheated,” he observed, breathing heavily against her ear. “Let’s cool you down a bit.”

  He swept his strong arms around her waist and hoisted her into his arms. Instinctively she wrapped her legs around his midsection and her arms around his neck, trying to help him hold herself around him as if he needed the aid.

  He carried her with ease, hardly even watching where he was going, his icy eyes were only focused on her. She reached up and stroked a line of balloons, smiling as they bounced against the ceiling contently. “I love what you’ve done with the place.”

  “You’re going to love the bath even more.”

  He carried her into the bathroom bathed in candlelight and gently set her down on the side of the tub. She looked down into the water, rose petals floating alongside tea light candles in a beautiful display of fragrant water. Swinging her legs over, she sunk her bare legs into the water and watched it lap against her skin.

  Asher, too, watched her as she slowly and carefully submerged herself into the water, and for a split second an image interrupted their tub-side romance. He remembered carrying her into the bathroom under very different circumstances after rescuing her from Krone, almost the same way he just had, only she had been unconscious then. Unconscious and covered in so much blood he wasn’t certain she had any skin left. He had placed her into the bath then too, and just like those rose petals, her blood had turned the water red.

  He swallowed and forced the image from his mind, again focusing on the beautiful, naked woman who was no longer beaten and bloody, but luminescent even with the scars from her past marring her once flawless skin.

  She didn’t seem to notice them in that moment, she was too busy lathering her hands with soap and smirking at him, completely oblivious to his inner memories, as his face betrayed nothing. “Aren’t you going to join me?”

  Yes, even despite her scars, despite her memories that still haunted her, she was still just as luminescent as ever. He smiled sincerely as she leaned forward, a clear invitation. After dropping his own clothing to the floor, stripping until he was just as naked as she, he gently stepped in behind her, letting the water crawl up his leg, then the other, then all the way up to his waist as he slunk down into the water behind her, a leg on each side of her. She leaned back into his chest, and his toned arms immediately went around her, flexing and pulling her as close as she could possibly be.

  “How long have you been planning this?” She wanted to know.

  “Not long. You just seemed to need something good to occupy your time.”

  The water sloshed as she turned around to face him, lying on his chest, her lips hovering over his. “I considered making you take me out, just like old times. Minus the getting shot at bit.”

  “Beat you to it.”

  “Your idea is better, anyway.”

  “I’m surprised your pride will allow you to admit that,” he teased.

  “I’ll deal with the pain in admitting defeat. You earned the privilege.”

  Hugging her closer into his solid chest, he reached for the shampoo, an oil-based bottle with essential oils made for relaxation. Almost as soon as he squirted some onto his hands and began lathering them against her skull, she tasted the salt of tears mingling with the splash of the scented water.

  Asher didn’t notice until her shoulders bobbed, then responded tactlessly, “You’re crying.”

  “Only a little,” she said, sniffling. “I know I am different, Asher. I just feel,” she broke off.

  “Lost,” he supplied gently, rinsing his hands, he dunked a cup and started to gingerly thread his fingers through her sudsy hair, pouring small streams of water against her scalp and watching the bubbles wash away.

  “Well, yeah. I never expected to have to run for my life, but I want you to know that I don’t regret it. I need you to know that you were worth all of it and I wouldn’t have a life at all if it wasn’t for you.”

  Discarding the cup, he swept his arms around her again and pulled her tightly against him, nuzzling her neck with his prickly chin until his lips found her soft flesh. “You are my whole world Coraline Santos. That’s what I need you to know. No matter how much we change or how shitty our circumstances become, how I feel about you will never change.”

  She sniffled as he kissed her shoulder, then her neck, then her cheek, and finally, her lips. Her toes curled as the softness of his mouth engulfed hers. His rough hands, not a hitman’s hands, but the hands of a laborer, caressed her back. She, too, couldn’t imagine her love for him ever fading; it only seemed to grow deeper with each passing day.

  “I think I’m cooled down,” she whispered against his mouth.

  The water splashed as he stood with her still gripped in his arms. She nearly slipped on the slippery tub, but he caught her and assisted by lifting her into his arms and placing her onto the sink counter before she could even blink. An impressive display of body mechanics.

  She sat there against the mirror, dripping, as he fetched the towel and began dabbing her dry, sliding the satin-soft material over her bare skin. He was so gentle with her, as if she might shatter, when all she wanted was for him to be rough. To take. To claim.

  He must have registered the need in her eyes, for he stepped between her parted legs and claimed her mouth with the intensity she had been hoping he would. She moaned, especially as his fingers found her bare hip and gripped her firmly. His. She was his.

  His shaft settled between her heated thighs, throbbing against her abdomen. She spread herself wider to him, sliding closer in an invitation he couldn’t refuse. He only needed to find that perfect spot to fully immerse himself
because she was sopping wet and ready for him.

  With one firm thrust, his hardness met her soft center, and she cried out. For a few hard pumps of his hips, he enjoyed her screams of pleasure, and enjoyed the feeling of that barrier battering his cock as he pushed as deep as her inner cavern would allow.

  She bounced with each violent thrust of his shaft inside her. “God,” she said breathlessly, digging her nails into his shoulder and scratching long lines through his flesh. Her head fell back against the mirror, her whole body configuring to help him go deeper. “Harder.”

  “I thought I told you, you aren’t the one giving orders,” he growled, yet still obliged her and her hard breathing became more shrill, a small squeal escaping through her clenched teeth at the harshness of her pleasure.

  Finally, she had bounced too far out of reach and he had to manhandle her thighs with his fingers gripping hard and firm to reposition her onto his cock. He wasn’t going fast enough, or hard enough, and he finally grunted his frustration. He needed all of her, and he needed it all now.

  Scooping his hands beneath her bare ass, he lifted her into his arms, then laid her onto the cold tile floor. With the candles still flickering against the water, he seemed to glow all around her, a shadow moving against the light.

  “Keep moaning like that,” he ordered as if she had any other choice. The noises she made were completely involuntary.

  His broad hand trapped her neck, his thumb stroking her chin as he held her steady in the most dominating of positions. She struck back, moving her hips to smack against his again, and again, and again, until she felt him pulse deep inside her. He froze, his hard, trembling cock pressed as deep inside her as it would go, as it released its sweet warmth inside her.

  His head fell forward as if his neck no longer had the energy to hold it up as he muttered, “Fuck.”

  Fuck indeed.

  Cora felt downright dehydrated despite the humidity all around them. Her body felt like mush, her muscles tingling with exertion so fiercely that all she could do was lay there, still trapped beneath him.

  He, too, felt relaxed for the first time in months, and he knew he would never stop loving her. He would never stop loving what he could do to her and she to him. He would never stop, but in order to love her forever, he must attend a million funerals of who she once was. She would change into a new person, and mold herself to multiple circumstances, all the way through their lives together. She would be a different person in many ways, and the person she couldn’t be anymore because of trauma, or exhaustion, or growth would fade.

  To love her forever was to love every version of who she currently was and would become.

  He had wanted her to regain that spark he had fallen so in love with, before she seemed to lose it to Krone, but halfway through trying to help her rediscover who she once was and who he wanted her to be again, he realized that it wasn’t his place. He wanted her to become speedily found because she seemed lost to him, but he couldn’t hold her accountable to who she used to be. He couldn’t dictate how she found herself after all this madness his company had caused in hunting them. He couldn’t control how she processed her own trauma and who she would become, after she had moved on from it, and he realized he didn’t want to.

  She could regain her fire with more ferocity than he had ever imagined, if he just let her process, she could burn brighter than before, once she had overcome what had been done to her. He would just have to give her time and commit to loving whoever emerged on the other side of these dark times. She might not be the same, but she would always be beautiful and perfect to him.

  The woman who saved him from himself and given him a reason to live, that’s always what she would be to him. “Happy Valentine’s Day, my love.” He kissed a tear off her cheek. “My life.” He kissed the other cheek and though the salt from the first still lingered against his tongue, she tasted sweet. “My sweet Cora.”

  Sniffling, she was still smiling despite the tears, the intensity of their connection overwhelming her as it had in the bath. “Happy Valentine’s Day, Asher. I love you.”

  “And I will always love you,” he promised. “We’re still Cora and Asher, we are just more secretive about it.”

  She smiled at him, stroking his scruffy cheek with pruned fingertips, then extending one solitary pinky out between them. “Pinky promise?”

  He chuckled as he shifted to meet her pinky with his own, the two fingers curling together in the most innocent of promises. “Pinky promise that we will always be Asher and Cora, no matter what happens or who we have to pretend to be, we’ll always be together.”

  He leaned down, claiming her mouth again and sealed the promise with not just a pinky, but a kiss too.

  The End.

  Bethany Bliss

  Bethany Bliss currently resides in the Shenandoah Valley with her family and bureau of pets. She started writing at a crisp young age, mostly to overcome her dyslexia that kept her in Special Ed through elementary and middle school. Though it started as an exercise, it evolved into an alluring hobby that at first was just that. The longer she wrote, however, the more her family and friends encouraged her to seek out a publisher.

  When Bliss is not spending hours crafting sexy heroes and kick-ass heroines, she enjoys outdoor activities such as gardening, and indoor activities such as holistic medicine research, kickboxing, and reading. She hopes to one day write fulltime, bouncing between a modest homestead and oceanfront condo – whichever has the best Wi-Fi connection.

  Don’t miss these exciting titles by Bethany Bliss and Blushing Books!

  Bound By Chains

  The Final Rebellion

  Silver Meets Gold – Book One

  Silken Violet - Book Two

  Claiming Her Empire

  The Bladed Tiger’s Empress - Book One

  The Warrior’s Treasure - Book Two

  Find Bethany on social media:

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/boundtoblushbliss/

  Twitter: https://twitter.com/boundtoblush

  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/boundtoblushbliss/

  Amazon:

  https://www.amazon.com/author/bethanybliss

  Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15598182.Bethany_Bliss

  https://www.bookbub.com/profile/bethany-bliss

  St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and Pajama Party

  April Hill

  Chapter 1

  Happily married woman that I am, I always get a little wistful around Valentine’s Day. I never really understood, until recently, how many people are out there, looking for the right someone to love. Looking almost desperately, it seems, on Internet dating services, in sleazy singles’ bars, and all sorts of other unlikely and possibly perilous venues. My own romantic story seems so simple, in comparison. I met my husband when I was a struggling artist and he was a cop responding to a 911 call I had made to report my car stolen. Patrolman Neil Garrett was the first officer on the scene, and he was really sweet about the whole thing when it turned out that my car had not been so much stolen, as sort of repossessed. (A small disagreement with a car dealership called “Crazy Lou’s No Money Down Emporium,” wherein Crazy Lou wanted to be paid every month, as opposed to when I actually had the money to pay him – dates which tended to fluctuate rather wildly at that creative period in my life.)

  Under the totally accurate impression that I was a beautiful but starving artist in need of a couple of free meals and a masculine shoulder to cry on, handsome Officer Garrett asked me to dinner that very night, and didn’t even seem offended when I ate like a famished plow-horse and commandeered both doggie bags. (I was poised to take the leftovers from the table adjoining ours, until my handsome date explained that doing so would violate some silly public health ordinance.) Four weeks and some twenty-eight lovely free dinners later – on Valentine’s Day, as it happened – he asked me to marry him. A couple of months after that, when Crazy Lou got busted for selling stolen cars and my car got cruell
y impounded as being part of Lou’s illicit loot, Neil suggested that we get married right away, so I could continue to paint, to eat on a regular basis, and to get to my real job at Kmart every day. Good timing, all around, since we discovered shortly after the wedding that the extra weight I’d been putting on wasn’t because I was deliriously happy, or eating regularly. Michael Andrew Garrett arrived in late October, just in time for our first Halloween together as a happily married couple.

  The real problem with finding the right someone to love is that men and women are completely different. But of course, you know that. Everybody knows it, but only women truly understand it, and make adjustments for it. Which is why women allow the men they love to watch football until their eyeballs roll back in their heads, and wear baseball caps backward even though it makes them look like half-witted eighth graders.

  But men, for some reason, are constitutionally incapable of letting women go about things the way Nature obviously intended. Case in point: Every woman who’s ever lived through a cold winter knows that thermostats are neither accurate, nor truthful. It’s my theory that all household thermostats come directly from the factory defective, causing otherwise contented couples to nearly come to blows. It’s like a test of your devotion and patience. Witness the conversation below, between my husband and myself. A conversation that took place in our chilly living room, on a winter’s evening shortly before this story begins.

  My husband, Neil: (Tinkering with wall thermostat, and looking annoyed.) “Would you do me a favor and for God’s sake quit monkeying around with the damned thermostat, Beth? You’ve got it all screwed up, again.”

  Me: (Reclining on couch in flannel pajamas, under two blankets, watching the thirty-eighth rerun of something or other about the Bermuda Triangle.) “I wasn’t monkeying with it. I was trying to keep my body temperature above thirty-two degrees. I’ve got goosebumps on my goosebumps, and I can’t feel my toes.”