by Anne Jolin
“It’s a mess,” I murmur under my breath.
After locking the door behind us, Brax scoops me into his arms and starts climbing the stairs. “I’ll have someone come and take care of it in the morning,” he promises, kissing my temple.
I don’t fight him on carrying me. I’m even more addicted to the safety of his arms than I was before. Frankly, my body is exhausted. I have ligature marks on both my wrists and my ankles from struggling against my restraints. I needed eight stiches in the back of my head from where Kyle had hit me and another five on my thigh from the knife wound I’d sustained. Honestly, I barely remember that happening. They say that that’s normal though. Some combination of adrenaline and shock.
All in all, I am incredibly lucky. The doctor said that both wounds would heal nicely, and aside from a faint scar on my leg, there would be no visible reminder of the trauma we’d suffered.
Once he gently sets my body down on the bed, he helps me remove the scrubs I’m wearing. The police needed my clothing for evidence, and this was what I could scrounge up at the hospital. Once I’m fully undressed, he proceeds to strip off all of his clothes. Even in the state I’m in, it’s impossible not to admire the way he looks naked.
I wait while he turns on the shower and tests the temperature before coming back to me.
“Let’s get cleaned up, babe,” he whispers, putting one arm under my knees and the other around my shoulders as he carries me into the bathroom.
The doctor said that it was fine to shower with my stiches, so long as they were properly dried when I finished.
Stepping under the spray with me in his grasp, he sets my shaky legs down on the ground, keeping one arm around my waist to keep me from falling. As he did that first night we spent together, he washes my hair, cautious of my wound as he massages my scalp. Moving on, he massages my neck, back, and shoulders, one of which is sporting the largest bruise I’ve ever seen from where my shoulder hit the floor twice. Turning me around, he kneads my heavy breasts before dropping to his knees to examine the cut on my leg.
Silently, he washes it thoroughly before kissing the skin above it.
By the time he’s done, I can barely stay standing. My body is battling between passing out and wanting to ravage his body. Leaning against the wall, I watch as he quickly takes care of himself, washing his hair and cleaning his body. When his hand dips down, my eyes eagerly follow as he strokes his hard length with soapy hands.
Stepping forward, I close my hand around his cock. He allows me, moving his own hands out of the way. I let my thumb graze over the head and his body jerks in response. Twisting my wrist slowly up and down his shaft, I love the way his eyes darken while he watches me. Bracing himself against the wall, he groans. Something about the way the innocent hand job has him coming apart roars my body to life.
“I’m going to come,” he warns, and I increase my pace for the first time before feeling his hot seed spray over my stomach.
Pulling me to him, he kisses me deeply, sucking my bottom lip into his mouth. I whimper, my body instantly trying to climb his.
Backing away, he tweaks one of my wet nipples between his thumb and index finger while bending over to suck the other one into his mouth. He tortures me like that for a minute before letting go with a pop.
“Out of the shower,” he growls. “Now.”
Excitedly, I do as he asked, moving to stand on the mat while he takes his time drying every inch of my body.
“The first time I have you like this, it will be in our bed,” he promises as he dries between my legs. “When you come around my cock, screaming my name, it will be in the bed we’ll share for the rest of our lives, but when I’m done, babe”—he runs his tongue through my folds and I shudder—“I’ll spend eternity fucking you every chance I get.”
Letting my head fall back, I shiver. “Please.”
“Sometimes we’ll make love,” he purrs, trailing a finger up my stomach, “like tonight.” Stopping at my breasts, he softly nips at the underside. “Those times will be slow and I’ll get my fill of tasting every inch of your sweet flesh.” When he bites down onto one of my nipples, it makes me moan out loud. “But other times, we will fuck.” Then he spanks my ass. “Those times will be fast and hard. I’ll ravage your body with mine in ways you never knew you desired.”
The lust in my body is threatening to explode as he finally makes his way to my lips with his promises.
“But know that every time I touch you, I will worship you.” He tips my chin up, locking his grey eyes onto mine. “I will give you every part of me, body and soul. There won’t be another person on this Earth who owns me the way you do. You have me.” He drops his forehead on mine. “The dark corners, the empty spaces, and the ugly truths. They are all yours and they always will be. I love you.”
The swelling of my heart wars with my need to have him. I ignore the pain rippling through my body as I launch myself at him. “I am yours. Every flawed part of me belongs to you. I love you,” I confess, pressing my lips down on his.
Brax’s hands settle on my ass as I wrap my legs around him, never breaking our deepening kiss. He lays me down on the cool, silk sheets of our bed before flipping my body over. Hooking on arm around my waist, he hauls the swell of my ass backwards.
I feel his lips start at the small of my back as he kisses me softly, slowly working his way up. When he reaches my neck, he brushes my hair to the side before continuing his torture along my shoulder and up to my ear.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispers, flipping me over again.
He kisses his way down my chest, between my breasts, until he stops just above the juncture between my thighs.
“I’m going to fuck you bare tonight, Beth. I want to feel you,” he growls. “I’m clean. I get checked regularly. I don’t know if you’re on birth control or not, but I don’t care. I’d love nothing more than to put a baby inside you tonight.”
My pussy clenches as I feel his breath down there while he talks. “I’m clean,” I stutter. They ran a mandatory check on me the night I had been assaulted by Kyle.
Sitting up, he positions the head of his perfect cock at my entrance. “You’re so wet,” he purrs, dragging the head between my folds. “I’m going to go as slow as I can,” he tells me, “but I’ve been waiting for this, and just the sight of you underneath me has me ready to explode.”
“Make love to me, Brax,” I say, looking into his hooded eyes.
That was all he needed to hear. He slowly pushes his cock inside me. “So fucking tight,” he groans, finally bottoming out.
Nothing else compares to the feeling of having him inside me.
He starts to thrust into me over and over again, each time hitting that perfect spot inside. My hands curl into the sheets at my sides. The intensity of the pleasure coursing through my system is almost too much. Leaning forward, he sucks one of my nipples into his mouth and I moan shamelessly. He worships my body like a god but ravages me like the devil, and the result is hotter than Hell. Lifting my hips of the bed with one hand, he pounds into me, unrelenting. The softness from his earlier lovemaking now ceases to exist altogether, replaced by his primal need to claim me, to fuck me. I’m coming apart, convinced I’ve died and gone to Heaven when he presses down on my clit, the world around me falling away as I cry out his name. He follows shortly after, collapsing on top of me.
“You’re fucking perfect,” he growls into my neck.
Rolling over, he takes me with him, our bodies still joined. Laying my head on his chest, I trail the outlines of his tattoos, stopping when I notice that the space above his heart is empty.
“What will go here?” I ask, running my fingers over the virgin skin.
Stroking my hair, he kisses my forehead. “That space is right above my heart,” he says.
“Mhmm,” I answer, sleep starting to close in on my consciousness, the warmth of his body soothing me.
Grabbing the covers with one hand, he pulls them over us. “I did not
know I had the capacity for love. The spot always remained empty because I believed nothing should be cursed so much as to live above the heart of a man with nothing to give.”
I frown at his words, propping my head up on my hands to look at him. “Brax—”
He cuts me off. “Until I met you.” Smiling, he kisses my still-pouting lips. “Saving you saved me. Without you, I am nothing. You breathed light into my soul and stole away the darkness. I’d break all my rules for you again in a heartbeat, because without a doubt, being loved by you is the greatest success of my life.”
Beautiful tears escape my eyes, crashing down over the spot on his bare chest.
“With my heart held in your hands”—he places my palm over his heart—“this space belongs to you and only you. Someday, our children will take branches of that heart and of my love, but in the end, nothing with compare to you. You are this Cinderella’s Prince Charming, and this is only the very beginning of our fairytale, babe.”
Six Months Later
I WATCH THE snow coming down in the backyard through our bedroom window. It’s February, and everything is finally over. The detective had been right—Kyle Senior’s case was a ‘slam dunk,’ but that didn’t mean that the trial didn’t months. Just before Christmas, he was finally charged and sent to prison.
And Braxton hasn’t fought since the day they rescued us. He only trains in the gym now with Frank.
“Are you almost ready?” Hannah asks from behind me, bouncing Addison on her hip. She looks gorgeous today, her red hair a brilliant contrast to her green dress.
“Everyone’s seated,” Lennon grins, picking up the flowers from the dresser.
Peyton, whose wounds have healed, kisses me softly on the cheek. “You look so gorgeous.”
Fanning my eyes, I laugh. “You’re going to make me ruin my makeup.”
“Wouldn’t matter anyway,” Nikki smirks from the corner. “You’d still be a knockout.”
After shooing them all from the room, I take one last look out the window. “I’m ready.”
The girls start walking first, each of them effortlessly taking the stairs to the entryway in time with the music to the collective sighs of the small group below. But when I see my dad at the top of the stairs, my eyes start to well.
“Hey, baby girl,” he coos. “None of that just yet or the old man won’t be able to keep it together,” he whispers, holding his elbow out to me.
As we descend the stairs, “You and Me” by You+Me starts to play and my eyes follow up the aisle to where he’s standing. He’s as handsome as ever in a black tuxedo, his stormy eyes locked on me. My dad and I make it almost halfway down the aisle before he breaks composure, striding over to us.
Dad kisses my cheek before handing me off to my husband-to-be.
Brax leans down and whispers, “I’ve waited long enough to marry you. I couldn’t wait another second.”
Biting back a grin, I step up on my tiptoes and press my rounding belly into him as I drop a kiss on his lips.
“I love you.”
“I love you too, babe. Now let’s get hitched,” he purrs quietly so only I can here. “So I can see what’s under this dress.”
My laughter fills the foyer of our home as the commissioner starts the ceremony.
Ours might not be the pretty fairytale, the kind with no flaws, but it is perfect all the same.
Cinderella married his Prince Charming in a white dress as the snow came down on Valentine’s Day and nothing could have been more beautiful.
Vancouver Island Regional Correctional Center
Same Day
The prison yard is cold from the winter blanketing the coast, and a man in orange sits on a picnic table, facing the barbed wire fence. He’s weathered now. Rich hands don’t fare well in the savagery of the justice system. Opening the book in his hands, he pulls out the only thing that calms his soul. He strokes over her face with his thumb before pressing the photo to his lips. Then he sighs. She’s stolen so much from him, his lust for revenge invigorating him in this hellhole.
Checking his watch, he frowns. It’s time to follow the herd of cattle back inside to their cages, where some are certain to remain until slaughter. But not him. He is too smart for that. After carefully pacing the photo back between the pages, he stands. Then he turns around only to find the yard empty, none of the prowling guards in sight.
In front of him stands one man in his late twenties. He’s tall and handsome, briefly making the man think of his son. Pain ripples through his chest at the memory. Stepping forward, the younger man wraps his left hand over the other man’s shoulder, a wicked smile stretching across his lips.
“Frank O’Leary sends his regards,” the young Irishman says, thrusting his right hand forward.
Turning away, the Irishman wipes the shank on his pants before crossing back through the yard.
The man lies there, the red of his blood staining the snow-covered ground. No help comes. No alarms are sounded. The life drains from his already pale eyes. His book lies strewn in the white beside him, the top of her blond hair laughing at him.
The man takes his last breath, and it puffs out into a cloud in the winter air as his heart stops.
The prison transcript later that day reads:
Kyle Nathaniel Davis II, inmate number 329 died on February 14th, 2015, of a stab wound to the stomach. Suspects: None.
The End.
Till It’s Gone – Yelawolf
Cinderella Man – Eminem
Stand By Me – Ki:Theory
You and Me – You+Me
Recovery – James Arthur
Sail – Awolnation
Ghost – Tupac
Guts Over Fear (feat. Sia) – Eminem
Break Free – Ariana Grande
Bodies – Drowning Pool
After The Storm – Mumford & Sons
Bravado – Lorde
We Found Each Other In The Dark – City and Colour
I’m Shipping Up to Boston – Dropkick Murphys
Last Resort – Papa Roach
‘Till I Collapse - Eminem
To my sweet and amazing beta readers: Nikki Mccrae, Elizabeth Thiele, Wendy Colby, Melissa Gill, Midian Sosa, Tracey-lee Mylchreest, Larni Phipps, Lori Christensen and Kristi Webster. You are all exquisite, encouraging and beautiful women. I am blessed and grateful to have you in my life. I value your opinions greatly and appreciate your honesty. A million times thank you!
Big hugs and kisses to my phenomenal editor, Mickey Reed whom I had the pleasure of meeting while I was writing this book. You are hard working, dedicated and one of the kindest souls I have ever known. Thank you for everything you do! I couldn’t imagine doing this without you.
A special thank you to my brilliant formatter Stacey Blake from Champagne Formats, you are a creative genius! The artistic flare you bring to the pages is stunning and not only that but you are wicked fast at it. I look forward to the day we can share a big ole glass of wine together.
Thank you to the talented Rodney DeShawn Logan for providing the perfect photo for the cover of this book. I literally could not have dreamed up a better shot than this. Thank you to the handsome Steve Gehrke for being on the cover, you are an absolute sweetheart!
To my Meli, aka: Melissa Gill at MG Book Covers, thank you once again for an absolutely gorgeous book cover. You spoil me rotten and I am so grateful for all that you do. I think it is safe to say that I am one hundred and ten percent addicted to the work you do. I can’t get enough! Bring on the book covers!
Thank you to Lydia Quintana, my very own Book B (so not saying that word - Ha), from HEA Bookshelf, you are a god send. You go above and beyond in everything that you do. Thank you for your hilarity, your efficiency and your hard work. It has been a pleasure doing business with you, but more than that it’s been a blast getting to know you.
For K. Mackenzie, the flesh and blood brawler, my Cinderella, thank you for being you. Your passion and dedication is inspiring, but your heart kn
ows no bounds. It’s been a blessing having you in my corner, thank you.
For all my indie girls, the huggers and the non-huggers, I give you all the biggest, most absurdly over the top bear hugs! Kristi Webster, Elle Jefferson, Marie Garner, Crystal Aurora Rose Reynolds, Aly Martinez and Ella Fox; your wisdom, kind words and jokes mean the world to me. I can’t thank you enough for taking me under your wings and embracing me with open arms. I am truly grateful to each and every one of you for the time you’ve spent helping me, getting to know me and bullshitting with me (those are the fun times). It’s been a learning curve, but y’all have made this wild ride all the more fun! Love you guys.
For my angels, the best street team a girl could ask for, thank you for everything: the man candy posts, the pimping, the teasers and all the love you’ve shown me.
For all the readers, these books are for you, so thank you for reading. I love you all more than you could possibly know.
To my friends and family, my life is richer and more beautiful because you’re in it. Thank you for everything.
A thousand times thank you to my husband Jacob. I am incredibly blessed to be loved by you.
I’m twenty four years old. I was born and raised in Ladner, a small farm town just outside of Vancouver, Canada. I grew up riding horses, shooting guns and riding in trucks. I’ve been married to my handsome redneck husband for a year and we are parents to our chocolate fur baby, Bear. No kiddo’s yet! I am completely and utterly obsessed with country music, you will constantly find me stalking iTunes. If you don’t find me on iTunes, you’ll find me on Netflix because I am a self proclaimed movie junkie. Yes, that means that I quote them constantly in daily conversation and my characters do too! You couldn’t keep me away from a good action movie if you tried. I’m also a planning nut. I love to plan parties, events, trips – you name it! I don’t know if that’s considered a real hobby, but it is for me.
We were fortunate enough to travel a lot as a family growing up, and I think that helped spark my love of reading. I’m half Viking, my mom is Danish, and her entire side of the family still lives in Denmark. We’d visit them almost once a year, every year and it’s a nine hour flight. That’s a lot of uninterrupted time to read (or in my parent’s case, entertain four children – Yikes!). Somewhere along the way my love of reading, became a love of writing. I wrote short stories when I was younger, and although I majored in Business Management at college, I took as many English electives I could get my hands on.
