But this time was different. I could take my time and go as slow as I wanted.
So that was exactly what I did.
I kissed down her cleavage. Savoring the taste of her skin, the scent of her body, the warmth of her lust. She melted into my mouth, and I melted back.
I laced my hands with hers and stared into her eyes. “Dorothy, I, we don’t have to. Tell me to stop.”
She shook her head, her hair cascading down her cleavage. “I don’t want to stop. Take me, Brandon.”
I kissed her again, deeper, more passionately. I unhooked her bra in the front and stopped to stare at her beautiful nipples, like two ripe cherries. I licked one as I rubbed the other. She moaned so loud I wondered if anyone would hear us. But I didn’t care.
She removed my own shirt and traced her finger down my chest. I would’ve never thought in a million years I would be here with Dorothy, but there was nowhere I would rather be.
I pushed her jean shorts off of her and focused my attention on her mesh black panties. I kissed the fabric, teasing myself with a taste of her. I licked her inner thighs as I rubbed her pussy. Her breathing intensified, and I thanked God for sending her to me.
I removed her panties and settled between her legs and begin to lick her. She let out a nervous laugh. A beautiful smile graced her face as she pressed her hand on the back of my head, urging me to go deeper. She tasted incredible, pure sweetness and sex. I’d be happy licking her forever. If only she would agree to be mine.
I wanted to keep going until she came all over my face, but she pulled me up and reached toward my buckle. My pants fell to open, and I lifted her up to sitting position, kissing her again. I sat up, staring into her eyes, and slowly lowered her onto my cock. Ah. Pure bliss. Her warmth and wetness made my cock harder than I ever thought possible.
I relaxed into the grass beneath me as she rode me, completely mesmerized by the view of her. She had the most incredible body, and I was so grateful she was mine, if only for one night.
I could feel her getting closer, so I sucked on her nipples. She threw back her head and rode me faster, rubbing her clit against me.
“Oh, Brandon. Yes. I’m so close.”
I pounded her down on me over and over again and she released, screaming. I let go, too, exploding into complete bliss.
Afterward, we lay in the field, and I stared at the sky, which was now a tinged with green. I held her in my arms. Joy filled my body. We had been through so much together in such a short time. Even though the horror of the circumstances of how we ended up here still radiated through me, I was grateful for the moment.
She took my hand. “We should get back. The storm will come in soon. And we are on tornado watch.
I nodded, and we walked back to the house. Again, I heard another rustling behind us. I quickly looked back but could see nothing. It had to be mother earth warning us about the tornado and not Lev and Tin following us. I was definitely paranoid.
Back in the house, Dorothy and I tore up every box of Uncle Henry’s. Papers, tax receipts, years of unopened mail, Uncle Henry was definitely a hoarder. Aunt Glinda mostly stayed out of our way, though she did bring us dinner.
Hours later, we had come up empty-handed.
But at least we had a clue. We were going to Seattle.
Dorothy began to look for airline tickets.
A loud knock startled us. “Get back,” I yelled to Dorothy.
I grabbed a baseball bat. It had to be Tin and Lev. I knew they would find us.
But when I looked through the peephole, I saw a rail-thin woman with bleach blonde hair and crazy eyes.
I yelled at Dorothy. “It’s not Tin or Lev. It’s some crazy-looking woman. Looks like a meth head.”
Dorothy let out an audible exhale. She peered over my shoulder through the peephole, then opened the door.
“Hi, Mom.”
16
Dorothy
I wanted the ground beneath me to swallow me up. Outside, dark clouds had begun to build, and thunder rolled. If only the storm would spawn a tornado and take me away to somewhere far away from this woman. I could feel Brandon behind me, a comforting presence now more than ever.
“What are you doing here? How did you get here? I didn’t hear a car.” I asked.
Mom, I shouldn’t really call her that, but old habits die hard, flicked the cigarette to the dirt and squashed it under flip-flops that had once been white but were now a dingy gray. “I rode my bike. Is that the kind of welcome you give your mother?”
Willa Gale had a way of making everything she said sound sarcastic and condescending. It had been a real pleasure to grow up with her until I was taken to the group home and Aunt Glinda became my guardian. I used to be told that Gale women were just strong-willed. That’s just the way she was.
It wasn’t until I was older that I realized “just the way she was” meant she was an abusive, drug-addicted bitch who only cared about what I could give her.
Brandon stepped closer behind me, but I held him off. “It is when I haven’t heard from you in years. How did you know I was here? What do you want?” The only times she ever came sniffing around was when she needed money, or drugs, or money for drugs.
Nothing says motherhood like stealing your daughter's paycheck from the Dairy Queen for blow.
“Can’t I want to see my daughter?” she asked with faux innocence, ignoring my more important question. It would have worked if it wasn’t so obviously fake. She only had eyes for Brandon and smiled at him coquettishly when she caught his gaze. “And who is this?”
I moved in front of him which made her scowl. “This is none of your business. What do you want?”
Willa crossed her arms over her skinny chest and scowled, the mask dropping for an instant. “You see how she treats me?”
“Willa,” said Aunt Glinda from behind Brandon. “I told you not to come.”
The woman who was my mother sneered. “Since when do I have to listen to you, big sister? We’re all adults here. When Emma told me Dorothy was here, I thought it’s high time I come see my daughter.”
“Drop the act, Emma. You haven’t wanted to see me in years. Why would you care now?”
“Don’t you spread lies about me. I was a good mother to you.”
I snorted. “Okay, if you call abuse and neglect being a good mother, then you deserve an award. You were the best. Since you won’t leave, we will. Come on,” I said to Brandon.
Aunt Glinda pushed by him to place a hand on my arm. “No, like I said, you’re staying here.” Turing toward Willa, she said, “You should leave. This is my house, and I won’t have you scaring people away. You can come back in a few days, and I’d be happy to talk to you.”
Any sliver of remaining niceties vanished from Willa’s expression. Her face became cold and hard, an echo of the mother I remembered quite vividly from my childhood. “Who do you all think you are, trying to run me off? Aunt Glinda, just because you could never convince anyone to sleep with you to give you the children you so desperately wanted doesn’t mean you can steal mine.”
My eyes flashed to Aunt Glinda, who merely smiled serenely at Willa. I knew the three of them didn’t always get along, but for my whole life, Aunt Glinda had at least been kind to her sisters. Willa and Aunt Emma, however, were cut from the same cloth and made no bones about the fact that they’d take advantage of their own sister’s kindness whenever they saw fit.
“I said get off my property, Willa. I mean it. Don’t make me call the law on you. Before his disappearance, Henry came to me and told me to take care of Dorothy and keep her away from you. I mean, he didn’t need to tell me, I raised her.”
He had? My eyes prickled with tears. First Uncle Henry vanished, then his note to me, and now this promise. He did love me. He must have been in grave danger.
Brandon stayed close to me, his presence reassuring. I don’t know what I would have done without him. Without thinking, my hand found a home in his.
When she rea
lized even her sister wouldn’t be sympathetic, Willa switched her focus. “Sweet girl, darling girl. Please let me come in. I just want to talk. It’s been so long since we’ve talked.”
It was a dark kind of magic the way my mother so easily switched masks. If I wasn’t so used to the change, maybe I would have believed her. As a child, I had felt like I was living with two people. One who loved me, thought I was her best friend, and the other who thought I couldn’t do anything right. For a long time, I was convinced everything that was wrong in our lives had been my fault. I wasn’t smart enough, strong enough, good enough to be her daughter.
She convinced me I was a failure.
Brandon squeezed my hand and drew me from my thoughts. To Willa, I said, “No.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I had told her no. By the time I became an adult, she lost interest in trying to manipulate me. The loss of her attention was almost as damaging as the abuse. At least when she was yelling at me, she was paying attention to me. When she stopped, it felt like I was less than nothing.
“What do you mean ‘no’?”
“I mean I don’t want to talk to you. I have nothing to say to you. Listen to Aunt Glinda, or we’ll call the police.” I glanced at Aunt Glinda, who nodded encouragingly to me.
Willa merely laughed. “Fine, call the police. I’ll just have you arrested for theft.”
Thunder boomed as I stared at her, surprised she could still shock me. She was really willing to do anything to get what she wanted. “Theft? What the hell are you talking about?”
Her eyes hardened. “You know what I’m talking about. You and Henry, living it up the way you did. Don’t think I don’t know how close you two were.”
Disgusted, I frowned at her. “What are you talking about?”
“I saw the way you looked at him sometimes. It was sick. He was married to Emma, and you wanted him.”
“You really are delusional. He was my uncle. I loved him like family.”
But it was like Willa wasn’t even listening to me anymore. “He thought he was so much better than us. But he wasn’t any better than me. What did he do with them?” she screamed.
I could barely keep up with her psychotic rambling. “I’m lost. Do with whom?”
“Not with whom, you smartass. With what!” she seethed. “My shoes. He stole my shoes from me, and I want them back.”
I glanced down at her feet as thought I’d find the answers there, but she wasn’t wearing anything special. “What shoes?”
“Not these, you dumb girl. The ones Henry gave you. The rose gold ones. They were mine, and I want them back.”
My mouth went dry. How did she know about those? I hadn’t told anyone about the shoes Uncle Henry had given me, except Alice before I’d run off to the Arctic to track down Uncle Henry’s kidnapper. Before I left the Arctic, I gave them to Alice to keep them safe. I hadn’t called her since I was back home, but I knew that Alice would never betray me.
I needed to talk to Alice, but I did not want to endanger her life. Especially since everyone and their mother was after these shoes.
Uncle Henry wouldn’t have stolen them and definitely not from my mother. She could never afford such expensive shoes.
Except…
Everything I thought I knew about Uncle Henry was proving to be false.
He was tangled up in something way bigger than a burglary gone wrong. Something that my mother must have known about.
I had so many questions I wanted to ask her, but I couldn’t. I didn’t trust her not to lie to me in return. “What shoes?” I asked instead.
Willa growled. “You know what fucking shoes. God, you’ve always been such a stupid little bitch.”
Ah, there was the mother I knew and didn’t love.
Brandon stepped from behind me and maneuvered me so that he was between me and my mother. “That’s enough,” he said, his deep baritone tinged with finality. “It’s time for you to go. There’s nothing for you here.”
I pressed into the solid wall of his back, drawing strength from him. I expected to feel him trembling with anger, but if anything, he was deadly calm. Already so different from the man I’d met in the Arctic. The one who’d been so insecure about himself, so unsure. He’d changed.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Willa screeched. “This is none of your business.”
“The moment you threatened and insulted Dorothy, I made it my business. They’ve asked you twice, and I’ve told you a third time to leave. You can report the theft all you want, but you’ll do it from your own property. Now go before I make you go.”
When she began to protest, he merely held up a hand to keep her in place while he closed the door between us. He threw the deadbolt and drew the curtains, though we could still hear her protests on the other side.
Aunt Glinda peered out the curtains. Willa was still standing there.
“I’m going to drive her home, or she will never leave you alone. And she took her bike; she needs to get to safety.”
I shook my head. “No. Don’t do that. The storm is coming it. Stay with us. She will be fine.” It was cold hearted but at this point I only cared about Aunt Glinda’s safety, not Willa’s.
“I will be quick. I just want her off the property. I’ll be back soon.”
Worry crept in my chest. “Okay. Hurry back.”
She hugged me and bid us goodbye.
I threw myself in Brandon’s arms when he turned and buried myself in his chest.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” I said against the material of his shirt.
“You don’t ever have to apologize to me,” he answered. “We all have a family member like that. You have your mom; I have my dad. I hope you won’t mind if I don’t introduce you two.”
I couldn’t believe it, but he made me laugh. When I looked up at him, he wiped away a tear. Emotion swelled in my chest and the words bubbled up to my lips.
Oh, my god, I adored him.
His expression grew serious, as though he could read my mind. I lifted a hand to his cheek, ready to confess my feelings when a knock came at the door.
I frowned and growled under my breath. Of course, she would ruin the moment. Of course. I peered around Brandon and ripped at the curtain to yell at her through the glass and someone stepped from the shadows.
Two someones. And neither of them was my mother.
Brandon tensed behind me, his arms coming around me and pulling me back to him as though they could protect me from what stood in front of us. Before we could do more than gasp in shock, they’d smashed the glass and unlocked the door.
“Hello Dorothy,” Lev said with his trademark half-grin. “Been watching you. Especially your performance in the field.” He turned to Brandon. “Good job, bro.”
Brandon gave him a disgusted look.
Tin ambled forward, the gun in his hand—loosely trained on my head. “Heya, sweetheart,” he said.
17
Tin
Dorothy stood in front of me, her lips trembling.
“How . . . how did you find us?”
I smirked. “How? I’m a fucking SEAL, Dorothy. We found Bin Laden—I can find a sweet farm girl from Kansas. Especially when you come running home. I know that your Aunt Glinda raised you.”
Crow eyed my weapon. He might’ve been dumb, but he was no fool—he didn’t dare challenge me.
“Well, aren’t you going to invite us in?”
“You have a gun to my head, Tin. I don’t really have a choice, do I?”
I leaned in and kissed her. She tensed up at first but then relaxed into the kiss. I dug Dorothy. She was a lying little bitch, but feisty, witty, and sexy as fuck.
She reminded me of Miranda.
I snapped out of my nostalgia.
She stepped back. “Tin, look. Let’s start over. Please. I beg of you. I don’t have the shoes. I don’t know where they are.”
Her eyes twitched when she uttered those last words.
One thin
g Navy SEAL training taught me, was how to identify when someone was lying.
“Don’t lie to me.”
She exhaled and turned to Crow, who placed his hand on her shoulder. “Dorothy, don’t.”
I pointed the gun at Crow. “Don’t what, Crow? Your life is in danger too, farmer boy. And I saw you with her in the field. I know how much you want her. If she gives me what I want, I will leave, and you can have her to yourself.”
As those words left my mouth, I cringed. I didn’t want to leave Dorothy, but why? I definitely wasn’t having any feelings for her. Hell, no. I didn’t do feelings.
Not now, not ever.
But something about Dorothy made me sad about the thought of never seeing her again.
I shook it off. It had to be the back-to-back deployment with the SEALs. Everything I did, who I hurt, who I had killed—I could never forgive myself for any of it.
Crow seemed to be a good man. Simple, but solid. He could make a woman like Dorothy happy. I needed to complete my mission. Retrieve the shoes, walk away from Dorothy, and never see her again.
“Listen, Tin. I lost the shoes one night when I was out at a bar partying. And I don’t think you will find anything in them if I still had them. Uncle Henry was just this amazing, honest guy. A simple guy. A farmer. I mean, Brandon reminds me of him.” She exchanged a loving glance with Crow. Bile pooled in my stomach.
“Brandon?” Lev asked.
“Oh, that’s his real name.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, aren’t you two fucking sweet. Look, you and ‘Brandon’ can go off and get married and make farmer babies. I don’t give a flying fuck. I came for the shoes; I’m leaving with the shoes. I don’t believe for one second you threw away those expensive ass shoes. That’s why your Uncle Henry gave them to you—because he knew you would love them so much you would never get rid of them.”
Desiring Dorothy Page 9
