by Anne Conley
“Uh … I love you, too.” His look of shock morphed into an uneasy grin. “Friends, right?”
“Well, yeah, friends, but I want more.” She ended her statement with a whispered plea and immediately resented how weak it made her sound. But hell, she wanted honesty.
And the look on his face made it all worth it. The intensity shining from Slade’s eyes pierced her. Deena Rae stood and walked over to him. “I. Love. You.”
His mouth descended on hers as his hands devoured her. She reciprocated, yanking his shorts down in an effort to free his length as it hardened in her hand. With a groan, Slade lifted her in his arms by her ass and spun her around to set her on his dresser. His fingertips tweaked her nipples while his mouth seared a trail down her neck.
The need they felt for each other was fast and furious. Moans and hisses filled the air, and Deena Rae had no idea who was making which noise. When his hand found her slick heat and slipped through her folds, she recognized the gasp as hers, even as he let out an accompanying hiss.
His mouth found her nipple, and as it closed around the tight bud, his pull sent a shock to her core. She nearly writhed off the dresser as she begged him.
“Please, fuck me.”
Slade held her close, kissing back up to her mouth, leaving her poor, aching breasts needy and alone, so she squashed them against his hot chest. When he poised his erection at her entrance, Deena Rae held her breath, her eyes glued to his.
He continued watching her as he entered her, stretching her, filling her. The irises expanded, and his mouth twisted, giving him a feral look she loved. Deena Rae clenched her internal muscles, reveling in the sudden surge of power she felt. Slade dropped his head to the crook of her neck and started thrusting—savage strokes that took her fucking breath away.
It was a joining for the ages. They clawed at each other, trying to get under each other’s skin. Her legs wrapped around his pumping hips, his arms clutching her closer. With each pummel of his pelvis against her clit, she soared higher and higher until stars exploded behind her eyes and Deena Rae broke into a million pieces.
Slade lost the rhythm he’d had and thrust in her in sporadic bursts as he hit his own climax, then pulled out and lifted her again, tossing her onto the bed, naked and satiated. But as he prowled across the bed, lowering himself on top of her, she felt no pain, nothing. All she saw was the hunger in his eyes, and she realized she’d awakened a beast inside Slade.
“That was the fucking you wanted. Now I’m going to make love to you the way I want. You’re mine now. You forgave me.” His breath rasped across her skin as his mouth made a trail of heat she could actually handle. “Now it’s time for me to make you forget.”
Epilogue
Slade had always heard that rain at a funeral meant good things for the dearly departed involved. This wasn’t a funeral, exactly, but they were laying his mom’s remains to rest, so it was as close as Lori would get.
He didn’t feel bad about that. He was doing something she would want done, but nobody would probably allow it to actually happen if he had gone about asking permission and shit, so he just took it upon himself.
After Zack had given him the idea.
Zack and Deena Rae stood a few feet off as they all gazed at the headstone in front of them—James Ward. Slade looked down at the urn in his hands.
“You always wanted your forever with James, Mom. I’m giving it to you. I can’t tell you how long you’ll get before his wife is buried next to him, but you have until then to be with him alone. After that, you’ll have to share. I hear things are a bit less formal in Heaven. I hope you can be happy.” With that, Slade scattered a handful of his mother’s ashes across the grave of his father. To the headstone, he said, “I sort of understand why you chose the way you did. I just hope you can look down on me every once in a while and make sure I’m not fucking shit up too badly.” He shrugged. “If not, it won’t be any different than when you were alive, so …” His voice trailed off, and he took a deeper breath. “I’m working on this, James. Really, I am. I know I can’t move beyond this until I accept it and forgive you.”
Slade was still really angry at everyone—his mom for being who she was, he dad for ignoring them when they needed him, Cecil for cutting it all short. Cecil was currently being held without bond, and the D.A. had worked out a deal with Slade so he wouldn’t see time for his actions in return for his testimony.
Slade didn’t deserve the good things that were happening to him, but he’d take them. His eyes fell on Deena Rae, who stood just to the side of him, watching his interaction with his dead parents. Her hand reached for his, twining her graceful, slender fingers with his. He embraced the comfort she gave.
God, she was beautiful. Her hair was loose today, long curls that had been washed away with the rain hung damply around her face, making her eyes look like enormous hazel orbs, water clinging to her lashes.
He’d learned a few things about Deena Rae, and himself, in the last few months. She was fiercely protective of the people she loved, and that included him and the Pierce team. He’d found that out when he’d come home from school one day to Zack, Deena Rae, and a bottle of rum. Deena Rae had forced Zack and him to get drunk and talk about their dead parents because, in her words, “Sympathy is smack dab between Shit and Syphilis in the dictionary. If you want it, look it up, ya pussy-ass hillbillies. Y’all can’t Hatfield and McCoy this shit. I love you both. Tonight, we’re getting this out.”
And they had. They’d all sat around, getting drunk, and talked about dead parents until something inside them all started to heal.
She was fucking amazing.
And she belonged to him.
He dipped his head down and kissed her full lips, wanting to savor them but recognizing this wasn’t the right time or place.
Deena Rae dipped her hand in the urn and took out a handful of damp ashes. She sprinkled them on the grave and muttered something that sounded a lot like, “All you deserve, you fucking fuckers.” Then she clapped her hands together as if they were covered with something disgusting, which Slade guessed they probably were if he thought about it too hard.
Zack came up next, reaching for the urn. “Okay, Dad. You gave me the hints, and with Slade’s help I figured it out. You told me there had been someone else, that I wasn’t alone. I don’t know what the fuck you and Mom were thinking, not giving them the support they needed when y’all knew about them all along, but for fuck’s sake, she needed you. They needed us. If this works the way the cartoons say, you guys will get an eternity together, playing harps and shit in the clouds. And boy is Mom gonna be pissed.”
Zack upended the urn on his father’s grave, and they all stood in a row in the rain, looking at the ashes as they were watered into the ground.
As they all turned to walk away as a unit, Slade felt free. And it was amazing.
Later, they were at the Mexican food place eating tacos and drinking margaritas where Deena Rae and Slade had their first date, only this time Zack was there. Deena Rae didn’t mind. They’d all taken the day off for this memorial, Zack and Deena Rae from work and Slade from school.
Slade was studying to be a psychologist of all things. He admitted he still didn’t know exactly what he was going to do with a psychology degree, but Deena Rae thought he was unbelievably sexy when he was sitting at the bar stacked high with books, involved in his reading assignments. And he’d become pretty adept at pretending to study with her under the bar giving him blowjobs.
Because, holy hell, everything about the guy still turned her on. In the short time they’d been together, things had only gotten hotter between them. Slade had embraced his inner caveman, forgoing his train wreck bullshit for an attitude of “Don’t fuck with me” she’d never found attractive in any other man.
Watching Slade was the equivalent to an aphrodisiac casserole, when he was being all alpha dominant. Like when he growled at guys for looking at her. Like now, a busboy was dropping off more chips at their
table, trying to sneak a peek at Deena Rae’s tits, and she grabbed them, reflexively pushing them up to show him she’d seen the dude being a perv. But Slade only wrapped his arm around her shoulders and gave the poor teenager a look that said he would happily rip his eyeballs out and feed them to Mrs. Schraeder’s cat.
“When’s your next test?” Zack asked around a mouthful of chips, bringing Deena Rae back to reality. She realized they’d been talking while she’d been daydreaming.
“Next Tuesday. It’s about the Id, Ego, and Superego. Pretty interesting stuff, actually. Dad’s brain worked primarily with the Superego, living his adult life by his own predetermined moral code, probably to make himself feel better, and Mom was an Id creature, only doing things to satisfy herself. That’s the way I look at it, anyway.”
“You associate all the shit you study with your parents?” Zack motioned the waitress for another margarita.
Slade shrugged. “Can’t help it. They were so fucked up. I’m so fucked up. I’m struggling to understand the whys of everything.”
Deena Rae knew that was his compulsion with studying psychology right now. He’d freely admitted to her that he wasn’t sure he would ever use the knowledge, but it made him feel better to be learning it. Meanwhile, she was helping him work up a business plan to open a bike repair shop.
Because Slade with bikes was almost as sexy as Slade with books. She sighed.
Slade heard her and squeezed her thigh under the table in acknowledgement. Of what? She wasn’t sure, but the show of solidarity was nice.
Slade was propped up in bed, waiting, when Deena Rae came out of the bathroom, wearing only his jacket a pair of black lace panties. It took his fucking breath away every time he saw her, but especially now. The jacket was open, showing off the tantalizing shadows of her fantastic tits.
Instantly hard, he yanked his pajama pants off in preparation for whatever she had planned.
Giving him a mischievous smirk, she stalked over to him, those hips swaying around like they owned the room, and reached for his hands.
He struggled briefly, but it was mostly for show. When he’d moved in, he’d insisted on curtains for her bedroom windows, and she’d complied. Thank fuck. Because the things they did in this bedroom put Tuesday Night Special to shame.
“I got a new toy,” she breathed at him as she cuffed his other hand into place before stalking over to her dresser to open the top drawer. When she turned around, she had something behind her back.
“Oh yeah? Do tell.” His dick twitched in anticipation. Deena Rae played the coolest games. They role played, sometimes with him breaking in, once when she showed up pretending to be a plumber, and once she’d offered a threesome with the pizza guy, but Slade didn’t share. He thought she’d been joking, anyway.
He was excited to see what she had up her sleeve this time. He imagined her hot little mouth on his cock, or that cock ring that vibrated. His dick strained, pointing at his belly and twitching in anticipation.
But when she pulled her hand out from around her back and showed him what she had, his erection wilted in unabashed fear.
Slade felt the blood drain from his face. “Christ, Ginger.”
Tonight would certainly be interesting.
About Anne
Anne has written her entire life and has the boxes of angst-filled journals and poetry to prove it. She’s been writing for public consumption for the last four years. Currently she is writing two romance series. In Stories of Serendipity, she explores real people living real lives in small town Texas in a contemporary romance setting. In The Four Winds, she chronicles God’s four closest archangels, Uriel, Gabriel, Raphael, and Michael, falling in love and becoming human. She lives in rural East Texas with her husband and children in her own private oasis, where she prides herself in her complete lack of social skills, choosing instead to live with the people inside her head. Check out her blog, www.anneconley.com for updates, book blurbs, and more.
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Anne’s Series
Book B!tches
Welcome to Mystic, Texas, where the past stays alive in more ways than one. Vanessa, Tiffany, Kristie, Wren, Melanie, and Samantha are a motley crew of women who have formed an unlikely alliance. Under the guise of a book club, where they read only indie authors, they discuss men, relationships, and the current mystery surrounding the town. There’s a serial killer on the loose, and he’s targeted the Book B!tches.
Serendipity Series
Welcome to Serendipity, Texas, a town where real people deal with real problems. Meet characters in their thirties and forties struggling with day-to-day issues and managing to find love in the process. Visit Serendipity, where the days are hot, and the nights are steamy!
The Four Winds Series
The Four Winds series are Paranormal Romances dealing with the Archangels. They are the biblical archangels, so there are aspects of Christianity in them. But the conflict in the stories are about the archangels falling in love and turning human, so they are dealing with human emotions and feelings. Due to various reactions of shock and outrage, I feel the need to put the spoiler out there: These books have sex in them, but also Christianity. So if either of those bother you, please don’t buy these books. First book in the series, Falling for Heaven, is free!
Pierce Securities
A group of misfits come together to form Pierce Securities & Investigations; doing the best they can with their collective and individual strengths; becoming unlikely heroes in the process.
Stand Alone Novels
Best Laid Plans of Boys and Men
Fixer Upper
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