A small blush filled her face. “I already call you that in my mind. I have no problem committing to you as yours and yours alone.”
The collar, or necklace, was made up of interlocking rings. I liked the general design that most of the Prescott men had used for their wives, but I changed up the coloring. Gianna liked yellow gold jewelry, so I had all the rings created with 24K yellow gold, with every other ring having ruby chips on one side, while the remaining had diamond chips on the other. She was mine and I wanted her to shine!
I closed the lid on her future collar and sat it on the table. “I’ll put it in a safe place for now. I’d like to have a private ceremony to commit ourselves to one another and to this lifestyle.” I’d wait until I gave it to her to show her the inscription to that piece.
“That sounds perfect to me. I’m in no rush.” Her eyes sparkled with a happiness I hadn’t seen in a long time.
I lowered my other knee to the ground and inched toward her, where I could reach up and grasp hold of her face, making her look at me. “You may not be in a rush, but I am. We lost one another, then found our way back, only to come close to losing each other again. I don’t know what life has in store for us, but I don’t want to waste time finding out. I’ve already asked permission for your hand from your entire family. They’ve offered to put a wedding together for us by the time Valentine’s rolls around in a couple months. If you want to wait, I’ll honor your wishes, but I’m ready to start our lives together now.”
I watched as her mouth opened and closed, trying to form an answer. She ended up pressing her lips to mine and whispering. “I couldn’t agree more. Let’s start our lives now.”
I resisted the urge to rip off her dress and have her right there on the floor. If we were going to recreate the night we met, I needed to do it right.
I stood up, extending my hand out to hers. “Who’s your Dom for tonight, Vixen?”
She smiled, realizing we were role playing some of our first night. “Permission to speak, sir?”
“Granted, little darling.”
Her eyes were downcast toward the floor as I helped her undo the laces of her dress, letting it pool around her feet. My hands went to her ass, loving that she’d not worn any panties or undergarments, only her dress and shoes.
“You’re my Dom, my love, my future husband, and Master, for tonight and for all eternity.”
I pressed my chest up against her back, feeling the warmth of her skin. My hands moved around to her breasts, caressing them, teasing them as my lips moved to her neck, sucking her skin into my mouth and nipping at the spot below her ear that drove her crazy.
“I need you, my little Vixen. I need you now!”
Note to the readers—This is not the end of Nate and Gianna’s story. They still have their wedding in the next book. They’ll make room for the next couple to step forward, while they step back. All the main characters will return, where you can follow along as their lives continually change and each person seeks out the love they need.
I Need You Here—Need # 3
Rafe
I WAS AT MY wits’ end. I’d given my brother, Dane, flack for falling in love at first sight with Marissa. Then my cousin, Gianna, for longing after a man she had only one perfect night with. I should’ve paid more attention, because now they were living their happily ever afters while I was getting my calls and gifts refused from the one girl who’d captured my heart and soul.
I called Dane earlier to see if I could come over to talk to his wife, since the woman I wanted had been her roommate in college. He and Marissa had gone shopping to pick up a gift for her brother Nate’s upcoming wedding to my cousin. He’d mentioned they might be a little late getting back and to go ahead and let myself in.
I was sipping on a beer when I heard the commotion. “How much stuff does a little baby need in the first couple of months? This seems like a lot.”
“I’m just following what this book is telling me to buy.” I watched as she pulled it out of her purse and handed it over to him. She grabbed her back and waddled toward the kitchen. “Just because I’m pregnant doesn’t make me know what I should and shouldn’t buy. I’m just as lost as you are, darling.”
She stopped short when she saw me sitting at the bar. “Hey, Rafe. You look like shit. Dawn still not answering your calls?”
It was funny. Marissa went from being super sweet and shy to having no filter on her mouth during pregnancy.
I shook my head. “She’s refusing my phone calls, sending back my gifts, rejecting the flowers, candy, and anything else I can think of to send her.”
I looked at my sister in-law with pleading eyes. “That’s why I’m here. I don’t know what to do. I need your help since you know her best.”
Marissa came around the bar and sat down next to me. “If you can get me a glass of orange juice, we’ll talk.”
I never realized how much strain having a baby put on the human body. I was having more and more respect for women, especially my mom. Marissa was at the beginning of her eighth month and looked ready to pop at any moment.
I set the glass of orange juice down in front of her and watched as she gulped it down. “That hit the spot. The baby and I thank you.”
She turned toward me with confusion on her face. “What’s going on with you two? You were all she ever talked about after graduation. I’m guessing you hooked up shortly after that, because her interest in you seemed to spike. I thought for sure you’d be dating after our wedding, but she won’t even allow your name to be said anywhere near her. What the hell happened?”
I raised my arms up and shrugged my shoulders, “That’s it. I don’t know.” I started picking at the beer label. “I know I’m in love with her. Don’t ask me how, I just do. It doesn’t matter that she lives in Atlanta and I’m here in Orlando. I’d do anything to make it work. From the moment I laid eyes on her at your graduation, I was smitten. We exchanged numbers and talked for hours on end about anything and everything.”
I shook my head and took a deep breath in, really feeling uncomfortable about expressing my feelings to my sister-in-law. “We decided to go out on a couple of dates when she came back for Ashley’s wedding.”
“Did you get along okay?”
“Yeah. I made a point to take her to the places she wanted to go, spoiling her every whim and fantasy.” I felt the tension increase in the back of my neck, so I reached up and tried to rub it away.
“I don’t feel right talking to you about the next part,” I admitted sheepishly.
She laid her hand on my arm. “Honey, your family is part owner of a club that specializes in depravity. I’m getting to the point where nothing much fazes me about the topic of sex.”
A smile spread across her face, as though she remembered something funny. “When I was confused about my feelings with Dane, who’d you think I talked to—Dawn. She told me to re-read some of my steamier romances and asked if I was having similar feelings to the characters. I’d had no clue I’d been lusting after the man.”
I threw my hands up to make her stop. “TMI, sis. I don’t need to know that much.” Then again, that seemed to be where our problems started. Why hadn’t I seen it before?
I snapped my fingers. “Wait a minute. That’s when this all started. When she was here for Ashley’s wedding, we’d gotten close, but she wasn’t ready to take it to the next level, so I didn’t push. But when she came back for your ceremony—”
“What happened, Rafe?” Dane asked as he walked in, overhearing the conversation.
“I think I might have scared her.” I don’t know, I wasn’t really sure what happened. I tried replaying things in my head.
“Elaborate,” they asked within seconds of one another.
“I’d taken her back to my place after you left for your honeymoon. She seemed a bit agitated so I figured we could grab a drink, talk, and maybe catch up on our lives. Our schedules had conflicted over the last month so we hadn’t had much time to chat and any ti
me we did, she was extremely moody, like something was wrong.”
I took another swig of my beer and stared off into space. “She’d seemed restless, not able to sit still, and constantly looking over her shoulder, until we got to my place. I was surprised when she made the first move and started kissing me. I felt uncomfortable with her taking the lead, so I used my tie to fasten her hands together and let my dominant side kick in, taking possession of her mouth and her body.
“I asked if she was sure she was ready for this. We’d talked about having sex and what our preferences were. She claimed she wanted to see what all the BDSM stuff was about, having read about it in books.”
Marissa piped up. “Rafe, you didn’t?”
I threw my hands up in frustration. “Hey, don’t go accusing me of any wrong doing, not before you hear me out. The night was consensual. I didn’t do anything without continually checking to see what level we were on using the stop light system. She kept telling me she was at green.”
“How intense did you get?” Dane asked, looking confused.
I shrugged my shoulders. “To me it was very tame. I tied her to the bed, used my hand to pink up her ass a bit, used a lightweight flogger on her stomach and inner thighs, but nothing heavy.” The scene we created flashed before me, making me hard just thinking about it and causing me to shift and adjust myself.
“Dawn loved everything that I tried and kept wanting more. When I finally took her, I felt—I felt—” I shook my head, because I was at a loss for words, I didn’t know how to describe it. I’m glad I didn’t get this way when it came to contracts and legal negotiations or our dad would fire my ass for work.
Marissa’s phone rang, breaking my train of thought. “Hold on, I need to move to another room.”
I grabbed hold of Marissa’s arm as she passed by me and whispered, “If that’s her, could you please convince her to talk to me?” She just held her hand up and walked away.
I got up to walk after her, but Dane clamped his hand down on my shoulder. “Hold on, Romeo. Pushing Dawn too hard, too quickly will only make her run the opposite direction. I should know. It took me months to gain Marissa’s trust.”
He pulled out the stool she’d been sitting on and took a seat beside me, smiling. “You had the feeling that night, didn’t you?”
I wasn’t quite sure what he was talking about and looked at him like he’d grown two heads. “Huh?”
He laughed. “Since you can’t put it into words, my guess is you did. It’s different for everyone. For Marissa and me it felt like our souls linked up in a fiery moment of passion and we not only fell into place with one another, but with the world. I became totally obsessed with making her mine, hearing the word over and over in my head. It scared the shit out of me at first, but the more time we were together, the more I realized she was it for me, that I didn’t want anyone else.”
I slammed my hand down on the counter. “That’s it. That’s what I was trying to convey. Even before that night I knew she was it for me. The sex just confirmed it and cinched my need for her. I’d never been with anyone that had such intense reactions to our coupling. I felt like my soul was being sucked from me.”
“Bro, that’s called love.”
I tilted the beer bottle back to get the last sip and headed over to the refrigerator for a couple more, handing one over to Dane.
“I told her I thought I was falling for her that night and wanted to start dating. She seemed fine at first, but the next morning when I woke up, she was gone and hasn’t spoken to me since.”
I was waiting for my brother to impart some kind of wisdom on me, but he had nothing. “I wish I knew what to tell you, but I don’t.”
We sat there in silence until I heard footsteps and looked up to see Marissa looking perplexed.
Dane asked. “Everything all right, sweetheart?”
She shook her head. “No.” She glanced over my direction. “That was Dawn. Something’s definitely wrong. She was crying, but wouldn’t tell me anything, only that she needed to get away from work and away from Atlanta for a while. She asked if she could stay with us, at least through the baby shower for me, and the bridal shower for Gianna—maybe longer.”
I walked over to her and grabbed hold of her hands, begging for an answer. “Please tell me she’s coming, that I’ll get a chance to talk with her?” I felt desperate.
Marissa nodded and gave my brother a questionable look. “She offered to help around our house in exchange for room and board. Something’s off, seriously off with her. She never sounded so desperate to get away from a place as she did today.”
Her eyes landed on me. “She doesn’t want you knowing she’s in town, but I feel that would be a big mistake. It’s obvious you care about her. You’ve been pining away for her the past several months.”
She laughed a bit. “You’ve pissed off most of the women in our sales department. They’d hoped since Dane was off the market, that they could land you. But I understand that you won’t even go out with them for coffee anymore.”
I had no clue anyone was even interested in me. “All I want is Dawn. She’s it for me. My bachelor card has been punched and put back on the shelf, if she’ll ever talk to me. I need her, Marissa.”
To emphasize my point I grabbed the area above my heart. “If I had her here in front of me, I’d tell her, ‘I. Need. You. Here!’ My heart feels completely destroyed without her. What can I do to win her back?”
I hated sounding desperate, but I at least needed to explore every option, find out what’s wrong, and hope that, if nothing else, we could start with a fresh foundation and build from that. I’d always taken life so seriously, always focusing on work or who’d be my latest hook-up, until I met her. I didn’t care about relationships, only my next conquest. But she made me see things that I’d been blind to previously. I’d never given any thought to settling down or finding anyone. I didn’t need for anything, but I did need Dawn.
Dane came up behind Marissa, putting his arm around her shoulders. “I hope you told her she’s welcome here anytime.”
“I did.”
I needed to know. “When will she get here?”
My brother put his hand on my shoulder, making me focus on what he had to say. “Give her some space. Let’s let Dawn settle in, get comfortable, and see if she’ll open up with Marissa before you start trying to push. It sounds like she’s dealing with some issues and feels backed into a corner. The last thing she needs is for you to make her feel claustrophobic. That might drive her away permanently.”
I didn’t like his statement, but I could see his point. I’d waited this long to be with her, letting her take the pace of our relationship in baby steps. I could easily wait a little longer. All I knew is that I needed her, but more importantly I needed her here.
“I’ll catch you later. I need to drop off some paperwork with Dad.”
They both wished me good bye and reminded me that relationships take time and if it’s meant to be, it would happen. We’d seen that first hand with Nate and Gianna.
I was halfway out the door when I remembered our mom wanting to know if they were coming to the family dinner tomorrow night. I’d only taken two steps back in the house when I heard Dane say, “I hope she’s not bringing trouble right to our doorstep. We don’t need you or our baby in any danger.”
Marissa countered. “She’s my best friend, Dane. I’m the only one she can turn to. She needs our assistance. We have to help her hide.”
I didn’t know what kind of trouble Dawn was in or who she was running from, but something was definitely wrong. I’d do whatever it took to keep her safe, even if it meant protecting her with my life!
I would like to thank, first and foremost, all my followers, fans, bloggers, and friends. Without all of you, my books would not be possible. Keep spreading the word. Hugs to all!
To my family, you all mean the world to me, especially putting up with my crazy writing hours. You believe in my dreams and that means ev
erything to me. You are my life!
To Ryan Van Dyke, for being the perfect look for Marissa’s brother Nate. You are a beautiful soul who helped to inspire character. I look forward to working with you again in the future.
To Eric David Battershell. Our paths crossed when I was looking for inspiring book covers and now look what you’ve inspired with your images. The whole Need Series is because of your talented photos. Thank you for your inspiring words of wisdom and for believing in me as an author.
To my formatter Stacey Blake. You rock! I love your work!
To my good friend and trusted beta reader, Mia Mincheff. Your words of wisdom, your belief in my dreams, and your encouragement mean more to me than you’ll ever know. I’m thankful that our paths crossed. You help make me a better writer. Hugs, hon!
To Angela Clark Jarvis. We grew up in the same town, were friends in school, and now life has our paths crossing again with a shared love of books. I value your insights and advice as a beta reader, but more importantly I value our friendship. Thank you for sharing in my journey as an author. I can’t wait for your book to release!
To my beta reader, friend, and fellow lover of books, Becky Sheehan. Your insights, and questions, are what I need to help make me a better writer. I’m glad our paths crossed. Hugs to you!
To Stacy Nickelson, my beta reader and trusted friend. You’ve helped push beyond my comfort zone, always trying to get me to take another step forward on my continued growth as an author. Thank you! I cherish your input. Hugs!
To my editor Toni Rakestraw. Thank you for pulling off the impossible and making this book a reality.
Above all, thanks to God, for giving the ability to write.
I grew up in a small town in South Florida and moved to Central Florida to attend college. I married my friend, love, and soul mate and still reside in the area with our amazing son, and a feisty, four-legged little doggie boy.
In my books, I draw on my background in healthcare, business, and science, along with my husband’s engineering and wireless technology knowledge.
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