Unleash Me: Wedding (The Unleash Me Series)

by Christina Ross

  When our lips parted, Tank lowered his mouth down over one of my breasts. First it was his tongue that teased my nipple, which made me moan in pleasure and surprise before his teeth lightly scored my sensitive flesh, which sent me to gray edges of lust. The jolt of desire I felt at that moment was so consuming that I had to catch my breath—but I was denied the chance when his mouth claimed my other nipple. As he sucked on it, toyed with it, and tasted it, I knew then that he had entered this tent far more seriously than I had. He came here planning to do this—this was the real reason he’d told his parents not to come checking up on us.

  He didn’t want to wait to make love to me tonight when we retired to our bedroom. He wanted me sooner. He wanted me now.

  I looked up at him and saw not only the heat and the desire in his eyes but also the focus and the determination, which was as exciting as it was erotic. He was here to pleasure me in ways he wasn’t able to when we were on the phone. He was here to take me away from the past several difficult days since we’d been apart.

  With his fingertips now lightly brushing the insides of my outstretched arms, my stomach trembled as I felt warmth radiate through me, finally settling in my core when his fingers drifted down to my rib cage and then lower to my belly as he began to tease my legs open with his touch.

  He allowed one finger to brush against my clit, giving me a half smile when my body tensed in response, but he didn’t go any further. Instead, he positioned himself so I could feel the full weight of him pulsing against my abdomen before he dipped his head again and allowed his tongue to follow the soft curve of my body until he reared up and his mouth claimed mine again.

  Despite how hot it was in the tent, our lovemaking became even hotter. Now dripping with sweat, our skin slick with it, I reached down to grasp him in my hand. I felt the thick weight of his heavy girth, and I wanted him inside me.

  But Tank had other plans.

  With one swift move, he lifted himself off me and knelt back as he swept me up and into his arms. Somehow, I was suddenly straddling him as his lips met my neck and his arms stroked my back. My breasts, so taut and full, brushed against his chest, sending rivers of ecstasy through me as I pressed them harder against him. Each time his lips connected with my skin, I felt my heartbeat race and the world fall away, this moment becoming more profound because it was just about us.

  His giving pleasure to me.

  And now my giving pleasure to him.

  I released myself from him, knelt before him, and took him into my mouth. I heard him gasp when my tongue met his sensitive skin and felt his body respond with a sharp shiver, and when I started to massage him, taste him, and toy with him, I felt his fingers start to run through the strands of my damp hair as his breathing became more labored.

  When he couldn’t take it any longer, he positioned me gently onto my back. I saw that his eyes had become hooded with desire, and I watched his head move toward my sex before he claimed it with his mouth and then with his tongue.

  He licked me slowly and steadily before the stubble on his chin swept against me. I nearly came when that happened, but Tank didn’t stop. If anything, it felt like a blissful eternity before he stopped and finally entered me.

  I was so wet that our bodies joined together with surprising ease as Tank began to thrust into me, whispering again and again as he did so that he loved me. I told him the same as I lifted up my hips in an effort to take all of him, which I did. I swung my arms around him, rode him as he drove into me, and then just closed my eyes and allowed him to take me beyond the confines of this tent, beyond the hell that had been Prairie Home, and into an ether that I’d never known before.

  Not even with him.

  As we made love on the plastic drop cloth, it was with a mixture of aggression and profound tenderness. And as Tank’s eyes met mine, I had to wonder if sex with him would only get better when we were married. Because this? This was beyond anything we’d ever experienced together. As each of us drove the other toward climax, I felt that almost certainly was the case—just I was almost certain that Ethel had likely just heard the cries of our frantic release.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “She’s going to know,” I said to Tank as we lay on our backs beneath the shade of the gazebo’s roof. We’d been there for the past thirty minutes, trying to dry off. “I mean, I checked my reflection in the pond, for God’s sake—you know, when one of those swans snapped at my forehead. Who knew they were so aggressive?”

  “I knew.”

  “Thanks for telling me.”

  “I had my back to you when you did that.”

  “It actually was kind of funny,” I said. “For a moment, I thought I was going to fall in. And maybe I should have, because at least then I’d have a good reason for looking the way I do.”

  He turned his head toward me and reached out to brush my cheek with the back of his index finger. “You don’t look bad. In fact, I think you look more beautiful than ever. You’ve got that glow about you.”

  “If I’m glowing, it’s because I’ve become a nuclear reactor of nerves. You do realize that she’s going to smell the sex on us, don’t you?”

  “Let her. I don’t care—and you shouldn’t, either.”

  “You can say that because she bows down to you. She won’t dare cross you. As for me? No such luck.”

  “Lisa, I think you’re underestimating yourself. I fell in love with you because of your strength, your intelligence, and your feistiness. And also because you really know how make love to your man, which you just showed me in that tent over there.”

  “Forever to be known as the microwave sex oven.”

  “It did get kind of hot in there, didn’t it?”

  “In the best and worst ways.”

  He sat up, and I followed suit.

  “We should go,” he said. “We’ve only been gone two hours now. Let’s head back and make her happy that it didn’t turn out to be the three hours I’d promised. I don’t know about you, but I want to take a shower.”

  “Same here, but I need something to drink first. I’m thirsty.”

  “Get yourself something to drink and join me in the shower?”

  “Let’s not push her too far. You take a shower, I’ll grab some iced tea, and then I’ll start unpacking your bags while you wash off.”

  “Just so you know, I plan on taking one mother of a long, cold shower.”

  “I plan on doing the same when you’re finished.”

  He stood and offered his hand to me. “Let’s go,” he said, helping me to my feet and putting an arm around my waist as we descended the gazebo’s steps. “And don’t worry about my mother. If she’s in the kitchen when we get there, I’ll wait for you to get your glass of iced tea, and then we can go upstairs to our bedroom together. You won’t be alone with her, and she won’t say a word to you with me there.”

  “Consider that a deal,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  ***

  But when we arrived at the house and walked through to the kitchen, Ethel was nowhere to be found. In silence, I looked at Tank, who simply shrugged, put a finger to his lips, and pointed at the refrigerator.

  “She’s probably working outside in one of her gardens,” he said in a quiet voice to me. “Dad’s likely in one of the barns. Grab yourself some tea and meet me upstairs.”

  “I’ll be quick,” I said. “Scoot.”

  After he gave me a kiss on the mouth, he left the kitchen, and I heard him race up the stairs to our bedroom. Meanwhile, I pulled a pitcher of iced tea from the fridge, grabbed a tray of ice from the freezer, and popped a few cubes into a glass I took from one of the cupboards over the sink. It was only as I started to pour that I heard Ethel’s voice coming from beyond the kitchen, down the hallway that led to the parlor, which was at the other end of the house.

  Christ, I thought, not wanting her to catch me looking like this. Of course she’s here. I need to move it.

  But then I just stopped cold when I heard her raise
her voice and say, “You’re my sister, for goodness’ sake, Margaret. You know how hard I’ve been trying to break this wedding off between them. Apparently I’ve failed, because this is happening, and now I can officially tell you that you and Stan need to be here tomorrow night for the dinner and Saturday afternoon to witness my only son wed the devil herself.”

  Trying to break off our wedding? I thought in horror. She’s been trying to break off our fucking wedding? If she’s told her sister what she’s been trying to do, then how many other people has she poisoned against me? How many friends and family members of hers will be sitting at that gazebo on Saturday knowing what she thinks of me and that she failed to wedge herself between me and her son?

  At that moment, I wasn’t sure who I’d just become, because when I heard her say those words, the fireball of rage that scorched through me was apparently enough to make me see red.

  And not a good kind of red.

  It was the kind of red you’d see on a matador’s cape. And right now? Right now, I was the pissed-off bull with several lances planted into my bloodied back who was about to lash out and gore a woman who had been armed with this cruel, unbelievable, nefarious agenda all along.

  But as angry and as betrayed as I felt, I knew I needed to be smart about this. I couldn’t give myself away. I wanted her to keep talking, not realizing that we’d come back early. And so, I put the pitcher of iced tea down on the countertop, removed my shoes, grabbed my phone from my pants pocket, and started to pad down the hallway that led to the closed library door.

  “Where does Harold stand?” I heard her say. “He was chilly toward her when they first met a year or so ago because I demanded he be tough on her given what she writes. But since then? Since all the telephone calls they’ve had with Mitchell since it was decided they’d get married here? Somehow, he’s actually come to like her, which I can’t fathom for the life of me.”

  Keep talking, lady. Give me the kindling I need.

  “No, you need to understand, Margaret. Harold’s never been as sensitive to these things as I’ve been. He doesn’t see the evil I see in her. Did I tell you that I read her books? No? That must have been somebody else, probably Linda, because she’s as horrified by all this as I am. Yes, Linda. You remember—Mitchell’s first girlfriend. The one I like.”

  I kept moving forward, trying my best not to reveal myself too soon. For a house this old, it was solid, and the hardwood floor thankfully didn’t creak and give me away.

  “Anyway, about her books. I read all of them this week right under her own nose. And you cannot believe the filth that’s in them. You really can’t, because I know it would make your blood run as cold as mine if you even glanced at their covers alone. In our world, only Christ has risen. But in her world? The undead rise again and again! And it gets even worse! In her books, she writes vivid scenes of women having abortions, which are so detailed that I’m certain she’s had plenty of them herself, even though when I challenged her on that, she disputed that claim. I call that a lie. I call her whole being a sacrilege! To know that this woman—this heathen of an unworldly shebeast—will one day give birth to my grandchildren makes me want to vomit.”

  My blood pressure spiked when she said that. I loved children. How dare she say such a thing about me?

  “But what can I do?” she said. “Nothing. Since I failed to break them up, I’m literally without hope. No—I really am. She’s cast some sort of voodoo spell over my son, because I think my Mitchell really does believe he’s in love with her. I don’t know what else to say or do, because I can tell you this—I’ve tried everything in my power to end this since the day she arrived here in her fancy private jet. All I’m left to do now is accept defeat and know that the devil has won, as he often does. What’s done is done.”

  I opened the door when she said that, and she whirled around in surprise, looking at me in horror. When she saw my phone, which was pointed straight at her, her jaw dropped.

  “The phone is on, Ethel,” I said. “I’ve been recording your conversation with your sister from the hallway, and now I’m recording you on video.”

  Almost at once, the color drained from her face as it came to her that at least some part of her conversation with her sister was locked away on my phone and that I likely had proof she’d been meddling into my relationship with her son—to the point that she wanted to smash it apart.

  “What in the—put that down!”

  I kicked the door behind me and took a step toward her.

  “Make me.”

  “Make you? Make you? Do you think I’m going to get violent with you?”

  “After what I just heard, I wouldn’t put anything past you, Ethel. Nothing.”

  “I asked you to put down the phone. I’m demanding that you do it now.”

  “How about if you get off the phone, Ethel? Hang up now, and you and I will have a little chat. We’ll see if we can come to a deal, and depending on how that goes, I’ll leave…and we’ll see what happens next.”

  She moved to speak, but when she saw the steel in my eyes—and that my phone was still trained on her face—she lifted the receiver and said, “Margaret? I’ll need to call you back. What’s that? Yes, she’s in here with me now. I’ll see you tomorrow. Or not. I don’t know. I’ll call you later.”

  She hung up the phone and looked at me with such bitter hatred in her eyes that the full truth of her loathing of me was revealed not only to me but also to the camera. In an odd way, I was grateful to finally see her unbridled hatred of me, if only so that I’d know in my heart there would be no more guessing when it came to her. No more wondering if we could somehow turn our relationship around after the wedding. Because after what I’d just heard, I knew that could never be the case—that I could never forgive her and that she’d never come to accept me.

  But that didn’t mean I couldn’t win against her in the end.

  “Put down the phone now, or I will scream out for my husband,” she said.

  “Please do,” I said. “And please also call out for Tank if you want. Because the rest of your life is right now in your hands, Ethel, especially when it comes to how your husband and your son will view you if I play them this recording. So…decide. Each of them can either hear that you tried to break Tank and me up by trying to get into my head this week, or we can keep your vicious little secret between us. Your choice. Scream now, or shut the fuck up and listen to me.”

  “How do I even know you’re recording me now?” she asked. “That you’ve recorded anything? You could be lying to me, because that’s what you people do best.”

  At this point, I had more than enough video to get what I wanted from her. So, I pressed the red stop button, held up the phone so that the screen faced her, and played back the entire recording. With an intensity that thrummed between us, Ethel listened to her own voice and then watched with a start as I burst into the room and we began our initial exchange of words. When the video ended, she looked as pale as a ghost.

  “If you play that to Mitchell, he’d never forgive me,” she said.

  “You’re right. He wouldn’t.”

  She was visibly trembling, either in rage or in fear—or possibly a combination of both. Then she said, “What do you want from me? Because you obviously want something—I can see it in your eyes.”

  “What I’d really like to do is slap that smug face of yours so hard that you’d find yourself spitting out a few teeth and coughing up some blood. But since I’m not a particularly violent person, Ethel—despite what you might think of me because of the books I write—I want something else from you in exchange for my keeping this video private.”

  “And what is that?”

  “From this point forward, you will stop interfering in my relationship with your son. That ends now. You also will be civil toward me, as I have tried to be civil toward you ever since I first met you. You will be polite, even if it kills you, because I am officially done with your deranged treatment of me. Either you
agree, or I will bring this recording to Tank now and show it to him. But please, know this—if you do agree to my terms and try some shit at a later date, you need to know that I’ll show the video to him then. And if you think for one stupid moment that I might accidentally delete the video off my phone or that I might even lose my phone, be advised that all the information I just recorded is already stored in the cloud.”

  “What cloud?” she asked. “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “I didn’t think you would, so let me spell it out for you. Everything on my phone—photos, videos, e-books, you name it—is instantly stored remotely and securely on my hosting company’s servers the moment I add something new to my phone. Like this video, for instance. It’s already sitting there, waiting for me to access it. If you don’t understand that, here’s your takeaway, Ethel: if something happens to my phone or if the video somehow becomes corrupted on it, that video is now stored elsewhere in a backup copy that I can retrieve whenever I like. So, down the road, if you are stupid enough to even think of testing me again, always remember that I’ll have a copy of that video to show to your son. And if I do that—which I will, because this is your last shot in saving your relationship with Tank—I think we both know you’ll never see him again. Are we understood?”

  “You’d do that to me, wouldn’t you?”

  “Without hesitation. I’ll do anything to protect my marriage to Tank, especially from the pig that’s in the parlor with me now. So, agree or disagree, because I need to get back to Tank.”

  “Naturally, I agree. What choice do I have?”

  “If you want your son in your life, none.” I put the phone into my pants pocket and just looked at her. “Be grateful that I’m not taking this to him now, Ethel, because I could have. But I won’t, because I want to protect Tank from who is mother really is—unless you give me a serious reason not to. Consider that going forward. You will never do anything to jeopardize our relationship again, you will be polite to me, and I will be polite to you—and even though neither of us will ever mean it, that’s still going to be the case.”