Drop Dead Gorgeous

by Landish, Lauren

  “I know, Miss Walker. It’s hard not to.” He gives me his single-brow lift with a cocky smirk, and I can’t help but laugh at his weirdness.

  Just as weird, I reply, “You think so, Mr. Hale? Did you know most people decide whether they like someone in the first ninety seconds? Want to know what I thought of you after you crashed into my car?” We both know I hit him, but I don’t know that we’ll ever be done teasing about who caused the accident that started this all.

  “Nope, because I already know what I thought of you . . . I thought you were gorgeous, smart, and funny. I was already halfway in love with you then.”

  “You were not,” I argue halfheartedly.

  “I was,” he says, but it’s lost in his kiss as his lips meet mine again. Sweet, soft kisses, almost pecks, but one right after the last as though he wants to sip at me.

  I tease along the fullness of his lip with my tongue, and he opens for me, but instantly, he invades my mouth instead, holding my head gently so I don’t move and injure myself. Vaguely, I hear the door open and Jacob say, “Shiii-ooot, are they at it again? Come on, I’ll take you ladies for hot chocolate while these lovebirds do that.”

  Holly must answer, but I’m too lost in Blake to care.

  Chapter 28

  Blake

  I pull up to Zoey’s trailer, actually a little nervous. I washed my sedan today, but I still give the interior a once-over to make sure there’s not a speck of dust or dog hair. I climb out and smooth my slacks at my hips, not wanting any creases.

  Not tonight.

  Not on my first date with Zoey.

  Is it odd that we have spent every night since she got out of the hospital a week ago together, and I left her bed just this morning so that she could have the day to get ready for our big date?

  Maybe. But this is a big deal.

  The first date of many with the woman I love.

  “Hey! Hey, you!” I hear from across the way. Thelma and Louise are sitting in their rickety folding chairs, same as they do every night, smoking and talking about God knows what.

  “Yes, ladies?” I answer, taking measured steps their way. I dare them to say one harsh word about Zoey. I will skin them alive. Hell, I won’t have to . . . Zoey has been calling everyone in town on their shit since she got out of the hospital.

  People have been apologizing left and right, telling her ‘we didn’t know it was hurting you’ and ‘why didn’t you say something sooner?’ It pissed me off, but Zoey is choosing to draw a line in the sand—the before and the now. And she’s giving everyone, herself included, a fresh start.

  But only one, and then she’ll tell you right off.

  I beamed like a love-drunk fool when she told Bubba that she’d sit anywhere she damn well pleased while we waited for our to-go order two nights ago at the beer barn, and he’d nodded his agreement before saying, “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Why’re you all dressed up? You taking our Zoey Walker on the town?”

  I search through the words for any ill-will and scan their eyes for any malice, but find none. “Yes, we’re going to dinner.”

  Smoke billows from Thelma’s mouth as she scolds me. “Well, it’s about damn time. That girl needs someone to make sure she’s eating and taken care of. Poor child, always taking care of everyone else.”

  The tsk sound she makes seems authentic, like she’s always worried about Zoey, but I haven’t forgotten our previous conversations, though Zoey would like to. Louise hums, nodding her agreement. “Yes, she is. Sweet girl, that Zoey. So caring and kind.”

  Seriously? Did body-snatching aliens invade and I missed the news report? How have they gone from smack talking Zoey, thinking she was harvesting DBs’ nails as conditioner additives, to calling her ‘poor child’ and ‘sweet girl’?

  Guess getting kidnapped has its benefits, I think wryly.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t want to be late, so good night.” I quick step it back to Zoey’s, hoping that if body-snatchers have come to Williamson County today, they left my woman alone because she’s perfect just the way she is.

  * * *

  “Did I tell you that you look gorgeous?” I ask Zoey, knowing full well that I’ve told her at least three times already.

  But she does. Her black hair is down, long and softly curled, and she’s wearing a bit of makeup that makes her blue eyes look sultry and mysterious—though I know she’s hiding the leftover bruising, and her little black dress hugs curves that I’m dying to get my hands on.

  “Hmm, I can’t remember,” she teases. “Maybe?” She takes a sip of her wine, trying to hide her pleased smile.

  We’re sitting at the fancy restaurant Trey recommended as the place he took Serena for their last anniversary, our delicious dinner eaten and a bottle of wine shared between us. But there’s one more thing I want to do before we go back to my place tonight.

  “I got you something,” I tell Zoey seriously. This isn’t a gift in the dictionary sense of the word. It’s not a token given freely with no expectation of reciprocity. Oh, no, I expect something in return. I expect Zoey to wear my gift every day.

  “You did?” Zoey’s eyes light up, and I pull the box out of my jacket pocket and set it on the table. Her breath catches in her throat at the small, black velvet box. “Blake?”

  I fidget with the box, nerves shooting through me. Is she going to think this is weird? Or stupid? It’s not the usual gift from a man to a woman, that’s for sure.

  But it’s not for a usual woman.

  It’s for Zoey.

  “It’s not what you think. Don’t freak out on me. It’s only our first date,” I tease. “No wedding rings . . . yet.”

  I see Zoey’s relief, her chest lowering as she releases her held breath. God, I could watch her simply breathe all day, her breasts rising and falling hypnotically. She places her hand over mine, and I’m knocked out of my trance, lifting my eyes to hers, which are sparkling with humor.

  But I don’t mind being busted looking at her. I want to look at her every day for the rest of my life. And one day soon, I will.

  But not on our first date.

  Tonight, I want to give her something else. “You are an extraordinary woman, Miss Walker. I see you, I respect you, and I want to know every little quirk in that sexy brain of yours. Whether I understand it or not, if it means something to you, it means everything to me.”

  She blinks back tears I wasn’t expecting. “Why are you crying? You haven’t even opened it yet.”

  She wipes at her eyes with her napkin. “I don’t know even know what it is, but I already love it. I love you.” Her smile is wavery, trembling at the edges.

  “I love you too. Now open it.”

  She presses her lips together, but the smile simply returns unbidden. And then she opens the small box and gasps, “Oh! It’s beautiful!” She pulls the necklace out of the box carefully, holding it up to examine it.

  “Let me help with that.” I stand to move behind her, and she pulls her hair out of the way so I can slip the necklace around her neck and fasten it securely. The wooden pendant falls high on her chest, dainty and small. “I thought you could always have something wooden to touch for luck. It’s got a small indention on the back too, so you can rub it like a worry stone when you need a little extra luck. Or when you need to calm down before you kill me for leaving my sweaty socks on the floor again.”

  I don’t do that anymore, won’t ever do it again. One word from Zoey about the smell making her think of being in the trunk with Sebastian’s workout clothes did something years of my mother’s complaining could never do, instantly breaking me of the habit of stripping step by step on the way to the shower after my morning run and leaving my clothes all over the place.

  Now, I strip in the laundry room and immediately start the washer.

  But Zoey is doing well, so much better than any of us expected. She’s back to work at the morgue, telling everyone that she won’t let anything stop her from doing what she loves and what her gr
andpa taught her to do. Alver does regular patrols now, checking the morgue, including the refrigerator, each time.

  And Jeff stops by every shift too, keeping an eye on Zoey like only a father can.

  Zoey touches the wooden pendant thoughtfully. “Thank you. I love it. But I already feel so lucky. I don’t know if I deserve any more.”

  “You deserve it all, Miss Walker.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Hale.”

  We take a car back to my place, and before the front door even closes, we’re touching each other in the dark and dancing down the hallway to my bedroom.

  “I want to see you with nothing but that necklace on,” I growl against her neck. Zoey moans. It doesn’t simply sound like a moan of desire but the moan of a starving woman feeling full for the first time in her life. Her period of loneliness is over.

  When we reach my bedroom, she steps away to let me unzip her dress and unhook her bra. She shrugs both off, leaving her heavy teardrop shaped breasts bare in the faint light coming in through the window. She’s glowing, her alabaster skin catching the moonlight and turning it even more beautiful.

  “Your turn,” she says, sitting down on the edge of my bed and crossing her legs primly. It’s sexy and conflicting at the same time, her proper, ladylike pose contrasting with the erotic naughtiness of her near nudity.

  I peel off my suit, tossing it aside for later cleaning to stand before her in just my own underwear, my hard erection straining against the cotton of my boxer briefs. “Better?”

  Zoey nods, scooting back to the middle of the bed before lying back. In one smooth movement, she peels her panties down and off before spreading her legs, holding them open and displaying herself for me.

  I don’t need any words. I climb onto the bed, my hungry mouth finding the inside of one thigh and then the other as I kiss my way back and forth. I inhale her musk, the heady aroma making my head swirl and my heart hammer in my chest.

  I’ll get to do this for the rest of my life.

  The thought makes me smile against Zoey’s pussy, and she runs her fingers through my hair, her own smile audible in her happy sigh. That sigh becomes a deep moan as I reach out, licking her with my tongue and exploring her wet folds. I remember what she likes, teasing up and down between her lips for a few strokes before circling her clit and then sucking lightly.

  “Blake . . .” Zoey whimpers, her breath coming faster as I let my tongue dance between her lips and to her clit again and again. “Fuck!”

  “I will,” I promise her, but I don’t move. Not yet. I want her on my tongue first. She bucks again and her fist tightens in my hair. She lets go of herself, knowing that I’m here, that I’m not going anywhere.

  That she can always trust me.

  I prove it again and again by giving her everything, drawing her up higher and higher as pleasure jolts up and down her body in racking shudders. Zoey’s legs close, her feet on my back as her thighs close around my head, not to push me away but to keep me where she needs me as I tease and love her pussy until she cries out and comes hard.

  When her back relaxes and her thighs unclench, I slide up the bed, pushing my underwear down and taking myself in hand.

  We look into each other’s eyes as I slide into her, her pussy still having phantom flutters from the intensity of her orgasm. “You feel so good, squeezing me like that.”

  That’s true, but there’s so much more to it. The most blissful experience is being not just buried inside her body but welcomed into her heart. She lifts her head, meeting me for a kiss and bearing down extra tight on my hard shaft.

  We’re together, two hearts beating as one and two souls fully together.

  My hips rise and fall, thrusting deep with each clench of my muscles, but I go slowly, watching for any sign that it’s too much for her. Not just emotionally, but physically. Her body is recovered, but I can’t help but be gentle with her. Zoey isn’t having it that way, though. She pushes her hips against the bed, bucking her hips into mine. “Deeper . . . harder.”

  I can’t deny her, and the power of our joining makes her necklace shake with each thrust. The sight is one that I will always hold dear, a memory of the first time I took my Zoey with no walls, no defenses, just pure and open eyes and hearts and passion we cannot contain.

  The world blurs, sweat dripping down my forehead, but I blink it away, unwilling to not see her clearly in this moment. Zoey reaches up with one hand to cup my cheek.

  “I love you,” Zoey gasps out in between strokes of my cock. “Forever.”

  “Love you too!” I barely have time to grit the words out before my cock swells and I’m lost to blackness. I throw my head back, my climax coursing through me. I feel myself explode deep into Zoey’s tight body, and then her own orgasm comes right behind mine, her walls pulsing around me.

  We stay that way, her in my arms and me in her body as we come down, our lips meeting in a soft kiss. Sensing she’s falling prey to her desire to sleep after sex, I roll, keeping her impaled on my softening cock.

  “Whoo!” she yells with a laugh, but she settles back over me, resting on her knees and sitting up.

  Her hair is wild, all the tamed curls released. Her makeup is smeared, the smoky eyes now looking more like smudges. And she’s nude, save for the wooden pendent above her breasts which sit proudly on her chest.

  With my hands on her hips, I tell her, “You are so gorgeous.”

  She flinches, a tell so tiny she probably doesn’t even know she did it. And my heart breaks for her.

  “You really are. Gorgeous.” I say it vehemently this time, with all the love, respect, and care I feel for her entwined in the too-important word. “Inside and out.”

  She’s silent for a moment, thinking as she traces her hand over my chest aimlessly. Finally, she quietly says, “Do me a favor? Keep telling me. Take away all the bad feeling of that word and replace it with your love?”

  “Gorgeous,” I repeat, pulling her down to kiss her again. “Gorgeous.” Another kiss.

  When she’s smiling again, I ask, “So . . . how was our first date? Maybe a one to ten ranking scale, so I can improve for the next one? Keep it statistically comparable, you know.”

  Zoey laughs at the conversational turn, and I feel her muscles squeeze me. She tilts her head left and right, not giving anything away before saying, “Pretty good. Though I don’t have much to compare it to,” she teases. “But I hope it’s not over yet.” Her brow lifts flirtatiously.

  “Oh?”

  Zoey shakes her head, a cascade of dark hair tickling my face. “I plan on giving you a little time to recover, and then we’re going to go one more time before we sleep. Perchance to dream,” she adds with a dramatically airy flair.

  I smile at the quoted poetry. It’s so Zoey. “Did you know Hamlet’s soliloquy is one of the most widely known and quoted pieces in modern English? Shakespeare also wrote nearly one-tenth of the most quoted lines in the English language.”

  “I did not, but somehow, I’m not surprised that you do.”

  I hum, “I also know the average male my age needs roughly twenty minutes before they’re able to go again.”

  “Is that so?” Zoey says on a smirk, but she grinds her hips against me as she says it. “Oh, maybe you’re above average?”

  “Good inspiration,” I agree, feeling myself harden inside her. Grabbing her hips and pulling her down forcefully, I correct myself. “Gorgeous inspiration.”

  Epilogue

  Zoey

  It’s brunch, Zoey. No big deal. Smile, eat, and don’t say anything weird. You can do this.

  I hope that’s true because today is most definitely a big deal. I’m meeting Blake’s family—the people he loves, the ones who shaped him and who made him believe in happily-ever-afters. I want them to like me, and I want to like them. Blake says they will love me, just like he does, but I’m nervous.

  Don’t talk about dead bodies. Don’t talk about decomposition. In fact, don’t talk about work at all.


  Yeah, that’s probably my best bet. I’ll talk about . . . the weather, cute puppy dogs, and rainbows. That’s normal people stuff, right?

  Hell if I know. I haven’t had a regular conversation since . . . I don’t know when. I talk to people at work now that they don’t give me a hard time anymore, but the other folks in the sheriff’s department talk about weird cases, gross calls, and stupid suspects.

  Holly talks about her work and shitty guys she’s dating, though I think Jacob might be finally wearing her down. He just might have a chance at getting at least a pizza date out of her before long.

  And Jacob talks about school, video games, and Holly. That boy is a hundred percent head over heels for her, despite the age difference, his youth, and more. But he’s becoming a good man. I mean, anyone who can go to community college and ignore all the pussy there in favor of a single mom? Weird . . . but in a good way.

  And Blake and me?

  We talk about random, oddball trivia facts along with our talks about our days. Which brings me back to . . . don’t talk about work.

  I finger the wooden pendant at my throat absently, hoping for some sense of calm.

  “Nervous?” Blake asks, seeing my gesture. He takes one hand off the wheel to lay it on my thigh, giving me a reassuring squeeze before returning his hands to ten and two o’clock.

  Yeah, I still like to give him a hard time about that fender bender, but he’s an excellent driver and it probably was my fault.

  Maybe.

  But I won’t admit that to him. Doesn’t matter, anyway.

  “A little.” That I will admit.

  “Do you have any idea how excited they are to meet you? Amy threatened to show up on my doorstep and ‘kidnap you her damn self’ if I didn’t bring you to brunch today.”