* * *
MILLIE WOULD HAVE squealed with delight had Joe’s tongue not already been in her mouth. She’d hoped this trip down Victorian smut lane would get his mind off the paintings he’d found and the pregnancy test. That had been a tall order, but the porn had come through for her. He was kissing her now, and she didn’t think there’d be any turning back.
However, there was some turning. There was only one bare spot on the wall, but Joe located it and put her back against it. That sandwiched them between a spanking machine and a foot-long wooden dildo affixed to a stand-up board.
“Sorry,” he grumbled, and there was more turning.
He switched positions with her so that he was the one pinned against the wall. She wanted to tell him that against the wall didn’t trigger spit memories, but she would have had to stop the kiss to do that. Wasn’t worth it. They could talk later.
Like a man on fire, Joe just kept on kissing her, maybe because he thought she needed to fire up, as well. But Millie was already there. She’d been there for weeks now. Wanting and lusting after Joe McCann.
Those tongue kisses migrated to her neck, to just below her ear. And the fire took off like a rocket. Until he’d kissed her there at the drive-in, she’d had no idea just what a trigger spot it was for her. Joe apparently had figured that out and was exploiting the heck out of it. Exploiting her breasts, too, because he cupped them and flicked his thumb over a nipple.
The pleasure continued to build, build, build. Until she ached for him. Until she was certain he’d drag her to the floor. But he stopped, and pulling back a fraction, he looked her straight in the eyes.
“You’re sure about this?” he asked.
It was the most unnecessary question in the history of unnecessary questions. “Yes.” Her breath gushed out with her answer. She went after his belt. “I’m hoping since your key is bigger than your fingers, it’ll be easier to open my lock.”
The corner of his mouth lifted, and he clamped his hand over hers to stop her from undoing his belt. “You’d think, but it can still be tricky.” He tipped his head to the foot-long wooden dick to his right. “Even that has to hit the right spot.”
With the ache going through her like a wildfire, Millie issued a challenge. “Hit the right spot, Joe.”
Their gazes held a moment later, and she knew he’d accepted the challenge when he dived back in to kiss her again. And touch her breasts. And slide her dress up her thigh so he could press the heel of his palm to the front of her panties.
She saw gold stars. Wonderful glittering, shimmering things. But she could also see that she didn’t want him to finish her this way. He’d already proven to her that he could bring her to climax, and Millie wanted to advance climaxing to the next level of this particular game.
“Inside me,” she managed to say.
“Working on it,” Joe assured her.
He was a man of his word, and he proved it by reaching behind her, unzipping her dress and shoving it off her. It made a light thud when it landed on the floor around her feet. With her half-naked, he obviously had a lot more places to kiss on her, and he proceeded to hit as many of those spots as possible, all while ridding her of her bra.
“I want your clothes off, too,” she protested.
But the protest died on her lips when he shoved down her panties and kissed her center. Oh, yeah. He would be able to find the notch in the lock again. And he would have likely found it very, very fast had Millie not latched on to his hair and pulled him back up to her.
“Clothes. Off,” she repeated.
She soon found out she wasn’t nearly as good as getting him naked as he’d been with her. Millie struggled, and struggled, but she finally got off his T-shirt. Finally got her hands on his bare chest. But she put her “get Joe naked” plans on hold for a second while she tongue kissed some of those glorious muscles. The man was built.
And bulging hard.
Millie discovered that when she lowered her mouth to the front of his jeans. The kiss, and nip with her teeth, she gave him might have been done through the denim, but judging from his groan and profanity, it’d been effective.
“Clothes off,” he grumbled, helping her with his jeans.
They joined her dress and underwear on the floor. He kicked off his boots, dragged off his socks and tossed them off to the side. That left him with only his boxers, and Millie wanted to just rip them off. However, she forced herself to slow down. Hard to do with him clearly so hard and ready.
The man made her mouth water.
So, she tugged down the boxers. Half inch by half inch at a time. Slowly. While she gave him a dirty little smile. When his erection sprang free, she put her watering mouth on him.
Joe cursed again, and this time it was aimed specifically at her. Grimacing, he took hold of her, maneuvering and lowering until he was sitting on the floor with his back still against the wall.
And he pulled her onto his lap.
Her mouth would have to be satisfied with kissing and licking because her new goal was to get all his long hardness inside her. She would have managed it, too, but damn it, he stopped her again.
“Condom,” he growled when she cursed him.
Millie groaned because she thought she was going to have to run downstairs and get the three condoms from her desk drawer, but Joe dug out one from his jeans’ pocket.
“Remember, lock and key,” he said, putting on the condom. “Gotta find the right notch. If I’m not hitting it, you’ll have to tell me.”
Millie wasn’t sure she could speak, especially after he gripped her hips and pushed inside her. He went slow, that whole half inch by half inch deal as she’d done with his boxers. It took a while. A torturous, perfect, glittering while for him to go tip to hilt inside her.
“Tell me,” he repeated. His voice was husky and all male. Like concentrated bottled testosterone. It caused places inside her to quiver and pulse.
Joe moved, one slow long stroke, again going tip to hilt. Millie went up yet another level of pleasure. Then, another. He kept doing that until the levels just kept spinning up, up, up. Until the heat just kept building.
She was somewhat aware that she’d never made it this far before, but she still wasn’t sure she’d be able to reach that sexual nirvana that had evaded her for a long time. In fact, she might not be able to do this, even with Joe.
“Tell me,” he insisted.
He was watching her face when he shifted them. He lifted his hips, moved hers down, and he added the lightest finger stroke to the spot that had just brushed against his erection.
It was the spot all right.
The mother lode of all pleasure. Sparkles and glitters burst like the Fourth of July, birthday candles and a billion fireflies. Thanks to Joe, the spot let go, and Millie felt her center spasm and clamp around him.
There was no need for her to “tell him” that he’d done it. Good thing, too, because all she could manage was to hang on to Joe and let the pulses, glitters and pleasure slide through every inch of her.
Moments later, Joe followed right behind her.
“Next time,” she finally managed to whisper in his ear, “we’ll use the Edwardian porn room.”
With his eyes glazed and sated, he looked at her. “Edwardian?”
She nodded, bit his bottom lip. “Oh, yes. It’s way, way hotter than this Victorian stuff.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE MOMENT JOE stepped inside Petal Pushers flower shop, the owner, Tommy Ellison, thrust out the bunch of white daisies. “I saw you parking your truck,” Tommy explained, “and I got them ready.”
“Thanks,” Joe said, taking out his wallet as Tommy moved behind the register to ring up the purchase.
“Tell Dara I put some extra ones in the bouquet,” Tommy went on, making change from the twenty Joe handed him. “Since it’s the anniversary..
.”
The florist’s words trailed off when Joe lifted his eyes and looked at him. Joe certainly hadn’t forgotten it’d been two years to the day since Ella had died. It was the reason he’d come in for the flowers. Joe had figured Dara would want to mark the day. He, however, wanted no such marking. Hell, he would have preferred no reminder but that would have been like asking the sky to not be blue.
“Two years,” Joe muttered. But it felt closer to two lifetimes.
“I added water tubes on the bottoms,” Tommy continued, his voice a little uncertain now. “So they’d last longer in this heat.”
Joe looked at the tubes—they were green plastic V-shaped vials that looked sharp enough on the bottoms to put out an eye. The stems of the daisies were inside them and anchored together with some thin wire.
“I used the spiked water tubes,” Tommy explained. “That way, Dara can stand the bouquet up. It shows off better that way.”
So, Tommy knew that Dara was the one who took flowers to Ella’s grave. Hell, everybody in Last Ride probably knew. It was ironic that Ella had managed to keep a boatload of things to herself in a town where secrets had a very short shelf life. Sort of like the freshness of flowers in the blistering heat.
“Hope Dara’s waiting until later to go out to the cemetery,” Tommy said. “It’s supposed to get up to ninety-eight today.”
Joe made a sound of agreement, thanked Tommy again and headed out. Dara would indeed be waiting until later since she was taking final exams today and wouldn’t be home for hours. He planned on driving her out to the cemetery right at sunset. Then, he could go back to his man-shed and brood about two-year anniversaries.
And Millie.
The brooding about her would no doubt lead to lustful thoughts. Thinking of Millie always did, but there was a grimy film of guilt over it. Definitely not a good combination. He’d braced himself for it, figuring it would come now that he’d had sex with Millie.
And it had.
It’d come with a vengeance.
The night with Millie had been amazing. She’d been amazing. Amazing, amazing, amazing. The word repeated through his head, making him curse. Because it was true down to the bone. And she didn’t deserve a man who couldn’t take that amazing stuff and give it right back to her.
But the question was—what was he going to do about it?
It was too late to end things before she got hurt. She would get hurt, period. Sex only brought them closer. Or rather, it brought her closer to him. He could feel it. So, yeah, she’d get hurt.
That’s why he was considering just letting this run its course. An affair that would possibly last through the summer and burn itself out. There’d still be hurt, but she’d be better ready for it.
Or so he was telling himself.
In fact, Joe was mentally repeating that when he heard Frankie call out. “Wait up,” she said. She was hurrying up the sidewalk toward him and had her hand clamped around Little T’s.
“Uncle Joe,” the boy greeted. “You got pointy, pokey things.” He reached out to touch the flower tubes, but because of that whole “looking sharp enough to put out an eye” deal, Joe moved them out of his reach. “Can I have ’em?”
“When you’re thirty,” Joe said, giving his automatic response, and he glanced up at his sister. His harried-looking sister.
“Could you watch Little T for about an hour? First graders are done for the day with their summer program, and his sitter got sick and just dropped him off at the shop. Tanner’s swamped with repairs, and I’m in the middle of inking matching butt tats.”
Frankie didn’t have to explain that she didn’t want her six-year-old son around to watch her poking at asses with needles. Plus, Little T would almost certainly get into something unless supervised, and Ink, Etc. was pretty much a danger pit for a kid looking to get into something.
“Sure, I can watch him,” Joe said.
Gushing out thanks, Frankie hugged him, narrowly avoiding getting stabbed with the flower tubes. “Are you okay?” she asked Joe, and he knew that she had also remembered the anniversary deal.
“Fine,” he assured her. “Go do the butt tats.”
Frankie hesitated a moment, sighed and then kissed Little T. She told him to “Be good,” and practically sprinted toward her shop while calling out to Joe that she’d text him later. No doubt so she could repeat her “Are you okay?” question. He could repeat his “Fine” answer, and then this crappy day that marked an even crappier day would finally end.
Little T looked up at him. “Can I have the pointy, pokey things now?”
Joe was actually thankful for the distraction. “Are you thirty and eleven feet tall?” he countered.
Little T sighed. “No.” He stretched that out and added a little pout. “Why do the flowers have pointy, pokey things?”
“For poking them in the ground.” Joe fished out Little T’s booster that he kept behind the seat. He got in place and helped Little T strap in.
“Can we poke them in the ground?” the boy asked.
Joe nearly gave him the same pat response again, but he looked at Little T, at the flowers, and he thought of Millie. It seemed as far-fetched as Little T growing up to be eleven feet tall, but maybe he could find some peace at the cemetery on this crappy anniversary. Maybe he would take one look at Ella’s grave and realize that what he was feeling for Millie, and doing with her, was okay.
“We’d have to poke the flowers in the ground at the cemetery,” Joe told him.
“You mean like where the dead people live?” Little T questioned after giving it some thought.
Joe nodded and despite his sour mood, he was amused at the way the boy had put that.
“All right.” Little T beamed. “Can we go out there now and do it and then stop by O’Riley’s and get ice cream?”
Joe wasn’t sure what would make Little T happier. The jabbing flowers into dirt or the ice cream. Either way, it was obviously the kid’s idea of a fun time with his uncle.
“Yeah,” Joe agreed. “Let’s go.”
Now worked fine because if he put it off for even a couple of minutes, he might realize just how stupid of an idea this was and turn around and go home. Of course, this meant he would need to buy more flowers so that Dara would be able to do her weekly ritual. Then again, she might be so happy that he’d made this visit that she wouldn’t care that she hadn’t been the one to put them on her mother’s grave.
With Little T asking a ton of questions about bugs getting squished on the windshield, where belches went after they got belched and if the temperature was going to soar to a jillion, Joe drove across town to Hilltop Cemetery.
He parked in his usual spot, beneath the big tree at the bottom of the hill, but parking was the only thing usual about this visit. Normally, he just stood back and waited for Dara to put the flowers on Ella’s grave and say whatever it was she said to her.
Keeping the flowers away from Little T, Joe started up the hill with the boy jumping and hopping while occasionally taking a normal step. The kid was sure bouncy. And talkative. Joe focused on that, the sound of his nephew’s voice, while he stepped in front of the tombstone. He halfway expected lightning to strike him or something since he’d sworn this was something he’d never, ever do, but there wasn’t a bolt of lightning anywhere in sight. The air stayed still and hot, almost as if it were waiting for something to happen.
Little T tugged on his arm. “Can we poke in the flowers now?”
“Just give me a second.” He’d have to get his hands working to accomplish something like that, and right now, his hands and legs seemed to be frozen. Ditto for his eyes. They were fixed on that headstone.
“You come here to talk to Aunt Ella?” Little T asked.
Joe had to swallow hard. “Dara does.”
“That’s Aunt Ella’s name right there on the white rock. I can
read it. What’s di-ed mean?” the boy tacked on to that.
At Joe’s puzzled look, Tanner pointed to the word Died.
He had to swallow hard again. “It’s died. It means the date of her death.”
Little T bounced around again and took a sudden interest in a cricket that was hopping on top of the short cut grass between the graves. “Uncle Royce has a di-ed date on his rock, too.”
Joe nodded. “It’s the same as Aunt Ella’s. Two years ago today.” He was already frowning over that reminder, but his frown deepened when exactly what Little T had said sank in. “Your aunt Millie takes you to your uncle Royce’s grave?”
“Nope. Grandma Laurie Jean did. Grandmother Laurie Jean,” he corrected with an eye roll. “She doesn’t like it when I say grandma. Says it makes me sound like a bun-kin.”
The kid probably meant bumpkin. Joe was betting Laurie Jean didn’t like a lot of things, but it was puzzling why the woman would bring Little T there. Then again, Royce had been the boy’s uncle by marriage, and he’d heard that Laurie Jean and Asher had handpicked Royce for Millie. So maybe there’d been genuine love between them. Love that hadn’t been doused simply because Royce hadn’t turned out to be Mr. Perfect after all.
Joe thought of another angle though. It was possible that Laurie Jean was taking the same head in the sand approach as Janice and believed that Royce and Ella could do no wrong.
“Is it time to poke in the flowers?” Little T asked, tugging at his arm again.
Clearly, the boy was looking more forward to this than Joe, so he handed Little T the bouquet. Carefully handed it to him. “Just jab the ends in the ground,” Joe instructed. “Don’t touch the pointy bits.”
“All right,” Little T said with all the enthusiasm of a kid who’d just been handed something really cool.
The boy jabbed in the flowers, not on the top of the grave but to the side of it. Without studying his “work” to see if it was the right place for the daisies, Little T took them out, jabbed them again and might have gone in for a third try if Joe hadn’t stopped him.
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