Something cool cascaded down her bottom, and then Hawk rubbed what she knew was lotion into her bottom. He coated it once, and then again. It made her feel so much better.
When he was done she said, “I’m sorry I misbehaved. I know better and I won’t do it again.”
“I hope not, my sweet pea,” he said. “If something happened to you…” He didn’t finish his sentence, but she felt the same way he did, but in reverse. If something happened to Hawk she would lose her mind.
He undid her bonds and carried her into the house. He gently placed her on the bed, then left. She heard the front door close, and then he was back. She was still crying, and he lay down next to her and stroked her back as she cried.
She fell asleep, loving the feel of him as he held her.
Chapter 14
Jessica put the lasagna in the oven just as the sun started to set. They’d had a lazy afternoon with very little conversation or food. In fact they’d slept a lot. That wasn’t surprising to her, since she’d been considered a murder suspect for the first time in her life. Now she was wide awake and feeling great, although her ass hurt something fierce.
It wasn’t unusual for them to relax after a punishment. It was like they were both coming to terms with it. Jessica was realizing she’d done something against the rules, and put herself in danger. She wasn’t sure what Hawk was thinking about, and she didn’t plan on asking him. He was on the sofa now, his fingers flying over the keyboard of his phone.
She sat down beside him, grimaced, then changed positions so she was on her side, leaning into Hawk. He put his arm around her and kissed her forehead. She watched as he fumbled with his phone, then he put it down.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Holt wants to know if we’ve made our decision,” he said. “I guess Jackson is bugging Leslie.”
“I’m going to do it,” she said.
“With no discussion?”
“Do you want to try and change my mind?” She traced a figure eight on his thigh.
“In this case, no.” Hawk made the same figure on her shoulder. “I don’t think this guy is particularly smart, but I do think he wouldn’t give up the truth very easily. However, and this is horrible to say, but it’s obvious he hates you. That’s why he’s trying to frame you.”
“I don’t understand why.” She nestled down so her head was on his lap. “I was nice when I broke up with him. I gave him the ring instead of keeping it. I left town so people didn’t have to choose sides. What did I do wrong? You’re a guy, what do you think?”
She turned her head toward him so she could see his expression. She could tell he was thinking about it carefully, and it worried her he might, somehow, think she was in the wrong.”
“Did you do it all of a sudden?” he asked.
“Well, it was obvious we were growing apart.”
There was a pause, a long one. Too long for her.
“What?” she asked.
“Obvious to who, you? Or him? Did the two of you talk about it?”
Now it was her chance to be quiet. Finally she said, “I hate it when you make sense.”
“I’ll take that as a no, that you didn’t talk about it.”
“Not a word,” she said. “Well, we talked about the fact his mother didn’t like me, and that would make a relationship difficult. But I never said it would be impossible.”
“But you were thinking it?”
Jessica turned her gaze away from him. “You know I’m not good at commitment. Learned that from my mother. Men were good for a while, but ultimately you have to rely on yourself.”
“Okay, let me ask you something that might actually piss you off.”
“Listening,” Jessica said.
“Was Grant your Daddy?”
“Good Lord no.” She couldn’t help but laugh. “If anything, Grant needed a Domme. We were totally unsuited for each other in the bedroom. I asked him to spank me once and his eyes got as big as saucers.”
“Teacup saucers, or UFOs?”
Jessica giggled, and looked up at him again. “UFOs.”
“You’ve seen one?” he asked.
“On the pages of supermarket tabloids, yes.”
They both laughed. Then Jessica turned serious. “Do you really think he tried to frame me for murdering his mother because I dumped him?”
“Yeah, I do.” Hawk continued to stroke her shoulder. “Do you know what this situation has revealed?”
“That Grant is an ass?”
“That, and the fact we don’t really know anything about each other’s pasts. We just fucked, and that was all it took to start a relationship.”
“Well, you’re a good fucker,” Jessica said, then she laughed.
“I want to know about you, more than just what you told me about your mom,” he said.
“Speaking of moms.” She rolled over and winced as her backside came into contact with the sofa. “Do you think yours will like me? I’ll be meeting her in a few weeks when she comes for the wedding.”
“She’s gonna love you,” Hawk said. “And you’re gonna love her.”
“What happens when she asks how we met?” Jessica sat up. “She’ll ask you know.”
“Tell her we met at the bakery, which we did.”
“So I tell her you came in for a donut and later you fucked me in the back room?”
“Tell her I came in for holes.” He laughed and said, “Donut holes, that is, and you bribed me with other ones.”
Jessica couldn’t help but laugh with him. “We did our relationship all wrong, didn’t we? Couples are supposed to learn about each other, and then fuck. We fucked, but we never really learned about each other.”
“I got an idea. Go to the dining room.”
“Do I get a hint?”
He left without answering her question, which didn’t really surprise her. Sometimes he thought of games on the fly, and that seemed to be what was happening right now.
When she got to the dining room, Jessica stared at the hardwood chairs. She went to the bedroom, snatched a pillow from the bed, and used it for a cushion on the chair.
Hawk came in moments later. He had several sheets of paper and two pens. He set them on the table and sat down across from her.
“Write down three questions you want answered and I’ll do the same with you.”
The blank sheet of paper seemed to stare back at her. She looked over at Hawk, who was already writing questions. How had he thought of them so fast?
She already knew things like his birthday, Dec. 2, his favorite food, lasagna. She doodled on the paper and then said “Dinner!” she hurried to the kitchen and pulled the pan from the oven. She lifted the tinfoil covering and was happy to see the food was bubbling away, and not burned.
“You forgot dinner?”
“I was in the arms of a handsome man,” she said. “I was distracted, Hawkins Monroe Coleman.”
“That’s horrible to hear Jessica Diana Barker.” He winked at her. “See, we know a few things about each other.”
“Who gave you your first kiss?” she asked.
“Mary Endicott, at a rodeo near Stamford,” he said. “She was a buckle bunny and I’d just won a bronc riding contest. She let me feel her up, too.” He wiggled his eyebrows.
“No fucking?” she asked.
“Well, I was only sixteen, which means I didn’t know how to participate in coitus yet. Plus, her older brother caught me groping her boob and gave me a black eye.”
“Coitus?” she asked.
“Just trying to watch my language.”
She left the foil off the lasagna and put it back in the oven. She searched for a bowl, found one, and pulled salad makings from the fridge. “Will you cut the bread so we can butter it and get it ready?”
“First kiss for you?” he asked.
“Frank Billings,” she said. “I was fourteen, and we were playing spin the bottle at a party. He stuck his tongue down my throat and I bit him.”
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br /> “Into pain at an early age, were you?”
Jessica shrugged. “Not really, I was just pissed that he tried to take over my mouth. It was gross.”
“And now you love to suck cock.”
“I love to suck your cock.” She finished the salad and set it on the table in the dining room. When she was back she said, “What else is your mother going to ask me? We can say we met at the bakery, but leave out the part where we screwed the first night we met.”
“Mom might be impressed that we were that attracted to each other, and it’s still going on, almost a year later.”
“Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe she’ll think I’m not good enough for her son.”
“I’ve never known you to be so unsure of yourself,” he said.
“Me, either.” She opened the oven and took out the lasagna, replacing it with the bread Hawk had cut and buttered. “Meeting your parents makes me nervous. It’s all so… permanent.”
“If I asked you to marry me what would you say?”
She thought about it for a moment, her mind whirling. Could she imagine a life without Hawk? No, she could not. “I would say we shouldn’t say anything to anyone else until after Holt and Aurora’s wedding. I don’t want to steal their thunder.”
“Deal.” He crossed the room in three quick strides and gathered her in his arms. His kiss took her breath away, and she melted into his arms. Unlike her engagement to Grant, this one would be perfect, and she would go through with it, and become Hawk’s wife.
And stay Mrs. Hawk Coleman until the end of her days.
One of the problems with not telling anyone was they didn’t know they needed time to celebrate, alone.
Hawk wanted to take her to bed, to hold her close to him and kiss her until they were both breathless, then to fuck her until neither could move. Or they could play. He could have her dress in one of the outfits he’d bought with him and they could have a game night, which usually ended with her playing brat and being punished. But she’d had a strong enough spanking this afternoon and he didn’t want to give her another one.
He was leaning toward spending the night in bed when his phone buzzed.
“Crap.” They had already eaten and cleaned up the aftermath. Now she was cutting up strawberries so they could have strawberry shortcake for dessert.
“When do I get my phone back?” she asked as she continued to slice.
“Who knows,” he answered. He could tell by her huff she wasn’t happy with his answer. “It’s Holt. Son of a bitch. Jackson wants an answer now, and if it’s yes he wants to come here and talk with us.”
“In other words he has to be in control,” she said. “I don’t have enough strawberries for everyone. They’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
“Interesting logic,” Hawk said. “Will we have more strawberries in the morning?” He chuckled and hit dial. When Holt answered he said, “Has Leslie done the paperwork on this? If not we don’t meet with the rangers until tomorrow. Tell him to come for breakfast, around nine.”
“What did you just say?” He turned to where Jessica stood. “I’m not cooking breakfast for everyone. This is vacation. Sort of. Kinda.” She put her knife on the counter. “I’m not cooking for him, I’m on vacation!”
“And tell him to bring food.” Hawk disconnected the phone before Holt could answer.
Seconds later he got a text that said, “See you at nine.”
“Nine?” Jessica said when he’d read her the text. “What part of vacation do they not understand?”
“Relax, sweet pea,” he said. The immediate change in her expression made him smile. His little girl was here. “Wanna play some backgammon?”
“What are the stakes, Hawk-Daddy?”
“Loser has to do the dishes after breakfast tomorrow.”
“You’re on,” she said. Then she clapped her hands together. “Can we watch Sleeping Beauty?”
“As you wish,” he said.
She picked up the knife and finished slicing the strawberries, sweeping them into a bowl before covering them in a helping of sugar. She slapped a lid on it and put it in the refrigerator.
“Let’s get to it,” she said.
Once they were in the TV room she sat between his legs as she’d done last night and he once again combed and braided her hair as the movie played. When her hair was done he pulled out the backgammon game he’d found in the closet during his inspection of the house. Jessica, both little and adult, was too good at backgammon. She was an extra strategist, and she beat him more often than not.
Which meant he would be doing the dishes in the morning. He hoped Holt brought paper plates.
“Hawk-Daddy,” she said, somewhat timidly after she’d beat him three games in a row.
“Yes, sweet pea?” he said.
“Will you still be my Daddy when we’re married?”
“Nothing will ever change that,” he said. “Nothing.”
“I’m just going through scenarios in my mind about how our lives will change.”
He rolled the dice and got a nine. He moved one pip six, and the other three. “Tell me what’s going to change, sweet pea.”
“Well, we’ll be living together,” she said. “My house or yours?”
She picked up the dice and rolled them. She got a seven, and sent one of his pips to the middle. She did that a lot.
“The Spellman House,” he said as he picked up the dice.
“It has snakes.” She shook her head violently. “No way.”
“We’ll clean out the snakes.”
“You mean the ones that live under the house?”
“You don’t think we have snakes at the ranch?”
The look of sheer terror on her face made him laugh.
“I’ll never go to the ranch again,” she said.
Hawk rolled once more and said, “We’ll talk about snakes later. Right now we need to continue talking about things my mother will ask you besides how we met. I know my mother. She’s going to ask how we fell in love.”
He took his pip off the middle, then moved another one, leaving it open, true, but there was nowhere else he could move. She was good at that, backing him into a corner.
Jessica had the dice in her hand, but she didn’t throw them. Instead she kept her gaze on him, and he was afraid she was going to want to continue talking about snakes. Instead she said, “I fell in love with you when I realized you would move heaven and earth to take care of me. I think I knew before that, but I was too afraid to say it. Now I want to put up a billboard in the middle of town square. What do you think? We could use the one near the bank. We’d use big, bold letters that said, Jessica hearts Hawk. That would let all the ladies in town that want you know that you’re taken.”
She rolled the dice. “Oh look, doubles. I’m coming out on top all over the place tonight.”
“I think I’m the winner,” Hawk said. “Or we’re both winners.”
The light in her eyes made him want to take her in his arms. When she said, “I’ll go for that.” It’s exactly what he did.
Chapter 15
Jessica was happy she wasn’t the one doing the dishes. Not only did Leslie and Jackson show up, but they brought along Austin, Reed, Aurora, Holt, and to her surprise, two of the retirees.
“It’s a good thing we’re not keeping our location private,” Jessica said as she watched Austin and Holt carry in boxes of food. She turned her attention to Frank and Marty. “You two couldn’t keep a secret if your life depended on it.”
“They’re part of the plan,” Jackson said. “Trust me on this. Your lawyer has the papers. You can eat first, and then read them, or do it the other way around. I’m meeting with Dobbs at seven tonight at his home, and I intend to inform him that I want to arrest you, but the phone call isn’t good enough evidence. If it all goes as I think it will, he’ll come to Bookman Springs the next day to plant evidence, being the ring.”
“You don’t think he’s sold it?” Jessica asked.
Jessica watched as Austin set out a spread, breakfast casserole, hash browns, donuts, cinnamon rolls, and fruit. He and Reed went back outside and returned with a large urn of coffee. When it was set up, Austin went back outside. Jessica felt as if she should have offered to help, but she was too stunned by the idea that they’d set up a sting that she was supposed to be at the center of, and hadn’t included her in the planning.
“You think he killed her himself?” she asked Jackson. “He didn’t hire someone to do it?”
“I think he pulled the trigger, yes,” Jackson said.
“I don’t think he’d have the guts to do it,” Jessica said. “He was always so… soft-spoken.” She wasn’t sure that was the right word, but it was the only thing that came to mind.”
“Then what attracted you to him?” Hawk asked.
“He was totally different than any man I’d ever known,” she said. “For one thing he was rich, and my mother always told me to go for the rich ones.”
“You failed in that respect with me,” Hawk said.
Jessica laughed. “I’m making my own money now,” she said.
“Oh good, I can quit my job and be a kept man.”
Everyone laughed at Hawk’s pronouncement.
“I have certain requirements for that job,” Jessica said. “You can fill out an application later.”
The laughter increased.
“Breakfast is served,” Austin said.
The group got up and started filling plates. After Jessica had taken her first bite she said, “Austin, this is delicious.”
“I would like to claim credit, but Lizbeth made the casserole,” Austin said between bites. “She’s a great cook.”
Jessica shot a glance in Hawk’s direction. She wondered if another Coleman brother was off the market.
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