Wounded Hearts: Men in Blue, Book 5

by Jayne Rylon

  Expecting his mouth to seal over her pussy and for him to use his very talented mouth to massage her, she let her eyes drift closed. So she was surprised when something cool and squishy draped across her left breast.

  Ellie levered up onto her elbows. She looked at what he was doing—painting her, in a way. Another squirt of acrylic from one of the tubes nearby decorated her collarbone. Various hues of blue and green splattered across her body as he dipped his fingers in the mess he’d made and began to use it to adorn her skin.

  “What are you doing?” She couldn’t help but crack up. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “I think you’re a masterpiece, and you should look like one.” He shrugged. “Besides, it seemed like it would feel interesting.”

  She could vouch for that.

  His fingers glided all over her, leaving a dab on the tip of one nipple before wandering off to draw a heart around her belly button.

  As his hands twisted and played in the goop, he settled in between her legs and nudged her thighs wider to accommodate his broad shoulders. He ate her with the same enthusiasm he showed for his newfound artistic skills.

  His lazy swipes drew out her pleasure and she appreciated every extended moment, since she was so used to rushing for the summit. Eventually, though, he proved too good.

  And this time, when she rose toward orgasm, he made sure that he didn’t stop short.

  It was almost odd for her to feel the rush of climax without the feral urging from Sex Offender for her to take more. If he had stopped there, she would have been fulfilled.

  But he didn’t.

  Lucas rose above her. He winced. “E, will you give me a hand here?”

  He held his palms out to her, showing her the streaks and blended colors he’d dyed himself with as he embellished her. Glad to help, she reached between them, took his cock in hand and guided him to her body, where he belonged.

  They moaned together as he slid home. And when he leaned forward and applied his torso to hers, the paint suddenly seemed genius. It enhanced the slide of their bodies, swirling the colors he’d applied earlier.

  She loved the vibrancy he brought to her life. In every aspect.

  This was no different.

  Ellie hugged him to her in every way she knew how. Her legs locked around him, her hands scratching gently up and down his back and her pussy clenching on his cock as he thrust into her, slightly less evenly as he began to really enjoy himself.

  “Will you let me see you come, Ellie? The real you?” he practically begged. “Show me that you love this as much as I do.”

  Well, that was an easy request to honor.

  Ellie left herself open to him all the way to her soul. She hoped he could read the absolute rapture in her eyes. This was special. Unique. Something only they could elicit from the other. It wouldn’t matter if she’d never taken Sex Offender.

  They would spark brightly every time they collided like this.

  Instead of ramping up his pistoning, Lucas slowed, torturing them both with long, languid glides that were no less pleasurable for being intimate and thorough, instead of frenzied. Both were amazing in different ways.

  This, she knew, was a part of their healing. There was nothing to hide behind when they were together like this.

  Ellie felt her toes curl, and her spine arched.

  “Lucas!” she cried out.

  “I’m with you, E,” he promised. “Let’s let go together.”

  “Ready?” she asked.

  He grunted as he pushed in as deep as possible before retreating in that maddeningly steady cadence. “I’ve been waiting for this my whole life. I just didn’t believe it was possible.”

  “With you, anything is possible.” She looked up at him. The next time he plowed into her fully, she was gone. Flying. With him by her side.

  They came together, calling each other’s names.

  It was spectacular even if it didn’t have that extra edge she’d learned to love too. Either way was amazing, as long as she got to share it with him.

  They stayed like that, locked together, until his flesh softened and he slipped from her, allowing a trickle of his come to escape along with his retreating cock.

  Lucas lifted up high enough to look at their bodies, smeared in his favorite colors of the rainbow. He took one of her canvases from where it leaned against the easel leg and pressed it to her chest and belly. Her paint-splattered skin made an interesting impression.

  Satisfied with the results, he collected another blank and smooshed it against his torso. The result was two mirrored modern art paintings. Maybe it was only because she knew how he’d made them, but she actually thought they were kind of brilliant.

  They could capture her attention for hours.

  “Hey, E?”

  “Mmm.” She couldn’t manage more than that.

  “Remember when you told me I should ask you to be my girlfriend?”

  “I think I was joking at the time, but yes.”

  “What if I ask you to move in with me instead?” he wondered. “Permanently. I love you, Ellie. I want to be your partner and share my life with you. You’re the only one who gets me.”

  “Lucas…”

  “Hmm?”

  “You haven’t asked yet.” She stared up at him, smiling like crazy as her fingers brushed his cheek.

  “Ellie, will you make my house our home?”

  “Absolutely. Because I love you too. And I always will. We may have a lot of healing left to do, but I know our chances of erasing these scars are better if we work on it together.” She leaned up to kiss him gently. “I do have one condition, though.” Ellie winked at him.

  He laughed then said, “I’ll give you anything in my power, E.”

  “I want to hang these paintings in the living room.” She pointed at the oddly pleasing mixture of colors, textures and bold splatters that was the visual representation of their sexual perfection.

  Lucas high-fived her. “Deal.”

  Then he kissed the shit out of her and they churned out a whole series of paintings. Enough for a lascivious gallery show if they wanted one. They could probably make millions with them. At least in her eyes, they were beautiful in their natural imperfection.

  Just like Lucas.

  Maybe even just like her.

  Epilogue

  Ryan sat on a wicker love seat in Lucas’s sunroom. Lucas and Ellie’s, he corrected himself mentally, since his sister had taken up permanent residence there about a month and a half ago. Bathed in sunlight, she’d just flashed her engagement ring, practically blinding him and the rest of their friends. The brilliant oval diamond was surrounded by a halo of blue and green stones that somehow suited her perfectly.

  He was happy the furniture in this room was a tad undersized because that meant that Ben and Shari, who sandwiched him, had to sit extra close. Having them nearby made it easier to focus on how thrilled he was for his sister—who’d finally found the happiness she deserved, with a man who cherished her—instead of wondering what purpose he had in life now that she was well and truly out on her own.

  As much as the gathering of Men in Blue, their spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends, kids and friends oohed and aahed over her bling, they totally lost their shit when Lucas and Ellie turned around, lifted the backs of their shirts to their necks and revealed their coordinating tattoos. They were portraits…sort of.

  Ellie had designed them. Ryan recognized her style of drawing immediately, even translated onto skin. Hers was a bust in the likeness of Lucas. It had been shattered. Pieces scattered on the ground around it. But a female hand, one sporting his sister’s engagement ring, held a bottle of glue, the other one picked up the shards, cementing the bust back together. In the lower corner there was even a little foot that looked like it had broken off the statue.

  On the bottl
e, where the infamous cow would normally be, was a stunning miniature of Ellie. She was Lucas’s brand of glue.

  Lucas’s tattoo was the same but opposite. It was Ellie’s shattered bust he held together.

  Ah, fuck.

  Ryan tried to hide his sniffle by turning his head. Except Ben was staring right back at him. The guy reached out, like he might hug Ry, but he froze with his hand awkwardly in the air between them. This was not the time for them to hash stuff out. Ben was straight. Or had been before their stint in Morselli’s dungeon. Since then…well, the guy had been confused…and Ryan was tired of his heart getting stomped on when Ben’s fickle dick changed its mind.

  Concentrating on Ellie once more, Ryan pushed thoughts of his disastrous relationship with Ben from his mind. His sister was saying something as she gestured to her art supplies. Not about the tattoos. No, she’d moved on to even more good news.

  “I really can’t believe it.” She beamed at Lucas. “The drawing I did on his prosthesis was just…for us…something I enjoyed doing. I didn’t even know if he’d really like it.”

  “Are you kidding?” Lucas nuzzled the side of her face and then kissed her with enough heat and promise to make Ryan uncomfortable.

  “Hey now, save that for when I’m gone,” he teased, sort of.

  Lucas grinned then saluted him. “So anyway, I realized there were probably a lot of people out there like me who had standard beige sockets. That’s what you get at places like the VA or if you have older equipment or no insurance.”

  Ellie winced.

  So Lucas kept explaining, “I posted a picture of the custom artwork she created. It’s totally badass, right?”

  Julie hopped off Ben’s lap to go check it out when Lucas waved to it, beneath his shorts. It was still odd getting used to seeing him in them again. Not because of his prosthesis, but because he’d insisted on pants only in public for so long after his accident.

  Ryan knew Ellie was responsible for some, if not most, of his desensitization about that.

  Julie looked up close, trailing her fingers around the swirls of black-outlined colors. The whole thing looked a lot like the sleeves of ink Lucas wore more permanently. It really did make his leg look like part of him—his style, his way—instead of some generic attachment.

  “You’re really good at drawing, Aunt Ellie.” Julie asked, “Will you teach me how to make a doggie later?”

  “Sure.” Ellie scooped Julie up and hugged her tight.

  When she wriggled, Ellie set her down and Julie skipped over to Lily and JRad, who were listening intently, as were the rest of their friends.

  “So what happened then?” Razor wanted to know.

  “Oh, well”—Ellie tried not to grin, but failed miserably—“by the end of the day, we had over a hundred requests placed from people asking to hire me for custom work. I’m booked solid for the rest of the year. We’re looking at doing a couple dozen generic designs that can be sort of heat wrapped over a socket, like those sleeves you put on Easter eggs. Those will be really affordable and removable. Plus, people who don’t want to wait a long time for me to be free or who want something in the interim can get it.”

  “And when JRad built her a website and we mentioned that we were donating a portion of the proceeds to survivor charities, those places started promoting us in return.” Lucas beamed at his future wife. “It’s blowing up. It’s going to be a big freaking deal.”

  Jambrea broke out of Matt’s lap to hug her friends. “I’m so proud of you two.”

  Ryan couldn’t believe it. He laughed at how much good fortune his sister was finally raking in. She deserved every bit of it and more, as far as he was concerned. Hell, she hadn’t even heard their contribution yet. The whole reason they’d called this impromptu party in the first place.

  “Well, since you’re about to be rolling in it and doing something you love while helping others too, I suppose you don’t need these big, fat reward checks we came to deliver.” Mason pulled them from his pocket.

  “What?” Lucas looked stunned, something that didn’t happen very often.

  “Did you see his face?” Tyler asked before he and Clint fist-bumped each other.

  Ellie clung to her man, supporting him even as she drew strength from him. “Are you joking?”

  “No, ma’am. We’re cops. Very serious officers of the law who definitely do not jest.” Razor couldn’t even finish that whole sentence without cracking himself up.

  JRad, closest to the couple, nudged them. “Go ahead, take them. You earned them.”

  When Lucas accepted his paper and read it, his eyes widened even farther. “That’s a lot of zeroes.”

  Ellie squeaked when she looked at hers. “Holy shit!”

  “S-h-i-t is a bad word, Aunt Ellie.” Julie wagged her finger at them. “You gotta watch your mouth in front of baby Ezra.”

  Ryan laughed, seeing as that sounded an awful lot like what he and Shari were always telling Ben.

  Mason kept going despite the adorable interruption. “Yeah, well. It turns out that the felons you busted were wanted for several other jobs. When we raided their headquarters, we found about three dozen missing artifacts, paintings and a crap ton of stolen money. There were several rewards posted for the return of those items.”

  Lacey added to her husband’s explanation, “Plus, the casino kicked in your original winnings and a hefty sum for keeping their name out of the papers when they’re first getting started. Reports of your attack would have been very bad press for them. Besides, you helped them pin down the mole, the teller, who was making the heist possible.”

  “Whoa,” Ellie said as she looked from her check to Lucas and then back.

  “I guess we know where we’re going to get our start-up capital.” He grinned. “If you handle the artwork, I’ll head up production on the stock designs like we talked about. The business end of things too.”

  “Are you sure you want to live with me and work with me?” Ellie asked.

  Everyone in the room groaned. Was that girl blind?

  “Positive,” Lucas confirmed.

  “Then I guess it’s time to bust out this champagne I brought.” Izzy hoisted a bottle over her head. “Though I’m thinking we could have used a case or two more, with all this good news.”

  Jambrea grinned at her friend, then at her guys. They nodded and squeezed her hands. “I’ll help you out, Iz. None for me.”

  “What? Don’t be silly. You love—” Izzy broke off as she put her hands over her mouth then let out an ear-piercing squeal.

  Matt and Clint sat there with dopey grins on their faces as they stared at their woman, whose hand had drifted to her still-flat belly.

  “Seriously?” Lacey shrieked as she started bouncing up and down then trotted over to Jambrea. Soon Shari, Izzy, Lily and Ellie were there too, fused into one giant, girly group hug.

  “What’s happening?” Julie looked mildly alarmed at the chaos around them.

  Ben picked her up and set her on his knee. “Aunt Jambi is going to be a mommy.”

  “Really? She’s going to have a girl, right?” And like that she was off again, shoving her way to Jambrea.

  “Me and your daughter can be best friends, Aunt Jambi. She’s going to like purple and we’ll share a pony. We can braid each other’s hair. And I think Rachel is a pretty name, don’t you?”

  Ben shot Ryan a horrified look. “Where does she come up with this stuff?”

  The best part of all, though, was when Matt caught the trail of Julie’s rambling, then paled.

  “Wait, what? A girl?” He shook his head as if he hadn’t considered the idea. “No, no. Razor got a boy. I can handle that.”

  Baby Ezra clapped his hands as if he seconded the idea.

  “Means it’s time for a girl next.” Razor grinned.

  Clint, Tyler, Mason, JR
ad, Ben, Ryan and Lucas all cracked up as their friend squirmed uncomfortably at the thought.

  “Go ahead and laugh.” Matt glared at them. “I’ll remember this when it’s your turns.”

  Wouldn’t that be nice? Now all Ryan needed was for a little of that luck to rub off on him.

  Maybe Shari and Ben too.

  Yeah, right.

  As if she could read his thoughts, Shari looked over at him. She smiled softly before taking in Ben too. Which is precisely when Ben got up and left the room.

  Fucking idiot.

  When Shari hugged Ryan, he wondered if he was being equally as stupid. Maybe it was time he took things more seriously with her. She, at least, seemed to care for him.

  Impulsively, he leaned over and kissed her cheek.

  She didn’t smack him, which was a start.

  Instead, she looked up at him with questions in her eyes that he planned to answer as soon as he could get her alone.

  About the Author

  Jayne Rylon is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author. She received the 2011 Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Indie Erotic Romance. Her stories used to begin as daydreams in seemingly endless business meetings, but now she is a full-time author, who employs the skills she learned in her straitlaced corporate existence in the business of writing. She lives in Ohio with two cats and her husband, who both inspires her fantasies and supports her career. When she can escape her purple office, she loves to travel the world, avoid speeding tickets in her beloved Sky and, of course, read.

  Jayne loves to hear from fans. You can reach her by email at contact@jaynerylon.com or chat with her while she’s procrastinating on Facebook—www.facebook.com/jayne.rylon—or Twitter—@jaynerylon.

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