by Jaid Black
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Trina told him in clipped tones. Only a lifetime of making me feel like I wasn’t worthy of you or Amy. “Really.”
His frown told her he didn’t believe her.
“I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing,” Trina continued, walking past him to open up the hotel room door, “but I’m fine. What happened was a long time ago.” She pasted a fake smile on her lips, the one she’d seen his mother wield like a sword so many times. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a flight to catch tomorrow and I really need some sleep.”
Their gazes met and locked.
“I’m proud of you,” Daniel murmured.
Trina’s nostrils flared as she tried her damnedest not to react to his statement. No tears. No vulnerability.
Before she had moved to England, dreams of showing up the Hunters were all that had sustained her through high school. She had wanted to become the success she was, if for no other reason than to rub their noses in it.
Now that the day had arrived, those old fantasies held no allure. They were a relic of the past, much like her father’s alcoholism and Amy’s transgressions against their friendship.
“Thank you,” Trina said a bit shakily. “I appreciate that.”
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Daniel inclined his head, a small smile twisting his features. “Have a safe flight back to England,” he said softly, his searing gaze never leaving hers. “I look forward to seeing your next play.”
Trina was too overwrought to speak. She weakly nodded her head, then accepted a small kiss to her cheek when Daniel leaned over.
“Goodbye, Trina,” Daniel said, his voice a hot whisper next to her ear. It made every nerve ending jolt to life, her pulse skyrocket. “No matter where life takes you, always know how damn proud of you I am.”
She closed her eyes as he made a quiet exit, the door shutting resolutely behind him. Trina stared after Daniel long after he’d departed, her heart wrenching even more severely than it had on that night sixteen years in the past.
* * * * *
“Are you certain it was her, Gus?”
“Yes, I am. She hasn’t changed very much over the years.”
A feminine snort punctured the air. “Of that I have no doubt.”
“Melissa!”
“Well, it’s true!” She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “I don’t care how much money she makes these days. The girl is gutter garbage! She always has been and she always will be.”
“Mother,” Daniel murmured, “that’s enough.”
“Money doesn’t buy class,” Melissa Hunter instructed her husband and son.
“Apparently not,” Gus sarcastically muttered under his breath, downing a glass of vodka.
“Gus Hunter! How dare—”
“When are you going to accept the fact that Katrina Pittman had nothing to do with our daughter’s lifelong addiction?”
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“Never. That’s when.”
Daniel frowned at his mother, his fingertips steepled atop the oak dinner table. His voice was cool and controlled, but his dark gaze had narrowed. “In case it’s escaped your notice, Mother, Trina was subjected to random drug testing throughout high school.” His eyebrows rose. “Thanks to your interference.”
“And she passed every time,” Gus said on a chuckle.
His father enjoyed baiting his mother. Daniel had no idea why or how they had been together for so long when it was obvious Gus couldn’t stand his wife. Daniel couldn’t say he blamed him. He loved his mother, but he didn’t like the person she had become over the years.
He’d been at his parents’ house for less than fifteen minutes and he was already wanting to leave—nothing less than usual thanks to good ol’ Mom. She was so damn unforgiving. Even when, like in Trina’s case, there was nothing to forgive. It was Trina who needed to forgive the Hunters. The older his mother got, the more difficult her rigid personality was to put up with.
Nevertheless, Melissa Hunter was still his mother. He loved her. It was difficult to remember the woman she’d been before Amy had started taking drugs, but Daniel knew she was still in there somewhere. He supposed that was why his father had never divorced her. Perhaps he too kept hoping that one day the woman he’d married would come back to him.
“Let Amy go,” Daniel murmured. “You did everything a mother could do for her, but there was no helping her.”
Gus closed his eyes and sighed.
“Apparently I didn’t do enough,” Melissa said, her icy voice slightly cracked. She stood up, smoothing out her fashionable skirt with both hands. “Or else she’d still be alive.”
“Melissa…” Gus broke in.
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“I’m tired.” She forced a smile to her lips. “I’m going to bed. It’s been a long day.”
“Of course it’s been a long day. We buried our daughter, Missy.” Gus sighed, but relented. “Go on. I’ll be up in a moment.”
Daniel watched his mom disappear up the twisting staircase. His father rose to his feet, drawing his attention.
“Are you going to be okay, Dad?”
“Eventually.” Gus’s smile was sad, his expression reflective. “I just wish Amy would have had a chance at a real life. She was an addict before she was even old enough to know what an addict was.”
Daniel understood what he meant. His sister had been a self-medicating user. As a child, her diabetes had racked her body so badly that sometimes it was all she could do to get out of bed. Later they would find out that she was not only diabetic, but suffered from a chronic pain disorder as well.
The fatigue and shooting pains had kept Amy from all sorts of activities—one year it had even kept her from school. She had yearned to be a normal child. Somehow the drugs had made her feel like one.
Or they had, anyway, until they took over. Pretty soon there was no more Amy, only a soulless shell of her former self waiting to die.
“She’s finally at peace,” Gus said quietly. He stared at a photograph of his daughter, pictures the only thing any of them had left to hold onto. “No more pain. No more suffering.”
“Yes, Amy is finally at peace.” Daniel’s gaze flicked to the photograph his father seemed to be memorizing. If only he could have done more. A brother should have been able to help.
Daniel sighed. If only, if only, if only. “Hopefully one day soon the rest of us will find peace, too.”
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Jaid Black
Coming back to Cuyahoga Falls was always difficult for Daniel. As a child he’d loved the small Ohio town, but through the years, and especially after he’d left for college, it had become nothing but a bad association in his mind.
It reminded him of all those years he’d tried to help his sister, to no avail. And, he thought as he left the house he’d grown up in and climbed into his car, it reminded him of how he’d lost the only person on earth he’d ever really cared about besides his immediate family.
All of his life, Daniel had loved but one girl. As a boy, his mother’s interference had made it impossible to act upon those feelings. Back in high school he had kept her at bay by being as mean and cutting to her as possible.
She wasn’t one of them, Melissa Hunter had constantly reminded him. She would never be one of them.
Lucky Trina.
Daniel had resisted his feelings toward Katrina Pittman until the night Amy had landed in the hospital. Everything had changed that awful and wonderful night. Too upset to fall back on his usual self-control, too distraught and powerless to help his sister, every ounce of rage toward fate and every drop of pent-up passion toward Trina had exploded on her.
He had been her first. If he never possessed another part of her, at least he would always retain that knowledge.
He’d never stopped thinking of her. He doubted he ever would. But, Daniel understood with a heavy heart, she would never forgive h
im for what he’d done to her.
He couldn’t say he blamed her. He hadn’t forgiven himself.
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Chapter Five
She needed to get out of Cuyahoga Falls. Now. Not tomorrow, not in an hour, but right now.
It began to storm, terrible bolts of thunder and lightning cracking the sky outside her hotel room window. Rain slashed down from the heavens, a violent downpour so normal for Ohio in the summer.
They say it rains a lot in merry ol’ England. Obviously whoever they were, they hadn’t been to Cuyahoga Falls.
Trina packed her bags quickly, as though her sanity depended on immediate escape. A part of her wished she’d never set foot on that plane in Gatwick Airport, but the overriding part was glad she had. She got to tell Amy goodbye.
She got to hear Daniel tell her that he was proud of her.
A whirlwind of emotions assaulted her. Since moving to Cambridge, Trina hadn’t been the type to run away from things. But Daniel…
How could she do anything but run?
The truth hit her hard, straight in the belly, forcing her to hold her middle and steady her rapid breathing. For sixteen years she had been running away from him, refusing to remember that he had always been her most poignant love, perhaps her only love. Men had come and men had gone, but none of them could fill Daniel Hunter’s larger-than-life shoes.
Deep down inside she wondered if she’d known all along that Nigel was gay. She had told herself she was in love with her college sweetheart, but in retrospect those emotions paled in comparison to the ones she experienced whenever she stood in Daniel’s commanding presence.
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For better or for worse, good memories or bad, nobody could replace Daniel in her life or in her heart. She would always love him. Always. And yet, sometimes that esoteric emotion just wasn’t enough. There was an ocean’s worth of waters under the bridge between them.
“I need to get out of here,” Trina muttered to herself, slamming her suitcase shut.
“Now.”
A boom of thunder struck, the deafening sound jarring. The overhead light blinked out, leaving a sizzling sound in its wake. The moon poured in, offering slight illumination. The door to her hotel room crashed open and Daniel stood there, soaked to the bone.
Their gazes clashed and held. Their breathing, heavy, matched in tempo. Those ruthless dark eyes of his were on fire, the sexual tension between them thick enough to cut with a knife.
“I can’t let you leave,” Daniel rasped. The remnants of rain he’d brought with him from outside continued to drip down his face. “Not like this.”
One minute he was halfway across the room, the door wide open behind him. The next thing Trina knew the door slammed shut and, on a low growl, she found herself where she hadn’t been in sixteen years.
In Daniel Michael Hunter’s powerful arms.
She clung to him, kissing him as forcefully and passionately as he kissed her. Trina moaned into his mouth, pulling off his wet tie and removing his soaked clothes as fast as her fingers would work.
“I’ve loved you my whole life, Trina,” Daniel said hoarsely, more emotion in his voice than she’d ever heard before. He continued to kiss her in between words, his hands sifting through her hair. “I’ll never stop.”
She wanted to cry. And sing and dance and smile. And cry some more.
“Daniel,” Trina gasped, her eyes closing as he kissed her neck. “This can’t be real.”
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The little girl inside her had longed to hear those words for more years than she could remember. The woman she now was had just heard them.
This had to be a dream. It was the only explanation.
He undid the belt to her bathrobe, then opened it and pulled it off. His eyes narrowed in desire at the sight of her nude body, his hands feverishly palming her large breasts. He massaged Trina’s nipples with his thumbs, growling a bit in his throat as she moaned.
“Daniel,” she breathed out, pressing her breasts into his hands. “Please suck on them.”
He gave her what she wanted, his hands forcing her breasts together so he could suck on her stiff, aching nipples. He popped one into the heat of his mouth, groaning as he sucked on it. She hissed, her hands fisting in his wet, dark hair. “Harder,” she begged. “Please.”
Daniel drew from her harder, until she was so aroused she could barely stand. He swiped his tongue across the erect nipple until he reached the other one, then pulled it in his mouth, repeating the process.
“Oh God,” Trina moaned. “Oh yes.”
He released her nipple with a popping sound, the echo reverberating in the hotel room. Her hands loosened his belt and quickly discarded it. Her fingers worked at the buttons of his trousers, undoing them, then pulling them down.
His long, thick cock sprang free. She grabbed it by the base and squeezed, aroused by the sound of Daniel sucking in his breath.
“I need to be inside you,” he told her, his voice gravelly. His eyelids were heavy, drugged with arousal. “Now.”
He stepped out of his clothes and stood before her naked, a modern-day warrior chiseled from unyielding, heavy muscle. Trina studied his body for a lingering moment, enthralled by the changes age had brought to it.
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Dark hair sprinkled his chest, neither too much nor too little. It tapered into a thin line that trailed down to his navel, then lower, to his dark thatch of curls.
He was breathtaking.
Trina broke her stare and glanced to the bed. His gaze followed hers. Without a word, she turned, giving him a view of her rounded ass while she walked over to it and crawled in the middle.
She turned onto her back and stretched out, spreading her thighs wide open.
Daniel’s chest rose and fell in time with his labored breathing as he stared straight at her aroused, glistening flesh.
“Maybe I don’t need to be inside your pussy quite yet,” he murmured.
Trina raised an eyebrow, confused. The uncertainty lasted but a moment, for a second later Daniel joined her on the bed, situated himself between her thighs and dove, face first, for her pussy.
“Oh God,” she hissed, arching her back as his mouth clamped around her clit.
“Daniel.”
He purred as he sucked on her, drawing firmly from her sensitive clit. She bucked up again, moaning, her legs wrapping around his neck and forcing his head to stay between her legs.
Daniel sucked harder and harder, the pressure overwhelming her. His lips worked her into a sensual frenzy, inducing her nipples to stab up further and her belly to clench.
“Daniel.”
Trina came loudly, violently, groaning with the heaviness of her release. Her thighs shook around his neck, weak and unable to hold him there any longer.
“You are so damn sexy, Trina,” Daniel praised her, his voice low and hungry. His face slowly left her pussy and emerged into her line of vision as he came down on top of her. His nostrils flared, inhaling the scent of her orgasm. “I need to be inside you.”
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He guided his erection toward the entrance of her vagina, one powerful biceps bulging as it flexed. It had been so long since he’d touched her, so long since she’d felt this alive with a man.
Their gazes met. She held her breath.
“Trina,” Daniel ground out, pushing his cock into her flesh. His fingers threaded possessively through her hair, holding onto her as he fully impaled her. “God.”
Thunder boomed in the close distance, a streak of lightning further illuminating the room. It was as if fate was intent on replaying the events of a night long gone, maybe this time with a slightly better ending.
Was there such a thing without Daniel? Could there ever be such a thing?
Trina cried out at his invasion, her head lolling back on her neck. He wasted no
time in further preliminaries, thrusting in and out of her with determined, possessive strokes.
“Daniel.”
He rode her body hard, slick skin slapping against slick skin. Daniel moaned as he fucked her, a heady sound that heightened her already significant arousal.
“Your pussy is so tight,” Daniel growled, his jaw tight. “Damn, you’re killing me.”
He took her harder and deeper, fast and merciless. He fucked Trina with strokes that branded, slamming in and out of her, over and over, again and again. His fingers tightened in her hair.
“This is my cunt,” he rasped, pounding into it as if emphasizing his words. “Mine.”
His words were like dark magic, provocative and a bit frightening. But mostly provocative.
Trina’s nostrils flared as she threw her hips back at him. She met his every thrust, fucking him as hard as he was fucking her. The sound of her pussy suctioning him in and trying to keep him there reached her ears.
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“Why did you let me go?” she ground out, crimson fingernails digging into his muscled back. “Why?”
Daniel didn’t answer her. He rode her harder, impaling her flesh with his cock. He fucked her harder and deeper and—
“Trina!”
Daniel came on a roar, his eyes closing and body convulsing. He bared his teeth just a little, animalistic release consuming him.
“Keep fucking me,” he ordered her, his jaw clenching hotly. “Milk my cock with that sweet cunt, baby.”
Trina threw her hips at him wildly, basking in his long moans. She fucked him until he collapsed on top of her, his breathing heavy and body slick with perspiration.
They laid in silence, their heartbeats both working overtime. Daniel continued to hold her, giving Trina the feeling that he never wanted to let go. She reveled in his embrace, not sure what the next minute would bring, but harboring no regrets at having made love with Daniel again.
When at last their breathing steadied, Daniel moved off Trina. He fell onto his back, a powerful arm coming around her shoulders to embrace her.
“I was young and dumb,” Daniel murmured, his gaze fixed on the ceiling. “And you still had places to go and plays to write.”
