Dinner was served after the service. Mostly it was just sandwiches—that was what Tess had wanted. It was easiest to make, clean up, and to store leftovers. There was also a mountain of fruit and vegetables, and dips. When the last guest was served, he and Tess slipped out the back and to their hotel. Jules had been planning all day for tonight. Hell, he thought, he’d been planning this for his entire life, it felt like. A wife needed special, and he’d been on the Internet for several hours every day to get this just right. There was chocolate and strawberries, champagne and diamonds, and he had roses and more roses for her. While she was changing, he prepared the rest of the things he’d gotten her. The berries were fresh, the wine chilled. He poured them both a glass when he heard the door open, and turned around and simply crushed the glasses in his hands. He had expected a nightie, but what he got was so much less. “I forgot to pack my pretty nightie.” He nodded, unable to speak. Jules wasn’t even sure that he could breathe again. “So I thought, what the heck, I’ll just be naked. That’s what we want anyway, correct?” “Yes. That’s what I want. You’re more beautiful than I ever thought possible.” She came to him, walking on heels that made her legs look a mile long. “Turn around. I want to see all of you.” She did, standing on the heels like she’d been born to them. And when she was facing him again, she cupped her breasts in her hands and moaned. She was, he knew, going to kill him before the night was through. “I’ve thought of nothing else but having you make love to me.” He nodded, and she giggled. “You’ve cut your hands, love. Do you want me to kiss them and make it all better?” “Yes. You can kiss all of me, if you wish.” She said that she would. As she unfastened his tie, he wiped the blood, really very little of it considering that he’d broken two glasses, onto the towel. Before he could figure out her intentions, she was on the floor in front of him taking his belt off. “I want you.” “And I’m yours. But for now, I want to see you. You’ve seen all of me, haven’t you?” He nodded as she unbuttoned his pants. “I love the sound of your zipper when it goes down for me. It’s like the sound a race car makes when it’s revving up.” When he was freed from his pants and boxers, he reached out to fist his cock. But she took him deep into her mouth and he cried out. Christ, she really was going to have him die on their wedding night. As soon as she swallowed him past the tight muscles at the back of her throat, he came so hard he had to hold onto her before he fell. “My turn.” She told him she wasn’t finished. “Oh, but you are for now. It’s my turn. I want to taste you, lick your pussy until you fill my mouth with your come. I want to feel you tighten around my cock when I’m deep inside of you.” Helping her to stand, he picked her up in his arms. Instead of laying her on the bed, as was his intention, he suckled at her breast and then laid her down. As soon as she was comfy in the middle, he joined her on the bed between her thighs. Jules needed her. Without telling her what he wanted, he dove into her pussy like he was getting his last meal, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as well as dessert. She came three times before he was finished. Or just getting started, however one wanted to look at it. “Now to make love to you.” He laid by her, his body hard with need. But he wanted her to have as much pleasure as he could give her. Touching her breasts with his fingers, he licked the tight buds. Then when she moaned, he blew warm air over them, to see them tighten more. Her belly was smooth, and her navel was pierced. He loved that about her, and laved her navel indentation with his tongue over and over. As soon as he entered her, she came hard. Jules made love to her slowly, bringing her over and over until she was limp in his arms. When she lifted her legs up, wrapping them around his hips, he took her quickly then, deepening each stroke until he released. And what a glorious climax it was. Jules leaned into her neck when she offered it to him. Biting gently at first, the warm blood made him realize that she was in heat. Not asking her—it was too late by then—he took her harder, his body knowing, as well as his cat did, that they were making a child tonight. When he came again he bit her harder, drawing a scream from her, but she also bit deeply into his throat too. They were married. They were a family. “I’m pregnant now, I think.” He lifted his head up and looked at her. “I’m a doctor, Jules. And I know the signs too.” “Well, that took the thunder out of my storm.” As she was giggling again, he pulled her over him when he rolled to his back. “I’m so happy right now, love. Another baby. I can’t believe our luck.” “Did you mean what you said, about Ruby?” Jules said he meant every word he said today. “Good. She’s going to love having a family too. I know that I am. Now, leave me be, you’ve worn me out. And when I wake you later, you’d better be ready. I’m not finished with you yet.” When she rolled to her side, he laid there. Christ, his wife, his very own wife, was going to jump his bones. Rolling to his own side, curling up behind her, Jules thought that he wouldn’t have it any other way. And she could jump his bones whenever she wanted.
Chapter 6
Taking in the sites meant so much more than they had before. Tess loved the way that Jules took pride in the state’s capitol. They even had lunch at one of his favorite restaurants while there. And then they made a stop at the North Market and bought all kinds of things, making two trips to the car before calling it a day and heading home. And through it all, they loved, kissed, and touched one another whenever they could. “I need my little girl.” He laughed when she explained why. “I’ve never gone this long without nursing her. And I know that I’ve pumped them, but they still feel full. And no, you can’t help me out again. While that was fun, I don’t think your daughter will like it if you’re as greedy as she is.” The pouty lip nearly got her laughing at him. “You know you loved it as much as I did.” She had, and was embarrassed at how much she had. “Anyway, Mom and Dad are going to bring her over to our house as soon as we get there. You can feed her until she pops.” She hadn’t really missed her daughter until now. They had spent a lot of money on getting Ruby fun things, also a few things for her room. Her room was perfect, but she didn’t have any clothing that was hers. They both wanted her to have that. Also, while the room was finished up, it was cold looking—nothing personal in the room. Nor were there any little books or stuffed dolls. That was something that she wanted her to have. Warmth in the room she was going to call her own. They had also talked about Dexter while they had been away. It gave them distance from him, not just in miles, but in knowing that they were somehow safe too. But he wasn’t, and they both knew it. “I just heard from Dane. She said to let you know that he took the twenty dollars out of the account she put in there for you. And that he took it surprisingly well that you no longer have an account there. What do you suppose he’s thinking now?” Lots of things ran through her mind, none of them very good. “We’re doing the best we can in not allowing him to be hurt, Tess. You know that, don’t you? Whatever happened in that house, it sent a reasonably sane man over the edge.” “We know that she killed the girl and the little boy. What will happen with that? I mean, there won’t be any justice served.” He told her that there would be, and how. “Really? They’ll have a trial for a dead woman? Why?” “For one thing, there are the insurance policies. Someone will have to collect on them, and without a cause of death, in this case being murder, there might be more money coming. And since she wasn’t married to Dexter, her parents will get it. Any justice that comes from the death of the child, that will be his. He might need it while he’s recovering from all this.” She asked him if he thought he would. “Yes. I have to believe that, or there isn’t any point in trying to make it work for him. I believe that we can bring him around. It’s something that we have to do or we’ll lose him. And I don’t want that to happen any more than you do. What his state of mind will be afterwards, I don’t know, but I do know that with help, he’ll understand better.”
She nodded and thought of Dexter the last few months. “When the two of us would see each other, it was the strangest thing. I mean, I noticed it before, but now, with the knowledge that I have presently, I understand what he was doing.”
Jules asked her what she meant. “He was forever looking around. I thought that he was trying to escape being with me, but I think he was searching for his mom. She never liked me, as I said, and she would have been harder on him seeing that we were together. Do you suppose that she made him suffer somehow for that? Being with me? I wonder if she knew that I was marrying Kenneth so that he could stay with Daniel. Not that it would have been any of her business, but I wonder what she would have thought of me living with a gay couple. I have all kinds of questions going through my head, but without any answers. There might not ever be any if he doesn’t get better.”
“Why did you do that? Agree to marry Kenneth, if you don’t mind me asking. I mean, it doesn’t seem like you needed them to protect you, did you? Not then.” She told him she wanted to pay off her student loans with the money they had paid her to have a child for them. “I see. And then when he was killed, it was too much on the other. Not that I mind you being left with Ruby, but I did wonder.”
So many things about their life was becoming clearer. Not just hers, but Dexter’s too. The times when they were children were difficult to think about at times, but she had thought back then it was because he was an awkward kid—him being so much smarter than her. When all along it was just his mom. She wondered about other things too.
“Did Debra mention me in the books?” He said he knew that Dane said that she had, but he didn’t know what she’d said. “I would have thought plenty. Dexter was the first boy I kissed. We were about eleven then. Anyway, his mom caught us. She beat us both bloody over that. My grandma took a switch to her when she found out. I don’t remember the details, but I know that Debra wasn’t allowed to be around me anymore. Which was fine by me. The kiss wasn’t even all that much—I touched my mouth to his cheek, that’s it. But she freaked out like we were having sex right there in the yard. I was so hurt over that; she called me a whore. And I had to ask Grandma what that meant.”
“The firm that he worked for, they thought he was a homosexual because he was so backward around women that they thought that was the reason. And as far as anyone knew, he never dated either. That’s the reason they were so shocked to hear that he had, first of all, a fiancée, and then a living mother. The funny part about that is, Dexter sent her money every month, and she took it. We know that she deposited the money into her account, and that she used it too. But no one ever knew that she was a person until he asked for the time off.” Tess nodded. “When you were younger, did you ever see any men around?”
“No, why? Is that important?” He said that Dane had asked him to ask her. “There was an uncle, a real uncle, that came around once in a great while, but even that stopped after the beat down with me. I’m not sure there was anyone else. I think I read someplace that he was dead too. I don’t think she had anything to do with it, but knowing her, I wouldn’t put it past her.”
“She didn’t know she was going to have a baby, we mentioned that before. Wyatt and Colton got together, and they have an idea that she thinks her baby was a gift from God. She thinks somehow that Dexter might have been the second coming of Christ. There is mention in the books that she kept that he was conceived by that method. But that wasn’t until later in the books, about the time he turned five or so.” She stared at him, not sure what to think. “There is mention of him being godly. They’re not sure what that might mean, but the more they read about him and his birth, that’s what they think. And Dane is going to go to your grade school, as well as other places that he went to school, to get some insight on him. Someone there is bound to remember someone like him. Backward, odd mother, not to mention, from what they’ve gathered, he was a slob in the way he dressed. He might not have had much.” “That is so sad. I mean, she had to have had sex. So why would she think something like that?” Jules explained that she was older when she had him. “Yes, I do remember that. She was at least twenty years older than my parents. Or she seemed older. I don’t know anymore. But when he suddenly appeared on the scene, as my mom called it, there was some speculation that he’d been stolen or something. I’m not sure.” They were pulling into the drive when something else occurred to her. She wondered where Debra was getting money besides what she was getting from Dexter since she’d lost her job with the bank. What he sent couldn’t have been enough to pay bills, taxes, and a house payment, could it? And what sort of pension, if any, did she have? Houses in their neighborhood weren’t like the Stanton homes, but they were well kept. Who mowed the lawn or shoveled the drive and such? These were not things that Debra would have done on her own. She just knew that Dane would know the answer and was happy to find her at their house when they arrived. “She had a pension, as you might have guessed. Not much, but the house was her parents’, and all she needed to do was to keep up with the taxes. She did that, but not well, not until she had help from Dexter. Though why he’d help her is beyond me. And we think that Dexter might have helped her with repairs, too. There were uncashed checks, not many of them, within the diaries that she wrote in. Devil’s money she called it, because it wasn’t really cash.” Dane handed her some photos. “I found these. There weren’t many pictures of anyone in the house when we went there. But I don’t suppose you can help us with who these people might be.” “This is my older brother. He passed away when I was a teenager. He was in a car accident that took my father’s life too. When it was obvious that he wasn’t going to be better, my mom did something that few could have. Then a week later, she died as well. Alex had severe brain damage, and I think, somehow, she thought it was her fault that he died and ended her own life.” She looked at the picture closer. “That’s me in the red jumper. I don’t know who this little boy is, and that’s Dexter. My goodness, were we ever that young?” “The little boy is a kid by the name of Davie; does that ring a bell?” She said yes, but not that she could place him. “Davie’s parents were interracial. It wasn’t as common as it is now, but they moved away almost a year after purchasing their first home. They basically forfeited everything they owned to get away from Debra. She made their lives a living hell. And then one night she burned a cross in their front yard.” “There are others, too. Aren’t there? Other people that she terrorized.” Dane nodded. “Why? Other than she was a mean bitch, what could have led her to believe she could be like this to people?” “All in the name of God. She actually believed that Dexter was the son of God. Or a god. It wasn’t clear to her who he might have been fathered by. And before you ask, no, we don’t think she had more than one lover. But we have found enough evidence around the house to positively identify his father.” Tess asked why that was important. “We’ve unearthed a few more bodies than just Alma and her son. They’re pretty close to what was at one time an outhouse. I don’t know when it was torn down, but I think it was the place she put people that pissed her off, because the ground was softer there. I don’t want to think that there might have been any other reason.” “I wouldn’t put anything past her. She wasn’t nice; she had no reason to be like she was. Dexter was a nice kid, smart beyond compare, and he never, so far as I know, ever caused any trouble. After I moved in with my grandparents, neighbor to Dexter, I realized that she was the meanest woman I’d ever met. And then some.” Dane asked where she’d known Dexter from before. “We went to school together. He was in a higher grade, but we were the same age.” ~~~ After they all left, Tess went to the library that Jules had set up first thing. When he asked if she needed him to join her, she asked him to keep an eye on Ruby for a little while, that she needed to think. He didn’t like leaving her alone right now, but he knew that she was a thinker and did better when alone. So, when Ruby woke from her nap, after Mommy fed her he took her to the backyard to play. It was a warm day today, and while winter was still hanging on, he could see buds on some of the heartier trees, as well as some bulbs coming up. Last fall he’d marked all the ones that he’d wanted transplanted, and was excited to see what was going to be coming up. Just as he was going to pick a small bloom for Ruby to
smell, he saw Dexter. He was hiding, but not well. More like he wasn’t hiding from him, but whoever was behind him. That was the direction that he kept looking in. Whatever he was doing here, he was reasonably sure that he was not hiding from him, but from someone else. When his brother came out of the woods beside him, Jules reached out to Levi and let him know not to startle him. I knew he was there, but I didn’t want you to think we weren’t watching out for you guys. Dexter has been in the woods for over an hour, I guess. I don’t know who he’s hiding from, but he will drop down and lay under the leaves for a few minutes every time he hears something. There isn’t anyone here but us. Jules told him he’d thought the same thing. I’ll keep an eye on him. Watch out for Ruby. When Dexter suddenly came running toward him, he picked the baby up, ready to run into the house if need be. But all he did was stand about a foot from him and look around, speaking softly.
Julian Page 7
