Heron's Landing: The Complete Series

by Iris Morland

  “God Graciela, I can’t go slow.” He kissed her throat, her collarbone. His hands clutched her hips, massaged her ass.

  She kissed him, and they both moaned at the same time. His erection pressed against her, and she wiggled, needing that friction. Her body was on fire; she was desperate for more. For all of him.

  She gasped again when his mouth latched onto one of her nipples, tonguing it through the lace of her bra. “God yes,” she said, panting.

  She gripped his hips harder with her legs as one of his hands danced below, massaging her through her panties. He groaned, licking at her throat. She already knew she was soaked, aching for him.

  He moved her panties aside as he stroked a finger through her folds. She moaned in the back of her throat. Her nails dug into his shoulders, and she almost worried that she’d draw blood. But he didn’t tell her to stop. Instead, he pushed a finger inside her, crooking it slightly, and then thrust in and out, pushing her closer and closer to a climax. He kept kissing her neck, licking her throat, nipping at the angle between neck and shoulder. Her body flushed, and she tried to move her hips in time with his finger.

  Right as she was about to come, he withdrew his finger; she whimpered. But then he started filling her with his cock, and, closing her eyes, stars burst behind her eyelids. He kept pushing until he was completely inside her. She felt full, almost too full, but her entire body shivered at the sensation. She was so close, it was like her nerves were on fire.

  He set out a quick, ruthless rhythm. She wrapped her arms around his neck to hold on, letting him use her body, loving the way he lost control. Her moans changed into high-pitched squeaks and cries, and with every thrust, his pelvis brushed against her clit.

  Grace kissed him, darting her tongue into his mouth, and he bit her bottom lip lightly. He thrust harder, his cock filling her over and over again, and her head hit the wall behind her as she body began arching. She was so close, so close, she could feel it in her fingertips…

  His thumb circled her clit. He told her how amazing she felt, how tight and wet and hot, and with one last brush of his thumb, she exploded. Her body shuddered, lightning bolts running through her, and she felt him tremble and shout, coming with her. She could feel the warmth of his seed inside her, and it only made her orgasm lengthen, endless and almost painfully exquisite.

  She collapsed against him, breathing hard, her whole frame shivering. He was still inside her, half-hard, even as he walked her back to the bedroom. He laid her down on the bed and kissed her, slow, soft kisses that seduced her all over again.

  She sighed, happy and replete and rather wishing she could fall asleep right then.

  “That was good,” she said, smiling.

  “Good? You about killed me, woman.” He kissed her nose, her chin, her forehead.

  She smiled wider. “It was pretty good.”

  He growled, pushing his pelvis against hers, making her gasp. “Now you’re just being contrary.”

  “Never.” She kissed him on the lips. “And just remember: I still have to finish my painting.”

  “Oh, I’m looking forward to that.” His eyes gleamed. “You can paint as many paintings of me as you want, Graciela.”

  “I’ll keep you to that promise,” she said before he kissed her, and no more words were needed.

  DESIRE ME DEARLY

  BOOK 3

  1

  K at knew about a lot of things: she knew computers, she knew video games, she knew French, she knew how to fix a flat tire. She knew her periodic table, and she knew how to diagram a sentence. She collected information like a bird, using it to build her mental nest, although the nest was never finished. You could never stop learning, never stop discovering.

  But as she stood next to Gavin Danvers—grim, taciturn, tall, dark and handsome Gavin Danvers—nothing in her wealth of knowledge she’d accumulated enabled her to understand why he affected her so much. He wasn’t even touching her, but simply standing next to him was enough to put her on alert, like an electrical buzzing through her veins. She gripped her bag tighter, like it could keep her from disintegrating into a pile of mush at his feet.

  “Here you go.” The man across the counter handed her a huge plate of funnel cake covered in powdered sugar.

  Gavin paid for the cake, then ushered Emma over to an open spot on the field, where people were having pseudo-picnics. Kat wished she hadn’t worn a dress, but she squatted down in the grass as best she could without flashing anyone.

  Gavin seemed to notice her awkwardness, but as per usual, he said nothing. A man of very few words, really. She had no idea if he thought of her as just Emma’s teacher or as a woman or if he even knew her first name. When she’d first met him back in December, he’d looked at her like he’d wanted to know her name. But ever since, he’d barely spoken two words to her.

  Emma sat between them, devouring the funnel cake. The young girl was one of her brightest students, but she was also painfully shy and had yet to make any friends her age. Kat felt for her: she’d been that way as a young girl herself. It wasn’t until she’d reached adulthood that she’d begun to come out of her shell, although sometimes the shyness would return without warning.

  Like now. Kat felt stupidly, obnoxiously shy around Gavin. She couldn’t look at him, and she couldn’t say anything beyond “This is good,” in reference to the funnel cake. And Gavin wasn’t chatty, either, so they all sat there, silently eating the funnel cake like their lives depended on it.

  But before long the cake disappeared, and Emma, restless and bored, jumped up to go collect flowers some yards away. Gavin told her not to wander too far, and he kept a careful eye on her as she gathered blue bachelor buttons and black-eyed Susans.

  Kat was never like this around men. Men were easy. You smiled at them, you talked to them, you asked them questions about themselves. They in turn flirted with you, maybe touched you a little, and if things went well, you’d get a kiss and maybe a night’s worth of fun. Kat had been single for over a year now since she’d come to Heron’s Landing, and she’d felt the lack of companionship lately. But there was a dearth of eligible bachelors in these parts, so she’d gone without.

  She gazed at Gavin as he watched Emma. He had dark hair like his brother, but he was a trifle shorter than Adam. He was broad in the shoulders and chest, and at the moment he sported a dark beard, which made him look a bit like a lumberjack. She knew he’d separated from his wife recently, but beyond that, he still remained a bit of a mystery.

  His gaze caught hers, and she looked away.

  Suddenly, a ball came soaring overhead, and someone shouted, “Look out!” Before Kat realized what had happened, Gavin pushed her out of the way. They subsequently fell to the ground, and he ended up lying on top of her. He breathed hard as his chest pressed against hers, and she looked up into his eyes like a startled fawn.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice gruff.

  She could only nod. She noticed the tiny creases at the corners of his eyes, and there were a few glints of silver in his dark hair.

  “There was a ball.” He still looked at her, his elbows pressed to the ground beside her shoulders.

  “So I gathered.” She licked her dry lips.

  His gaze zeroed in on her lips, and a thrill went through her. Was he going to kiss her? Right here?

  He seemed to be waging an internal battle. He said something underneath his breath. Kat’s eyes widened.

  “Dad, what are you doing?”

  He lurched upward, breaking the moment. She still lay on her back, staring up at the sky, as she listened to him say, “There was a ball. It almost hit Ms. Williamson.”

  He stood over her and offered her his hand. She took it, and he pulled her up. He didn’t let go of her hand right away, looking like he was going to say something.

  She waited, her heart pounding.

  But then Emma said, “Can we go get something to drink?”

  Gavin let her go. “Sure.” He looked at Kat. �
��Want to join us?”

  Kat just shook her head and, mumbling about having to get somewhere, left the two of them to figure out what the hell that had all been about.

  KAT WASN’T THINKING about much Gavin Danvers after that. Not because she didn’t want to, but because her grandmother passed away a month later at the age of eighty-five. Lillian Jacobs had been as sassy upon her deathbed as she had been in life, telling Kat that she didn’t want her to cry after her death because she was going to a better place, and besides, she was old. Old people died. She’d patted Kat’s hand, and after that, she’d returned to that strange place in her mind that had been overtaken by dementia, not recognizing her granddaughter at the very end.

  Kat had inherited her grandmother’s house and some money from her life insurance policy, and now that it was almost fall, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to sell the house or not. She’d considered it. She had no use for a house older than she was, filled with cat figurines and unfinished knitting projects and a pantry brimming with canned goods that were as old as the house. But every time she returned to the house—no, her house, Kat supposed—she didn’t have the heart to go through with a sale. Standing in the pink kitchen with its retro appliances, she flipped through old cookbooks, the pages sticky with use, and with entire chapters dedicated to gelatin molds.

  Kat smiled. She missed Lillian fiercely, but she was also glad that she hadn’t suffered for years. Her dementia had been clouding her mind for many years, and more and more, she’d had difficulty recognizing loved ones. Having her grandmother gaze at her like she was some stranger had broken Kat’s heart.

  Kat still had her position at the elementary school, teaching computer classes to kids. She could give it up, move back to Los Angeles. She’d only come to Heron’s Landing to care for Lillian. Yet she hesitated. She didn’t want to think too hard about the reason why.

  A computer programmer by trade, Kat had attended UCLA before working at a tech start-up in the Valley. But when she’d gotten a call from a concerned friend who’d told her that Lillian could no longer live on her own and would have to be put in a home, Kat had packed up her things and moved to Missouri. She’d lived in Heron’s Landing briefly as a child, before her mom had passed away from breast cancer when Kat had been fifteen. But it was a distant memory; she was a California girl at heart and missed Los Angeles rather desperately.

  The first day of school was a hot and muggy one. Kat didn’t understand why schools kept starting earlier and earlier in August. Soon they’d start at the end of July. Whatever happened to kids having a summer? Then again, ending before mid-May had its appeal, too.

  The elementary school was actually in one large building that housed the middle school, junior high and high school, the entire building holding less than one hundred students. Kat taught computer classes to each of the grades in elementary school, where most classes were no more than ten students or so.

  Getting ready, she made copies of assignments in the break room, teachers bustling about and drinking coffee around her. Most of the teachers were older than her and white, but it wasn’t anything Kat hadn’t experienced before. She’d sometimes get silly comments about her hair—how did she get it so curly?—but otherwise everyone was nice enough.

  “Coffee?”

  Kat turned to see her fellow teacher and friend, Silas Fraser standing at her elbow. He was about her height, with light brown hair and a gap-toothed grin, and one of the few teachers around her age. They’d bonded over their Millennial status and griped about how no one in this school knew how to use a computer.

  “Yes, thank you,” she replied, taking the steaming mug. Normally she brought her own coffee, but she’d gotten up late and hadn’t had time. She sipped it and made a face. “God, that’s awful.”

  Silas laughed. “It’s Folgers from 1994. I think.” He gazed at his own mug. “I think they stopped buying fresh coffee then. You know the school won’t even buy us creamer because it’s a ‘luxury.’”

  Kat rolled her eyes as her copies finished printing. “I guess they don’t want us to get too comfortable.” She held up the mug. “Thanks for this. I have to get going—class starts in ten minutes.”

  He nodded. “Right, right. Before you go, I wanted to ask you…” He looked around, like he didn’t want anyone to overhear. If so, he’d picked the worst spot imaginable, as everyone was currently running around in circles in the break room, wondering where their things were, why the coffee tasted terrible, and complaining that it was so hot in here no matter how much they complained about the crappy air conditioners

  “Shoot.” Kat raised her eyebrows.

  “Do you want to get a drink sometime?” A blush crawled up Silas’s face as he said the words, and he cleared his throat before adding, “You know, like a date.”

  She blinked. She’d been expecting him to ask her to cover bus duty this week or something. Silas had been most decidedly in the friend category in her mind—not because he wasn’t dateable, but because he hadn’t shown the least interest in her up until now. She sipped her coffee again, mostly because she was figuring out what to say.

  “I don’t think that would be a good idea,” she finally said. She saw him blushing harder and instantly felt guilty. “I mean, I would, but with my grandmother and everything…” She trailed off, hoping he’d get the hint.

  Luckily, he did. “No, I get it. But think about it, okay? You don’t have to say yes or no right now.” He handed her the last of her copies. “See you later, Kat.”

  She nodded. As Silas left and she gathered her papers to get to class, she couldn’t help but think about another man—one she wanted to ask her out. Gavin Danvers, who’d avoided her since that day at the farm-to-table festival. She wondered if he’d ever asked a woman out for drinks, or if he just smoldered in their general direction and they came running.

  It also didn’t help that his daughter Emma was in her first class of the day. Could she never avoid being reminded of him? Granted, his daughter didn’t look much like him, but sometimes her mannerisms would mirror his, and Kat would be struck by the resemblance. They were both taciturn and uninterested in speaking in complete sentences, so they had that in common too.

  Today, Emma had her hair in lopsided braids, wearing purple leggings under an orange dress. At eight, the girl picked out her own clothes, but their lack of coordination, as well as the hair that was messy and probably completely tangled, bespoke a father who was distracted, to say the least. Kat rather wished she could come to their place and braid the girl’s hair herself.

  Emma said no more than five words the entire class, never raising her hand when Kat asked a question. Kat never cold-called on students—humiliation never worked as a learning tool—but she tried to get as many of her students involved as possible. It was too easy for some to disappear in the crowd, something Kat could empathize with easily.

  Kat arrived home close to five o’clock. The house still seemed eerily empty without Lillian, and as she made dinner, she had to stop herself from making enough food for two. But it was just her now, wasn’t it? Suddenly too tired to finish making the soup she’d started, she pulled out a frozen dinner and popped it into the microwave. Staring at the meal as it circled around, she wondered if this was a metaphor for her life: circling and circling but never getting anywhere.

  Now she was getting melancholy over a TV dinner. She went into her room, which was across from Lillian’s still-untouched bedroom. Kat missed working as a computer programmer, but she’d found other outlets. Most recently, she’d started making video games. Sitting down at her computer, she ate her TV dinner of pasta alfredo and broccoli, fiddling with code and making the finishing touches on the game she’d been working on ever since Lillian had passed away.

  She pushed her glasses up her nose as she peered at the screen. It wasn’t a complicated game by any means, but it amused Kat all the same. It was called When Meninists Attack, and the goal was to get past all the meninists—men obsessed with men�
��s rights—and reach the end, where you entered a feminist utopia. It was silly, and weapons included copies of The Feminist Manifesto and boxes of tampons, but Kat had heard enough of men online whining about women coming into their circles that she’d created the game for her own amusement. Okay, and maybe her own pettiness.

  She tested the game one last time before posting it for the world to enjoy, then getting up to watch some TV before she went to bed. Kat didn’t expect anyone really to play it; at most, she thought she might get a few hits here and there. She forgot about it as she got ready for bed, wrapping her hair in a silk scarf like she did every night. Before she went to bed, though, she checked to see if anyone had found the game and played it

  When she saw a number of comments, she was surprised. Then as she read the comments, that surprise changed into dismay.

  This is why male rights are so important. You’re sexist and this is bullshit. Fuck you, bitch.

  Ur probably a lesbian u just need a good dick to get you to shut ur mouth

  The comments continued, each just as lewd and derogatory as the last. Kat’s stomach sank to her toes. She’d expected some trolls—it was the Internet, after all—but this bombardment? Over a silly game? She suddenly felt extremely naïve and stupid for posting the game in the first place.

  She was about to delete the game entirely and leave it at that, but something stopped her. Was she really going to let some online bullies discourage her? She hadn’t done anything wrong. Her game was satirical, but not violent. She had a right to post whatever she wanted, anyway. She sniffed and pushed her laptop closed after reporting all the comments as abuse.

  She couldn’t fall asleep, though. Her thoughts whirled around the comments, hearing them in sneering voices. She refused to let them freak her out, but it was difficult not to feel anxious all the same. She went back and forth on deleting the game, then finally fell into a fitful doze.