She let out a little whimper. “Because you went from playboy to playing house with me, and now this—”
“Bess, stop.”
With a practiced move, I reached out and took her hand, then guided it to my pocket. She knew the drill already and reached her hand inside when I said, “Take it out.” When she slid her hand out, holding the ring, I took it from her and moved to one knee.
“Bess, will you marry me?”
That day was nearly a year ago. When I opened the door to our French country master bath tonight, floral-scented steam swirling around the large room, I was whisked back to the present—where my gorgeous wife lay naked in the tub in front of me. Her dark eyelashes fanned out over her cheeks as her head laid back against a small spa pillow—compliments of the WildFlower—and her arm was draped over the side of the tub.
On her hand was the ring I’d given her that day. The four-carat yellow diamond set in platinum was out of place in the middle of the wilderness where we currently lived, but Bess didn’t care.
“I never want to forget this day,” she’d told me that night after she got up off the bathroom floor. We’d had Chinese takeout outside by the pool, my hand resting on her still-flat belly. Looking at her hand, she’d said softly, “It’s too much, but so, so, so pretty. Every time I look down, I’m going to think of kissing you for the first time . . . I don’t know why, I just am. Maybe because that’s when I gave you my heart.”
As for hearts, Bess had owned mine since the day she seated me for breakfast and I realized she was still alive. Maybe even since she stank like holy hell and collapsed on me in yoga. I might have found redemption with Bess, but I also found life. Amazing how two people, both stuck in despair, could come together and emerge stronger from the darkest of times. But we did.
Thank fucking God I’d picked that exact day to propose marriage, otherwise Bess would have never gone for it. She would have been completely convinced I’d asked her to marry me because of the baby, and would have driven me fucking crazy with arguments and questions.
Since there were as many wedding planners as muscle heads in South Beach, we tied the knot that week; there was no reason to wait. We said “I do” on the tiny patio of the Dylan with our hammock swinging in the background and Bess’s hair blowing in the ocean breeze. James was our only witness.
Seeing her currently naked, wet, and luscious in front of me, did I feel shortchanged in my time alone with Bess?
Of course.
Did I love anyone more than my daughter, Madison Jake Wrigley?
Absolutely not.
We named our daughter for Bess’s former supervisor, Maddie, who had helped bring us together by insisting she meet me for dinner. And of course for my brother, who had forced us to reconnect when I’d given up, whether I liked it or not.
With a full head of soft, curly brown hair, perfect little hands, and blue eyes just like Jake and me, Madison stole my breath—and my heart—from the moment I first saw her image on the 3-D ultrasound.
“Hey, babe,” Bess called to me, turning her head to the side and taking in my presence. Her voice was throaty and sultry.
Magnificent.
I sat on the edge of the tub in my suit, unbuttoning my shirt and pulling it off before I dipped my hands in the warm water and touched my wife.
“Hey.” Thoroughly engrossed, I scooped up some bubbles, then slid them along her arm, over her side cleavage, and around her taut nipple.
“How was the trip?” she asked, leaning her head back, her eyes closing as I circled her nipple again.
“Good, closed the deal. So, James?”
She opened one eye. “Yeah, he didn’t have anywhere to go for the holidays, so I invited him. And then the snow was coming, so he caught an earlier flight. He was just so excited . . . you know James.”
I just nodded with a smirk. The guy had been torturing me for over a year, why should he stop now? What he wasn’t going to do was stop me from making love to my wife.
Little prick—let him continue to decorate my house.
“Plus, he misses us,” she added. “And he hasn’t seen the house since we moved in and the kitchen was finished.”
“I know,” I grumbled, then leaned in and kissed her, the water sloshing on my pants.
“Want to come in? Mad is fast asleep after a big day of James and snow . . . and oatmeal cereal.”
When she reached out and beckoned me, my gaze fell to her tattoo. It now had an added teardrop, and our initials in script inside each droplet. She said the eye was now “crying tears of happiness.”
“Thought you’d never ask,” I said while whipping off my pants and tossing them on the floor. The heated floor.
I might have bought a big old farmhouse, but I wasn’t moving my family in until it had been updated. Bess liked living in Florida okay and all. But between the baby on the way and the party scene, it wasn’t the best place for her.
For the first few months, she worked with James, fed her growing belly, and I continued to work with my therapist. Eventually I came to the decision to take Bess back north. She had a few friends up there and loved the quiet comfort of the woods. I was making peace with my past and thought it might be a good idea to be close to Jake, who was working hard at getting his shit together.
Once I was naked I slid in behind my wife, stretching my legs around her small frame, and she lay back against my chest and sighed.
“Ah, amazing.” I relaxed and inhaled, breathing in my life. I felt like gasping for more and taking huge gulps; it would never be enough. Seeing Bess as a mom, watching her take pride in her new purpose—raising our daughter—made my heart beat and skip at the same time.
“The best,” Bess said in a breathy voice.
I looked around at the high ceiling and the large frosted glass windows they put in during the remodel. The place was growing on me. The house didn’t have the sleek modern comfort of Florida, but it had history, and its warmth seeped through your bones like hot chocolate on a cold day. I’d bought it back in early May, when Bess was getting close. She didn’t know, but AJ’s foreman, Jax, had put me in touch with a contractor who was able to rush the renovation for us, making it possible for us to move in right after the baby was born in July.
Watching a newborn Madison sleep on her momma’s chest inside the cabin, I knew I’d made the better choice. Both my girls deserved peace and quiet to live. And the little country town was benefitting too with Bess as a regular speaker at the same rehab place she’d gone to.
She was so strong, the stronger of the two of us, and I wanted our daughter to have all of that strength in its fullness. Not clouded by the bright lights and plastic smiles of the beach.
Like the rumpled piles of shoes by the door and the goofy dog with a big wagging tail, this place was a crazy, wild home. It wasn’t completely controlled and sterile, but I liked it more and more. My dad would have loved it here.
As my hair fell toward my face, reminding me of him, I smiled inside.
As for AJ, that fucker was still messed up and confused, but who the hell wasn’t? Anyway, I was fine with him as long as he kept his distance. He’d called me after getting down to North Carolina to apologize.
I’d answered the phone with a hurried hello, and he’d said, “I know you know the program by now, so I gotta ask you for your forgiveness. Sorry, my man.”
I didn’t want to give it to him, but I knew Bess would be upset if I didn’t. AJ deserved to stay clean and sober just like anyone else.
“Yeah, I got you,” I said reluctantly. “Just do what you need to do.”
“I loved her, man. I’m getting over it, but I want to know she’s happy.”
At this, I blew out a loud breath. “She’s happy, having my baby.”
“Shit . . .” he breathed out. And then he hung up.
“I missed you, Lane,” Bess said, drawing me way out of my ill-timed and worthless thoughts of AJ.
Leaning in, I kissed her neck. “I know. I mis
sed you and Mad. I have to go to California after the New Year, maybe you two will come?” I slid my hand down her side, under the water, and right to her center. She squirmed as I teased her, tickling her inner thigh, trying to get my hand where she wanted it.
“I like the beard, glad to see it’s back,” she said. I’d started to grow it before I left, but it had filled out while I was gone.
“I know you do. Want to feel it between your legs, babe?”
“Yes,” she said as she jolted from my touch landing right on her clit. “Can we get out?”
“Why?” I taunted her.
“You know why. I want that.”
“What?”
“Your beard in between my thighs, Lane,” she barely rasped out, hoisting herself up and throwing her leg over the side of the tub, not bothering to wrap herself in a robe.
By the time I stood up, she was standing there impatiently with a towel, waiting for me to get out.
I quickly dried off and picked my wife up, carrying her to the king-sized sleigh bed. A moment later, we heard a crash of some sort on the first floor and both said, “James!” before ignoring it and going back to what we were doing.
And Bess got my beard in between her thighs. Tickling her in all the right places.
Jake
Meanwhile . . . a few days later
The metal door clanked shut, the sound of its lock slamming into place echoed off the cold wall I currently leaned up against. As I pressed my back against the coarse cinderblock, reality hit me smack in the chest like a bullet train barreling through my heart.
Christ. Look at where I fucking landed after a whole goddamn year of trying to get my life in order, to heal past wounds and move forward.
Shit.
Did they hold mass in the slammer? Not that I was religious, but I would need someone like God on my side, because there was no way in hell Lane was coming to get me. Actually, for the first time ever, I told myself I wasn’t calling him. I’d leaned on my twin brother for two decades too long. I’d only deserve whatever wrath he served up if I called him from the clink.
Again.
Forget it being fucking Christmas, he’d finally gotten his life together. He had a gorgeous wife, cute little baby daughter, a big house in the country, huge career, and lots of cash. He deserved to be left alone.
Me, I deserved this. I’d get to make one phone call, and it looked like it was going to be to that little wench—the same woman who landed me behind bars.
My frayed jeans tightened around my thick thighs as I slumped to the floor. I tilted my head back against the wall, rolling my neck. Taking a long breath, I noticed the guy opposite me—he was big, tattooed, hairy, and snarling at me.
I could fucking take him. Let him just try to approach me. I own a gym, for Chrissake.
“Jake Wrigley?” the guard yelled as he approached the holding cell. “Which one of you fools is Jake?” he asked as he shoved his key in the keyhole, eyeing me up and down. Nothing like a big-as-fuck black dude with his biceps bulging through his polyester uniform looking at me like he was thoroughly pissed.
Who shit in his eggnog?
I stood. “That’s me.” I ran my hand along my buzz cut and smoothed out my beard. “Time for my phone call?”
“Nah, man. DA’s here to see you.”
“Oh, good. Maybe he wants to go home to his family, and I’m gonna get out of here in time for the holidays,” I said, then chuckled to myself.
“I wouldn’t hold your breath, my man,” the guard said, shoving me toward the next set of locked doors.
“Thanks, Paul, I got it from here,” a soft feminine voice called out from behind us.
Sweet . . . a female guard.
“That’s okay, Ms. Road. I’ll make sure he gets to the interview room. This one here’s a live wire,” he said, keeping his hand on my arm as he escorted me forward, not allowing me to turn around.
To be continued . . .
Read more of Jake’s story in:
Absolution Road
Coming late fall, 2015
Read more of Rachel Blaufeld in Electrified, Book One in the Electric Tunnel Series.
CARSON GRAHAM shifted into fourth gear as he hightailed it away from the club toward his hotel. Why did he keep coming back to Vegas? Who the hell knew. If there was one thing he didn’t have any trouble finding or getting, it was willing women.
He knew women weren’t really “things.” They were interesting, often complicated creatures, and he both appreciated and respected them. He just happened to like women in his bed who came with no strings. It was the twenty-first century, after all, and there were plenty of women who liked that kind of deal.
He had never settled down, and he sure as hell wasn’t about to start now. At closer to forty years old than thirty-five, he felt the bachelor life suited him just fine. Or maybe it was that he only deserved the single life. His particular circumstances hadn’t exactly set him up for success in the relationship department.
Picking up a little speed, he changed course and steered toward the mountains, needing more time to clear his head.
It would be great to be on his motorcycle right now, to be able to lean into the steep and winding curves, but it was back in his garage on the East Coast, grounded—just like his life at the moment. The sports car he’d rented here in Vegas would have to do.
As he shifted the engine into fifth gear the car jetted forward, allowing the tension to bleed from him with the increased RPMs. He was trying to drive away from the pull as fast as he could; the pull coming from an insanely gorgeous stripper he was lusting after in a big way.
There was something magnetic about Sienna Flower, dragging him in deeper and deeper. More than her sleek, toned body and her sensual moves when she wrapped herself around the pole, there was a draw deeper than the physical. Carson wasn’t a hard-up kind of guy. He never got like this over a woman. Ever.
Growing up without a mom, he was fairly certain there was nothing lasting about “love.” If a mother could actually up and leave her child without any notice, like his did, there was no such thing as forever. His dad had done the best he could to be everything to Carson, but the fact remained: When a six-year-old’s mother left and never came back, that fucked with a kid.
It fucked with a grown man too. As a result, Carson never considered love an option.
Lust, a few cocktails, dinner out, and then a good roll in Egyptian cotton sheets—that was Carson’s modus operandi. He definitely didn’t have any delusions of long-term love.
In reality, his thoughts on the subject of love didn’t really matter. His lifestyle and career didn’t allow for love; at least, that was what he told himself. After joining the FBI, he traveled all the time, leaving at a moment’s notice on any number of classified assignments. He was wise enough to know the FBI lifestyle didn’t lend itself to successful relationships, so he never pursued them. If he were honest with himself, he might admit maybe that was why he originally chose to take the FBI job, but who wanted to look that closely at their own motives?
He certainly couldn’t be hunting down a suspect in a different time zone while pretending to be at a sales conference in Orlando when he called home in the wee hours of the night . . . or morning, depending on where he was.
Eventually all the lies, fibs, or whatever you wanted to call them caught up in a field agent’s relationship. As a man who avoided conflict in his personal life for fear of being deserted, he knew the lying would eat away at him.
After cracking a high-profile missing person’s case at the FBI a few years ago, Carson had struck out on his own. Going solo, he built his own firm, still traveling and having a grand fucking time doing what he did best, which was remaining uninterested in a long-term relationship. Now he was an independent private investigator, making his own rules, and it suited him just fine. His reputation followed him and he took the cases he wanted—except for this current bitch of a case—which allowed him to have a good time living life.
To most people, he introduced himself as a bounty hunter or some shit like that. No need to have every Tom, Dick, and Harry asking him to take this or that heartbreaking case. Carson worked, traveled, and enjoyed the finer things life offered. He liked getting paid too much to take on pro-bono cases.
Although his recent case was starting to feel like one . . . that and a big, annoying crock of shit.
A vibration in his pocket partially dragged him out of his funk. Holding the wheel steady with his knee, Carson pulled the phone out of his pocket and hit IGNORE. Speak of the devil who got him involved in this crap. His best friend, Alex. He should have answered; the guy’s family had practically raised him. He owed him that but he wasn’t in the mood, since it was Alex’s fault that he’d taken this damned case.
Guilt overtook him as he traveled the long, dark desert road, and Carson dialed his friend back.
“Hey man, what’s up?” He focused on the open road ahead of him, the mountains bleeding into the skyline, the moon lighting his way.
“Not much. Just checking in. Making sure my oldest friend is still alive and causing trouble wherever he may be at the moment.”
“Yeah, yeah. All good here. Kicking around out west, trying to solve that shit case you sent me. Taking a much-needed break in Vegas as we speak.” He pushed his speed a little more, feeling the car purr.
“Way to make me jealous. I’m stuck at home watching the baby while my wife is out on a girls’ night out, and you’re probably on your way to getting laid. What’s wrong with this picture?”
“Nah, Alex. You go be with your baby and let your wife have a good time. You’re not missing anything. Except for a few strippers.” He laughed out loud.
A small chuckle came from the other end. “I’m gonna get you for that one. Have some fun for me, will ya? Keep me updated on the case. I know I can’t be much help, but if you need anything, let me know.”
Redemption Lane Page 25
