by Angela White
“Never mind that. What else did you hear?”
“Something about causing trouble in one of the farthest towns so you’d be distracted. I think he plans to have your office searched for evidence.”
Mary glanced out the window, where people were passing by without any idea how dangerous of a conversation was taking place. She drummed her fingers on the table. “Anything else?”
I shook my head. “Just acted jumpy when I came in the room. I wasn’t sure if he knew I’d heard, so asking him to leave the room would have triggered his suspicion, I think.”
“Yes. Very well. Your tour will resume when I return. While I’m gone, Douglas will stay here to drive you around. Keep track of him.”
She meant I should try to catch him searching her office.
“Yes, mother,” I answered, trying to appear proud of the responsibility. Douglas had no idea how ruthless I could be, but he did know what Mary was like. That should have told him not to trust me either.
Mary slid her chair back to stand up. “You’ll also help at the restaurant while Georgie’s gone, but no free roaming.”
She pinned me with a glare. “You understand me?”
“Yes, mother,” I repeated, heart thumping. She would be two hundred miles away. It was perfect.
A few minutes later, Douglas arrived with Georgie, who ignored me in favor of telling Mary how smart she was for taking him along as muscle.
“That Sterns clan is wild.”
“Yes, but they do produce some of the finest whiskey that under-the-table money can buy,” Mary responded.
It was the first time neither of them had bothered to play the perfect Christian act in front of me. It changed the level of what I was doing from dangerous to deadly. They were talking in front of me, trying to discover if I could be trusted. I couldn’t. The threat of calling the FBI was no longer a bluff.
“What’s the problem this time?” Georgie asked, waiting by the door as Douglas carried my mother’s suitcase to the trunk.
“The town sheriff is new. We need to get him working with us, so control your temper when he gets rude. I’m expected it.”
They walked to the car still discussing the trip, while ignoring me. I had no problem with it. I wanted to be forgotten about. I needed to pack and then go talk to a man about a car. Tomorrow, I would put in a full day at the restaurant to keep up the act. After that, the diner would be shut for the weekend and I would have time alone with Angie. I couldn’t wait to tell her we were leaving now. I needed one of those incredible welcomes. The darkness growing in my heart was hard to fight without them.
Angie
“You’ve had a month. Why would any more time make a difference?” Mary asked.
I was standing by her car, talking through the window because of the cold. She didn’t like winter weather. Most of the time, I barely felt it.
“Angela.”
I loathed my name coming from her. As far as Mary was concerned, I was hers to command. At Christmas, I’d gotten up and left her home without giving an answer. For a minute, I’d thought she wouldn’t let me go. I’d walked to the trailer in a frozen daze that still hadn’t cleared. She hadn’t been in touch, but I’d known she would come. She had given me time to consider my lack of options. In that month, I’d made a hard choice.
“I’m going away for a week, young lady,” Mary informed me coldly, understanding that I still wouldn’t cooperate.
“When I return, you will do as I’ve asked or the consequences will worse than you can imagine. For Marcus.”
I assumed the disease was growing. Her glazed eyes had always been fanatical to me though, so it was hard to tell. When the witch scanned her, she said Mary only had a few years left to live if she didn’t receive a treatment of some kind.
Watching her drive away, I thought I could tough out her threats and control just to spit on her grave. I couldn’t take more of Georgie. He’d been rough on me the week after Christmas, getting closer and closer to snapping. Now that he was leaving again, when he got back, he would want another long moment. He said being absent made him harder for me.
The horror came again as I stood there. Marc hadn’t called yet, but it didn’t matter at this point. I couldn’t take another moment with Georgie. I’d made that hard choice.
I’m leaving.
As soon as mother Brady picked Georgie up from the restaurant, my mom would go in a rear stock room and start drinking. She would pass out right there. I would call a cab. I had enough money to stay a few days at a hotel, until Marc could come and get me, but even if he didn’t, I’d had enough of living this way. I would be safer on the streets of any city than I was here.
The witch agreed that it was time to go, and anger flooded me. Why won’t you tell me what happens in the future? Why can’t I tell Marc what his mother said?
The witch sighed miserably in my mind. Just remember what Patty said. Make the choice for the future, not for yourself.
Frustrated, I stomped toward the trailer, where Georgie had insisted I stay. I didn’t know if Mary had told him to keep me locked up, but at least I didn’t have a guard. No one would know I was gone until it was too late.
“Angie?”
I turned around to find Marc standing there and at first, I thought I was imagining things. He couldn’t be here, right when I needed him most. That never happened.
“Are you okay?”
I slowly shook my head, still not convinced he was there.
“What’s wrong, baby?” he crooned, coming over to wipe a tear from my cheek with his thumb.
“I’m scared.”
Marc folded me into his arms right there in public and I hugged him tightly, neither of us caring about the witnesses or payment that would be required when word got back to Georgie and Mary.
“I have to ask you something,” Marc whispered, leaning back to look at me.
Still crying a little, I waited, not sure how to tell him what I was doing.
“Will you still run away with me and be my Angie?”
I nodded, almost unable to speak. I wanted that more than anything. I needed it. “When?”
“In two days.”
I gaped. I didn’t have to go alone?
“Angie?”
“Tonight would be better,” I croaked through fresh tears.
Marc chuckled and led me toward the trailer.
“I have to pull a shift tomorrow. I want to keep our cover. We’ll leave in two days.”
“Will you stay with me? I don’t want to be alone right now?”
“I’ll do better than that, baby-cakes. I’ll spend both of those nights. Pretty sure I can fit through your window.”
Panic starting to ease, I agreed without really thinking it over at all. I wouldn’t be alone! That meant worlds to me. Some days it felt like I’d been alone my entire life.
As we stepped into the trailer and shut the door, I could feel evil around us waiting for an opportunity to close in, but I ignored it.
Big mistake.
Marc
“What happened on your tour?” Angie asked, lying on my chest. We were in her bedroom, where I’d already unsnapped the screen in her window.
“My mother expected me to give a correction,” I muttered. “She’s so much worse than we thought, honey.”
“So we’ll just take a cab to the city and get a hotel room?”
I nodded, trying not to harden against her stomach. “Yes. Even if we get split up, follow that plan. I’ll find you.”
“What are you doing with your car?” Angie asked, convincing me that she was serious about going. She was making sure I had everything covered.
“I sold it. The cops would track it down in about ten seconds. One of our neighbors has wanted it for years. Now, he has my Buick and I have a thousand of his dollars.” I grinned at Angie. “We have five times that amount total. We’re gonna be fine.”
Angie’s happiness blasted me as we embraced. When her lips found mine, the heat rose
up to sear us both.
“Will you make me yours?” Angie whispered, dazing me. “Please?”
I kissed her again, harder, then gently pushed her off my chest and stood up.
Angie started to apologize for pushing, but I held up a hand. “Don’t do that, baby. You’re not in the wrong here.”
“I just have these things in my mind, Marc. I get so scared,” Angie tried to explain. “I need you to be the first!”
I stared at her as anger raged. My mother hadn’t protected her from Georgie while I was away. “I’m sorry.”
I returned the bed to lean down and kiss Angie’s cheek. “I need a shower. You think about it real hard, honey. If it’s what you want when I get out, you can have it.”
Nervousness flooded her expression, but that V on her chin stood out and I hardened painfully. She wasn’t going to back down.
“No, I’m not,” she answered. “Go take your shower. I’m going to finish packing.”
We shared a heated glance that said the time had finally come. Angie and I were about to make love.
I thought my heart might explode.
Angie
I wasn’t scared while I waited. I wanted this moment with Marc. I was afraid of the mess that could come afterwards if we didn’t get out before Georgie discovered someone else had taken what he’d claimed, but I told myself that Marc had us covered.
The shower turned off and I shivered a little. Just days from now, we would away from this life of hell and pain.
Marc appeared in the doorway with only a white towel around his lean hips. His skin glowed at me, fascinating my senses. I’d never seen a fully naked man before.
“Take it off?” I asked.
Marc grinned, letting the cover fall to the carpet.
“Wow,” I choked out, face reddening. “You’re hard all over.”
Marc’s grin widened. “I’m a man. I’m hard where you’re soft, baby.”
He stayed in the doorway, hot eyes burning over my body.
“Can I see you?”
I stood up self-consciously, but I wasn’t afraid. I just didn’t know if I was able to compete with Jeanie. I’d also never seen a fully naked woman. I didn’t shower at school.
Marc’s grip on the doorframe tightened his knuckles into white fists as I dropped my shirt. The jeans followed and I heard his gasp as I leaned over to pull them off my feet.
“Damn.”
I looked over to find his hand stroking that jutting hardness and I laughed a little as I realized I now knew what that phrase in the smut books meant.
Marc didn’t take offense. He seemed to understand that my emotions were rocky right. Wanting to make it up to him, I arched like I’d seen actresses do, sticking my chest out as I lifted my arms. Did he like that?
Marc slowly came toward me, expression dark. “You’re sure, baby?”
I slid my naked body into his arms as my answer.
Do you wish to be connected? the witch asked in my mind.
Yes. Bond us in every way, I replied without hesitation. I’ll never love anyone else.
The witch muttered a spell and then vanished, leaving us alone. Doors swung open, connecting our minds as Marc loved me, and old, powerful magic covered us.
I had my soul mate.
Marc
I knew we should wait. There was too much stress right now, too many things up in the air for us to do this, but she was willing and I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want to be that unhappy, fake old man who spent his dying minutes wishing he had given fate a chance. Angie was everything to me, in every way except that one, and I needed her. It was... I couldn’t...
Sigh.
I can still feel it, can still smell us together, but I can’t describe how perfect it was. I spent the next decade searching for an encounter even half as good as that one and never succeeded.
I slid my hard body between her long legs without breathing, afraid to wake up from the best dream I’d ever had. Angie was about to be mine in ways that would carve our future in stone.
“Hang on, baby,” I guided, getting set to claim the part of her that could never be replaced. I eased down, balls tightening from the sensation.
“I love you, baby-cakes.”
“Forever?” Angie asked, sounding nervous.
“Forever, but not a minute more.”
She smiled, arching upward to meet me as I pushed into her tight, wet body with the taste of her still on my lips.
I wanted to go slow. I’d been dreaming about this moment for years. I’d even researched it in the library two towns away so I would know what to do when this moment came. But I underestimated the pleasure.
As I rocked forward, I did it hard and quick, straining to get as deep as I could as lust flowed thickly. I didn’t want to hurt her, but the need to get all the way in there was unstoppable. I slid myself into her virgin body, groaning her name. It was like nothing I’d ever felt as I shoved forward. Her barrier snapped against my hard flesh and I sank in fully, drawing a cry from both of us.
Hers was pain and I stilled, hoping the worst of it was over. I kissed her cheek, fighting the need to thrust that was rolling through my balls.
“Angie?” Her arms had gone to mine in protest and I felt her nails slowly withdraw from my skin. “You okay, baby?”
“It hurt,” she complained, sounding as if she wanted to cry.
I kissed her neck softly. “I’m sorry.”
“You told me it would.”
I kissed her again, searching for that sensitive spot. “I’m still sorry. Are you okay?”
I felt her shift under me and held my breath for a few seconds.
“Yes. It feels...”
“Amazing,” I supplied. “It will for you, too.”
I kissed her once more, getting a shiver, and felt her fingers relax a bit more on my arms.
“You promise?”
“Oh, yeah, sweetheart. Just give me a few minutes. You’ll be happy.”
“Okay.”
I grinned, lingering on that neck spot as she thawed beneath me, starting to enjoy my closeness again. I brought a hand up to rub her nipple, marveling that we were actually here, and she arched. As her tight body contracted around me for the first time, mashing us together, her eyes met mine in surprised pleasure.
I was golden from there.
The hardest part was waiting for her to be finished before I exploded. When her tight body finally clenched down on me, legs out like a board in spasms of orgasm, I cupped her bare cheek and lifted her up.
When I jerked forward, we locked together in a way that I didn’t know was possible. I lost control of myself, spraying thickly. Unable to stop, I slid in deeper and rode the waves, feeling that the damage had already been done if we were that unlucky. For now, I would enjoy the feeling of straining against her in ecstasy as I emptied near a decade of need into her willing body. She was mine. I would never let her go.
I rolled to the side and Angie kept her body locked around mine. Her cheek rested on my chest, a smile on her swollen lips as we drifted in that sweet spot between sleep and awake.
“Night, Brady.”
“Night, honey. See you in the morning.”
“Yes, you will.”
When full sleep came, we were still locked together, unwilling to be separated.
“Do you love her?”
I knew I was dreaming because that voice terrified me.
“Yes.” Lying wasn’t an option. I’d never been so scared.
“What would you give up for her?”
“Everything.”
“The world?”
“I don’t understand.”
The ground shook in anger, knocking me to my knees. From that position, the light around the voice was blinding.
“Would you give up my world, my creation, for one woman?”
I was certain of the correct answer, the answer that would save my life from this shinning horror.
“Make your choice!”
Positive that I was about to die, I tried to forestall the judgement. “No.”
The light began to dim.
“Remember that choice as you mourn the chance to live in truth and light.”
Sure that I’d been tricked, I shouted, “Wait!” but the light was gone.
I snapped awake to the sound of a familiar car pulling into the driveway. It sounded like my mother hadn’t made it to Sterns after all. I felt the earth shake again.
We were about to be caught in bed together.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Marc
“Go out the window!” Angie hissed, fleeing our warm embrace to grab her nightgown.
I wanted to. We might even get away with it, but my pride wouldn’t let me leave her here to deal with the chaos.
“No.”
I hurriedly pulled on my jeans and shoes as Angie did the same. We were both in the middle of adjusting our shirts when the door to her room opened and both of our nightmares filled the frame.
“You little son of a bitch!” Georgie lunged forward, catching my shirt and arm. “I’ll kill you!”
“Wait! Let me–”
Georgie slammed me into the bedroom wall before I could say more.
I fell to the floor, head ringing.
“Get back in that bed and wait for me!” Georgie screamed at Angie as she yanked on his arm.
I didn’t notice the pain or the blood, though. All I heard were his words.
“Leave him alone!”
Angie kept pulling and Georgie delivered a nasty punch that knocked her into the bedpost. I heard the ding when she hit, but I was helpless as blood flooded my vision and little birds danced merrily around my head. I’d thought that was only in the cartoons.
“Don’t kill them!” Mary snapped. “Get him out to the car.”
I understood they were splitting us up, but I had to wait for my body to recover. I was limp as Georgie dragged me through the room by my hair and arm, growling threats.
“Just wait until she gets him out of here. You’ll be sorry!”
I tried to move my arms and found that my legs would respond now. Fair enough. I began to kick.