Protecting Her: A Romance Bundle

by Mia Ford

  It was the most amazing feeling in the world.

  A feeling I would cherish forever.

  A feeling I would dearly miss when everything went to hell.

  7

  Annabel

  I didn’t sleep much after I got home from Mr. Gibbs’ place. I hung around long enough to make sure the new mother and fold were going to be okay, then packed my bag and climbed into my truck, grateful that the day was finally coming to an end. Mr. Gibbs reached through the truck window and shoved a wad of bills into my hand for payment. I didn’t bother to count them. I’d take whatever he had to offer in payment. I became a veterinarian to help the animals, not get rich off people. So long as the bills were paid and my nose was above water, I figured I was doing okay.

  I thought about Shane all the way home and found him waiting for me when I finally closed my eyes and tried to sleep. In my mind’s eye, he was still seventeen; young, lean, beautiful, his touch gentle and his cock hard.

  I wondered what he would look like today after so many years away.

  Would he come home now that his mother was dead?

  Would he try to see me?

  Would he even want to?

  Did I want to see him?

  And if I did, what would happen when our eyes met?

  Would I fall into his arms like a lovesick teenaged girl?

  Or would the images of he and Juju’s betrayal flood my mind?

  They were questions that went unanswered in my fitful sleep, questions that I knew would still be lingering when I got out of bed in the morning.

  I stood in the tiny nook that served as my kitchen staring out the window over the sink as I waited for the Mr. Coffee to finish gurgling. It was just after six, but the sun was already well above the horizon and bringing with it the heat of the day. I could feel the moist air wafting through the open window like the heavy heat of a hair dryer.

  The apartment would be sweltering by the time I got home because there was no air conditioning other than the noisy window unit in my bedroom. I usually just left the windows wide open so the air could flow through.

  I wasn’t too concerned about anybody climbing in and stealing anything because there wasn’t much to steal. I hadn’t bothered to decorate or furnish the place. It had a “store room” feeling about it and that was just fine with me. Plus, hanging pictures and putting down rugs would mean that I was putting down roots. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that, not here is a little hovel above my practice. Hell, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to stay in Gulf Breeze, even though it had been my home for most of my life, except when I was at Texas A&M getting my degrees.

  I had a battered sofa in the living room and one of those old-style, giant big screen TVs that weighed a metric ton. They came with the place and still worked good enough for me. In the kitchen was a small table with two mismatched chairs, the Mr. Coffee, a microwave, and an ancient refrigerator that made noises like a freight train at random times throughout the day and night. The first night I’d slept there it scared the living crap out of me.

  I had a single bed and dresser in the tiny bedroom that I’d brought with me from mama’s house. It was the bed from my old bedroom, the one I had slept on when I was a girl. Shane and I had made love in that bed dozens of times when my folks were gone. Silly, but when I lie awake at night sometimes I can feel him next to me, can hear him breathing, can smell the sweat from his young body after he rolled off me after sex. How different things might have been if Shane hadn’t been so free with his cock. I understood he was just a stupid boy and stupid boys do stupid things with their stupid cocks, but goddammit, why did he have to go and fuck Juju Wheeler of all people? I could have asked my ex-husband the same thing because it was catching him fucking Juju in our bed that finally drove me away. Looking back now she did me a favor by fucking Bradley, but she pretty much ruined my dreams by fucking Shane. No, scratch that. Juju was just the common denominator. It was Bradley and Shane that fucked things up. I couldn’t blame Juju for fucking either of them. I had been doing it for years. Still, it wasn’t like she couldn’t get any other man in town with her big blonde hair and big bouncy tits and big puffy lips. Why did she have to zero in on the two men that supposedly belonged to me?

  I poured myself a cup of black coffee and carried it to the bedroom to get ready for work. We opened the doors at seven and I always had a full schedule of sick dogs and cats, and I needed to run by the Gibbs place to check on the new fold. And if memory served, Juju was bringing in her little dog Pumpkin for its shots next week. It was only my dedication to helping the animals that prevented me from telling her to take her fucking dog somewhere else. It wasn’t the dog’s fault its mistress was a fucking slut who had the same taste in men that I did. Shit, I would have gladly given her Bradley, but why did she have to go and kill what I had with Shane? When I asked her that question when we were teenagers she just smiled and wiped lipstick from the corner of her lips with the tip of one stiff finger.

  “If Shane was happy with you, he wouldn’t want me,” she said, eyeing me up and down before turning to walk away. Her luscious blonde hair bounced and her hips swayed from side to side. I wanted to tackle her and strangle her until she turned blue, but I didn’t because in the back of my mind I had already thought the same thing.

  If Shane was truly happy with me, he probably wouldn’t have screwed Juju in the first place.

  And he wouldn’t have gotten into the car with Kenny that night.

  Or did what he did to his old man the next day.

  He probably never would have left Gulf Breeze if I hadn’t pushed him away.

  And I could only imagine how different my life might be today.

  Juju Wheeler was the blonde, big breasted, cheerleading captain at Gulf Breeze High. She could jump higher than the other cheerleaders, cheer louder, and really get the crowd going during the Friday night games. She was willing to do anything to get the boys on the team revved up and ready to kick ass on the field, including giving the star players blowjobs on the team bus and letting them fuck her in the ass in the dressing room. Juju was a total slut, but only for select members of the Gulf Breeze Sharks. She had worked her way through the defensive line and was now eyeing the offense as it got closer to the state playoffs. Shane was the quarterback of the team. The star. He had an arm that everyone thought would end up throwing touchdowns for Texas A&M. I knew Juju had been hitting on him for months, but everybody knew Shane belonged to me. Juju knew it, too. She just didn’t give a shit.

  “You think she’s pretty?” I asked Shane one night as we sat in the car at the Sonic Drive-In watching Juju hold court at one of the outside tables across the way. She was surrounded by her cheerleading squad and a couple of the football players. Shane shrugged noncommittally as he sucked Root Beer through a straw.

  “She’s not ugly,” he said with a sideways grin, licking his lips.

  “She’s a slut,” I said, huffing at her through the dirty windshield. “You know everybody calls her Deep Throat, don’t you?”

  “I do,” Shane said, wiping a hand across his lips.

  I turned my disgust in his direction. “Does that sort of thing get you hot?” I slid my hand up his thigh and found his cock waiting there. It immediately hardened at my touch.

  “I am not averse to deep throating, if that’s what you mean.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me. “You wanna drive up to the lake?”

  “What’s wrong with where we are?” I asked, nibbling at his earlobe as my hand continued rubbing his cock through his jeans.

  Shane looked around nervously. We were at the Sonic Drive-In on a Saturday night. It was the mecca of teenage activity on weekends because there was nothing else to do in Gulf Breeze. The place was packed. Cars at every ordering station. Kids and adults at the outside tables. Little kids on the playground next door.

  “What the heck are you doing?” he asked, his voice cracking a little. “Jesus, Annabel, we’re at the fucking Sonic?”

  “Shhhh….�
� My fingers were nimble. I tugged open the button on his jeans and found the zipper. He lifted his ass off the seat and let me push his jeans and underwear down enough to free his long cock, which was hard as a lead pipe in my hand.

  “Now,” I said, my hand moving slowly up and down, my lips at his ear. “What were you saying about deep throat?”

  Shane’s breathing grew heavy. He leaned his head back on the headrest and put his hands on the steering wheel to steady himself. His eyes darted around to make sure no one was watching.

  “Does that feel good?” I asked as his cock swelled in my hand. I glanced down at it and licked my lips. The bulbous head was like a ripe plum about to pop. The veins along the shaft pulsated with every beat of his heart. “Do you think I could get all that in my mouth like Juju does?”

  “Fuck… I dunno…” Shane was starting to sweat. I stuck out my tongue and licked his neck.

  “Mmmm, salty…” I cooed. Without another word, I lowered my lips to his cock and swirled my tongue around the head. His entire body tensed. I could taste pre-cum on my tongue. I slid the head inside my mouth and licked the slit. Shane moaned and shifted in the seat. I could hear the music blasting from the speakers outside. I could hear voices and laughter. I knew someone could walk by the car at any moment and see me sucking my boyfriend’s cock, but I didn’t care. I had something to prove and there was no turning back now.

  “Fuck… Annabel… you’re gonna make me cum…” Shane whispered frantically.

  I hushed him without taking my lips off his cock. Now, two things to know here. One, Shane had a long, thick cock that I’d sucked many times, but had never tried to deep throat. Two, I had no idea if I was going to make him cum or puke all over him or both. Whatever the outcome, I was committed now. If Juju could do it, so could I.

  I held my breath and took in as much of his cock into my mouth as I could. Then I went a little deeper and the tip of his cock hit the back of my throat and I gagged.

  “Shit, Annabel, don’t puke on me,” Shane said from above me. His words fell on deaf ears. I slowly slid my lips back from his cock, my tongue cupped and trailing along the bottom of the shaft, then slowly lowered my head back down. This time when his cock hit the back of my throat I somehow managed to relax and didn’t gag. That worked so well I did it again. And again. And again. Before I knew it, I had most of Shane’s ten inches in my mouth and was working his balls with my fingers.

  “Fuck…” he sighed. I could smell the sweat coming off him. I could smell the aroma of pussy juice wafting from between my legs. I held his cock steady and bobbed my head up and down, taking him in clear to the back of my throat and back out again.

  “Fuck… I’m gonna pop…” Shane said. He was wiggling in the seat, breathing hard, tapping his hands against the steering wheel.

  “Pop… baby…” I said, my head going up and down like a Texas oil derrick.

  “Shit… fuck… people are… walking… fuck…”

  Shane sucked in a deep breath and blew his load in my mouth. It was like deep throating a fire hose as he shot his milky cum deep down my throat. I pumped his cock with my hand and sucked up every delicious drop without gagging a single time. When he was done, I pushed myself up in the seat and leaned in and smiled with his cum on my lips.

  “Let’s see Juju beat that,” I said.

  I should have never said those words.

  Because a month later, he gave her the chance.

  8

  Shane

  I was fucking exhausted by the time the British Airways plane touched down at Houston’s Hobby Airport, about an hour’s drive from Gulf Breeze. I had been in the air a total of 21 hours and 17 minutes, flying out of Kandahar, connecting at Heathrow in London, then direct to Houston. It was better than flying on a troop transport, but not by much. I had spent the last 12 hours scotched between a fat motherfucker who snored like a freight train and smelled like Polish sausage, and a skinny German woman holding a baby that insisted on crying most of the way across the Atlantic Ocean. I had never been so happy to get off a plane in my entire life.

  I rented a car at the Hertz window, the biggest thing they had, a monstrous Lincoln Navigator SUV that would allow me to stretch out my long legs. I threw my duffel into the trunk, started it up, and cranked up the air. I adjusted the vents in the dash to blow the cold air directly at my face. It was fucking hot in Texas. Hotter than Kandahar even. I could feel the black t-shirt I was wearing sticking to my back against the soft leather seat.

  I made my way onto Interstate 45-south and settled in with the cruise control set at 70. I was the slowpoke I guess because everybody else was doing 90 and passing me like I was sitting still. Fuck them. I was in no hurry to get home… shit… I can’t even call it that with a straight face. Gulf Breeze was not my home. It was just a little shithole town on the Gulf coast of Texas that didn’t even show up on most maps. I had spent the first eighteen years of my life there. Leaving was like being let out of prison.

  I had never felt safe or free a day in my life. I found myself starting to relax for the first time ever as the bus pulled out of the terminal and headed toward Michigan, but there was still the tingling of danger in my bones. I was honestly afraid my old man would run the bus off the road and come onboard to kill me. To finish what he started. That would be about like Clint Mavic. Kill his oldest son in broad daylight and claim he had done the world a favor. My mother would watch him do it and back him up.

  So, why couldn’t I call Gulf Breeze home?

  Because for me there was no such place.

  My old man had used me for a punching bag my whole life. I can’t tell you how many bruises and cuts and scrapes the bastard gave me over the years. I could close my eyes today and feel the point of his boot in my back and in my ribs. I could picture my mom standing off to the side covering her mouth with her hands, big tears in her eyes, as she watched her husband pounding her eldest son like a bag of sand.

  Stop, she’d whine, barely loud enough to hear. Clint… please… you’re going to hurt him…

  He didn’t care. He was pissed off an angry, though not really at me. Clint Mavic was pissed at life in general. He felt that he’d been dealt a shitty hand and he had to take his frustration out on somebody. It might as well be me, a skinny little kid that couldn’t fight back. I learned to just lay there curled up into a ball praying that the blows would soon stop.

  When my younger brother Kenny came along, I was terrified that the old man would start shifting some of his venom Kenny’s way. But he didn’t. He never raised a hand to Kenny. Hardly ever raised his voice. It was like Kenny was the son he never had, even though he’d had me for six years by the time Kenny was born.

  Kenny was an adorable little kid. And we looked nothing alike. I was stick thin, with black hair, dark skin, and brown eyes. Kenny was born with a headful of blond curls and a pinkish complexion and blue eyes, like the old man. He always said Kenny favored his side of the family while I looked like my mother’s side. He called them “fucking Indians” because my mom’s dad was a full-blooded Cherokee. My old man hated my grandfather, the one man never afraid to stand up to him. My mother once told me that he didn’t start beating her until after my grandfather died because he knew gramps would kill him without blinking an eye. Maybe that’s why he focused his anger on me. Every time he hit me maybe he was picturing his fist slamming into the face of my grandfather.

  The old man doted on Kenny. So, did mom and so did I. He was a sweet kid. It wasn’t his fault that he was the old man’s favorite. In all honesty, Kenny’s birth seemed to temper the old man a bit. He didn’t seem so quick to anger and didn’t drink nearly as much, but when he did he always came home looking for me.

  “Why does he hit you?” Kenny asked me once when he was probably six or seven years old. I was twelve or thirteen. We were sitting on a dock at Myer’s Lake watching the fish steal the worms off our hooks. Kenny had hidden behind my mother dozens of times over the years, watching the old man p
ound on me. I tried not to look at Kenny when it was happening. We were both helpless, Kenny even more so than me. It was just too fucking painful for both of us.

  “I dunno,” I said quietly, shrugging it off like it wasn’t a big deal.

  “Why doesn’t he ever hit me? Doesn’t he love me?”

  I glanced over at him. What a dumb fucking question. Then I saw the tears in his eyes. He was serious. In his little brain, the fact that our old man beat the shit out of me but never touched him meant that he wasn’t loved. I already hated my old man, but never more so than at that moment. I could take his beatings, especially now that I was putting on some muscle and size, but Kenny was just a sweet, innocent little kid with sparkling blue eyes filled with tears. And the old man was fucking with his brain. Son of a bitch.

  I put my arm around his thin shoulders and pulled him in close. I rested my cheek on top of his head and sighed. “He doesn’t hit you because he loves you, Kenny,” I said quietly. “You don’t hit people you love.”

  “Daddy doesn’t love you?” he asked innocently, tugging up the front of his dirty t-shirt to wipe the tears from his eyes.

  “No, daddy doesn’t love me,” I said. “But that’s okay. Long as you love me, I’m good to go.”

  “I love you, Shane,” he said, wrapping his thin arms around my waist and squeezing tight.

  “I love you, too.” Thankfully, his red and white bobber started dancing on the surface of the lake. Kenny had a fish on the hook. He squealed and jumped to his feet, back-peddling along the dock to drag it in. I reached for the line and lifted the fish up so he could see it. It was a catfish the size of my shoe. Kenny dropped the pole and grabbed the fish. He stared at it for a moment with a grin on his face, then his eyes welled with tears again.