by Jo Raven
He’s suddenly there, by my side, his eyes big like saucers in his pale face. “Who is this?” he whispers, his voice hushed. “What in the fucking fuck?”
Somehow I think he already knows, but can’t accept it yet.
“Jesse?” She takes a step toward him, a tremor going through her small frame. “I thought it couldn’t be true. Oh my God, it is you, look at you. You’ve grown so much. They told me you ran away and nobody knew if you were alive or dead or… It’s me. It’s Helen, Jesse.”
A small, anguished sound leaves his throat. His body jerks forward, his hands lift…
Then he grabs Helen and wraps his arms around her. “You’re alive,” he whispers over and over, his chin resting on top of her head. “You’re okay. I thought I’d never see you again.”
Seeing them clinging to each other like that, I back away, feeling like an intruder on something very personal.
At the last moment, though, he reaches for me and snags my wrist, pulling me to him. Before I know it, I’m included in the hug, and the three of us stand together, three links in a chain of love that makes us whole.
That evening, after turning off the lights in the apartment, long after Helen has left, I find Jesse curled up on his side on the bed.
I hesitate at the door of my bedroom, wondering what he’s thinking. The reunion was joyful. Helen explained she’d been to visit her parents, found them in the middle of a huge fight during which windows were broken and bullets fired. The police came. Then social services swooped in and placed her with a new foster family.
A good family, who moved away from Minneapolis, where Jesse was at the time, to one of the smaller towns in the area. And no matter how hard she looked for him, she never found him again,
Because meanwhile he’d been also whisked away to a boy camp in the countryside, from which he escaped a few months later and hitched a ride to Madison.
It’s a heartbreaking story, and I’m glad they both had their happy ending.
Although right now I’m not certain what I should do. So I take a step back. Maybe he needs some space. It’s a lot to process, for sure.
“Embers.” His deep voice stops me as I turn to go, draws me back to him like a magic spell.
He sits up, giving me a crooked grin, and I go straight to him. Kicking off my sandals, I climb onto the bed and curl next to him.
He tucks a stray curl behind my ear and strokes my neck. Electric shocks travel down my spine, and the tips of my breasts tighten painfully.
Crap. He’s too bruised, physically and psychologically for this… surely? The gleam in his eyes is wicked, and so is the trail his hand is following, from my neck down to my breasts, leaving behind fire.
“JJ…” I gasp when he cups one breast, his thumb sliding teasingly over my aching nipple. “I thought…”
“I love you,” he whispers, lifting himself up on one elbow, his thumb moving in circles over the sensitive peak until I throb madly between my legs. “So much.”
“Love you, too, JJ,” I say and knot a hand behind his head, pulling him down for a kiss. “I’m yours.”
“Does this mean you’re my girl?” he whispers against my lips, then pulls back an inch, frowning. “Shit. Does it mean I have to meet your parents?”
“What’s your deal with parents?” I laugh quietly.
“I’m not the kind of man your parents will approve.”
God, he’s serious about this. “Of course they will approve. You’re the nicest boy I know. The kindest. And in any case, it’s my life, and I want you in it.”
“Embers…” His eyes go overly bright and he crushes his mouth to mine.
This time there’s nothing gentle about it. The kiss turns heated in seconds, lips and teeth clashing. He climbs on top of me, between my legs, and I gasp when his hard-on presses where I need him the most.
“Holy shit.” He breaks the kiss, panting hard, head bowed, and reaches down, inside his pants, to adjust himself.
Boy is that hot. Love the way strong muscles shift and slide in his upper arms and shoulders, how his T-shirt stretches across his chest.
So sexy.
He reaches for the straps of my top, gently slips them down my arms, the roughness of his palms sending shivers skittering across my skin. “I want to undress you and take my time with you.”
I can’t speak, because he’s pulling my soft top down, baring my bra, his mouth following, branding the mounds of my breasts.
“You’re so gorgeous,” he whispers reverently. “The most beautiful girl in the world.”
I moan his name when he mouths the tip of my breast through the thin lace, my hands scrabbling at his shoulders. He moves to the other breast, his clever fingers tugging my bra down until he has full access.
Slow. So slow, the way he teases me, licking and suckling and lightly scraping his teeth over the sensitive tips until I squirm, the pleasure reaching the point of pain.
He gives them one final lick that makes me cry out, then he pulls everything down and off me—my top, my skirt, my panties—leaving only my bra bunched under my breasts. He lets the clothes fall to the floor and gazes up at me, his eyes raking over my body, hungry and dark.
“Look at you,” he breathes. “So damn hot.”
He crawls back up, tearing his T-shirt off, and I lick my lips, staring at his strong chest, and those dazzling tattoos, the hoops in his tiny brown nipples, the taut abs that ripple as he moves. I reach for his pants and he lets me unzip them and tug them down.
That’s when I discover he’s going commando again. His cock rises, rock-hard and flushed, against that flat stomach. I wrap my hand around it, and he groans between his teeth.
“Dammit. If you move your hand one inch, I’m gonna lose it.” He draws away, and I reluctantly let him go. I wonder what he’s up to when he grabs my legs under the knees.
He places them over his shoulders and buries his face between my legs.
“Oh God.” Through the maddening explosion of pleasure that ricochets inside me, I think fuzzily that he’s getting really good at this. Crap, really, really good, especially when he uses his tongue like that… “JJ!”
He does something with his lips that has me arching off the bed, but right as the pressure inside me is about to snap, he draws back, leaving me aching and panting.
“I want you,” he whispers, “to come all over my cock. To feel you come as I touch your breasts. I’ve never done it that way. I wanna do it with you.”
Moaning, I let him roll me onto my stomach. I’ve never done it this way, either, and his words light up a fire in my belly. I love his hands on me, and the thought of him touching me while he fills me up is pushing me so close to the edge I’m afraid I’ll come before he even enters me.
“Trust me,” he whispers, and I do, with all my being. I trust him like I’ve never trusted anyone before in my life.
He lifts my hips until I’m on my knees, and he unclasps my bra, removing it, letting my breasts sway. I bite my lip to keep quiet at the stabs of pleasure that causes, and then again when he runs his fingers down my seam, parting me and stroking me.
Holy crap, I’m so close I can’t hold back a gasp.
He bends over me, his cock pressing into me—like a remembered dream his lips kiss my back and move up to my neck as he slides into me, taking my breath away.
We fit together like two pieces in a puzzle, my curves lining up with his hard planes and angles. I turn my head and he kisses my mouth, searing my lips with fire.
Then his hand finds my breasts and fondles them, teases the tips as he starts to move with slow, steady, deep thrusts. Christ, it feels so much more intense this way, his cock feels so much larger and harder, and…
His hips rock faster. His hand tugs on my nipple, twisting it slightly, and I cry out, my passage contracting so hard I see stars. Pleasure bursts into me, spike-sharp and huge, so huge I can’t do anything but take it, trapped underneath him, my breast in his hand, my core full of him.
&n
bsp; Never experienced anything like this slow, unrelenting pleasure that goes on and on, stripping me of every defense, every thought, everything but him, the swell of his cock, the movement of his hand, the fire of his mouth.
The pleasure rolls over me, into me, again and again, and I’m moaning, no longer able to keep silent, losing all control.
I feel it when he follows. His thrusts lose rhythm, his hand falls from my breast to the bed and he grunts, rocking hard into me. He grows so big I gasp, and then he shouts my name as he comes, heat flooding me, overflowing, as he shudders and holds still.
With a groan, he grabs me around the waist and rolls us on our sides, my back pressed to his chest. Burying his face in my neck, he murmurs something I don’t catch.
I’m a bit distracted. He’s still inside me, half-hard and causing all sorts of pleasurable spasms in my core. His hand seeks my breast again and, impossibly, another, sweeter orgasm sweeps through me, leaving me in a puddle of pleasure on the bed.
He murmurs something again, and this time I turn my head, trying to see his face. “JJ?”
“I’ve got you, Embers.” He kisses my temple and his arms tighten around me. “I hope you never get tired of me, because I want you forever.”
THE END
Sample of Caveman
Wild Men Series 1 (standalone novel)
Matthew Hansen is the kind of handsome that has grown women whispering behind their hands and giggling like schoolgirls.
Dark, tall and mysterious, he’s a newcomer to our little town. He’s a gritty, grease-covered mechanic, and a single daddy.
Sweet, right?
Plus, he’s looking for a nanny – and I am desperately looking for a job.
Sounds like the perfect deal.
Only he’s a jerk. An uncivilized, hulking brute. Zero manners. Zero interest in making me feel welcome in his home. Downright rude.
But oh, so sexy.
And I need the job. I can do this.
One thing is for sure: I can’t fall for the Caveman. No matter how sexy he is. How mysterious. How tortured.
That’s the only rule – and one I’m about to break.
Chapter One
Matt
There’s a bright, warm place men call home. I searched for it all my life. Thought I’d found it. Let myself roll in the warmth, believe I had reached my destination.
But it was snatched away from me.
So here I am now, standing in the early morning, staring at nothing. The house is big, the town small, a smattering of houses and trees scattered on the plain. The low porch overlooks the overgrown garden, and I gaze at it blindly, not quite sure how I got here. Maybe… through a dark, winding tunnel.
Over a deep, cold sea.
Along a long road going nowhere.
It couldn’t matter less. I’d never heard of Destiny, Missouri, in my life, and that was good enough a reason for me when I grabbed my two kids, stuffed everything I own in my truck, and drove down here.
Maybe it was the name. So fucking symbolic.
So here I am.
Nowhere.
I don’t know what I was looking for, or running from. The beginning and the end of the road are covered in mist. Everything is hazy. I feel as if I’ve been running for ages. Centuries, maybe.
I ran from my memories. I ran from the past. Then I ran from myself, and I still haven’t stopped. How can I? How do you escape what you’ve turned into?
Don’t be so fucking melodramatic, I tell myself.
But when a woman walking a small dog on the other side of the street lifts her hand in greeting, I freeze, stilling even more, until I might as well have turned to stone.
Eventually I step back, into the dimness of the house.
Might as well stop thinking useless thoughts and unpack. Settle in. Make sure the kids are all right.
I find them curled on the old sofa that came with the house, playing with Mary’s toys. Cole is solemnly imitating Mary’s actions—making the Barbie doll in his hand hop on the cushion between them.
Then he throws the doll to the floor and claps his hands.
Mary screams and shoves him.
Motherfucking hell.
I catch him before he topples over and lift him on my hip. A tremor is starting in my body, even though I’m holding him and he’s safe. I fight it, I always fight the way my body reacts to this deep fear, and it’s taking all I have not to let it show.
“He threw my toys!” she wails, pointing a grubby little finger at Cole who is sitting stiffly in my arms, his mouth downturned. “He always destroys my stuff. And I hate my bedroom. You said—”
“Mary,” I growl. “Stop.”
“But…” Her lower lip trembles, and her chocolate eyes fill with tears.
Fear mingles with guilt and anger, twisting into a heavy knot of rusty metal in my chest.
I should do something. Say something. But I don’t know what. Don’t kill your brother? Don’t wail like a mini banshee?
Don’t look at me as if I’ve shattered your world?
I set Cole down because my chest feels too tight, and my head is pounding too hard, trying to figure out a way to comfort them both. Not something I’ve had to do in years.
Taking care of others.
Not since the ground crumbled under my feet, taking me with it, into a pit so deep I couldn’t see the light.
And now you can?
Predictably, before I find the words or even move toward her, my five-year-old daughter climbs off the sofa and scampers out of the room, sniffling and sobbing.
Followed closely by three-year-old Cole.
What the hell am I doing here? How can I take care of them?
Love them, I hear a familiar voice in my mind and close my eyes in pain. Love them, Matt.
Of course I love them. They’re my heart’s blood. My own. There was never any doubt about that, not for me.
I shake my head, shake her voice loose, because she isn’t here, but I am.
And I won’t let myself sink into that bottomless black hole again. Not this time. I’m here to break with the past. To escape it once and for all. Remember who I was once.
I can feel it in my bones that it’s my last fucking chance…
“Jasper wants to talk to you first, face to face,” the guy on the phone tells me in a deep bass voice, “but I’ll be straight with you: the job is as good as yours already, and Jasper will pay extra to have you. Qualified mechanics are hard to come by around here.”
I blink. Didn’t expect to find a job so soon. This is good news, but I can’t find any joy in me, no matter how hard I search.
I also don’t know if I’m supposed to say anything in the stretching silence.
“All right,” the guy says finally, giving up on getting a reaction from me. Maybe he’s used to antisocial mechanics. “The shop opens at nine. Be here half an hour earlier.”
“Fine,” I mutter, just as a crash comes from upstairs.
My heart jolts. I drop the phone.
Fuck.
I stride to the stairs and take them two at a time, my fucking heart in my throat. “Mary! Cole!”
Cole is crying, and the sound twists something inside my chest, something that’s been twisted tight for years. Mary is shouting, but I can’t make out words as I pound up the last steps and run to their room.
I burst inside and stop, panting, when I see them both sitting on the floor, the shards of a mug and a dismembered doll between them.
Shaking my head, I bend over to catch my breath for a second. Fucking hell. We’ve only just arrived, and this is my second almost heart attack of the day.
And the day is still young.
One thing becomes clear to me as I crouch down to gather the jagged pieces of ceramic before either of them gets hurt—and where did they get the mug from?—to make sure they aren’t bleeding:
I need to find a nanny.
Chapter Two
Octavia
“He won’t give you t
he job, Tati,” my sister says. “No way, no how.”
“You don’t know that. Also, why are you here and not at school?”
I’m leaning against the post of the bus stop across from our house, dressed in a knee-length black dress and high-heeled pumps, my hair pulled back, my lipstick a sheer gloss. Not dressed to kill, but to land a job, a job my sister Gigi has decided I won’t get.
Well, gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, Little Sis.
“I’m getting a ride,” she says airily, waving a hand. Her nails are done a different color each, peeking from her black fingerless gloves, and I detect a new blue streak in her hair. Mom will have a fit.
“With whom?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She bats her lashes at me.
“Same guy as two days ago? Big nose, droopy ears, acne craters across his forehead?”
She stomps her foot, grinning. “Stop it. He’s not like that.”
Yeah, that’s true, he’s not. He’s actually quite good looking. “Quasimodo, was it? The guy’s name?”
She giggles.
Gigi has the whole Harley Quinn vibe going on. She is the prettier of the two of us, the flirty one, the funny one. The sexy one. Just one year younger than me, she’s less my sister and more my best friend. Guys tend to fall in love with her all the time.
Most of the time she doesn’t even pretend to notice them.
Then I spot someone walking our way and sigh. “What about Merc?”
“What about him?”
“Is he coming with you?”
Our brother, Mercury Tyson, aka Merc, reaches us and takes off his supersonic mega earphones that make him look like the male incarnation of Leia from Star Wars. He gives us a toothy grin.
“What are you doing here?” Gigi demands.
“Hitching a ride with you.”
“You’re so not.”
“I so am. Not letting you ride with that creepy guy alone again. He may stick his tongue in your ear or grab your boob.”
