What to Read After FSOG: The Gemstone Collection (WTRAFSOG Book 8)

by Sabrina York

  “But you had a concussion. You should not have been playing.”

  “Yeah, Nicco told me that.” He heaved a sigh.

  Her heart pounded. “Nicco told you…what exactly?”

  “He told me not to tell you he did, but he did. A few days ago he came to my packed-up condo and told me about you, and me, and about Sam, because he wanted me to not fuck up, to not marry Amber. And because he blamed himself.” Brody touched his head, his face confused and unhappy again. “Goddamn me. I can’t remember any of this.”

  Without thinking, she reached out to touch his rough face. In a flash, he grabbed her and before she knew it had her pulled onto his lounge chair, his mouth on hers, urgent, seeking, both of them making noises of protest while tugging at clothes, zippers. He shoved his hand up her short skirt and yanked her panties down. All she wanted in her life, she had, right now, in her arms. The ugly, lonely, sleepless nights, missing him, wanting his help with Sam, with a major decision she had to make about her career, all overpowered her.

  “Oh,” she said when his lips slid down her neck, as he hit all her sweet spots immediately. “I think you remember some things.”

  “Please,” he whispered into her skin, as they lay side-by-side on the lounge chair. “Sophie, I need you so much. I’m…”

  “Shh…” She held him close. They were shielded from neighbor view by the large umbrella that shaded the deck, but suddenly she didn’t care who saw or heard her cries of delight. He maneuvered them around so she straddled him. His warm flesh, so familiar to her, his body so full of memory. She shifted her hips, took him inside her. He thrust deep, pulling her down to meet his lips.

  “Robert…” she whispered, fighting back tears. The orgasm hit her hard as he gripped her hips and stared at her while she let it roll through and over her, wave after wave of pure pleasure.

  She smiled down at him then lowered her mouth to his nipple, sucking and biting as she tightened her body around him. “Come,” she muttered into his skin. “I need to feel it.”

  “No…” he grunted, obviously trying to stop himself from matching her climax.

  She raised her face from his chest and placed her palms on his firm, strong torso. “No holding back, Robert.” She rolled her hips, anticipating what the new angle and change of friction would do for him. He cried out so loudly, she covered his mouth and rode him, having another little spasm of pleasure and the warm sensation of his climax inside her. They lay together awhile, she draped over his body, both of them still half-dressed, their breathing calming.

  “Amber found out about the Madame Katrina thing somehow. It’s now a more organized dating service, a specialized one, for people who require a little more than the usual…you know,” she said, finally, then climbed off him, taking a seat on the lounge chair next to his legs. He lay there, one arm propped behind his head, gazing at her.

  “What I do is not technically against the law. At least not the way I have the business structured for government purposes. I pay my taxes, report my employees…I even offer them insurance coverage. If, at the end of the date, there is play and there is sex, money is not exchanged, not that night…” She shrugged. “Amber found out. Showed up at my office accusing me of running a prostitution ring and saying she had to report me to child protective services.” She shivered, wanting Brody’s arms around her again. He zipped up his tuxedo trousers and sat up, putting his arm around her shoulders.

  “I won’t let her do anything like that, I promise.”

  “It’s probably too late. She knows you would come to me. She knows Sam is yours. You were too busy the last three years fucking your way through Detroit socialites, then getting sucked into her witchy circle, to notice the kid right under your nose who was like a Brody mini-me. Jesus.” She jumped up, rubbing her elbows, already regretting this whole thing.

  He frowned and stood, tried to hang onto her, but she wrenched away, furious for being weak and giving in to her base need for him, again. Terror washed over her. The woman had probably already leaked her stupid report. It would be all over the news.

  “Shit,” she spat out, already wondering how she could possibly spin it.

  “I have a few things on Amber she won’t want revealed. Let me handle it.”

  “No, damn it. I don’t want to get into a pissing contest with her. She’ll win.”

  “No. She won’t. You’ll just have to trust me.” He grabbed her and folded her into his embrace. She gave in, burying her nose in his chest, wrapping her arms around him. “I’ll fix this.” They stood together, arms around each others’ waists, the night sounds resuming around them. “I want to be with you, with Sam.”

  She pulled back, so she could look straight at him. “Tell you what, let’s go slow. I can’t let you back into my life, not yet. I will let you get to know your son, however. He’s getting to the point where he needs his father. So this works.” Already compartmentalizing about how she might share Sam, but not her heart, not again. “But…I don’t know how we can if you’re in Boston.”

  “I’m not going to Boston.” His dark eyes shone. “God, I love kissing you.” He tried to do that, but she ducked away.

  “Uh, they are expecting you. Paid for you already. Contracts signed remember?”

  “Yeah, but I’m sorta close to the head of legal for my team. I hear she’s pretty damn tough. I’ll bet she can get me out of it, if I work really hard to convince her it’s worth it.” He grinned wickedly and slid his hands down her back to cup her ass. “I’m a hard worker…” He kissed her then and she did nothing to stop him, gasping when he managed to get her on the knife edge of another orgasm within minutes, shoved up against the outside wall of her house, his lips on hers, his fingers under her skirt.

  “This is not going slow…” She sighed and let it happen anyway.

  “I know. I think you’re right about that. But I’m not going anywhere, not anymore. You can’t make me.” He grinned. “Let’s just have another little reunion moment, shall we?” He pulled her palm down to his zipper. “Turn around,” he whispered. “Put your hands on the wall.”

  She did and the sensation of him inside her once more never felt more perfect. He gathered her close at the last moment, filling her ear with his sounds of pleasure. “I don’t remember much. But I am game to make some new memories,” he said, his voice low and hoarse.

  Stupid girlie tears of relief made her sniffle. “I don’t know. I just….”

  “I do know. For once, you are going to listen to me. I won’t hurt you, I promise, but you have to trust me. I’ll fix the thing with Amber.” Sliding his hand up to her throat, he held just tight enough to turn her on all over again. “I will get to know our son.” His hips moved, thrusting, rolling, their bodies staying connected. “I will get to know you again.”

  “Yes,” she said, smiling and reaching back to clutch his hair.

  Epilogue

  Brody watched from the porch while the kids rolled around with the puppy he’d brought home much to Sophie’s extreme displeasure. He smiled, shaking his head at the coffee cup she offered him, tugging her down into his lap for a kiss instead.

  “I told you, no dogs.” She spoke into his lips.

  “I’ll make it up to you.” He cupped her bare breast under her sweatshirt.

  “Cut it out.” She smacked his hand away when their sons bounded up the steps and barreled past them into the house.

  Sam had two brothers, adopted, and beloved by all, including their stay-at-home dad. The year they had spent after that night on the deck of Sam’s birthday had been tough. She’d rebuffed him emotionally after convincing Jack to take the monetary hit and buy him back for the team.

  Of course, Sam fell head over heels for his dad, and by the time he turned five, the two of them had concocted an elaborate treasure hunt for her that took her all around the neighborhood with hints and prizes. When she found the final prize, and had the small ring box in her hand, her first inclination was to scoff and remind Brody she
had no intention of getting married, to anyone, ever.

  But as she stood near the back shed, her fingers covered in dirt where she’d had to dig around to find the damn thing, she saw Brody kicking the soccer ball around with Sam, keeping an eye on her, his face neutral. She’d nodded and Brody had said something to Sam, who then came running at her, yelping with delight.

  “Under one condition,” she said later, as her man held her close, the adult celebrations concluded.

  “Anything,” he gasped, trying to catch his breath.

  She sat up. “You retire.” She frowned down at his seeming blasé acceptance of her words. “I mean it. Your headaches are back again. I am not going to marry you, make us a family, and then lose you to this stupid fucking game. You stay home, consult, coach, I don’t give a shit. I make plenty of money and you have enough saved. I want us to be happy a long time. No more pro goalie play. It’s the only way I will agree to this.”

  “Hmmm…” He stretched. And her mouth watered at the sight of his sexy, tattooed torso. “If I’m staying at home, I might get bored.”

  “Just text me and I’ll rush back to alleviate boredom.” She’d settled back into his arms, content.

  “Then it’s a deal.”

  And now, she sat in her husband’s lap, enjoying the morning, and reflecting on her luck. They had agreed they wanted more kids, but that she that should not risk pregnancy at her age. Given his background, it made sense for them to find boys who needed good homes.

  So they had three sons now, Allen, almost Sam’s age exactly and a shy, but sweet kid, whose single mother had ended up in prison for cooking meth in his bedroom. And Calvin, the two-year old who got placed with them within weeks of welcoming Allen to their family which made for some pretty crazy days and nights as they assimilated into their new configuration.

  Calvin had come to them with his arm in a cast from a fall and with horrible burn marks on his forehead from his time at a foster home. Brody had heard about it one morning from their attorney and had her in front of him to sign papers by afternoon. She still wasn’t quite sure taking on another boy would be a good idea and so soon after adding Allen to the family.

  But he had the whole thing in control, the boys, the house, everything. She’d been general manager for the Black Jacks for four years. Her sons were five, ten, and eleven. She loved her husband, but for that damn dog, whining now because he couldn’t get up the steps to follow the boys into the house.

  Brody consulted with Rafe and handled recruiting for the team for a while, until the adoptions started coming through. Now, a self-proclaimed Mrs. Dad—as opposed to Mr. Mom which he didn’t like, he did almost everything. They’d hired someone to help out with laundry and housecleaning. Leaving him free to concoct meals, field trips, and outings, generally being the father he’d never had.

  He managed boys all day long, from morning to night, and planned to start coaching as soon as Calvin started school. And the Amber thing had gone away, just like he promised. She had done a few shady things with several of her male clients, some of them performance-enhancing drug-related, which Brody had found out when she had tried to get him to visit one of the innocuous clinics in Florida. Turned out her concern about her rep and career overshadowed her desire to be Mrs. Vaughn.

  “How did I get here? With you?” Sophie sighed, curling up in his lap just before a small world war built in the house behind them.

  “Luck.” He kissed her. “Karma,” he muttered around her lips.

  “All of the above.”

  “Hop up, Soph.” He pushed her off his lap. “Sounds like my presence as referee is required inside.”

  “Thank you,” she said, dropping into the chair he’d vacated.

  He cupped her chin. “No, thank you.”

  About the Author

  Amazon best-selling author, beer blogger, brewery marketing expert, mom of three, and soccer fan, Liz Crowe is a Kentucky native and graduate of the University of Louisville currently living in Ann Arbor. She has decades of experience in sales and fund raising, plus an eight-year stint as a three-continent, ex-pat trailing spouse.

  Her early forays into the publishing world led to a groundbreaking fiction subgenre, “Romance for Real Life,” which has gained thousands of fans and followers interested less in the “HEA” and more in the “WHA” (“What Happens After?”). More recently she is garnering even more fans across genres with her latest novels, which are more character-driven fiction, while remaining very much “real life.”

  With stories set in the not-so-common worlds of breweries, on the soccer pitch, in successful real estate offices and at times in exotic locales like Istanbul, Turkey, her books are unique and told with a fresh voice. The Liz Crowe backlist has something for any reader seeking complex storylines with humor and complete casts of characters that will delight, frustrate and linger in the imagination long after the book is finished.

  Don’t ever ask her for anything “like a Budweiser” or risk bodily injury.

  Website

  Beer, Books & More Blog

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  Sign Up for Liz Newz

  Other Books by Liz Crowe

  Start with The Stewart Realty Series

  Where it all began, the “Jack and Sara Trilogy”:

  Floor Time

  Sweat Equity

  Closing Costs

  Or read them all in one eBook in:

  Stewart Realty Anthology: The Jack and Sara Trilogy

  Then read Blake, Lila, and Rob’s story:

  Essence of Time

  Find out about Maureen and Rafe (and the aftermath of Essence of Time) in:

  Escalation Clause

  Go back in time and read about Jack Gordon’s history in:

  House Rules

  Then get caught up in Evan and Julie’s exciting journey:

  Mutual Release

  Continue the saga with all of the families and meet the next generation:

  Good Faith

  Don’t forget about Jack Gordon’s latest project, Detroit’s hottest new soccer team, The Black Jack Gentlemen:

  The Black Jack Gentlemen series:

  Man On (The Black Jack Gentlemen Book 1)

  Red Card (The Black Jack Gentlemen Book 2)

  Shut Out (The Black Jack Gentlemen Book 3)

  Queen of Clubs: Malia

  Season One, Episode Two: Malia

  Katie de Long

  The exotic dancers and employees of the Queen of Clubs walk a fine line, with only wits, beauty, and market savvy to keep them from toppling into the shark pit. Ride shotgun through lapdances, romance, and sexual awakenings. Don’t worry, these girls won’t ask what your hands are doing under the tip rail.

  Malia, a former ballet dancer turned stripper ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time. What could be worse than ending up in your first love’s lap…at his brother’s bachelor party?

  Dedication

  For all the whores, sluts, and bad girls I’ve known who turned those names into compliments.

  Queen of Clubs: Malia has a glossary in the back, for some strip club terms.

  Queen of Clubs

  Malia

  Every time I wore stripper heels, I thought of my pointe shoes, and the weightless feeling that came poised at the tip of an arabesque, bound to the Earth by the edge of a toenail and some paste-stiffened fabric. Every time I put on heels, I felt disappointment and betrayal.

  I couldn’t even talk to my family anymore. My mom hadn’t treated me the same since my injury cost me my spot. For my part, I couldn’t help but resent her. When the depression took hold, I wished that I had grown up normally. My entire life had been ballet, with a little jazz and modern thrown in ‘to show my versatility.’ Nothing else—not sex, not love, not teaching, not book-learning—had ever given me the same pride of achievement
I felt onstage. I’d had steps in my head and the narrative in my heart, and my only true friend the soreness in my limbs, or the danseur steadying me into a penchee.

  I was twenty-four, but for all intents, my life was over.

  I must have seen fifty new dancers in the Queen of Clubs all grow and preen under the kind of glowing attention that few women are offered. I must have seen fifty new dancers become confident, powerful women.

  But I wasn’t one of them.

  I stripped, because what else could I do? Trying to teach tore into me, tormented me with nightly dreams of the soubressant that shattered my career. My family blamed me for not taking the graceful path of an irrelevant former-dancer. For their comfort, I should have been a dance teacher, or dropped dance entirely and gone back to college. But since I was two, it had been my life. No, they had taught me to make it my life, and now nothing else was left.

  To be honest, I’m not a very good stripper. I don’t have it in me to study sales pitches and closing lines. And I would sooner eat beetles than wear my heels onstage and risk feeling that pain again. My knee is stiff and sore, but with a pair of flat dance shoes, I have as much control as it’s possible for me to have. This is the closest to prima ballerina assoluta that I will ever obtain.

  I never would have thought it, but there’s something that connects me to these patrons, a feeling of doom. Every regular I have here has told me at least once that they love my company because I remind them that there’s no beauty without tragedy. They don’t have to pretend to be successful or happy. They just have to look at me and remember to grab their glimpses of comfort where they can get it. I walked in on Lee and China joking that I was an ‘emo stripper for broken men.’