Belle gave him another small smile but she shared, “I’m afraid we can’t do that.”
His head moved back another inch. “And why’s that?”
“Well, first, Dad’s done with dinner. You’ll be pleased to know there was no open flame and he didn’t have time to make homemade barbeque sauce. They also didn’t have peppers that will burn out your throat so chilli was out. In the end he made meatloaf which doesn’t sound all that great but his is really delicious. And he also made apple pie which is definitely delicious.”
“Right,” Jack said. “That’s first, what’s next?”
Belle pressed even closer. “Well, yesterday, I told you all about my life. Tonight, you need to get started telling me all of yours. After dinner, of course.”
Jack’s arms gave her a squeeze and he reminded her, “I’ve lived longer than you, poppet. Yours took an entire day. I’ll need more than an evening.”
“It can be continued and you can tell me more tomorrow.”
He grinned.
“And the next day,” she went on.
His grin got bigger.
Belle pressed closer and got up on her toes. “And the next.”
“That’s a plan,” Jack whispered.
“Good,” Belle whispered back.
“Dude! Baby girl! What the fuck! You want it to get cold?” Belle’s Dad could be heard shouting. “Haul ass into the dining room. You got two minutes or we’re starting without you.”
To this, Jack asked bizarrely, “Is it Sunday yet?”
Belle’s head tilted again and she told him what he had to know. “No, why?”
“Because Saturday night we’re leaving all these mad people to their madness, we’re taking the dogs, we’re going to your cottage and we’re not coming back until Monday.”
“Now that,” Belle breathed, “sounds like a plan.”
“Count on it,” Jack muttered, his eyes dropping to her mouth, his head descending toward hers.
She felt a trill race up to her scalp but still, she whispered, “Jack, honey, the food will get cold.”
“Let it,” Jack murmured against her mouth then he took it in a sweet, deep, long, wet, delicious kiss.
They didn’t get to the dinner table in two minutes. It was more like five.
But they walked in hand in hand and they did it after Belle had managed to make Jack feel better.
She sat down to dinner at Jack’s side feeling like she’d just moved a mountain and she was proud of it.
And, even a little late, the food still tasted great.
* * * * *
Calvin
Calvin Cole aimed one, last, vicious kick into his prone wife’s belly and watched her body jerk on the floor.
Then he bent over her and, ignoring her spitting blood into the carpet in front of her face and wheezing, he got close to her face and hissed, “Now get your ass up and unpack. You leave when I say I’m done with you. Not before.”
Her eyes looking to the carpet that the side of her face was resting on, she slowly nodded and he also ignored her wince of pain that this subtle movement caused.
He jerked upright and looked at the bags on the bed.
The bitch saw the article. The bitch heard shit at work. The bitch came home early and thought to leave him.
What the bitch didn’t know was that he took shit at work that day too. Including his supervisor telling him they were going to have a meeting at the end of the week and that he felt it was best if Calvin didn’t come into the office until the meeting.
Calvin knew what that meant.
Fuck.
He looked back down at his wife who hadn’t moved and informed her casually, “You know, if I hadn’t kicked Belle’s ass out, I’d be married to a national fucking hero instead of fucking you.”
After he delivered that, he heard the bell at the door go and he left her, stomping to the door.
Unable to move because every time she tried the pain wracked through her body so intensely she had to fight against going unconscious, his wife listened from her place on the floor to the murmuring of voices.
The murmurs went on for some time. Then her husband’s voice got louder. Then angrier. Then louder and livid.
Then she heard different noises, muffled grunts, muffled groans of extreme pain.
Calvin’s groans.
She couldn’t move to get to the phone to call 999 or go to her husband and help him.
She couldn’t move but still…
Even if she could, she wouldn’t.
Chapter Twenty
Can’t Get Loose
Jack
On his back, his hands wrapped around the sides of Belle’s hips that were straddling his face, Jack pulled her deeper into his mouth and listened to and, better, felt her sweet, husky moan wrap around his cock.
This was because his cock was deep in her throat.
Feeling it, hearing it, her warm softness pressed the length of his torso, her taste on his tongue… fucking hell, he should have thought to teach her to do this a long, fucking time ago.
The first time she’d asked him to teach her would have been good.
Their first night they were together would have been better.
Digging his fingers in, he pulled her even deeper, working her harder and got another moan then he felt her mouth slide up and release him even as her hand wrapped around tight.
“Oh my God.” He heard her breathe.
She was close and losing focus. He wanted back inside but he knew he was going to have to take her a different way.
Gently, he rolled her to her back and she moaned differently when he did. This moan was in protest.
He grinned to himself then moved her around in the bed. Once he had her head to the pillows, he reached to the nightstand and grabbed the packet.
“Come here, love,” he ordered quietly and her stormy gray eyes moved from his hands to his face. She put one hand behind her in the bed, pushing herself up. Her other hand came to rest light on his stomach and her touch might have been light but it knifed through him. “Take this, poppet. Put it on.”
She looked back at the packet then to him. His cock twitched as he watched the storm in her eyes grow stormier and she wet her lips as she took the packet from him. Then he watched her hands shake and fumble as she ripped it open and slid out the condom.
She was cute with her fumbling.
As cute as it was, no way in hell he was going to be able to wait or endure her fumbling as she rolled it on.
He took it from her and whispered, “Place your hand over mine.”
Her head tipped back, her eyes caught his, she nodded again then he felt her hand move to round his as he rolled it on.
She wet her lips again, her head dipping to watch their hands move.
Jesus.
He was right, he couldn’t wait.
“Lie back,” he demanded, his voice thick and her head shot back again, she looked in his face, her pupils dilated then she did as she was told.
Finishing with the condom, he pulled her legs apart and settled between. She wrapped all of her limbs around him and he drove deep into her wet, hot silk.
Fucking bliss.
“Jack,” she breathed into his ear, the fingers of one hand sifting into his hair, cupping his head and holding on.
Jack turned his head and took her mouth as he took her body. Her moans drove down his throat. His groans, then grunts drove down hers.
Finally she gasped against his tongue as every inch of her body, inside and out, tightened around him.
Yes. Fucking bliss.
Minutes later he growled against hers.
After he recovered he found she was giving him a sweet, deep kiss, her tongue dancing with his. Jack took over as he settled deep inside her, keeping one forearm in the bed to alleviate some of his weight while his other hand drifted over her soft skin to her waist then in, around her back and down where he cupped the ample cheek of her behind.
Finally, he re
leased her mouth but only so he could slide his lips to her neck. He could still smell hints of her appealing perfume that she’d sprayed on the morning before.
It was Sunday morning. He’d awakened curled into her and his first thought was to give into her request of several days before. So he did to spectacular results.
“I like the way you smell, poppet,” he murmured against her skin and felt her limbs convulse.
Then she whispered a sweet, “Thank you, honey.”
He lifted his head and looked down at her to see the storm in her eyes had passed. They were now languid, content.
Happy.
He’d been wrong.
Being buried inside her was magnificent.
Seeing that in his Belle’s eyes, that was bliss.
He grinned at the sight and continued speaking, “And the way you taste.”
A flush of pink tinged her cheeks but she replied softly, “Thanks again. And, um… I like the way you taste too.”
She didn’t have to tell him that, he already knew but his grin got bigger as he muttered, “Good.”
“And that was very nice,” she went on and Jack couldn’t help it. His body collapsed on hers and he burst out laughing.
“What’s funny?” she wheezed, he registered her breathlessness and carefully slid out then rolled them so she was full on top, straddling him.
“Very nice?” he teased when she lifted her head and looked down at him.
Her head tilted to the side and she stated, “Yes, and it was so nice maybe we should do it again.”
“I’m thinking we’ll do it again, poppet,” he informed her, running his hands down her back to her bottom and up again. “It was so very nice we’ll likely do it often.”
When she told him the story of her life, considering her timidity, he was not surprised to learn she had very few lovers, in fact, only two before him. He was also not surprised to learn that Calvin Cole was a selfish one. Although not delighted by the last, he was by the first. This meant he had the honour of initiating her to certain things. Things like they’d just done.
She’d also shared that he was the only man with whom she’d enjoyed sex at all. With her uninhibited response to him, this was a surprise. But she’d explained she’d only had what they had, what they’d just shared, what they would always share with him. Only him.
And this didn’t delight him, it thrilled him.
As he thought these thoughts, she studied his face and her hand slid up his chest to curl around the side of his neck before she suggested, “And maybe we can try some…” she hesitated then finished, “other things.”
Jack’s arms moved to close around her.
“What other things were you thinking, my love?” he asked gently.
“Well,” she began, “I was thinking we could try other things you thought of.”
He smiled up at her. “We can do that.”
It was then she surprised him again, rather profoundly, by announcing, “And you can be adventurous. I’ve decided I’m not Belle ‘Meek and Mild’ Abbot anymore so I’m willing to experiment.”
He was bloody ecstatic she was willing to experiment.
But something else she said caught his attention, his brows drew together and he asked, “You’re not Belle ‘Meek and Mild’ Abbot anymore?”
She shook her head immediately as she awarded him one of her sweet, small smiles. “No. See, earlier this week, I thought about it and all my life I’ve been… well, I’ve let things hold me back. The three times I didn’t, one, I saved some children and a bus driver from drowning and the other two, well,” her eyes went soft and her hand slid from his neck up to his jaw as her face dipped closer and she finished, “the other two got me you.”
Jack felt her words hit warm and heavy in his gut as his arms got tight around her and he rolled her to her back again, muttering, “Jesus, Belle.” He settled partly on her, partly pressed to her side and tangled his legs with hers. He was so moved by her words he was unable to say any more of his own.
Her hand didn’t move from his jaw with his roll but she slid it to his cheek, cupping it and running her thumb along his cheekbone, her eyes holding his, no evasion, straight and true and she whispered, “And you’re gentle and loving and accepting, not only of me, my neuroses, my shyness and my silences but also all the craziness and the crazy people around you. So I figure this means I’m safe to jump in, feet first, to whatever’s next for me,” the fingertips of her hand against his cheek pressed in gently, “for us. So, like I said, I’m willing to experiment. Because, well,” she grinned up at him and tilted her head on the pillow, “I just kind of did and, personally, I think it went great.”
One thing about that, it was a lot better than “very nice”.
The other thing about it was everything.
Jack dropped his head, burying his face in her neck and yanking her body more fully under his before he muttered, “Jesus, Belle, I love you.”
“I know, Jack,” she whispered. “That’s why I’m free not to be what I was before.”
He lifted his head, locked his eyes with hers and reminded her, “Don’t forget, poppet, I fell in love with that woman.”
He watched her beautiful face get soft, her grey eyes grow warm, she lifted her other hand and both moved to curl around the sides of his neck as she replied quietly, “I’m still here, Jack. Just kind of improved.”
“You don’t need to improve,” he told her, his voice vibrating. “I like you just the way you are.”
Her face got softer, her eyes warmer and her fingers dug into his neck when she returned gently, “Well, with what we just did, I’m going to have to disagree. I think I could do with a little bit of adventure. Just as long as I do it with you.”
That he couldn’t argue with so Jack grinned.
Belle grinned back then continued, “Except, maybe next time, we should tear open the condom packet in preparation. I was a little impatient and in a bit of a state, I nearly dropped it.”
Jack kept grinning. “I noticed that.”
“If you’re adventurous,” she shared, “I might be more in a state.”
God, he fucking hoped so.
On the thought, Jack’s grin got bigger. “Then we should be prepared.”
She nodded once in mock-seriousness, her hands sliding down to his chest and she agreed, “Definitely.”
“It should be noted that I’m feeling in the mood to be adventurous about,” he dropped his mouth to hers and finished on a whisper, “now.”
“Oh,” she breathed against his lips, he felt that knife through him too and just as her hands slid around to hold on, his mouth took hers in a heated, wet kiss. One of his arms sliced around her, the other one dove into her hair, he rolled them yet again so he was on his back and she was on top.
Then he heard dog tags as the dogs moved with agitation and Baron started barking. Seconds later, there was a loud knock on the front door.
Jack let Belle lift her head away from his as he growled, “This is not fucking happening.”
And it shouldn’t be. Yesterday evening, early, when he left The Point, he told everyone that he would be picking Belle up from her shop, taking her to her cottage and they wouldn’t be seeing any of them until Monday. Or hearing from them. Any of them. For any reason.
Therefore, there should not be a knock on the goddamned door.
He focussed on Belle’s face just as she noted distractedly and with disappointment, “But it’s Sunday.”
“Yes, love, it’s Sunday and unfortunately before we get adventurous, I’m going to need to commit homicide,” he ground out and only felt slightly better when he heard her adorable, startled giggle.
He rolled her off him, flicked the covers over her, slid out of bed and snatched up his jeans. Stalking to the bathroom, he quickly dealt with the condom, something which he and Belle were successfully experimenting with in order to enjoy it as part of sex. Something which he’d be glad to dispense with once she was safely on the p
ill.
He tugged his jeans on as he walked out into the landing, both of his dogs circling to him and the top of the stairs and back again as he moved.
He prowled down the stairs, unlocked the door and pulled it open to scowl at Mickey Dempsey who was standing at the top of Belle’s steps.
“I see Olive failed to inform you of this,” he clipped instantly upon catching the man’s eyes, “but Sundays Belle and I are not disturbed for any reason. I’ll deal with this omission directly with Olive later. I’ll deal with you now by telling you to hold whatever it is until tomorrow.”
Then without another word or allowing Dempsey to utter one, he stepped back and started to slam the door but Dempsey’s hand shot out and caught it.
“You’ll want to hear this,” he stated.
“Is the world ending?” Jack asked and he could see Dempsey fighting a knowing smile.
Through it, he answered, “No.”
“Then I don’t want to hear it,” Jack returned and put pressure on the door but Dempsey moved into the frame, blocking its closure with his shoulder.
“Not kidding, Bennett, you’ll want to hear this,” he said quietly and with not a small amount of gravity.
“Give me a hint,” Jack bit off.
“The third soul is not reincarnated in Cole.” He paused and held Jack’s eyes as he finished. “Caleb Caldwell is reincarnated in your brother.”
Jack felt his chest get tight just as he heard Belle say softly from the top of the stairs, “Oh my goodness gracious.”
He looked to his feet, clenched his teeth, felt a muscle tick in his cheek then he looked to Dempsey and stepped back.
“Come in, stay down here, thirty seconds,” he ordered. “Only then can you come up.”
Without waiting to see if Dempsey agreed, he turned, ducked his head in order not to give himself a concussion on the low hanging ceiling and, once he cleared the ceiling, took the stairs two at a time.
Belle was at the top wearing a becoming nightgown (another one of her own, something he learned recently after asking was all she ever wore) and looking astonished.
“That man, Jack,” she whispered as she lifted a hand and rested it on his chest, “I’ve seen that man.”
Lucky Stars Page 42
