by James, Ella
It’s hot today, but I don’t care. Gwenna likes to hold my hand, and I like holding hers. We’ve taken Brian to the enclosure, into Piglet’s house, and now we’re walking to the open-roofed gazebo behind mine. I squeeze Gwen’s hand as Brian climbs the step and takes a seat on the wooden bench that wraps around the inside of the octagon.
Pig and I sit down across from him. Brian takes out his tiny, black recorder, and Gwenna draws my arm into her lap. Her free hand starts to stroke the inside of my forearm.
I can’t bring myself to be bothered by the PDA. Three weekends ago, we sat in Gwenna’s living room while Brian heard her side of our story. She and I sat leg-to-leg and hip-to-hip, my arm around her shoulders, while she talked for four and a half hours, taking breaks to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. As we served Brian dinner, she found small moments to peck me on the cheek and rub my hip and whisper, “Good?”
I smiled for her, just like I always try to, even when it’s not all good. Because she smiles for me. Because, now that she has my mother’s emerald on her left hand, I’ve vowed to make her life the best that it can be, to be her strength, her shield, the second heart that keeps her breathing when she can’t.
Brian’s a cool guy, and I like him. If I didn’t, or she didn’t, we wouldn’t be here. We don’t have to be. It’s not because we need the money. It’s because, if Brian does make the movie, our share of the profits and one fourth of his will go to veterans. I get to choose the charities myself.
So when Brian smiles at us, and Gwen looks at me, I take a slow, quiet breath and think about my buddy Breck. And all the guys I’ve been getting to know with the veteran’s group, the guys who will work with me in a few months, when I’m back in fighting form and the building is remodeled, and I open the doors of Freedom Martial Arts.
I give Brian a small nod.
“So we’ll do just like we did with Gwenna. Trying to get notes on you for the actor, and for me, of course.” He smiles, his glasses shifting on his face. “Let’s start off with something lighter. Tell me how you felt when you woke up that night and Gwen was there.”
I shift my eyes from Brian’s to the bench beside him. Gwen’s hand squeezes my wrist. What do I tell him? They don’t make words for it, not for something like that. The way it felt to have her arms around me, just her smell…
I inhale deeply. My throat aches.
“Surprised.” It comes out a whisper.
“Why?” he asks.
I feel Gwen’s forehead press against my bicep. Grit my teeth. A prickling hive of anger washes through me. I don’t even know at whom. Myself.
I’m still not over this. Doc says I will be. But I’m still mad, for now. At me.
I bite the inside of my cheek and shake my head. “Didn’t think I’d see her there.”
“But Gwen said her feelings didn’t really change.”
I raise my right hand to my forehead, rub; I stretch my fingers to my temples and press down. “Well, I didn’t know that,” I say into my hand.
I’m going to fuck this up.
I think of Breck. And Gwen. If the movie is made, Brian, one of the writers who helped the author of End of Day turn it into a script, will have some pull with who gets cast as Gwenna. It could even be her.
I let my gaze wander to her face. She smiles sadly. I smile back.
Another deep breath, more a sigh, and I force my gaze back to Brian’s. “Because I hadn’t seen her,” I tell him evenly. “After my confession that night, her getting upset, I called her friend Jamie and like Gwen said, they came back here. I thought my friends were there to kill me when they found me in the woods. I wasn’t…” In my right mind.
Brian nods.
“Remember,” I say sharply, “that part has to pass review. The part about my friends.”
“I know.” He smiles. “In this business, I’m well-versed in the NDA, and yours was ironclad.”
Gwen’s nails stroke my arm. I have to work to keep my eyes from sagging shut.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble.
“This is sensitive material. I understand that. And it’s hard to talk about.”
“I was surprised to see her,” I say, going back to what he asked. “I didn’t know she… Damn.” I shut my eyes and grab a deep breath.
“It’s okay,” Gwen murmurs.
I shake my head. I need to spit it out. Quit hedging. Even if my voice cracks. Which it does when I say, “I didn’t realize she would still…want me.”
“And love you,” she whispers.
I wipe my eyes, then stroke her hair. “I was surprised,” I repeat quietly.
“Just as long as you aren’t in the future.” She kisses my arm, and I try to bring the emotion level down while Brian asks more questions about the weeks after I woke up.
Gwenna finds a way to keep things light and teasing, joking with Brian that she had to wipe my ass. When my face heats up and I swat at her, she cackles.
I grab the recorder. “That’s a damn lie. Nobody loses that much muscle in a month. I was walking around in a couple of days. Not far, and Piglet held my hand.” I give her a tender smile.
“We’re hand-holders.”
“And your hand worked? The left one?”
I nod. “Not perfect, but yeah. More than it did.” I flex it for Brian. “I broke a rib back there: the second one from the top, here on the left side. The nerves to this hand were never damaged beyond repair, they just had pressure on them. That’s how they explained it to me. Something about that rib breaking gave the nerve more room to breathe.”
I put my hand down, and Gwen laces her fingers through mine.
She ends up helping me describe our coming home, on tax day, as it were. “We both filed for extensions.” She smiles.
“So tell me what you’re doing now.”
I tell Brian about the studio, the renovations we’ve got going. “Gwen’s still singing, so we go to Nashville once a week, like she told you.”
“How’s that going?”
She beams. “I’m in talks with a small label about a record deal.”
I can’t help grinning, too.
We talk about the bears—all doing well—and I go through Kellan and Lyon’s story, and Kell and Cleo’s. When I think I’ve given all the facts and have started thinking about peeling Piglet’s little jean shorts off, Brian says, “Just a few more things. I need more details for the character sketches.”
Gwen takes a swig from her water bottle, passes it to me. I take a long swallow.
“I’d— Can you tell me more about when you first came here?” he asks. “You were watching her. What was that like?”
I look down at my boots. It’s something Gwen and I have talked about, of course. But I don’t want to share it.
“You liked her right away?” Brian prompts. “Were drawn to her in some way?”
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
“Obsession.”
Brian blinks and glances down at his recorder, then looks up at me intensely. “That’s what you would call it?”
“I just did.”
“Obsessed with the outcome?”
“With her fate, and mine. Obsessed with her. I wanted her from the first time I saw her. When she kicked me, though…” I shake my head. “When we talked in the woods… I— Left. I tried to get away from her because,” I rasp, “it scared me. How I felt for her. It felt…out of hand. I couldn’t stop.”
I wrap an arm around Gwennie and pull her close to me. “I can’t stop loving her. I tried,” I tell him quietly.
“Oh, I tried too,” she chimes in. “After he told me on the mountain. And he left.” I hear the pain in her voice as she remembers the night I hurt her so badly by leaving her with Jamie. Leaving just like Elvie did. It’s on my long list of regrets.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell her again now, because I need to. Every time. If there’s an audience or not.
“I don’t blame you, B. You know I don’t.” She strokes my cheek. “Our
situation is unusual,” she says to Brian. She smiles. “I guess that’s why you came to me about it.”
He nods. “But what I like the best is how you are together. Not the facts, but you, the people. Characters sell movies. Love stories like this one… People see it as redeeming.”
“It is.” I’m surprised by my own quiet words. I didn’t plan to speak. It happens more since I woke up. I’ll just…say something. Doc says it’s a good thing. That I’m moving further from my old self and becoming more like a civilian.
“Tell me more about that,” Brian says.
I arch my brows and kind of want to kick myself. But I know what he wants. I think I know what he needs more of. I decide to give it to him so he’ll leave and I can fuck my fiancé.
“I did a lot of bad things. Some for the job, and other things because I fucked up as an individual. Like the hit and run.”
“Which you’ve paid a fine for.”
I nod. “And I’ll be doing some community service there before the summer ends.”
A gentle summer breeze drifts through the trees, and I feel Gwenna’s hair against my shoulder. For a second, my eyes close. It’s so damn strange. That this is my life.
I felt so damn dirty when I tracked Gwen down those months ago. So wrecked and ruined. Like I would never, I could never, be clean again. Every time she smiles at me, I feel like I’ve been baptized. Her love cleanses my soul, restores me, in a way I had no fucking clue was possible.
“I have a perfect life,” I tell the man in front of us. I look at Gwen. “One that I don’t deserve. But you can’t earn somebody’s love. It’s given or it isn’t love to start with. I don’t know why this happened to Gwen and me. If it was God or something like that. But it’s one of hell of a coincidence.” I smile at Gwen. “We’re going to spend our lives together, and this—it’s just the start. It’s just the first chapter of our story,” I say, giving Brian a funny look, then smiling back at Gwen. I can’t help it. “After the movie is over, our story will still be going. Just the two of us.”
And when Brian goes, I show her what I mean. Pig and I walk to her house, still holding hands, and when I get her in the door, I toss her on the couch and peel her clothes off— shirt, then bra, sucking her nipples, wriggling her jean shorts down. All she’s wearing is a small, white thong. I drag it off and part her legs, tasting her sweetness.
Gwenna moans and pulls my hair. Inside my jeans, my cock throbs.
“Mmmm,” I rumble as I stroke her up and down her slit, and ease a finger into her heat. “So warm and wet…”
“I’ve been waiting!” She laughs. The sound is husky. Beautiful.
She wraps her legs around my neck, lifting herself up to my face, and my balls tighten. “Jesus, woman… I’m not gonna last…”
“Oh yes, you are…” She tugs my hair and moans as I kiss between her lips and slide another finger into her. “You’re going to last forever.” She laughs, rocking against my face again. “I need you, too…please!”
I flick her clit with my tongue. “What can I do for you, Piglet?”
“Your cock…” She pouts. “Put it inside me!”
Leaving my fingers in her, sucking on her clit, I take my jeans down with my right hand, then jerk myself off while I smirk down at Gwen. “You want the whole thing?”
“Yes… Oh, please,” she moans as I swirl my head between her lips. “Please…Bear.”
She spreads her legs wider. I draw my fingers out and tease my way from her clit down to where she wants it. “Please… right there.” I work my way inside, just the tip, and Gwenna groans so loud I feel it in my balls.
She pushes against me, trying to take me deeper. I pull out a little.
“Barrett!”
I grin. “Okay.” I curl down over her and kiss her chest, and then I shove inside, a little rough—the way she wants it.
“OHHHH!”
“Like that?”
“Oh God… Again!”
I draw myself out, shuddering at how fucking tight and hot and good she feels. I push back in.
“Ahhhh… Love you, Barrett.”
I hold her gaze. “You more.”
She grunts—and arches up against me. I know what she’s asking for. I stretch out just a little, ignoring the ache in my back as I roll my tongue over her nipple. Gwenna likes it when I bite them, as I fuck her—hard.
I can tell when she’s getting close, because she gets so slick and stops saying my name, just panting as I fill her up and leave her empty, gasping as I fill her up and moaning when I leave. I fucking love the way her body starts to shake. My muscles tighten and I feel myself get even fucking harder. Pleasure spins out from my cock all down my legs, making my lower belly tighten, too. It’s like a roller coaster. I hold onto her.
“Love you, Piglet…”
“Love you.”
Our moans blend together in a symphony of need, and this time, like some others, we come at the same moment. Afterwards, we lie there in each other’s arms and hold on tight.
And Gwenna cries.
“What’s wrong, baby?”
“Happy.” She smiles as she wipes her tears. “Tell me you are too.”
“Oh fuck, there’s no one happier than me.”
“You love me lots.”
“And lots.”
“Forever? And ever?” She giggles.
“And ever, and ever, and ever. With everything I have, and everything I am.”
“Can we write our own vows?” she murmurs as her sleepy eyes sag shut.
“I’m all yours, Piglet. Tell me what you need, I make it happen.”
She yawns, smiling. Her hand reaches for my face and cups my scratchy cheek.
“Just you.”
I top it off with dinner while she sleeps. Some of her favorite wine—a strict half glass, and none for me—and then I go into the laundry room and bring out a gardenia. I put it in the center of the table before setting plates for us. I guess she’s tired from the day, because she sleeps while I serve chicken parm and asparagus for both of us, and even find and light a pair of candles.
When she wakes up, she smiles until her eyes are wet. “This was really sweet.”
I shrug.
“You’re really sweet.” She kisses my chin, pulling on my neck so I lean down. We share a slow kiss.
“For you,” I whisper.
“Mine.”
We eat in near silence, just smiling, while the small white flowers look down on us.
“You look hot in my apron.”
It says Hers, and it’s right. This is right. No matter how hard the road here was—for both of us—the destination is where we belonged.
That night, as we fall asleep under the twinkle stars, I send up a thank you for our long, sad, perfect fucking story.
Gwen and Barrett. Pig and Bear.
There are almost no dreams now: only our two warm bodies, curled together underneath the rainbow.
* * *
Turn the page to continue reading Covet, A Sinful Secrets Novel.
Covet
A Sinful Secrets Romance
This book is the first standalone in a collection of books, each inspired by a sin and centered on a huge secret.
covet: to wish for earnestly; to desire what belongs to another
For my family—blood and chosen. But most especially my kids.
May you always overcome.
Part 1
Covet:
verb cov·et ˈkə-vət
1: to wish for earnestly
2: to desire what belongs to another
Prologue
Finley
January 31, 1998
“Tell me again about the prince and princess?”
Mummy smiled down at me, her face crisscrossed by shadows from the halo of wildflowers on her head.
“What kind of story would you like, dear?”
I let go of her hand, skipping down the dirt path and then twirling, my dress puffing out around me. “The o
ne with rainbow dolphins!”
My own halo wobbled. I reached up to steady it. Mummy smiled—a really happy smile that made my tummy feel warm.
“Rainbow dolphins it will be, then.”
I held out my hand for hers, and we strolled down the grassy hillside. Overhead, the kingbirds cawed. Down below, at the bottom of the winding path, the ocean spread before us like a great, glittering blanket.
“It was a cloudy day,” Mummy murmured, “with clouds that foretold stormy weather. Perhaps a bit like this day. And it was the princess’s birthday.”
“Like mine!”
“A bit like your birthday.” Her lips curved slightly, showing me the dimple that I sometimes liked to touch. “This princess, with the red hair and the angel kiss on her big toe, and the gemstone staff for herding sheep, she woke up on that morning needing to see dolphins. It was what she wanted most for her seventh birthday—to see the lovely glitter rainbow dolphins that would jump right by the royal island’s coastline. They only swam about on the best sorts of days.”
I smiled. “Like our dolphins here?”
“Just like those—only showing themselves to the best people.”
“Like us?” I grinned, and Mummy nodded gamely.
“Quite. So, the princess asked her mother for a special treat—to go out on a magic boat and call the rainbow dolphins. The queen wasn’t sure at first if it would happen. The king had quite a few old, stodgy rules, and sometimes frowned on ventures such as that. But the queen and the princess wanted to go very much, and so they made it happen. They put on their crowns—” I smiled proudly— “and after the princess’s royal birthday celebration, they made their way down to the ocean for their expedition, wearing their finest clothes and in the finest of spirits. They knew they would see the rainbow dolphins.
“They arrive there at the docks and get on their boat. They’re going to get off, but there’s the prince! Prince Declan. He was at the birthday party at the café a bit before, but he stayed late, gobbling all the cake. He has a sweet tooth, you’ll remember.”
