An hour later, Abbie’s bag is in my master bedroom, and I settle Dexter into his new home and even order a few extra supplies online for same-day delivery. I slip in a few extra things to the order I need right about now that I don’t want Abbie to know about. “Tomorrow we’ll go shopping,” I say, pouring her a glass of wine. “To drink in the bathtub. I have a giant one that never gets used. Be the first to break it in.”
“The first?”
“Yes. The first. In literally years.”
“I’d really love a bubble bath. I don’t suppose you have bubbles?”
“No. I don’t, but I ordered some.” The doorbell rings. “Just in time.”
She smiles and shakes her head. “You, Gabe.” She walks to me and pushes to her toes to kiss me. “You.”
“You,” I whisper and caress her hair from her eyes. “Go get unpacked. I’ll bring you the bubbles.”
She smiles again, God, I love her smile, it’s like sunshine and honey, and so damn addictive. She hurries away and Dexter follows her.
I answer the door, bring the bags inside and grab the bubbles plus a bag of treats, carrying them upstairs, and spend a few minutes laughing as Abbie shows me the tricks she’s just figured out Dexter knows. I reward the pup with a piece of jerky and Abbie with her bubbles. She rewards me with a kiss that sends me back downstairs more determined in my mission than ever. The apartment feels different with her and Dexter here. Alive. I feel alive in ways I didn’t know I could feel alive.
I grab one of the bags from the counter and walk to my office and shut the door. Once there, I open one of the three disposable phones I’ve purchased and sit down. It’s time to make the call that ends this and Abbie’s ex.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Abbie
A hot bath.
Bubbles.
Wine.
A dog.
A hot man.
If only the asshole that used to be my husband was gone, life would be pretty perfect right now. I down the last of my wine and wrap up in a big fluffy towel, and I really truly don’t know the last time I felt this pampered. It was years before I left my past life because nothing felt special in that world for a very, very long time before I finally departed. I think about the night I left and shove that memory, or rather nightmare, aside.
I dig in my bag and pull out my rose-scented lotion. I slather it on, pull on a pink silk gown and matching robe, right as Gabe appears in the doorway holding the bottle of wine. His eyes rake over my body and my God, I swear I feel his inspection like a lick and a touch that travels here and there and everywhere. My nipples are puckered. My breasts heavy and aching. My sex clenched, thighs wet.
His gaze lifts to mine. “You have no idea how much I like coming in here to you.”
This man.
This man.
He holds up the bottle. “More wine?”
“If I do that, I’m liable to end up knocked out. The hot bath and wine have me really relaxed. That might not make me much of an interesting guest.”
“We have many nights together.” He crosses the room, and grabs my glass by the tub, carries it to the sink and fills it before setting the bottle aside and handing me the glass. “Drink the wine. I’d like nothing more than to know that you feel relaxed and safe enough to fall asleep.”
Safe.
There’s that word. A word I haven’t used to describe my life in years. A word I shouldn’t use now, but Gabe does make me feel safe. That’s the selfish part of me that just wants to believe he can make the world better. Actually, he does make the world better, which is why I have to ensure I don’t ruin his.
I accept the glass. “Thank you.”
He links our fingers together and walks me backward. “Are you hungry?”
“Actually, yes. I am.”
“Pizza in bed while watching TV?”
I smile. “Yes. I’d like that.” Actually, I love this idea. I love that we will just spend time together, with the rest of the world locked out.
He settles me on the edge of the bed and joins me while Dexter sleeps in the corner on his own bed. “The new bed came,” I say, noting this new addition to the room.
“It did and I’d say Dexter approves.”
“Yes,” I say. “I would as well.”
A few minutes later, we’ve ordered pizza, picked a movie, and Gabe heads into the bathroom for a quick shower before the pizza arrives. I’m lounging in the bedroom, and as much as I don’t want to check on the situation I’ve set in motion, I know I have to do it. I grab my phone from the nightstand where Gabe plugged it up for me a few minutes ago and check my email. And there, is the message I was waiting for. I open it and read an email that is two sentences: You made the right decision by contacting me. Your ex-husband is now my problem, not yours.
I breathe out, feeling stabs of guilt. It’s done. I can’t turn back.
Gabe’s voice lifts from the bathroom as he sings what I believe to be a Kane Brown song. I stand up and walk to the bathroom. Yes. Kane Brown. The song is What Ifs. I pick up random lines from the song. What if I hurt you? What if I find someone else? What if I was made for you? What if Gabe is made for me?
He opens the shower door and leans out, all sinewy muscle that is dewy, wet, and delicious. “Want to join me?”
Yes. Oh yes, I do.
I want to join him.
I want to get lost in him.
I want to stay with him.
***
Morning comes with Gabe wrapped around me and Dexter lying at the side of the bed beside me. It’s not my life and yet, it is. I just lay there, soaking in the feeling of this man holding me, and it’s perfection. So was the shower and pizza and watching Bird Box with Gabe.
He nuzzles my neck and in a blink, we’re kissing and touching and he’s inside me. God, this man is everything. So tender. So demanding. So rough and somehow gentle at the same time. It makes no sense, and yet when I’m finally dressing in a light blue suit dress to go to the office with him, those are all words I use to describe this man.
Perfect is the word that comes to me as I stand at the island with him, sipping coffee and talking about the news, and how much we both hate the way politics is consuming the messaging around the clock. We click. We work. What if we really do work? I think we do.
“I’m still not a hundred percent on going to the office with you,” I say, as we leave Dexter with a dog walker lined up for a few hours later.
Gabe locks his apartment door, looking pretty darn perfect in a three-piece navy suit that is clearly custom fit to his muscular body that I can now, after exploring as much of it as possible last night and this morning, say is about as perfect as a body can come. “You’re just going to get a feel for the place as a consulting attorney.”
“I’m not taking a consulting job. Not yet.”
His sexy, so very sexy lips, quirk. “Okay.”
“You’re impossible. That wasn’t an okay at all.”
He leads me into the elevator. “Then what was it?”
“It was you being cocky and arrogant enough to believe you can change my mind.”
“Okay,” he says again, folding me close, and damn it, he smells like sandalwood, which I love. It’s distracting.
I laugh and he kisses me. “Now you have lipstick on your mouth,” I say, wiping it away with my finger.
“And every man who sees you will be jealous.”
He’s charming and sexy and fun and honest. He’s a good man. I like this about Gabe. I might learn to love this about Gabe. I might just fall in love with Gabe. It’s a terrifying thought that the ding of the elevator saves me from displaying on my far-too-expressive face.
We hurry to the lobby and then to the car Gabe has waiting for us to avoid the struggle of getting his car from the garage, which he apparently does often.
Fifteen minutes later, we’re in the fancy high-rise where his offices are located and in his office before the staff arrives. His executive corner office has a seating area, conference
table and view of the city that he promises can be mine one day. “All you have to do is come to work with us.”
He’s convincing and he doesn’t promise to buy me things or give me things. He promises opportunity for me to do it myself and it’s just one more thing I like about this man.
We’re dealing this when a pretty blonde woman in a blue dress walks in the door. “Hi,” she says, glancing at me.
“Abbie, this is Connie, Reid’s assistant who’s helping me while Lulu, my actual assistant is on a vacation,” Gabe offers and soon we’re all talking, chatting about the shelter and much more.
Gabe’s phone on his desk buzzes and he takes the call to then glance between myself and Connie. “I have a problem to deal with. Connie, show Abbie around, will you? She’s a friend doing consulting work for me.” He winks at me, this story he’s relayed one we came up with in the elevator. “That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.”
I smile and he exits the office. I spend the next hour with Connie and confirm that Gabe is a powerhouse who never loses because he works that hard and is that smart.
With Starbucks in our hands, we return to Gabe’s office and I find him with his lookalike and I don’t have to ask who this is. It’s his brother, Reid. Both men turn to look at me. “Come in and shut the door,” Gabe orders softly.
Unease slides through me. “What’s wrong?”
Reid walks around me and shuts the door behind me. Gabe rounds the desk, and steps in front of me, taking the coffees I’m holding and handing them off the Reid. His hands then come down on my shoulders. “Your ex-husband is dead.”
THE END…FOR NOW
***
Readers,
Thank you so much for picking up HIS DEMAND! Gabe and Abbie’s story concludes very soon in HER SUBMISSION which is available for pre-order on all platforms now!
PRE-ORDER AND LEARN MORE HERE:
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***
In the mood for a cowboy romance? I have a brand-new one coming out this year in mass market paperback (in stores everywhere!) and ebook on August 27, 2019! Check it out here:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43582158-the-truth-about-cowboys
***
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***
KEEP READING FOR CHAPTER ONE OF THE BASTARD (BOOK ONE IN MY SUPER SEXY FILTHY TRILOGY) AND A PERFECT LIE (MY UPCOMING PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER) !
THE FILTHY TRILOGY
THE BASTARD (book one) — AVAILABLE NOW
THE PRINCESS (book two) — AVAILABLE NOW
THE EMPIRE (book three) — COMING MARCH 12, 2019
***
I'm the bastard child, son to the mistress, my father's backup heir to the Kingston empire. He sent me to Harvard. I left and became a Navy SEAL, but I'm back now, and I finished school on my own dime. I'm now the right hand man to Grayson Bennett, the billionaire who runs the Bennett Empire. I'm now a few months from being a billionaire myself. I don't need my father's company or his love. My "brother" can have it. I will never go back there. I will never be the mistake my father made, the way he was the mistake my mother made.
And then she walks in the door, the princess I'd once wanted more than I'd wanted my father's love. She wants me to come back. She says my father needs to be saved. I don't want to save my father but I do want her. Deeply. Passionately. More than I want anything else.
But she's The Princess and I'm The Bastard. We don't fit. We don't belong together and yet she says he needs me, that she needs me. We're like sugar and spice, we don't mix, but I really crave a taste. Just one. What harm can just one taste do?
CHAPTER ONE OF
THE BASTARD
Eric
When the Kingston family decides to throw a party, it means no less than two hundred people at their twenty-thousand-foot Aspen estate, valets at the door, an abundance of Kingston Motors luxury cars in the drive, and money. Lots of money, because Jeff Kingston has nothing to do with anyone who doesn’t have money, aside from me, his bastard son, otherwise known as the backup heir just in case my half-brother kicks the bucket.
I exit the guest house, where I’m staying until my meeting with my father tomorrow, which I shouldn’t have accepted. I don’t know why the fuck I’m even here, aside from the fact that these people are supposed to be my people, and leaving the SEALs was like leaving family. It’s hard to let go of that need for a family unit. Family. Right. What the hell was I thinking? Like I could ever really be a Kingston.
I walk down a stone path shrouded in flowers and low hanging trees, twisting left and then right until I enter the courtyard filled with bodies in fancy dresses and tuxedos like the one I’m in now. A waiter walks by and I snag a glass of champagne when I’d rather have whiskey, but I’ll settle for anything to get me through tonight’s launch of a new model of car. I barely give a shit about the old model, which is exactly why my father shouldn’t want me to work for him. I walk to one of the few dozen standing tables covered in white tablecloths, down my drink and accept another when my gaze catches on a woman, on her and just her.
She’s standing on the other side of the pool, a princess in a strappy black dress, with flawless skin and long brown hair, surrounded by her subjects. At least, that’s how she reads to me, no doubt like every other socialite I’ve ever met in this godforsaken world, and yet I’m watching her when I never watch them. There’s something about this woman, a white swan among the black swans on a pond made of money and death, my mother’s death most specifically, since that’s how I got here.
My princess must feel my attention because she tunes out the conversation she’s having with several other people, her chin lifting, her gaze sweeping wide and then catching mine. I don’t even think about looking away. I don’t care that she knows that I’m watching her. I don’t care if she knows that I’m thinking about fucking her. I’m the bastard in these parts. From the time I was thrust into this place right before my senior year of high school, I do what I do and everyone whispers about it. I’m not going to change that now. Let them whisper about what I want, and this woman, whoever the fuck she is, is worth the whispers.
The man next to her touches her elbow, his gaze shooting in my direction, his jaw setting hard with anger. Priceless and so typical of my father’s class of people. He’s pissed at me for getting his woman’s attention. He should have fucked her better. My cellphone buzzes with a text message and I cut my stare, downing my champagne and then reaching for my phone to find a message from Grayson Bennett, a close friend from my first go at Harvard right before I left and went into the Navy. He’s not a bastard, but rather the true heir to the Bennett empire.
Call me, his message says, which is typical Grayson. He wants something, he asks, and usually with actual words. And since we have unfinished business I don’t want overheard, I walk toward the house where I know I can find that whiskey. I’ll likely find the rightful heir to the throne, right along with our father as well, but at least I’ll make my showing and get the hell out of here.
“There he is. My brother.”
My jaw clenches at the sound of Isaac’s voice even before he steps into my path, and as if for the first time ever he knows what I want, and cares, he offers me one of the two whiskey glasses in hand. “The good stuff. The kind we drink around these parts.”
He doesn’t mean we, as in me and him, he means we as in the Kingston family, which I've never been a part of. Our eyes lock and hold, the drama of the past, the hatred between us, and I have no doubt the crackle of energy around us is the attention of the room. We are after all the heir and would-be heir who hate each other. Him the prince, with thick, dark hair and green eyes, while I’m simply the bastard, with wavy br
own hair, blue eyes, and a good four inches on Isaac at my height of six-foot-two. I don’t look like I’m his blood. I damn sure don’t feel like his blood, but my mother made sure I can’t be denied. She took the damn DNA test that changed my life and not for the better in my opinion.
I accept the glass and his gaze goes to the ink peeking from beneath my white shirt, and lingers on the Rolex on my wrist, before lifting. “Looks like someone got all inked up.”
“The bastard brother might as well look the role, right?”
“You’re never going to let me live down calling you that, now are you?”
“You don’t need to live it down, Isaac, but you will have to face me every day if I decide to join the company, and we both know that didn’t go well for you at Harvard.”
His eyes spark with a familiar anger I don’t have to intentionally stir. He hates me for being the bastard child of his father’s mistress, the brother thrust on him only months after his mother died. An ironic turn of events considering my mother’s cancer. He steps closer, toe to toe, all up close and friendly. “If you think that because you’re some sort of SEAL Team Six hero or something, that I won’t buckle you right at the knees, you’re wrong. You will not take what is mine.”
“I see you two got right back into the brotherly love.”
At the sound of my father’s voice, Isaac grimaces and my lips quirk. “Seems we have,” I say, as Isaac rotates and we both face my father, who looks fit and younger than his fifty-four years in his tuxedo with his dark hair. “I have someone I want you to meet,” he says, and The Princess steps to his side, her crystal blue eyes meeting mine as my father says, “Eric. Meet your stepsister, Harper.”
LEARN MORE HERE:
http://filthytrilogy.lisareneejones.com
A PERFECT LIE
A brand-new psychological thriller coming May 15, 2019 written as LR Jones!
They say that you are not a product of the environment that you’ve grown up in, that you create your own story, tell it your way. That you get to pick your own future. They lied. If you’re honest with yourself, you believed that lie, too, like I used to, because I wanted to, and even needed to believe that I had some semblance of control over my own self. The truth is that control is part of the lie. The ability to become a person of our own making is the perfect lie. I concede that it might appear that some people control their destiny, but I assure you, if you gave me fifteen minutes, I could pull apart that façade. We are born into a destiny that we never have the chance to escape. That’s why I must tell my story. For those of you out there like me who were told that you have choices, when you never had one single choice that was your own. For those of you out there who were, who are, judged for decisions you’ve made that were directed by your destiny, not by the façade of choices. The irony of the story within this story is how one person’s predisposed destiny can impact, influence, and even change the lives of those around him or her. How one destiny ties to another destiny.
His Demand (Dirtier Duet Book 1) Page 21
