It was all seduction, I now realize. Ruthless. Unyielding lust that had him taking me while I was completely in love with him.
Ass.
“Miz Lori! Phone.”
I jump at Clyde’s voice barking through the closed door and realize the phone has been ringing for a while without me hearing it.
“Hello?”
“Hey, baby, we just got here, so don’t freak out if you come down the road and see a strange car. It’s Lyon’s.”
“Er, okay, but I was just going to stay at the store for a bit and get paperwork done.”
“Coward.”
I want to gasp and deny the soft drawl, but it’s true! Damn him. I’m afraid of what will happen if I go home and see him, which is why I haven’t seen him for days.
“Not a coward, just not ready! You said you’d give me time. This isn’t you giving me time, Wolf. This is you pushing the issue three days after the fact. You got me to drop Jack, great, even I have to accept that I was lying to myself about that relationship. But I’m not jumping into shit with you without first protecting myself.”
Silence falls for a bit, and I’m just about ready to apologize for my outburst when he speaks.
“You’re right and I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight with you, babe, and I also don’t want to lose you before I’ve even gotten you back. I just worry, is all. I’ve seen the worst society has to offer, and everyone in that backwater knows you live alone.”
Damn. You see how reasonable he is lately? It drives me crazy. There’s no fighting his will, because he doesn’t fight, just makes a point and leaves me to be the crazy person.
“Dammit, fine, but we’re not in a relationship!”
“Okay, see you later. We’ll get some things done here, and I’ll go home to get my truck and come back out. I’m bringing dinner. Ma’s cooking us something good.”
“Okay, don’t wreck my house,” I snarl.
He hangs up with a chuckle, and I work for the next few hours on a few promotions that Clyde has planned to get business booming, and go home when the sun is just high enough still to fool me that I have a while to plonk around.
It’s back to the garden when I get there and need another distraction, and by the time I repeat this morning’s mess and walk back to my room in panties and bra, I feel less stressed.
I know something now that I haven’t thought of before, and it makes me nervous and happy at the same time. I need to try. I’ve been pushing Wolf away for a while, ignoring what’s right in front of me, but no more. If I’m going to be happy, I need to fight for that happiness.
He may never love me, and you know, that’s okay because everyone gets their hearts broken searching for that one special person. I’ll never get anywhere if I don’t commit myself to this and look at it with a positive attitude.
Wolf may not love me, but he will! I can’t expect it to happen overnight, but I’ll fight for him, like he’s fighting for me.
“Babe?”
I hear his call just as I pull on a soft housedress that’s not showy but is clean and relatively pretty, and walk out of the room when he strolls in carrying a hamper, and I smile.
My kiss shocks him, and I smile against his mouth when he drops the hamper and pulls me close, unconcerned for the food or the dinnerware I hear clanking around in there.
“Hey.”
“Hey right back at you, Wylder,” I breathe, suddenly ravenous for him.
“Babe?”
“Hush,” I murmur when he falls back onto the couch with a push, his face a comical show of lustful hope and confusion. “Take your pants off.”
It’s accomplished in under a minute, and I laugh under my breath when I see his sex poking straight up, already hard from just one kiss and the suggestion of sex.
I said I was gonna try, and I am, so, in that vein, I got myself all ready for him and I’m dripping as I throw a leg over his hips and straddle him, enjoying his groan when the wet slit of my sex settles firmly over his shaft.
I use him like that for a while, teasing us both as I glide him through my folds, groaning loudly every time the head makes contact with my button.
“Lori.”
“Sssshhh, just feel,” I croon, sliding my hips in a circle to let him feel me all over.
As sexual situations go, I’m not exactly as adventurous as Wolf, but just having this control while he tries to sit quietly and not take over is heady. I feel every ridge and vein as I coat him with my pleasure and use him, driving myself closer and closer to orgasm with every twitch and slide, loving the way he grips the cushions of the couch and leans his head back, closing his eyes on a groan.
We’re not touching anywhere else, and it’s so…erotic.
“God, you’re so wet and warm, baby. Your juices are burning me alive. I want in you so badly,” he grunts, his hips jerking when I slide up and settle him at my core, the opening contracting around the bulbous head like a suckling mouth.
I’m so turned on all I want to do is slam down on him and feel his strength fill me. But not yet, I think. I want him to know everything as I take him. I want him to know that this is our fresh start and that I am equal in this relationship.
“I still love you. Shh, let me finish,” I whisper, finding it hard to talk when he twitches up and just the head lodges inside me.
Oh God, it’s so good I have to stop and drop my head to his, just breathing until the need to have him passes a little.
“I still love you. I don’t think I will ever not love you, and I want to try with you, Wolf, really try. So, this is me giving myself to you this time, no more taking. We’ll be equals and get through it all together, but, Wolf, I expect you to love me someday. You got me?” I ask vulnerably, keeping myself completely still to look down at him.
Wolf’s eyes are blazing with the light of his joy, and I feel it like a physical blanket surrounding me when he smiles slowly and palms my ass, not pulling, just squeezing me softly and playing with the crack of my ass.
“I got you, baby.”
I slam down on the last word and we both shout when he’s fully lodged, so deep I feel a slight pop inside before he reaches so deep I whimper and fall into his chest, holding still to let the feeling subside.
The sex, when I can move again, is a roaring blaze of wet, slippery kisses and hard breathing. He lets me set the rhythm, but I have no doubt that I only have control because he lets me take it.
I ride him hard, slamming down so thoroughly my ass cheeks slap with every down stroke.
“Yes, yes, yes.”
“Aaaah, baby, hell, your sex is so fucking good. Tighten on me, sweetness. Let me feel you come all over my cock.”
I climax on command, shocked but so overtaken with the feeling all I can do is scream and seize above him, my yells absorbed by his sucking mouth.
I feel him let go inside me moments later, the heat of his release filling me with spurt after spurt of his seed. It’s dripping out of me by the time we can move, and I look up at him with a soft smile.
“I will love you, Lori. It’s impossible for me not to,” he murmurs against my lips, his eyes solemn and filled with sincere caring.
For now, it’s all I need, and I snuggle into him with a sigh, secure and strangely comforted even with the future uncertainties looming ahead.
Wolf
The last few weeks have been everything to me. I spend most nights with my woman, making love, eating dinner out on the porch, talking for hours about myself and what I’ve been through in life.
She listens quietly and gives me the comfort I need in the telling. It’s been…good. It’s new, and I’m not always easy to be with as I let the memories in and give them life.
But she never judges me or complains when my mood gets dark and I brood about it. We’re practically living together at this point, which is nice.
Hell, it’s more than nice. It’s fucking great. Fantastic. Eye opening.
And she gives to me. Herself. Her time. Her love. I d
on’t think Lori fully understands what having her unconditional love means to me. I could try to explain it, but I don’t think words can do it justice.
I feel…just that. I feel. For the first time in years, I wake up in the morning and feel more than ambivalence to life. I look forward to my days, and slowly, it’s starting to dawn on me that I haven’t been living for a long time.
It’s not always good. Sometimes the feelings that I don’t understand sneak up on me with too much force and I can’t process them. Sparrow is always there though, and I finally understood last night, while lying sleepless with Lori’s naked body in my arms, that I need to say goodbye to Sparrow.
I never did, and that in and of itself is a major issue.
“Hey, man, you ready for this?” Bear asks when he comes out of the house to join me on the porch.
“No, but I need to do it anyway,” I say quietly, flicking away the one cigarette I’ve allowed myself.
I used to smoke a long time ago but quit when I realized I didn’t need them. I need them today. Need a good drink too, and I’ll probably get drunk sometime in the day with the way I feel.
We leave together, Bear quiet and introspective as the car eats up the road and finally stops in a place I haven’t been but once since we laid Sparrow to rest.
Or should I say I laid Sparrow to rest. The day of her funeral was terrible, and I had to have Mom sedated and let the boys take her and my inebriated pop home.
So, I was alone when she went into the ground, the only one who was here when she ceased to be a person and officially became a body. Walking slowly because my feet just don’t want to work, I make it to her grave and feel…pain. I feel pain unlike anything I have ever known, and it has my knees buckling even as my eyes remain dry.
I feel, but it’s trapped, my natural need to keep myself together winning over the ache and sorrow inside me.
“You were all alone when she went into the ground,” Lyon says, startling me when he comes out from behind another tomb, followed by Lynx and Hawk.
“What—”
“We all should have been here, together, my son.”
I see Mom when Hawk goes to stand beside Lyon, and Pop emerges too, his eyes shining with unshed tears.
“Guys, I—”
“Now we do it together, and maybe we can lay her to rest finally,” Pop says, taking Mom’s hand just as Hawk helps me up.
I see Danny come forward too to take Bear’s hand and feel…a small hand slip into mine. I know it’s her before I look down to see her smiling up at me, her eyes filled with tears as she squeezes my hand and nods.
“Say goodbye to her, but never forget what she meant to you.”
And that’s it, exactly it, I think as I feel my eyes burn and watch my family gather around me, giving me the strength to face something I never have.
“She looked like she was asleep when they laid her out. The people at the funeral home did a great job putting her back together.”
Because Sparrow looked like someone had taken a bat to her beautiful face, and even her eyes were open when I went to identify her in the morgue. It was…ugly. The whole thing was ugly, but I remember the way she looked before they buried her.
Like a young, sleeping child, safe in her bed.
I say nothing else, and I’m grateful when the family remains silent, all of us thinking back to times when she was with us, laughing and smiling and getting up to mischief.
We lay her to rest, not for her, because I accept that wherever she is, it’s better than the fucked-up world we live in.
“Love you, little bird,” I mumble, Lori giving me her strength to turn and walk away, free of the burden I once carried.
I still have anger to work through, anger about being alone at that time, about Mom and Pop and even my brothers abandoning me, but I feel lighter as we go home together, my woman right by my side where I need her to be.
Chapter Thirteen
Lori
I grunt and shove another weed back into the dirt as the brewing skies grumble and crackle above me, my hopes for this garden truly dead when I see not one seed sprouting amidst the overgrowth of weeds I can’t keep at bay.
“Stupid fucking plants,” I mutter, swiping the mud from my knees as I trudge inside, dropping my clothes into the washer, underwear and all, before stalking naked to my bedroom.
Everything in my life is on track, mostly, well…
Dammit! It’s not on track, and we all know it. I’ve been with Wolf for two months now, two glorious, amazing months of a relationship that has grown and grown and just…stopped.
We’re in a holding pattern here, and I think even he knows it. We don’t talk about marriage or anything serious because he knows that I won’t consider moving forward with the really serious stuff until he says what I need him to say—and mean it.
So, he doesn’t ask, and I pretend that I don’t need him to, and…and now we’re stuck. He practically lives with me now. His clothes are in my closet, his manly stuff taking up space in the bathroom, and I even stock the beer he likes.
We’re together in every sense of the word, and it’s all good and perfect but for one thing. He still doesn’t love me. Oh, he cares, and it’s a lot more than what we had before because he really cares and shows me that he does every day.
He’s affectionate and the perfect man. God help me is he perfect, especially in bed, or in the kitchen, or laundry room, or—
You get the message.
But we’re now just stagnating in this cycle, and while I’m not rearing and ready to get married, because it’s just not that important right now, I want to move on to…more.
Grunting as the too warm water hits my skin, I scrub myself thoroughly and dry off with a hiss.
That man is driving me nuts. Yesterday was not great. We had this argument that had me hissing accusations at him while all he could do was apologize. I feel like shit for what I said, and even worse because I know it’s not true, but I wasn’t capable of controlling the anger I felt.
And I can’t even explain why I was angry! That’s the worst part. One minute, I was sitting across the table, laughing at the story he told me about the mission he just went on—yeah, because my guy is some really hot recovery specialist who rescues people from the bad guys, ooohlala.
The next, I was angry because, because…I have no idea why. But I can tell ya that having the man you love sit silently and take your verbal poop show with nothing more than a somber look and silence is not good.
He didn’t even make love to me last night, just held me and kissed my hair every once in a while, letting me know he’s there.
Crying now, because I can’t not cry, I pull on underwear just as the phone rings.
“I’m so sorry I was a bitch last night, and I swear I’ll make it up to you tonight. No phone sex though!” I tack on with a giggle because Wolf likes calling me in the middle of the day with some really erotic content, and I don’t have the balls to hear it when I should be apologizing.
With my body!
“That’s too bad, Lorianna, because I would have enjoyed that.”
The dark rasp isn’t Wolf, and I blush scarlet, gasping an apology to whoever this is.
“My God, I am so sorry. It was just a…um…joke. I was expecting a friend,” I lie, trying not to giggle nervously.
“I understand, and I applaud your bravery for answering this way, but I have called to enquire about your parents.”
Alarm bells start ringing for many reasons. One, it just occurred to me that only a few people have this number. The Wylders and Danny, my shop manager, Clyde, and the good Dr. Morris.
I want to panic, especially when I hear the slight accent, but I keep it together. I’m the girlfriend of a trained professional. I will not have a panic attack and go crazy.
“Uh, I haven’t talked to them this week. But they’re okay, I guess.”
I play it safe, not wanting to let him know that I’m anxious and feel my skin ice when he
chuckles and tsks at me softly.
“But you know I am not asking you, Lorianna, since you haven’t spoken to your dear mama in over three weeks now. Is that not right?”
Yes! Yes, that is true, but only because I had an argument with Mom when she wanted money I didn’t have to give. Paying their bills with my savings hasn’t been easy, and I tried to explain to her that what I have in the bank is profits from the businesses I just opened, not money I can just give away.
How does this man know Mom hasn’t talked to me in that long, and who is he?
“Y-yes. Who is this?” I stammer, chilling further when he laughs huskily and a muffled scream meets my ears.
“I would like for you to come to them, as a good daughter should, and trade places with them, Lori. I can call you Lori? Good. You see, I wanted you, little Lori, but you have been very protected, with your Wylder men watching your every move until recently.”
His accent and the way he structures his sentences is slightly off, though I get the impression he’s trying to sound American.
“Look, man, is this a joke? Larry! Is this you, because I told you to stop calling me. I don’t want a date.”
I slam the phone down before he can reply and dive for my cell phone, dialing the number for Libby Jones even while I’m hopping into sweats and a vest.
“Howdy, girl, long time no hear from you—”
“Libby, has Dad been in today? Was he working at all in the last two or three days?” I yell, cutting her off when she goes to start yapping.
I’m panicking like crazy and trying not to hyperventilate as I shove my feet into sneakers, no socks, and rustle through my drawer for the gun Lyon gave me.
“Uh, I didn’t see him recently, honey, but I’ve been in the office. Hang on and let me check with Tyrell.”
She’s gone for a beat, and then I feel my stomach drop when she confirms my suspicions, and worse.
“He was supposed to be in today to make up for a shift he missed last week, but Tyrell hasn’t seen him. Is everything okay, honey?”
I don’t answer, ending the call with shaking hands as I think frantically about what to do. The phone keeps ringing though, and I almost scream my head off when my cell buzzes, an unknown number. I don’t answer that either, not until I get a text seconds later.
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