The Stubborn Love Series: Books 1-5 Contemporary Romance Series

by Wendy Owens

  Licking my lips, my eyes shift to his erection, then with a grin, I look back into his eyes. There’s an intense longing in them that excites me. He shifts and moves toward me, reaching around, and with ease, he unhooks my bra, pulling it from my shoulders and allowing it to fall to the floor. Lifting me by my upper arms, he places me on the couch next to him.

  Gladly, I relinquish the reins to him. He lowers himself on top of me, our skin pressed against one another’s, the only barrier at this point the underwear we each wear. His lips caress my neck, my shoulder, and as I take in a sharp breath I feel him take my nipple into his mouth. There’s a comfort between us; I’m his and he’s mine.

  I rock my hips, pressing his hardness deeper into my thigh, wishing we were completely. I moan, thrusting upward again.

  “Oh God, Dean, please, I…” My words trail off into a deep breath.

  He lifts his head from my breasts. “You what?” he asks with a smile.

  “I need you.”

  One of his hands shifts down and slips inside my panties, and he begins moving two fingers. My body convulses, as he once again takes my nipple in his mouth. My face is hot, and I feel like I am floating above the earth and only he is keeping me from drifting off into space. A pulsating sensation that excites me begins to build inside.

  He doesn’t relent with my moans; this only inspires him to increase the intensity. As I writhe beneath him, I shift my hand from the fabric it was gripping and take a sizable hold of the hair on the back of his head. I pull until he lifts his head and our eyes meet.

  “I want you to take me,” I beg, not recognizing the sound of my voice. His hand slips away for a moment, and he wiggles on top of me. I realize he’s removing his underwear, so I move, tugging at the waistband of my own. Propping up onto his knees at the foot of the couch, now completely naked, he lunges forward to assist me. I lift my bottom, and he slides off the black lace in a flash. My stomach is no longer fluttering, but instead it’s aching with desire.

  Leaning forward, I take his length into my hands and guide his path. He’s leaning over me now, staring into my eyes. I want him as much as he wants me. He presses in ever so slightly so that my guidance is no longer required. But he doesn’t move any farther. He’s simply looking in my eyes, and I wonder what he’s waiting for. Does he want me to beg for it, because at this point I will.

  I give a nod and realize that is exactly what he is waiting for. An indication that I am ready and that he is welcome. My thoughts scatter as I feel him thrust deep inside of me, taking in the full length of him in an instant. The tightness of me around him renders me in a state of complete bliss.

  A glimpse of Travis flashes in my mind, but I don’t panic this time. I close my eyes and bite my lip and pull Dean flat against me. My chin is pressed over his shoulder. I whisper both to Dean and to my Travis, “I’m okay. It’s all going to be okay.”

  As the words leave my lips, I can feel Dean collapse deeper into me. I dig my fingernails into his back and squeak, “Oh god!” Warmth floods me as my abdomen begins to pulse. Feeling my release, Dean pauses and pulls away, our eyes meeting as he allows the pleasure to deliver him into ecstasy as well. The look in his eyes is one of the most satisfying I have ever seen.

  I can’t look away from him. The moment envelops us in a cocoon that I never want to end. After he collapses to the side of me, the first instance of sadness occurs when I feel him pull out of me. It’s an emptiness I don’t want to feel again, but I take comfort in knowing I will, many times.

  “Wow,” he laughs, sweat beading on his forehead.

  “Yeah,” I giggle in agreement.

  Our bodies press up against each other, side by side on the couch. He’s staring at me. “What?” I groan, covering my face for a moment. He pulls my hand away, still looking at me.

  “You’re beautiful.” When he says it I believe it.

  “You’re not so bad yourself,” I joke, before leaning in and giving him a quick kiss.

  Propping himself up on one arm, he hovers over my face and asks me, “Are you happy?”

  I smile, pleased to share the answer, “More than I ever thought I could be.”

  Licking his lips, he continues, “Until this moment I never felt like it, but now I can see, I really am the luckiest man alive.” His fingers trace the outline of my cheek.

  Taking in a deep breath, I slowly press all the air out from my lungs. Until this moment I hated when people talked about luck, but from Dean, a man who knows what it means to be stuck between hope and doubt, it is one of the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard.

  Epilogue

  Three years later…

  The initial sign is staring at me, but I wait impatiently for the second test result to materialize. I can’t say anything to Dean until I’m certain. What do I say to him if it’s positive?

  “Baby, you’re all I want, your love is all I need, and when I’m with you, I feel like I’m in my personal heaven.” He spoke those words to me two weeks ago, and I’d never felt so thankful Dean had come in and turned my life upside down. “Mac, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” He had asked in front of our restaurant full of patrons. After, he joked that it was his clever way of forcing me to say yes.

  I can already see the plus sign begin to materialize.

  My heart rattles in my chest as there’s a knock at the door. I stand and open it. Dean is staring back at me.

  “Oh baby, what’s wrong?” he asks. I’m puzzled by his question at first. But then I realize tears are streaming down my cheeks.

  I open my mouth and try to speak, but no words come out. I look back at the sink, and his eyes follow mine. He sees the pregnancy test, and it suddenly becomes clear. I brace myself for his reaction.

  “Are you?” he begins, his voice full of excitement. “Jesus, really? Are you sure?”

  I nod, still sobbing.

  “That’s amazing! We’re going to be parents.”

  My crying becomes heavier; Dean wraps an arm around me and guides me to our bedroom, helping me to the bed. He sits next to me, and I wonder if he thinks I’ve finally lost my mind.

  “Why are you crying, sweetie?”

  I can only manage one word, and I hope it’s enough for him to understand, “Katie.”

  He pulls me in tight against his body, smoothing my hair, and I hope I haven’t upset him. I can’t imagine what it must be like to experience life events in the way he has had to endure. As soon as he escapes from Travis’s shadow, now our child must deal with that same weight of Katie’s memory.

  I feel his lips press against the top of my head before he pulls away from me.

  “This is a good thing, I promise.”

  “But what about Katie?” I ask, knowing full well I don’t make sense.

  “What about her?”

  “I don’t want her to think I forgot her,” I say, pinching my nose for a moment in an attempt to stop the snot flow.

  “Macaroon, that will never happen. Our babies will know all about Katie, and we’ll make sure they know that one day, after they have lived their full lives and have great-grand-babies of their own, it will be time to go and meet their big sister in heaven.” Dean’s words make my chest ache. I look at him and, in my gaze, I know he can see how much he means to me.

  “Well, you do have this nifty tattoo to make sure she knows you’re always thinking about her.” His fingertips run over the lines. “But, I think the only thing we can do is make sure Katie is everywhere around you all the time.”

  “And how do we do that?” I ask in a nasally tone, my eyes stinging.

  “Come on,” he says, standing up and pulling me up by my hands. “This calls for some fresh ink.”

  “What?” I gasp.

  “Well, not you silly, you’re pregnant. No tattoos for you for nine months.” He smiles, pausing and turning to face me. Pressing my hair behind my ears, he delivers me a gentle kiss. “I’m going to get a tattoo for Katie, so that whenever our baby sees it
or you see it, you will know she was a part of you then, and will therefore always be a part of us.”

  “Seriously?” I chime in disbelief.

  “Yeah! What? You don’t like it?”

  “Dean Johnson, I do believe I am the luckiest woman alive.”

  “Absolutely.” He smiles. “I’m quite sure you’re right about that. I mean, I’m a catch.”

  Even though he’s joking, I know it’s the truth. I really am the luckiest.

  Acknowledgments

  As always, I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my readers, so from the bottom of my heart, thank you. You all have shared my books with other readers, purchased my books, and left reviews. I couldn’t do any of this without you; I’m still in awe every day.

  Thanks goes out to my editor, Madison Seidler, fantastic job as usual. I’m a royal pain in the butt who never meets her deadlines and has about a million panic attacks yet you still keep on supporting and pushing me.

  Thanks as well to Rare Bird Editing for polishing up the final product. You have been an awesome addition to the team and I look forward to working with you on future projects as well.

  I can’t forget my community of Indie Authors who supports me daily. There are far too many of you to list, but you all know who you are and how important you are to me.

  To my husband, Joshua, I love that you love all the broken pieces of me. You’re my rock and without you I couldn’t do any of this. To my three amazing children, mommy is so proud of you. And thankful you understand why we always have a messy house and a back up of laundry around deadline time. I love you to the moon and back.

  Do Anything

  Chapter One

  As the rain falls on the metal roof, I stare, my head cocked back sharply in the chair I am slouching in, and watch as the droplets gather together in the ridges of the skylights, veining outward across the glass. I’m not sure how long I’ve been sitting here; it seems time has lost meaning in recent days. I run my fingers over the tan line on my finger. I don’t need to look at it because the place where the ring had been has become an obsession. I’ve tried everything to lighten it. I scrubbed it with soap, and I even tried bleaching the area in hopes it would fade, even slightly. All it did was give me a headache and leave my skin dry and irritated.

  I hear Kenzie running around my apartment frantically, rambling on about something or other, but I tuned her out at least twenty minutes ago. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not sure where I’d be without her. She is the one person who has been there for me through all of the drama; it’s just that sometimes she can go over the top with the pep talks. A girl can only hear ‘you need to get back up on that horse,’ or ‘there are plenty more fish in the sea,’ so many times before she wants to physically remove her ears from her head.

  On the other hand, when I told my parents what happened, they expressed what a shame it was and how much they liked Jack. Leave it to them to point out the strong qualities of a man who pulled my heart out of my chest cavity before stomping it into a thousand pieces.

  I know they had undeniably truthful arguments, but even though there were a lot of amazing qualities about Jack, there were some things that couldn’t ever be undone. I met him during college; I was a freshman and he was a senior. He had the greatest smile I’d ever seen. You know, one of those where the teeth are so perfect and white that you can’t imagine they’re natural, but then there was a slight lift on one corner of his mouth that made it all come together perfectly. He came from a prominent political family, and I couldn’t believe out of all the girls on campus, he noticed me. It really is such a cliché when you think about it.

  He was smart and funny; he always knew what to say in a crowd of people. I’d preferred the characters in my books to the real thing. People made me nervous—they always had. But not Jack, and I never had to worry about other people, because I always had him.

  When we met, I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, but that didn’t matter to him. He had been so suave about it, too. I didn’t even know his name, but one day, while reading at the campus cafe, he came over and asked, “Should we meet there, or do you prefer I pick you up?”

  “Excuse me?” I’d asked.

  “This Friday, at six ... oh, I mean, I assumed you would be going.”

  I had peered at him, quite puzzled, but he didn’t miss a beat. “You must have me confused with someone else,” I assured him.

  He looked around the cafe, then pressed his finger against the book I’d been holding. “Nope, you’re the only girl around here I see reading a Jonathan Franzen novel.”

  “What?” I remember my voice had cracked slightly when I spoke.

  “He’ll be signing at the campus library this weekend, and I assumed you were a fan given what you’re reading. But hey, if you don’t want to go, I guess I can go by myself.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “About Franzen or the date?” That was the first time I saw that sly and captivating smile from him, that lip that curled at the edges. I wanted to climb into the tiny ridges around his lips and stay nestled there for an eternity.

  I squeeze my eyes shut tightly, wishing I could erase the memory from my mind somehow. Jack wasn’t someone you could just forget, though. I didn’t even want a boyfriend, yet after only three dates I was certain I was going to marry him one day. He popped the question at my graduation last year. Life had seemed so perfect in that moment. Jack could be very romantic, but he was also the practical type. I liked that about him. He wanted to finish law school before we took the leap, and now with his bar exam right around the corner, the wedding plans had moved full steam ahead.

  While I love romance novels, I wasn’t the little girl who had always dreamed of her wedding day and what it would be like. In fact, the details of the actual day concerned me very little. I just wanted to get through the event and move on with our lives together. I didn’t have any family here in Chicago, so Kenzie took care of a lot of the planning. My mother, who lived in Ohio, didn’t seem to mind either. This was not surprising, considering we had never been what you would call close.

  Had Kenzie not been planning the wedding for me, I’m not sure I would have ever discovered Jack’s dirty little secret. Would I have been at our apartment when he didn’t expect me to be, had she not sent me home from the office in the middle of a workday to pick up the measurements for the bridesmaid dresses? I’d forgotten the paper on the counter that morning, and despite several attempts at calling Jack to request he bring them to me, I found myself begrudgingly making the trek home. To think, had I not, I may have never known about Jack’s study sessions. He was supposed to be cramming for the bar, but instead I discovered him in our bed, cramming himself into our across-the-hall neighbor, a blonde bombshell who looked like a Swedish super model. I can still hear the sounds of them going at it.

  The only thing I have in common with the woman is our long hair. Hers was a pale yellow in color with a silken texture, while mine is wavy and coarse with deep chestnut tones. Her skin was tanned while mine is pale; her eyes blue, mine brown; her features slight all the way down to her slender nose, while a round ball sat at the tip of mine. I’m not ugly, and I’ve never thought of myself that way. Well, not until I saw this naked goddess in my bed. That moment had definitely been a solid blow to my self-esteem.

  I think I handled it well. Okay, no, I didn’t handle it well at all. When I first walked into the condo I heard them. Initially I thought an intruder was lurking around our place, and my heart had begun to race. Quickly, I realized exactly what type of noises I was hearing, so I then thought I had walked into the wrong apartment. Somehow, in that moment, it was making sense in my mind ... that my key had fit into someone else’s lock and worked. I never said I was thinking rationally. Then I saw a picture on a side table—the one of Kenzie and me during our vacation to Mexico senior year.

  It was confirmed that this was my apartment, these were my things, and whoever was making those noises was in my bedroom. What w
ould Jack do when he found out someone was using our apartment to have random stranger sex? When I walked into the room I wasn’t exactly quiet, but neither were they, so I went unnoticed. I just stood there, watching. Honestly, I still have no idea why I watched. It was a horrific display, like two wild animals pawing at each other, but I was helpless, a captive prisoner, forced to stare at the sweaty primal union.

  The next part is where I like to gloss over the details when I tell people about what happened. I’m pretty sure most people would have started shouting and screaming at their cheating partner, or perhaps just turn and leave. Oh God, why didn’t I just leave? I walked up to the edge of our bed, the entire time thinking about completely pointless details, like how that bed was the first thing we had purchased together in our relationship. I suppose I was hoping one of them would notice me and stop the appalling display. And luckily, Jack did see me, eventually. He rolled off Elsa, or whatever the hell her name was, and started screaming at me.

  I’m not sure what he was saying, but knowing Jack, he was probably making excuses. I couldn’t hear him because I was busy regurgitating the burrito I’d had for lunch on the way over to the apartment. Not only did I vomit, but I managed to spray it all over the bed, thoroughly dousing Jack and his Swedish Barbie. It was at that point I turned and ran out of the apartment, not looking back. I can still remember their faces; it’s one of the few things that gives me satisfaction when I think back on the horrific memory. As embarrassing as it is to vomit on someone, I can’t imagine it being nearly as traumatizing as being the recipient of the discharge.

  What happened after I ran out is a blur. Somehow I’d managed to give the low down to Kenzie over the phone, who in turn came and found me at a local Mexican joint somewhere between greasy taco number four and five. I stayed with her that night, which was terrible considering she recently had to move back in with her parents due to her shopping addiction and lack of money management skills. The entire night her mother brought me baked goods and kept asking me if I was all right. Every time I would try to answer her, it came out as a whimper, which would just send her running back into the kitchen to bake more. I have no clue how Kenzie is so slender after growing up with that woman and her incessant need to cure sadness with brownies.