by Hawk, Maya
I nod, hooking my arm around his side and curling up against him. He’s right. Solving Jerome’s murder would be a miracle, and God knows we need one of those right now.
“Did you ever have any idea it was KJ?” I ask. “Any signs?”
“No, ma’am. He pulled fast one on all of us,” he says. “I knew there was tension between KJ and his brother, but never in a million years did I think a drowned rat like KJ would be some kind of serial killer preying on drunks in the middle of the night. He’s a goddamn coward if you ask me.”
“He is.” I kiss his hot skin. “I’ll be on pins and needles until we find out. Think he’ll confess?”
“We’ll find out soon enough. Sometimes the DA will make a deal in exchange for a confession, but I don’t know how much of a deal he’s going to get with that much blood on his hands.”
“I don’t want to talk about him anymore,” I sigh. “I want to talk about happy things, Titan. Tell me everything’s going to be okay. Tell me what we’re going to do tomorrow and the next day, and the next.”
He kisses the top of my head, his biceps flexing as he runs his hand down my side.
“Tomorrow.” He exhales. “Tomorrow we’ll take a drive. A long drive. Anywhere you want to go. We don’t even have to do anything, we’ll just drive.”
“Can I control the radio?” I tease.
“Yes,” he says. “You can control the radio.”
“And what about the day after that?”
“The day after tomorrow,” he says. “We’ll head over to Gareth College and sign me up for classes so I can finish this goddamn engineering degree. Two more semesters and I’ll be done.”
“You still want to be a civil engineer?” I have to admit, the thought of a sexy, muscled, tatted up bad boy with brains to match gets me more hot and bothered than I ever expected.
“I do,” he says. “While I’m there, why don’t you talk to someone about finishing your degree there? We can move to Gareth together. Spend a year studying like a couple of sexy-as-fuck nerds, and when we’re done, we’ll move on like a couple of drifters.”
“Maybe one of these days we’ll find a nice place to set up camp?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He cocks a half smile. “One of these days, sure. Not in a hurry. You?”
“No,” I say. “No hurry. Was just curious if you saw that, you know, as you’re envisioning our future.”
“I see a lot of things, Jordana,” he says with an air of mischief in his tone.
“Do you now?” I lift my head, pressing my lips against his and tasting his minty mouth. “Like what?”
“Can’t tell you,” he says. “It’s like when you make a wish. If you say it, it doesn’t come true.”
“Am I…am I your wish?” I ask with trepidation.
He pauses before answering. “Yeah. I guess you are.”
“You don’t strike me as the wishing kind.”
“I’m not the wishing kind.”
“Apparently you are now,” I say.
“Apparently I’m a lot of things now.”
“Like?”
“Like two seconds from owning that fuckable mouth of yours,” he says. “And two seconds from showing you just how serious I am about taking you with me the second I leave this town.”
“I’d hope so. I want to go with me.”
“You wouldn’t have a choice in the matter anyway.”
He pulls me on top of him, my legs straddling his hips.
“I want you, Jordana,” he says. “I want you right now. I want you tomorrow. I want you the day after that and the day after that.”
“I want you too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT – TITAN
“It’s all fixed up for you.” I hand Laticia the keys to Jerome’s mustang Saturday morning. She’ll hardly look me in the eye. It’s all I can do not to apologize for screwing her daughter, but I’m not about to offer a false apology. I’m not that kind of man. I’m not sorry at all. I care about Jordana. I could even see myself falling in love with her. Matter of fact, I feel I’m well on my way down that path and there’s not a damn thing anyone could do to try and stop it.
“Thank you.” She takes the keys, clutching them against her chest and staring at the grass beneath her feet.
Jordana’s already inside, packing up the last of her clothes and things. Dad stands behind Laticia, his hands shoved in the pockets of his navy slacks. His mouth is firm, his jaw set. His shoulders are straight and rigid.
“Going back to school,” I tell him. Not because I care if he’s proud of me or not, but because I want to prove I’m not a total fuck up.
“Good,” he says. It’s about as much approval as I’ll ever get out of him.
I head inside, grabbing some boxes from Jordana’s arms and lugging them out to the trunk of her car. When I load them, I see a stack of scrapbooks and photo albums in there, ones my mother made years ago.
Jordana grabbed them for me, knowing they probably mean more to me than to my father.
“Bye, Mama.” Jordana stands before her mother, their eyes locking. “I hope someday you’ll understand that this is just something I had to do. He’s a good man.”
She looks at my father.
“Titan has a good heart,” she says.
My father says nothing, just offers a polite nod with a tight expression. He’s never been good with moments that make him feel anything other than stoic.
We climb in the car, she and I, and drive away.
Today we’re driving around aimlessly with no destination in mind because when it comes down to it, we can plan our futures all we want, and we can anticipate the good and the bad. But in the end, nobody knows what tomorrow will bring. We only have today.
And today, I just want to be with her.
EPILOGUE – JORDANA
Two Years Later…
Titan pulls into the driveway of the little ranch house we rent in Carlton, Nebraska. We’re smack dab in the middle of the state, surrounded by a whole lot of nothing, and still, it’s a beautiful life.
“Hey, babe,” he says a moment later, shutting the back door behind him. His keys drop in a ceramic bowl on a nearby console table, and I hover over the sink, peeling potatoes for tonight’s dinner.
He leans in, kissing me, and drops his leather messenger bag to the ground. He’s a civil engineer for Thomson County. Got hired fresh out of college thanks to a professor who took it upon himself to get to know Titan and not judge him for his past. This professor saw Titan’s talent, had numerous connections, and wrote the most amazing recommendation letter. A few phone calls and a couple weeks later, Titan was interviewing for a job that was always meant to be his.
“Do you have practice tonight?” I ask, sweeping the slippery peels into my hand and dumping them in the trash. He’s been coaching a local, aspiring MMA fighter named Cash Delacruz. Rumor has it he’s going to be the next big thing in the MMA world.
There’s no doubt in my mind Titan will be the one to take him to the top.
“No practice tonight,” he says.
“That’s weird. I thought you always practiced on Thursdays?” My brows meet as I chop the potatoes and dump them in a pot of boiling water. Mama would be proud to see me cooking right now, but I haven’t seen her in a month or two.
We made up shortly after Titan and I finished school, and after it was confirmed that KJ, did in fact, murder my brother. Mama got the closure she needed and the time she needed to get over the fact that I’d run off with a convicted felon.
She and Lewis went their separate ways shortly after Jerome’s case was closed. All that time she was clinging onto him like a leaf in the wind, afraid to stand on her own, but she never needed him. She just needed healing.
I wish I could say Titan and his father made up, but for now, they’re still a work in progress.
“I thought we could stay in tonight,” Titan says. My back is toward him, but I detect a bit of a smile in his words. “Celebrate.”
; “Celebrate what?” I ask, turning around.
Titan’s on his knees in the middle of our humble little kitchen, a white ring box in his hand cracked open to reveal a dazzling diamond solitaire on a shiny platinum band. My hands rise to my mouth.
“Really?” It’s all I can manage to say. My heart flutters like crazy. My mind races. I can’t stop grinning.
“Jordana Perry,” he says. “Two years ago, I was convinced I didn’t need anyone. I was determined to spend the rest of my life alone, protected from all the things that could possibly be taken away from me. And then I met you. I didn’t want to like you at first, but you kind of grew on me.”
I laugh.
“And after a while, I found myself addicted to being with you, addicted to the way you made me feel,” he says. “And then I realized I liked you. But after a while, those feelings grew a little stronger and a little stronger.”
I nod as he takes my hand.
“And I realized, a life without you by my side isn’t any kind of life I want to live,” he says. “I don’t want to be alone, Jordana. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life cut off from the one thing that will make me the happiest man in the world. I want to spend it with you. Will you marry me?”
My eyes gloss, happy tears streaming down my cheeks.
“Yes, Titan.” He slips the beautiful diamond on my finger and rises, pulling me into his warm embrace. “I will marry you.”
THE END
ABOUT MAYA HAWK
Hello, hello! I'm Maya Hawk, full-time mom and part-time word slinger. I love to put my own twist on trendy romance. I’m Nebraska born-and-raised, though I regularly fantasize about picking up and moving to someplace far off and exciting. Writing is my escape and my passion, and I sincerely hope you enjoy my work.
I love to hear from readers, so feel free to email me anytime at [email protected] or ‘like’ me on Facebook here.
My next book, Inferno – A Bad Boy Romance, will be out in January/February 2016. It will focus on fighter Cash Delacruz – the up and coming MMA fighter Titan Blackstone coaches! Be sure to *SUBSCRIBE* to my newsletter if you want to be in the know about new releases, ARC opportunities, and hear about sales... http://eepurl.com/br6va9
Page ahead for your bonus novel!
PIERCED
A stepbrother romance of epic proportions…
MAYA HAWK
DESCRIPTION
Paging Dr. Pierce…
If you’d have told me my arrogant, man whoring stepbrother would grow up to become a doctor, I’d have never believed you. That is, until you mention he specializes in caring for the opposite gender. Then it makes perfect sense. He always did have a way with the finer sex.
Wielding a Prince Albert piercing (don’t ask me how I know) and a whole mess of muscles and tattoos beneath his white lab coat, his power lies in his ability to incinerate my panties with a single smile, the way he knows exactly what to say to melt my resolve like rain on chalk, and his decision to tell me, after a decade of estrangement, that I’m the only girl he’s ever truly loved.
But we can’t be together, and there are a million reasons why. He’s obnoxious and insufferable. He’s my stepbrother – the son of the woman my asshole father cheated on my mother with. Sutton Pierce is off-limits. Bad news. Wrong in every sense of the word.
But it’s going to be my heart that needs convincing…
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is a standalone romance with no cliffhanger. Please be 18+!
ONE – LAURYN
There’s nothing like a cold, hard pap smear on a hot, sweaty day.
“Right this way, Ms. Hudson.” A middle-aged nurse dressed in hot pink scrubs with a pink breast cancer awareness ribbon pinned to her lapel leads me down a long, humid hallway to exam room number four.
I’m tempted to ask if her if the AC is working today, but she’s not sweating. It must just be me.
I thought moving to Miami would feel like a tropical vacation. So far it’s scorching, muggy, and best enjoyed while looking out the floor to ceiling windows of my downtown apartment with the air cranked at full blast.
I hate it, and that’s the understatement of the century. I hate the heat that sends my sensitive, caramel skin into a state of heat rash the second the sun comes out. I hate how the black leather of my car causes second-degree burns on my ass cheeks every time I forget to put my tin-foil sunshade up. I hate how my naturally curly hair frizzes up the second I step outside no matter how many horribly expensive “anti-humidity” products I work into it.
Thank God it’s only temporary.
I climb up the exam table while she types my name into a nearby computer and rattles off a bunch of standard questions.
“Do you smoke?” she asks.
“No.”
“How many alcohol beverages do you enjoy per week?”
Is this relevant to my gynecologic health? “Um. Three or four?”
“How many sexual partners have you had?”
“I don’t know.” Lie. “Four or five?” It was nine. Wait. Ten. I went through a phase my sophomore year of college. So sue me.
“Are you taking any other medications right now?”
“I’m on the pill. And I take a women’s multi vitamin when I remember.” Which is never.
She types my answers in before pulling the stethoscope from around her neck and making her way back toward me. Her overdone floral perfume mixes with the humid air to launch an assault on my lungs, but I suffer silently like the polite, well-mannered girl I was raised to be. After listening to my chest, she wraps a blood pressure cuff around my lower bicep. We sit in awkward, stiffened silence as she pumps and listens.
“One-twenty over eighty,” she says, as if I would know what that means. She returns to her keyboard and punches a few keys, scrunching her nose and scratching it with the inner corner of her elbow. “The doctor will be in shortly. There’s a gown on the table. Please undress from the waist down.”
I wore a maxi skirt that morning because anything tighter causes a fiery furnace in my nether-region that no amount of ice cold AC can extinguish, but regardless, my curved thighs still stick together as if someone super-glued them with sticky sweat.
Sliding off the table the second she leaves the room, I tug off my skirt and neatly drape it across the back of an empty chair. I unfold the paper gown and then refold it in order to optimize the amount of coverage I can get from a see-through piece of paper. Climbing back up onto the table, I squeeze my knees together and wait.
And wait.
Five minutes pass and then ten. Then twenty. Then thirty.
This is ridiculous.
I watch the second hand on the wall clock make circles, and then I count the ceiling tiles. I grab a Hi-Lites magazines from the rack and mentally solve five children’s riddles before tossing it back where I got it.
But I shouldn’t be frustrated. I’m used to waiting on doctors. I do it every single day five days a week as a pharmaceutical sales rep. My drugs are gynecologic specialties, and OB-GYNs have some of the most brutal and unpredictable schedules of all the specialists. Even with modern medicine in all her magnificent glory, we still can’t predict exactly what sends a woman into labor.
I lay back against the paper-covered the exam table, each move I make underscored by a crinkling sound. Counting the ceiling tiles overhead for the fourth time, I think about grabbing my phone and texting my fiancé, James.
Okay, so he isn’t technically my fiancé, but we’ve been together for years and we’ve been engagement ring shopping, so it’s going to be any day now.
Though I’m there for my annual exam, I make a mental note to ask the doctor about my fertility. I’d done some research and spoken to other doctors who all said Dr. Elizabeth Brown is the best fertility specialist in the area. James doesn’t want to have kids until we were closer to forty, and I want to make sure that, at twenty-nine, I can afford to gamble my fertility over the next decade.
A quick knock at the do
or barely gives me time to declare “Ready!” before the door swings open and a man, who was clearly not Dr. Elizabeth Brown, ushers himself into my exam room.
I sit up, pressing my thighs together and repositioning the paper drape over my lower half. The second he lowers his clipboard and our eyes met, my breath catches in my throat and my mouth fills with cotton.
It can’t be.
There’s no way.
How?!
“Sutton?” God, it’s so weird saying his name out loud again.
His champagne eyes crinkle in the corners as his full mouth arches into a half smile accented by two perfect dimples. His chestnut hair, still as thick and dark as it was when we were teenagers, is impeccably groomed into place and contrasts sharply against his white lab coat.
“Lauryn.” He places the clipboard next to a sink and washes his hands. The way he says my name sends an unwelcome fire to my core until I strengthen my façade and force it away.
“You’re not examining me.” I make it clear before I breathe another word. “Where’s Dr. Brown?”
He smirks, drying his perfect, callous-free doctor hands and turning back to me. “In this room, I’m your doctor, Lauryn. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“You’re still my stepbrother, Sutton.” Sure, I haven’t seen him in over a decade, but that doesn’t change the fact that his mother is married to my estranged father. Once upon a time, before we were stepsiblings, he was my best friend. My first love. My first everything.
Sutton Pierce was my first everything…
Until he became my nothing in one fell swoop.
“You’re not getting anywhere near me.” I press my knees together once again, but my leg muscles shake and tire out almost immediately.
Sutton rakes his hand against his jaw and cocks his head. “I’m not going to examine you, Lauryn. I was only kidding. I noticed your name on the patient roster, and I had to come see if it was really you.”
