Say You'll Be There: A Second Chance Romance (Love In Seven Mile Forge Book 2)

by Billie Dale

  “So, you and Preslee in it forever now?” Curry asks, ignoring Hendrix’s gasps for air. It’s the same question I’ve avoided for over a week. When the dust settles after catching the person at the helm of her living hell—and I will—is her life in California gonna slap me in the cheap seats reserved for lost loves and occasional shags?

  I respond with a single shoulder rise and drop, “Livin’ in the now. I’d be a fool to entangle myself in dreams of a future with her.” Lips pinched thin; I suck down a drink, hoping they can’t hear the timid anxiousness under my nonchalance.

  “Dude, you are so screwed,” Hendrix barks, his voice rusty from all the choking, he rubs the spot on his chest Mazric nailed. “My sister is setting them up and knocking them down. Props to the baby girl,” he cheers, holding out a fist bump for Curry who stares at it cocking a ‘you’re a pure dumbass’ brow. “What?” he bitches, dropping his hand. “He’s obviously ass over dick in love with her. Can’t her brother poke a little fun?”

  “No,” Mazric and Curry chime.

  While they bicker two against one on the whys of Hendrix’s wrongs, I remember watching Preslee use the utmost care in placing Creeden tightly in the friend box. His near kiss raged my caveman tendencies to the surface. I didn’t need her to explain, I needed to mark her as mine and I did, most thoroughly.

  At the day's end, when she stood in the sand telling us it was time to clean up, I could see the light purple dots on her shoulder where my teeth nipped and lips sucked. Cash, worn out from hours spent listening to Mazzy Jae correct his sandcastle building ability and the sun, whines over not finding Sponge Bob as I lead him in the house. Preslee’s hand ruffles his hair as she promises to help him go diving to search for the elusive pineapple under the sea the day after the wedding. The old familiar burn of something I’ve been denying blasts my heart, melting what remains of my ice fortress.

  Now amid the litany of conversations and bustle of laughter, my eyes never leave her. I know where my marks hide under meticulously applied makeup she harped over using with an I’m only pretending to be miffed smile on her face. The rehearsal dinner is stress-free perfection for the bride and groom.

  She’s too exhausted when we return to the cabin for the heavy discussion rattling my brain. Instead I listen to her nit and pick at all the things she should’ve done differently. I hum along allowing her to empty all the ramble until yawns eat at her words.

  Dick: my turn, my turn. Let me relieve her stress.

  Yes, I’m hard. I can’t help it. She tried all night to brush against me, kiss my cheek, whisper unspeakably sexy things in my ear, and taunt me with her peppermint scent on each pass. The killer happened thirty minutes before the dinner’s end, when she slipped a tiny piece of silk into my palm, nibbled my ear, and promised, “Later.” My steel refrain from throwing her on the table, and taking her for all to see, deserved commendations. Little vixen kept me erect and in my seat, until she was ready to leave.

  I drag her to the bedroom, where I strip away her dress, before scooping her up and placing her in the center of the white blankets. She watches while I remove my jeans, polo, and underwear. Her tongue wets her bottom lip before she sucks it underneath her teeth. She reaches my cock, her eyes swirl with lust and I swear he preens like a peacock. God, I love her hungry stare.

  I slip in opposite her, reveling in the bliss of cool sheets on my hot skin. On my back, I extend my arm over my head, inviting her onto my chest. She lays her head on my pec, placing her ear on my heart, and her other hand on my stomach. My arm curls, holding her close I caress the curve of her ass. Her head tucked under my chin offers unfettered access to breathe in the sweet scent of her hair. Fingernails score my abs, lightly tracing each indent down to the divot at my hip before scraping to my narrow trail of hair then sweeping back up to start over.

  It’s hypnotic.

  Lost in the feel of her small fingers mapping my skin, I don’t notice her inching lower with each pass until she’s tracing the base of my dick. He’s been hard the entire time, but her touch hardens my nuts until they ache. She cranes her neck, seeking my mouth, but a yawn overtakes her before we meet.

  I kiss her forehead, hugging her closer. “Sleep, babe. Can’t have you all saggy-eyed standing up there with Sammy tomorrow. You worked your fine ass off this evening and despite your perfectionist picking, it was a success.”

  “But your little hard friend wants to play,” she pouts.

  “Ignore him. You can make it up to us tomorrow.”

  Dick: LITTLE! Pshaw. Hold my beer, I will not be ignored!

  The cocky fucker between my legs grows impossibly harder as if to prove his girth. His insistence doesn’t matter because she’s already lax and breathing steady atop my chest, deep in sleep.

  Forty-Two

  Preslee

  I can’t say it enough, waking next to this man is boss. It’s my best friend’s wedding day, I should be giddy for her but my fingers still tingle from the languid paths they made on his skin. The hot hardness poking at my backside isn’t all bad either.

  If you’re ever offered the opportunity to lie upon a rock-hard chest, while scaling your nails down the magnificence of an eight-pack, finding delicious V-ing divots, arrow pointing to the prize—DO IT! The visual is one you will never ever, ever, ever… you get the point… forget. Ruined. His body trashed all other men who aren’t Josiah Fucking Holmes. His flesh trembling under my soft touch and listening to the increasing beats of his heart move me beyond my ardor. The moon shines through the window, providing enough light to see the rise of his wet engorged shaft, begging for my touch.

  I hated leaving him wanting, but the sleep was much needed. His kindness and selflessness while snuggled into his side led to the best dreams. I wake rested but aching after of a night of dreamland ecstasy. At some point in the night, I rolled off his mountainous body.

  The muscles are sin personified but sleeping on rocks… not so comfortable. Besides, having him curled around me is my next favorite. His warm breath skates along my neck, touching my shoulder, coating my skin in goosebumps. On a reflex my hips twitch against his groin, slipping his dick between where my thighs touch.

  I wiggle, sliding shamelessly on his length. Each press of his tip to my clit sparks low in my belly. The arm draped over my waist jerks, his fingers fist at my belly button before splaying to trace along the skin. His breathing increases, growing closer to the back of my neck. Large fanned fingers move to my breast, cupping the soft flesh a groan leaves his lips when his thumb finds my peaked nipple. I arch into him, begging with a low moan for more. He responds by rolling the tautness between his fingers. When he releases me, I can’t suppress the whimper. Down my body he travels, leaving a fiery path behind. Where I ride him, he grabs my leg, anchoring it over his bent knee. Liquid want slicks my folds. He grips his shaft, aligning with my opening he hesitates. Unable to wait, I impale myself on his length.

  An animalistic grunt vibrates his chest. “You evil, evil woman,” his low morning voice rasps in my ear.

  The stretch, burn, and fullness has my core singing hallelujah. He leverages himself with a bruising grip on my hip, using it to guide my movement. Slowly he thrusts, curling into the secret soft spot inside, behind my navel, with each bottoming out lunge.

  “So tight. Wet. Your walls clamping down. Fuck, your pussy feels… ungh…” His words end on a keening moan.

  “More. God. Faster. More.” I try to move, needing him unleashed but he keeps me still, torturing me with long drawn out strokes.

  “Joey,” I whine, the sound would set my ears on edge any other time, but I’m chasing the train to O Town with no shame on how I climb aboard.

  To nudge it along—because if I don’t my uterus might explode—I reach between my legs, heaving an ecstasy swollen sigh with the first press on my throbbing nub.

  His hand strikes viper fast from where it holds me open to clamp on my wrist. “Ah, ah, ah. Not yet, baby.” Voice thick and smug, he drags my h
and away.

  I ain’t too proud to beg but before one plea rents the air, he withdraws, flips me on my back, slings my calves over his shoulders, and sinks root deep inside me.

  “Holy farfignewton,” I mewl, clamping my walls around him. He rocks, circling his hips to tease my cleft with his fat tip, before lunging forward to find my end. Each rough thrust grinds his pelvis against my clit. Never enough to send me plummeting, but enough to notch me higher. “F-f-f-fluffernutter,” I cry out, bucking my hips for relief as his wicked torture continues. My nails dig into the plump, sweat-slicked skin of his shoulders. A fish-hooked smirk pulls at his lips as his stormy blues watch his cock play peekaboo in and out of my body.

  My eyes stop rolling back in my head long enough to follow his stare.

  Oh sweet baby Jesus. There. It. Is.

  The roll of those hard-earned, perspiration-glazed, bronzed abdominal muscles waving the proverbial red flag at the charging bull. Flick my Bic, the sight ignites my short frayed fuse, spiraling hot pleasure through my nerve endings. It’s an awakening better than coffee and more blurring than a greened-out high.

  Some sort of hedonistic battle cry hisses from between my clenched teeth. “Josiah Carter Holmes, move your perfect ass and fuck me proper,” I demand on a hushed, needy exhale.

  “Want to come, baby?” he asks, keeping his stroke slow.

  “Nah, pondered grabbing some coffee and watching television,” I snark, lurching up to snag his bottom lip with my teeth. After a quick nip and sweep of my tongue, I fall back on the pillow, fill my lungs with his scent, and contract the muscles between my legs.

  “Damn,” he says on a long exhale. His arm circles under my arched back, flexing to elevate my hips higher. Angled where he wants me, he drags his tongue down my neck to my hard nipple, sucking the pink bud between his lips, while his hips speed up and the pad of his thumb finds my clit.

  I scream a croaky howl of sensory, all pleasure points mastered overload. “Fantastical flagstick ffffffflockers.”

  My eyes roll so hard it forces them closed as orgasmic hysteria tenses my body and curls my toes. Phosphenes fireworks light up behind my lids, matching the pent-up ecstasy explosion flooding my core. There’s no jump or leap, his wild assault flips me from needing to convulsing with two fast pumps of his dick.

  On and on I flood where he mercilessly pounds. Bells and chimes ring in my ears, overtaking the sounds of slapping skin mingling with my nonsensical spewing of random F-words. He proves my theory of his prowess and skill being a religious experience.

  “Preslee,” falls from his lips, in a feral rough roar, when his release soaks my insides. My thighs burning and drowning in fluids, he lowers my legs falling on to the bed next to me.

  Through chest heaving, panting breaths I eye his softening shaft lying against his stomach.

  “Stop licking those lips or I’ll never let you out of this bed.” Arm draped over his eyes, a one-sided grin tugs his mouth. “What was with all the weird F-words, babe?”

  “Figured if Cash heard me, explaining we were discussing the use of the letter F was better than offering a lesson in sex ed.” My words pant from my lips while my body flutters and ricochets with aftershocks. Around the sound of his chortling laughter the jingling sounds again, and I realize it’s my cell. When my eyes focus on the screen, I understand why. A panicked bride is blowing up my phone asking why the hell I’m not at her place yet.

  “Shit, shit, crap, damn.” I wiggle under the weight of his arm pinning me to the bed. He holds me tighter, laughing at my squirming.

  “What seems to be the problem, farfignewton?”

  I slap his forearm, bucking and arching to dislodge his hold. My puny hand flaps might as well be hitting steel. Those thrashing hips do nothing but add an evil glint in his eye and raise a tent below his belly button where the sheet covers his lower half.

  “I’m late. Sammy Lee needs me,” I huff, refusing to yield. “Your super penis distracted and made me spasm through my alarm. Now get,” grunt, “off,” shove, “me.”

  He rolls, trapping me against the soft mattress with his body. “Super penis, huh?” he grins. “He needs a cape and I can’t wait to hear your list of his powers.” The long growing length of him rubs my stomach.

  “Joey,” I half-moan, half-whine. I promised to be with my best friend from the second she woke today, but I can’t get enough of this man above me. He dots a kiss on my forehead and a peck on the tip of my nose before landing on my lips in a searing, leg gooing, heart-pounding lip-lock with feathering flicks of his tongue.

  After a series of quick nips, he rolls off, freeing me. I scurry to the edge of the bed, jumping to my feet and out of his long wingspan grab. A high eep leaves my lips when he lunges but instead of pulling me back, he slaps my bare ass.

  I shoot him a wink over my shoulder—trying to be all sexy diva—but when he jerks up as though to chase, I scared rabbit scurry to the bathroom with only the low rumble of his chuckle following me.

  After the quickest shower in womankind I dry off, brush my teeth, and squeeze as much water out of my hair as possible before twisting it into a sopping messy bun. He’s still sprawled in bed when I return to the room. The sheet’s gone.

  Let me say it again for the people in the back. The. Sheet. Is. Gone.

  There he lies, alight with the amber hues of morning sun, all miles of tanned flesh and tight-toned skin with his thick long manliness on display for perusing. I damn near swallow my tongue. The slight tilt of his plump beard-surrounded mouth tells me he’s aware of his effect on me and this statuesque Adonis pose is strictly for my benefit.

  Damn him and his brain-mushing hotness.

  The male member is not something anyone would refer to as stunning. I mean it’s all mushroom-headed, veiny, and it hangs about with two hairy shriveled prunes all day. But… if you hold intimate knowledge of the ways to charm the spitting serpent, and seeing all those swollen veins pulsing over velvet hard as steel flesh, erect with pulsing blood, because he wants you more than his next breath as it bounces against all those lower abdominal muscles, well… it’s a damn sight to behold and beautiful.

  I stay on task, slipping on my undergarments and a sundress, all while keeping one eye on him in the mirror attached to the dresser facing the bed. Since we’re doing hair and makeup at Sam’s, I take an extra second to ogle.

  I slip my feet into sandals, fighting all the Joey temptation, before skipping to the bed for a quick kiss goodbye.

  Our lips meet, I dodge and weave around his octopus snapping grabs before skedaddling to the door.

  “Preslee,” he calls. I hesitate in the opening, glancing at him over my shoulder, filling my eyes with his nakedness as he talks. “Keep Seth or Miguel at your side at all times.”

  I nod. “I mean it. There will be too many people around opening ample opportunities for this guy to strike. Promise me.”

  Propped on his elbow, wary eyes stare me down. I can’t leave him thinking I’m all willy-nilly about my looming storm cloud. Sammy can wait the few minutes more it takes to ease his mind.

  My Birkenstocks slap against the marble swirled tile on my rush back to the bed. Dress scrunched in my fists, I leap across the wide California king, straddling his waist. My weight hits him, pushing a grunt from lips as he curls toward me, steadying my sideways wobble with his hands on my hips. “I solemnly pinkie swear to stay alert and near one of those smokin’ hot beefcakes until I’m safe by your side again.” My hand hangs in front of his face, pinky extended.

  I laugh at the flash of jealousy in his leer, crooking my finger in an ‘I’m waiting’ fashion. He wraps his large digit around my small one, grumbling something about finding uglier bodyguards.

  After a quick swipe of my tongue to the tip of his nose, I dismount and rush back to the door. “I’ll see you in a few hours.” He hits me with one last large smile and the urge to tell him I love him sits heavy on my tongue, but those words hold a universe of history, and now is not th
e time. I blow him a kiss and meet my guards at the front door.

  Forty-Three

  Preslee

  The wedding was all us little girls dream about when we’re dragging those young boys to the slide at recess and picking one friend to play the preacher.

  Astwood Cove is an inlet cut into the side of a mountain. White sand leads to a brilliant sea as blue as the sky and it’s big enough to seat a small group of guests. The trek down is rough, but the beauty is breathtaking. The water fades to every single shade of blue your mind can imagine, crashing against black as night rocks and sweeping the beach with soft foam.

  Jasmina altered Sam’s original design, turning it into an airy, gauzy, beaded, sequined, shining beacon of white, fit for the brightest angel in the heavens. I wrangled her long spirals into a series of intricate braids woven with pink hibiscus and blue violet Bermudiana, creating a chestnut brown floral crown around her head. With the oppressive heat I kept her makeup simple, highlighting her vibrant green eyes with a dusting of sienna, a coat of lash-extending mascara, and succulent light melon gloss on her lips. All of Samantha Lee Gentry’s beauty radiated under the sweltering Bermuda sun.

  Mazric donned a white Italian linen shirt with teal scalloped pintucked embroidery running each side, mimicking suspenders, hanging loose over formal Italian-style flat front panel silver gray pants. He stood barefoot under a white rose-lined alter. When Sam made her appearance arm in arm with Johnny Gentry, the way he gazed at his future wife made every female watching swoon. A gooey, thick as maple syrup, love-filled toothy smile, eyes flowing with adoration and want as he scanned her from head to toe before settling on her face. Stares locked on each other, I watched the world vanish and tasted the jealousy-inducing dedication of their forever on the tip of my tongue.

  Joey stood, hands clasped at his waist, dressed the same as Mazric. Mazzy and I wore knee-length, baby-doll, pastel peach strappy dresses dotted with tiny white flowers. They spoke of deep devotion with handwritten vows as the preacher led them through the taking each other in all things life throws until death do they part.