Forbidden (War Book 1)

by Trevion Burns

  FORBIDDEN

  WAR, BOOK 1

  Trevion Burns

  FORBIDDEN

  Copyright 2018 © by Trevion Burns

  Edited by: Bare Naked Words

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  www.trevionburns.com

  All rights reserved. The reproduction, transmission or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without written permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  News and Updates:

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  Also by Trevion:

  The War Series:

  Forbidden

  The Revenge Series:

  Quiver: Number One

  Tingle: Number Two

  Purr: Number Three

  Yearn: Number Four

  Pulse: Number Five

  Raw: Number Six

  Rouse: Number Seven

  Captive: Lincoln Hill’s Story

  Stereo Hearts Series:

  Stereo

  Encore

  Refrain

  The Romanovsky Brother’s Series:

  Taming Val

  Claiming Roman

  Loving Leo

  Finding Gary

  The Almeida Brother’s Trilogy:

  Lila's Thunder

  Thunder Rolls

  Lightning Strikes

  Stand Alone Novels:

  Captive

  Dead or Alive

  To Ashley K.

  Prologue

  One leg cocked out, and a hand on her hip, Stella Armstrong glared over her shoulder, brown eyes catching fire. Not just because the sight at the other end of her living room was one of her least favorite in the world, but also because, for the millionth time in eight months, she couldn’t wrap her fingers all the way around her waist. Once upon a time, about a million dress sizes ago, she could easily feel her hipbone through her clothes whenever she put her hands on her hips. Now she found herself wondering if she even still had a hipbone. If she’d ever had one at all. Had she been imagining it all these years?

  “Really?” she spat. Through her peripheral, she saw her stomach heaving below her. Not even the flowing purple sweater dress she donned was forgiving enough to hide it anymore. “Really, Rocco?”

  The corners of Rocco Wolfe’s full pink lips curled into a sneer from where he was kicked back on the white chaise lounge in the corner of the living room, next to the marble fireplace. Leaning deep into the plush cushions and wearing black sweatpants, he had crossed his long legs at the ankles. At 6’6” and 250 pounds he was the size of a linebacker and no stranger to amazed stares wherever he went, commanding attention in nearly every room he entered.

  Hands clasped behind his head, biceps swelling beneath his creamy skin, the arms of his white cotton t-shirt were stretched to the brim. He never missed a day at the gym, and every inch of his body was a testament. A beam of sunlight shone into the domed window behind him, casting a glare across his jet-black hair as well as the diamond solitaire earring gleaming from his left ear. Even after a long morning at the gym, his hair was gelled perfectly, with a deep part that made the silky strands swoop into a quiff, a taper fade on the sides, giving it a gradient effect. Beside him, the stereo speakers above the fireplace whispered the latest hip-hop songs, speakers, that, in a few hours, would be blasting loudly enough to punch holes through in the walls.

  Stella’s eyes ran his body, her top lip curling even higher than his. “Well?”

  “Well, what?” He blinked slowly, green eyes cold as he massaged the stubble beard shadowing his rectangular face. With dusky Italian features and jet-black eyelashes, his green orbs always popped from across the room, especially when they looked so devoid of emotion—almost primitive—as they did right then.

  “Well, get over here and come and put these up!” She held up two colorful banners. One read ‘welcome,’ and the other ‘home’ in purple and gold glittered lettering. “We only have a few hours to get everything done. And get your disgusting feet off my couch. How many times do I have to tell you to leave your sneakers at the door? God only knows what kind of germs and diseases you’re dragging in here every day. If your godson is born with some incurable infection, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”

  “The only thing infecting my godson is the womb holding him captive right now, forced to listen to your nagging all day and night. I hope someone’s got him on a suicide watch in there.”

  Rocco’s cellphone beeping where he’d left it sitting on the stack of floating white shelves next to her shortly after he’d arrived, stole Stella’s attention before she could respond. As per usual, he’d gotten more calls and texts in the last half hour than she’d gotten her entire life.

  Melissa: Hey, Rock. Last night was amazing.

  “Someone’s texting you—again.” She rolled her eyes away from the phone. “Are you gonna come and get it?”

  “Who is it?”

  “Melissa.”

  “Hard pass…” He sank deeper into the cushions, eyelids heavy like a baby on the verge of a nap.

  “Would you get off your lazy ass and come and hang these already?”

  “Lazy? Coming from you? Oh, that’s rich, Freckles. That’s a real treat.”

  “Don’t… call me… Freckles.”

  “What are you gonna do about it?” His straight white teeth poked out from between his lips—Stella couldn’t tell if it was a smirk or a cringe—his deep, sultry voice the perfect contradiction to hers.

  “Let’s go.” She motioned to the small stepladder on the floor. “I set the ladder up for you and everything.”

  “Nah, I’m good. I mean, obviously, I’m good, Freckles. Look at me.” He motioned to his body, making his biceps ebb and pulse once more, before placing his hands back behind his head and nodding towards the stepladder. “It’s only three steps up. You could use the cardio.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. “You’re a fucking asshole.”

  “And you’re lazy as shit.” He nodded, holding her gaze across the room.

  “Why are you even here if you’re not going to help me? Why don’t you just get the hell out of my house? Forever?”

  “You really think if I had a choice, you’d be it? Keep dreaming, sweetheart.”

  “Dreaming? More like my worst nightmare. Don’t come for me.”

  “Cum for you? Couldn’t even if I wanted to.”

  “You’re repulsive.”

  “I gave him my word, that’s why I’m here. Get over yourself.”

  “You gave him your word that you’d lounge around with your dirty feet kicked up on my white couch, talking shit all day?”

  “More like ensuring your sheer incompetence hasn’t gotten you and my godson maimed or killed.”

  “The only thing incompetent in this room is your abysmal sense of style? What kind of grown ass man still wears an earring in his ear?”

  His phone beeped once more, and she cut her eyes to the shelf.

  Sofia: Still thinking about that tongue.

  She nearly gagged. “Yeah, well, as you can see, my baby and I are alive and well. Just like we were yesterday and the day before that. So, now that you have that information, you’ve kept your word, and you can exit my home. No reason to
hang around and continue making my life a living hell.”

  “Why drive home just to come right back? Might as well stay. Even if it means listening to you nag for the next few hours.”

  “Why don’t you kill a few of those hours responding to the horde of women blowing up your phone? I should’ve brought another banner at the party store to hang over your head tonight: ‘Beware of the Dog’.”

  He smirked again.

  “You’re really gonna make a pregnant woman do manual labor while you lay back on the couch she paid for, basking in the sun, and calling her fat the whole time?”

  “The couch you paid for?” He raised an eyebrow.

  Rolling her eyes with a huff, Stella turned back toward the ladder. She couldn’t even see the bottom step beyond her bulging stomach—a stomach that had once to showcased abs hard enough to grate cheese on. Tears stung her eyes at a memory that seemed gone forever, but she blinked them back, refusing to give him the satisfaction of even a glimmer of moisture. Drawing in a deep breath, her chocolaty breasts—which had also grown ample over the months—rose so high they nearly brushed the bottom of her pointed chin. She’d taken a little extra time that morning to curl her jet-black hair—which framed her heart-shaped face—into chunky ringlets, and the curls rose along with her heaving breasts from where they rested just below her bosom.

  His phone chimed.

  Jane: I need you inside me.

  Her disgust at the message dried her eyes in an instant, and she braced her hand against the wall for support. “And, yes, the couch I paid for. What’s his is mine, and what’s mine is his.”

  “Can what’s yours, be his, when you don’t have shit?”

  She faltered.

  “You’ve brought nothing to the table, and he’s brought everything. How does that work exactly? Make it make sense.”

  “It’s called marriage. A concept I’m sure is completely foreign to disgusting pigs like you.”

  Right on time to confirm her words, his phone sounded.

  Emily: Hubby just left. Come over. Now.

  Stella groaned as she lifted her foot onto the first step of the ladder.

  “See how easy that was?” he asked. “Already one step up. Imagine all the calories you could’ve been burning this whole time. Tons of pregnant women at my gym, you know. Busting their ass all the way up to month nine. You’re welcome to join—”

  “Didn’t you apply for some FBI thing in Quantico or something? Yeah, what’s the hold up on that?”

  He continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “Can’t go getting fat on my boy. He’s gonna expect to come home to the same girl he left. I’m just saying. That snap back better be epic.” His eyes traveled her body. “Tits are on point though.”

  “Don’t ever refer to my tits again. You’re an animal.” She jammed a silver tack into the left ends of both banners, securing them to the wall. “Just wait until Troy hears how badly you’ve been treating me. He’s gonna crack your damn skull open…” Letting the banners hang sideways, she stepped down and dragged the ladder a few feet to the right, grumbling the whole way. Climbing up the steps again, she secured the opposite side, breathing a sigh of relief at the ‘welcome home’ draped perfectly before her. Once she climbed down and both her feet were firmly on the ground, she was barely able to resist pumping her fists in the air in celebration, feeling like she’d just won the gold in the Olympic games.

  “It’s crooked.”

  She glared over her shoulder. “There’s nothing about you that I don’t hate to my very core.”

  “I’m devastated.”

  His phone dinged.

  Catherine: Kill yourself.

  “Finally, a lady with some sense.” Stella snatched up his phone while smiling back at him, all too happy to let him know what his latest conquest had to say.

  She faltered when she found him paying her no mind—his eyes instead locked to the opposite wall where several rows of square canvases lined the 20-foot ceiling. Each canvas displayed a different black-and-white image, blown up so they were large enough to cover the expansive wall. She noticed his gaze lingering on the few photos that he was in before his eyes eventually fell to the tables below them. Decorated in the same purple and gold color scheme as the banners, two long tables were set up against the wall and donned with a purple tablecloth. Dozens of purple and gold balloons, a tier of purple cupcakes and a steaming line of buffet platters filled with fragrant soul food lined the tables as well. Purple plastic plates, cups, silverware, and several stacks of gold napkins finished the look.

  His eyes shifted back to Stella, drawing in a sharp breath when their gazes locked across the room.

  Her lips tightened as the stare carried on for several seconds, knowing this was the moment he was used to women blushing, and looking down or away, unable to control their shyness or insecurities under his unrelenting gaze. Wondering whether they had something in their teeth. If their boobs were big enough. Their stomachs flat enough. This was the moment most women would run down the laundry list of all their biggest flaws, most of which were perpetrated by men just like him. Men who had the amazing talent of reading every woman’s deepest vulnerabilities like a children’s book, before he’d even opened it to the first page.

  So she held his stare, unblushing, unsmiling, just to take him down a few dozen notches. He needed it more than anyone she knew.

  He lifted his top lip at her.

  She lifted hers back.

  Just when she was sure he was going to let his eyeballs go bloodshot and come dislocated from their sockets just to win this staring contest, a knock on the door snapped them both out of their childish war, their gazes flying towards the door.

  “Thought you said it didn’t start for another hour.”

  “It doesn’t.” She began toward the door. “Probably someone who actually cares about me, deciding to drop by early to help.”

  “Your side piece?”

  She didn’t dignify that with a response or even look his way as she began out of the living room and into the foyer, but she knew he was behind her. The scent of whatever cologne he’d been wearing since high school pulled up behind her like a car tailgating her on the road. The silky, woody aroma seized her around the neck and made it a battle not to roll her eyes back into their sockets. The power of scent always managed to take her on a journey down memory lane, even if it was lane she’d rather forget having traveled.

  His phone beeped from where she still held it in her hand, a second knock booming in as they approached the door.

  “Better not be creepin’ on my boy on the low,” he warned.

  “When his best friend’s the biggest snitch in town? Not likely.”

  “Just hope he hit up that paternity place I suggested before he left.”

  “Oh… just… do me a favor—do everyone a favor—and go to fucking Quantico, already. Just go, Rocco.”

  “Don’t worry, I will.”

  “Can’t happen fast… enough…” Stella’s words slowed to a crawl after throwing open the front door, every strand of hair on her body standing tall. As the sunlight from outside blared in, its rays burned her eyes as they grew wider and wider, expanding every second, stunned and unblinking.

  Behind her, she was sure she could hear the exact moment Rocco stopped breathing.

  “Are you Mrs. Stella Armstrong?” The soldier on the left spoke first. Head to toe in their military uniforms, flanked with their respective insignia, both soldiers standing before her had grey-blue eyes that looked grim beneath their tilted navy berets.

  Her heart seemed to relocate to every inch of her body but her chest, making her skin feel like it was pulsating and trying to lift away from the bone.

  Rocco’s phone beeped again. This time the sound seemed to echo off the foyer walls, bouncing around—persisting—thanks to the strained silence that had invaded the room.

  “Yes, I’m—I’m Mrs. Armstrong,” she whispered, voice breaking, fingers tightening around the door.<
br />
  Rocco’s fragrant cologne moved in closer behind her, but this time it didn’t take her down memory lane. This time, her every sense had failed to function except the magic of hearing as she prayed not to hear the words she already suspected was coming.

  If it were possible, the soldier on the left grew even dimmer. “I’m sorry, ma’am, the Secretary of the Army has asked me to express his deepest regret…”

  The blood rushed from Stella’s racing heart to her ears in the blink of an eye. Plugging them. Making it impossible for her to hear another word the soldier said. She didn’t hear the phone as it slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor. Her vision blurred as hot tears filled her eyes, burning them, staining them beet red as the vessels in the whites pulsed to the brink of explosion.

  Then, she was screaming.

  So loudly it silenced the solider before her in mid-sentence, forcing him to lower his eyes. She screamed until her throat felt like it had gone up in flames. Until it had nothing left to give but dry, tattered ash. Ash that fractured every scream as it left her lips until all that remained were hoarse, shattered gasps.

  She didn’t even feel the solidity of Rocco’s arm wrapping itself around her body. His hand clutching her waist. She didn’t feel his fingers sinking into the hair at the back of her head. She didn’t feel him pulling her in. She didn’t feel herself being touched. Not until her cries became muffled, buried deep in the white cotton of his t-shirt, where she could feel his broad chest heaving and his heart hammering just as quickly and violently as hers.

  1

  6 Months Later

  “We’re running a little late. Hopefully, we didn’t miss the delivery guy,” Stella said as she parked her black Range Rover in the wraparound driveway of her estate, in front of her two-story home.

  “It’s Sushi Fusion, Stella. We could drop dead right now, call the restaurant from the gates of heaven, have Jesus Christ himself airlift them to the sky for free, and those motherfuckers would still be late. Hell, for the prices they charge you’d think they’d fly our food in by private jet.”