by Jane Henry
“Hell yeah,” she groaned, as he filled her, his hips grinding into her unapologetically, and she welcomed every fierce stroke. Her ass was on fire from the spanking, her mind cleared and peaceful, and now her body hummed with need.
“God I want you so bad,” she moaned.
“You’ve got me, baby,” he said, and for some reason that made her laugh out loud, because how much more of him could she have when he’d just spanked her and kissed her and told her he loved her, and now they were stark naked, making love?
He smacked her ass when she laughed, which made her need intensify, and then he was groaning, her own climax right on the cusp behind his.
“We’re a crazy couple,” she said, as his head fell to her chest and she ran her hands through his hair, admiring his broad shoulders and husky form, spent, atop her.
“Loco,” he agreed. “Stark raving mad.” Then he lifted himself up on an elbow, placing his chin in his hand and gazing at her. “Now are you gonna behave yourself? I’m getting tired. This is kind of a lot of work, this dom thing.”
“I’ll be good… for now. All right, big guy?”
He grinned, bringing her fingers to his lips with a kiss. “That’s my girl.”
Epilogue
Tony opened the oven and peeked in at the bubbling, cheesy goodness that was his Nana Angelico’s famous lasagna. Just a few more minutes, in his expert opinion, until it was perfect and ready for the Thanksgiving table, along with the turkey and other fixings that were waiting on the counter.
“Hope I got it right, Nana,” he said under his breath.
From the living room came the roar of an excited crowd.
“What happened?” Tony called to the group assembled around the TV as he walked over to perch on the arm of the loveseat next to Tess. “Someone score?”
“Yup! Another touchdown for the Cowboys!” Matteo announced from his chair, punching one tattooed arm in the air. “I’m so winning the over-under for this quarter!” His smile was wide, victorious, and just a tiny bit smug.
“Dream on,” Dom told him from the other side of the living room, where he was snuggled down in the sofa with Heidi’s head on his chest. “There’s still seven minutes left, and Warner’s back on the field.” He stroked a hand down Heidi’s back and held her more firmly to him.
“Is Warner the one with the dimples who does the pizza ad?” Hillary asked from her spot on the floor by Matteo’s legs as she reached over and grabbed an olive from the antipasto platter on the coffee table. Her waving hair was now back to its natural rich auburn color… which was apparently meaningful and symbolic somehow, or so Tess had told him. Tony was having trouble getting used to the change, but Matt seemed to embrace it wholeheartedly, if the look he gave his girl was any indication.
“Nah, I think he’s the one with the shaving cream ad,” Nora corrected as she sprawled on the rug in front of the TV, perfectly at ease with the family who had adopted her and enfolded her into their ranks. “And the amazing abs.”
“Ooh, speaking of abs! The other night Dom was watching some show on TV, and there were a bunch of half-naked football players just kinda standing around a locker room in skimpy towels, smiling and winking at each other. The abs were hypnotizing,” Heidi told them dreamily, sitting forward to grab her beer.
“What show was this?” John demanded from the dining room, as he put the final touches on the beautiful centerpiece he’d crafted. “And why have I not been watching it?”
“Jesus,” Paul muttered from the couch, rolling his eyes at his boyfriend. John shrugged sheepishly and Paul shook his head, but his eyes danced. Then he turned to Dom and joked, “So you’ve been letting our girl watch porn, Dom?”
Tessa snickered. Tony shot her a mock-glare that made her clap her hands over her mouth in an effort to be quiet, even as she giggled harder.
“If by ‘our girl’ you mean ‘my wife,’ and by porn you mean ESPN’s Sports Report, then yeah,” Dom agreed dryly. “Guilty.”
Tony burst into laughter along with the rest of the crew, including Heidi herself.
“Whatever!” she said, poking Dom in the ribs. “You’re busy listening to what they’re saying, but if you just sat back and admired the visual, you’d see it was hot.”
“Matteo, maybe we need to watch Sports Report!” Hillary teased, leaning her chin on his knee.
“Damn it, Tinker Bell! I had this fantasy where you asked me to turn the channel to sports news,” Matt groused. “And you’ve just ruined it. Now I’ll always be wondering if you’re just watching for the hypnotizing abs. I’m not even gonna be able to watch Sports Report until football season is over!”
Hillary pouted.
Dom snickered.
“Bro, this is the shit you fantasize about?” Tony demanded, shaking his head in mock sympathy. “Ooh, Matt, you’re so sexy! Now turn the channel to Sports Report!” he said, falsetto voice.
“Shut up!” Matt said, balling up a napkin and lobbing it at Tony’s head as everyone laughed. “I didn’t say that was the whole fantasy!”
“There’s always hockey season!” Nora consoled Hillary, sitting up to pat her knee. “Those players are rugged and built! They make football players look like sissies.”
Matt scowled at the two women. “We’ll wait till spring,” he announced.
Nora shrugged and arched a teasing eyebrow. “That’s fine. Baseball players wear those tight little…”
“Can you control this kid, Tony?” Matt demanded as Nora and Hillary giggled.
Tony snorted. Control Nora, the whip-smart firecracker who had absolutely blossomed since coming to live with Tess and him a few weeks ago and getting her early acceptance to Boston University? Who had shown no signs of lasting trauma from her abduction, according to the psychologist, and was already looking forward to a career in social work, making life better for other kids who grew up like she had? No way. And he’d kill any motherfucker who tried.
“That lasagna smells delicious already,” Tess said softly, beaming up at him.
He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her luscious mouth. He couldn’t help it. And then, because she tasted like cherry lip gloss and happiness, he did it again.
“Hey, knock it off!” Matt called. “There are children present!”
Nora raised an eyebrow. “My birthday was last week, remember?”
Matt rolled his eyes. “Well, I wasn’t referring to you, obviously, since you’re a newly-minted eighteen-year-old adult. I mean, there will be a child when Alice and Charlie come over for dessert.”
Nora shook her head, but smiled.
Tony leaned back, but his eyes held Tessa’s warm brown ones. “Love you,” he said, so low that only she could hear. She closed her eyes for just a second, like she was overcome, and when she opened them, they almost glowed.
“Love you, too, Tony. So much.”
“Gag!” Nora yelled from the floor, burying her face in her hands. “I’m suddenly thinking Matt’s right. Young, impressionable child right here!”
Tony rolled his eyes, but leaned back and entwined his fingers with Tess’s instead. “Too late to turn back now, kiddo. Remember you gave me a whole speech last week about how adults didn’t need curfews?”
“Not that you listened,” Nora complained. “You told me I still have to be home by twelve on weekends unless I’m at the restaurant with you.”
Tony nodded. Damn straight.
“I have the strictest parents-who-aren’t-parents of anyone I know,” Nora said with a sigh.
Despite the sigh, Tony noted that she didn’t seem particularly upset about this.
“Nothing good happens after midnight,” Tony informed her with another firm nod.
“Holy shit!” Dom laughed, throwing his head back into the seat.
“Oh my God!” Matt crowed, his green eyes wide and staring. “You just… you just…”
“I just what?” Tony demanded, scowling.
“You just completely channeled Mom!” Dom said.
His eyes were crinkled with humor. “She used to say that exact thing to us. Well, usually to Matt…”
“You want to stay out until the middle of the night, Matteo?” Matt said, his voice taking on their mother’s thick Italian accent. “For what? Good girls are home by eleven-thirty because they know nothing good happens after midnight!”
Oh. Oh, God. She had said that. Tony had officially become his mother.
Beside him, Tess collapsed with laughter.
“Oh, Tony, the look on your face!” she giggled.
Tony shook his head. “Well, she had a point,” he argued.
“She did!” Dom agreed in his deep voice. “That’s why I make sure my good girl is always home by eleven-thirty… unless she’s with me.” Heidi propped herself up on his chest and touched her lips to his.
“Aw,” John said, his eyes on Dom and Heidi as he moved to the sofa to sit next to Paul. “You guys are too cute.” Paul put his arm around John’s shoulders.
“I don’t know about the ‘nothing good happening after midnight’ part, though,” Matt mused, smirking down at Hillary and deliberately waggling his eyebrows. “Pretty sure she got that wrong. Because just last night…”
Hillie’s eyes grew wide and she smacked his leg in outrage. “Matteo!”
“Jesus,” Dom said in disgust.
“Lalalala, don’t want to know!” Heidi chanted, blocking her ears.
Matteo laughed long and unrepentantly.
“Well, I’m gonna take my good girl to the kitchen to get her away from all you lunatics,” Tony said, standing and pulling Tess along by their clasped hands.
“Need some help?” Nora offered.
“Nah! You all helped enough earlier. Just waiting for the last couple things,” Tony told her with a wink. “Relax, kiddo.”
“Yeah, come sit by Uncle John and we’ll watch the sexy men on TV jump on top of each other,” John told Nora, making her laugh.
“Lunatics!” Tony repeated, wrapping his arm around Tess’s waist and steering her toward the kitchen.
“But they’re really nice lunatics,” Tess told him when they reached the kitchen. “All of us are.”
Tony smiled. They were. The very best kind of lunatics. But that wasn’t why he smiled.
A month or two ago, he couldn’t have imagined Tess making that statement. But thanks to the weekly therapy sessions she’d been receiving at Mass General, Tess no longer worried that her urges to cut made her “crazy.”
“Doctor Elaine says it’s a fairly common coping mechanism, especially among younger women and girls. She sees it a lot in her practice. It’s just something I have to deal with,” Tess had told him with obvious relief after her second session with the kink-friendly therapist who another submissive at The Club had recommended. “I have a lot of issues with repressing emotion. But now that I’m in a safe environment and getting the help I need, it’ll be a lot easier for me to deal with them in a healthy way.”
And Tony would do whatever it took to make sure that his girl always knew she was safe with him… and loved, no matter what.
“Have you heard from Slay?” Tess asked suddenly. “Is he coming tonight?”
Tony shook his head. “I haven’t heard much from him since he got out of the hospital. Matt says he’s already back at the gym on light duty.” He rolled his eyes and Tess grinned. “We need to get that guy some carbs. Maybe Matt can drag him to Cara. We’ll have to make him an offer he can’t refuse.”
Tess rolled her eyes. “Stick to the lasagna, Brando,” she joked.
As Tess moved the roasted vegetables to one thick white platter, Tony carved the turkey onto another. Then Tess began moving the platters of food to the huge table, and Tony checked the lasagna one last time.
Perfectly golden brown, exactly the way Nana had always made it.
He carried it to the table and put it in a place of honor just as everyone took their seats.
“Oh, Tony, that smells incredible!” Hillary said, inhaling deeply. “We never did lasagna on Thanksgiving when I was growing up.”
“We had no idea what we were missing!” Heidi said, her eyes on the dish.
“Speaking of which… I wonder what Mom and Dad are up to right now,” Hillary said, looking at Heidi with comically wide eyes.
“I can’t believe they chose to go on a cruise over Thanksgiving rather than spend it with us!” Heidi sniffed.
“I can’t believe they chose to spend Thanksgiving together in the first place!” Hillary exclaimed.
“I’m not,” Matteo said. He helped himself to potatoes and passed the bowl to Paul, who was sitting next to him. “I’ve always suspected that two people who claimed to dislike each other the way your parents did must still love each other deep down.”
“Way deep down, maybe,” Heidi said dubiously, dishing stuffing onto her plate. “If you’d ever heard them fight over her political protests… Mom rants and throws plates, Dad glares at her and starts attacking her arguments point by point. Neither one of them will give in, and it goes on for hours.”
“Well, but that’s the thing, isn’t it?” Dom said gently. “He pays attention to her. He’s focused on her. He shows her she’s important.”
“By arguing with her?” Nora was skeptical.
“By not giving in,” Paul corrected.
Nora seemed thoughtful, but John nodded. “I can see that. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t engage her the way he does.”
“Exactly. He’s concerned about her safety and that she’s using poor judgment. He doesn’t want her to get hurt,” Paul said. “It’s just… harder for him to express that than it is for, um… certain other people.” He gave Heidi a significant look, as though he didn’t want to explain more plainly in front of Nora.
Heidi nodded. “Maybe they’ll figure out a new way of communicating, then. That’d be something to be thankful for.”
Dom smiled. “One of many things this year,” he reminded her.
And Tony realized how true it was. Last Thanksgiving, he and Dom and Matt had spent dinner with their aunt’s boisterous family, but it hadn’t felt right somehow. Despite the warmth and welcome they’d received, they’d felt like outsiders. Other. Not fully known or included. But this year…
“Hey!” Nora said, just as they picked up their forks to eat. “Nobody said grace!”
Matteo paused with a forkful of turkey in his mouth and swallowed sheepishly. “Oh. Right.”
“How about a toast instead?” John offered. “To being loved!” He looked at Paul and smiled.
“To being adored,” Paul said, his voice deep and his eyes shining.
“To being known,” Hillary said, her eyes on Matteo. “Sometimes better than you know yourself.”
“To being accepted.” Heidi quirked an eyebrow at Dom. “No matter what.”
“To trust,” Matt said. “And being worthy of it.”
“To being safe,” Nora said softly.
“To working hard, working together,” Dom added.
“To family,” Tess said, smiling at Tony.
Tony felt some choking, unmanly emotion tighten his chest, so he couldn’t add another thing… but that was okay, because Tess had really said it all.
Silence reigned for a time while everyone savored the food, but after a moment, Dom piped up. “Best lasagna ever, brother. You’ve done Nana Angelico proud.”
Tony nodded, then sent a kiss to the heavens for the woman who had taught them to value good food, and family, and true love.
They had all done her proud.
The End
Jane Henry
Jane has been writing since her early teens, dabbling in short stories and poetry. When she married and began having children, her pen was laid to rest for several years, until the National Novel Writing Challenge (NaNoWriMo) in 2010 awakened in her the desire to write again. That year, she wrote her first novel, and has been writing ever since. In 2012, she became interested in the D/s lifestyle, and has discovered her love for wr
iting romance with a D/s twist. With a houseful of children, she finds time to write in the early hours of the morning, squirreled away with a laptop, blanket, and cup of hot coffee. Years ago, she heard the wise advice, “Write the book you want to read,” and has taken it to heart. She sincerely hopes you also enjoy the books she likes to read.
Visit her blog here:
http://janehenrywriter.blogspot.com
And her co-blog with Maisy Archer here:
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/JaneHenryAuthor
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Don’t miss these exciting titles by Jane Henry and Blushing Books!
A Thousand Yesses
Begin Again: Bound To You Book 1
Come Back To Me: Bound To You Book 2
Complete Me: Bound To You Book 3
By Jane Henry and Maisy Archer:
My Dom: Boston Doms Book 1
His Submissive: Boston Doms Book 2
Her Protector: Boston Doms Book 3
Anthologies:
Sunstrokes
Maisy Archer
Maisy is an unabashed book nerd who has been in love with romance since reading her first Julie Garwood novel at the tender age of 12. After a decade as a technical writer, she finally made the leap into writing fiction several years ago and has never looked back. Like her other great loves - coffee, caramel, beach vacations, yoga pants, and her amazing family - her love of words has only continued to grow... in a manner inversely proportional to her love of exercise, house cleaning, and large social gatherings. She loves to hear from fellow romance lovers, and is always on the hunt for her next great read.
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