Butler, Vermont Series: Boxed Set, Books 1-3

by Force, Marie

  Mary groaned, filled with regret and frustration that she couldn’t take him up on the offer. She didn’t have a spur-of-the-moment bone in her body, for one thing. “I don’t have a passport, which makes me sound like a small-town hick next to your world-traveling self.”

  “Not at all. We could get you one if you want to come. I have contacts at the State Department who’d help me out. I’d love to have you. Just say the word.”

  “I can’t pick up and go away for two weeks. I have a job and a life and…” Really, she had no good reason at all to say no to the trip of a lifetime.

  “I understand.”

  “I’m glad you do, because I’m furious that I can’t go. I’ve never been anywhere, and I want to go everywhere.”

  “Come with me, Mary. I’ll take you around the world. We’ll go anywhere you want.”

  “You’re like the devil himself, Patrick. Temptation personified.”

  “Why thank you, honey. That might be the nicest compliment anyone has ever paid me.”

  She snorted with laughter. “You would take someone calling you a tempting devil as a compliment.”

  “Not just anyone. I like it when you say it.”

  “So you’ll be gone for Thanksgiving?” she asked.

  “Uh-huh. I figured with Cam set with her new family this year, there was no reason to put off meetings in countries that don’t celebrate the holiday. Of course, I decided that before I met you.” He combed his fingers through her hair. “What’re you doing for the holiday?”

  “I work at the soup kitchen every year. It’s one of our busiest days.”

  “You do so much for others. It’s very admirable.”

  “I enjoy it.” She propped her head on his chest. “Could I ask you something?”

  “Anything you want.”

  “You mentioned your wife a couple of times. Would you tell me about her?” Only because she was lying so close to him did she feel the tension that came over him and immediately regretted ruining their playful mood by bringing up a difficult subject for him. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I didn’t mean to spoil our good time. It’s none of my business.”

  He rested a finger over her lips. “It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just… It’s still hard to talk about even almost thirty years later.”

  “I’m sorry, Patrick. I didn’t mean to open an old wound.”

  “You didn’t. That wound has never really healed.”

  “Of course it didn’t. How could it?”

  “I met Ali my first week at NYU. I was there on an academic scholarship, and she worked in the cafeteria.”

  “Was she a student, too?”

  “No, she was helping to support her family. Her mom died having her youngest sister, the dad was emotionally unstable, and they were in dire financial straits. She worked three jobs to help keep them afloat.” He got a faraway look in his eyes. “She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. Cameron looks just like she did when we first met, which has been very difficult for me at times. Ali and I saw each other as much as we could between school and work. She did a lot for her younger sisters, too, so we were lucky to get two or three hours a week together, sometimes late at night or first thing in the morning. But we took what we could get. I never dated anyone else the entire time I was in college, and right before graduation, I proposed. Her dad was vehemently opposed to her getting married. I think it was because he needed her so much to help out with her siblings, but he said things… Awful things that hurt us both and put a rift between us and her family that broke her heart. I actually offered to step aside to make things easier for her, but she wouldn’t hear of that.”

  “She loved you.”

  “She really did, and I loved her so much.” He took a deep breath. “We were really happy together as I started my business. We lived on love and ramen noodles for a few years before things started to take off a little. We got pregnant with Cam, and she was so excited, especially after we learned we were having a little girl. She came up with the name Cameron when she was about five months along, and wouldn’t consider any other name. I wanted what she wanted, so I was fine with it. Then her labor started, and it went sideways from the beginning. She was in labor for two days, and the baby wouldn’t come. They talked about a C-section, but she really didn’t want that, and I was stuck on the sidelines watching her suffer and feeling so helpless.

  “Cameron finally showed up in the middle of the second night, the most perfect baby you’ve ever seen. And Ali… She was so tired, and she’d lost a lot of blood. They had trouble getting it to stop and were talking about doing a hysterectomy when her heart stopped.”

  “Oh, Patrick…” Mary wiped at tears.

  “They tried to revive her. Worked on her for more than an hour. I couldn’t believe it was possible to lose her that way. She was young and healthy and strong. When they came out to tell me, I already knew. I felt dead inside, even before they said the words. So, there I was with a newborn, a fledgling business that needed my full attention and my heart broken into a million pieces. I had no idea how I was supposed to go on without her. I was twenty-four years old, and I felt like my life was over.”

  “I’m so sorry that happened to you and to Cameron.”

  “I ran into one of Ali’s sisters a couple of years after she died, and she told me what happened to Ali was the same thing that happened to their mother when she had their youngest sister. So now I get to live in mortal fear of that happening to my daughter when or if she decides to have children.”

  “Oh my God,” Mary whispered. “Does she know that her grandmother also died from childbirth?”

  “No. I never told her because I didn’t want her to be afraid of dying young.”

  “You have to tell her, Patrick. She has a right to know.”

  “I will. They said they’re not in any rush to have kids, so I figure I have some time before I bring that up with her. Not that there’s any right time to tell someone you love that having babies could be a bad idea.”

  “Still,” Mary said, wiping away new tears at the thought of something so terrible happening to Cameron, Will and Patrick. “You have to tell her.”

  “I will when I see her over the holidays. I’ve done some research, talked to a lot of doctors, and everyone tells me so much has changed in thirty years, and there’s no reason to think that what happened to her mother and grandmother will definitely happen to her, too. There’s also no way to know for sure that the same exact thing happened to both of them, other than they both died as the result of childbirth.”

  “That’s somewhat reassuring.”

  “Is it wrong of me to hope she never decides to have kids?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “I’m not sure how I’d survive if something ever happened to her. I wasn’t always a good father to her, but God, I love her.”

  “I know you do, and I’m sure you were a great father to her.”

  “No, I really wasn’t. I was gone more than I was home, and I let a progression of nannies and other people I paid do most of the heavy lifting with her. I didn’t even know she has attention deficit disorder until she was in college and figured it out for herself. I spent twelve years deriding her for her lousy grades and telling her to quit being lazy about her schoolwork. It made me crazy that her grades were so bad. And you know what? She never told me about the ADD. Lucy let it slip by accident. She said something about how they’d bonded over their ADD issues.”

  “That must’ve been hard to hear.”

  “It was awful. I went home and looked it up, and when I read about it, I was in tears thinking about all the terrible shit I’d said to her. It never once occurred to me that anything was wrong. Her mother would’ve been all over that, and I… I was just clueless. I still feel bad about that all these years later and even after I apologized to her for the way I treated her.”

  “You did the best you could in an awful situation.”

  “I really did
n’t, Mary. I appreciate you trying to make me feel better, but I’m always going to have to live with the guilt of knowing I left my little girl to fend for herself in an unforgiving world while I was off building my empire.”

  “She was well cared for. I'm sure you saw to that.”

  “Always, but what she wanted most was me, and I didn’t give her that.”

  “You were heartbroken and grief-stricken to have lost your wife the way you did. I’m sure that had something to do with the decisions you made during those years.”

  “I don’t remember much about the first few years after Ali died. It’s all a blur.”

  “You just proved my point. Cameron loves you very much. That’s obvious to anyone who has seen the two of you together. You guys were so sweet at the wedding when you gave her away. You both had tears in your eyes. You made me cry.”

  “She wore her mom’s dress and surprised me with it. I was floored by that.”

  “I can only imagine how emotional that must’ve made you.”

  “I was a total disaster that day. You saved me from embarrassing myself by keeping me company.”

  Mary smiled at him. “It was a terrible job, but someone had to do it.”

  His eyes lit up as he returned her smile, obliterating the grief that had overtaken him. “Thanks for listening to all that terribly sad stuff.”

  “Thank you for sharing it with me.” She reached out to caress his face and drew him into a kiss that started off slow and sweet and quickly spiraled into something much needier and urgent. Hearing what he’d endured and how he’d admitted to his failings as a father made him that much more human to her—and that much more appealing. He was living proof that no one got through life unscathed, no matter how fortunate they might appear to others.

  Mary felt his hand on her pajama top, realized he was unbuttoning it, and did nothing to stop him as he spread the two panels and bared her breasts to his greedy stare. Just that quickly, he had her right back to where she’d been on the floor in front of the fire, wanting more of him and hoping he would keep going this time. If he did, she wouldn’t stop him.

  His hand on her breast made her gasp and then wriggle closer to him. She couldn’t get close enough. On the way to Burlington, she’d thought about how no one could be as amazing as he seemed, and she’d been certain then that she’d see something in him this weekend that made him less appealing. If anything, the opposite had happened. Every bit of himself that he revealed to her, even the hard-to-hear things, made him more attractive to her, not less.

  The chemistry that had been present between them since the day they met ignited once again, hotter than ever. He was changing her life one kiss at a time, one tender caress at a time, with every confidence shared, and even when he teased her or kicked her ass in checkers.

  Mary was powerless to resist him, and as he kissed a path from her lips to her breasts, she felt the door to her heart open to admit him. He had worked his way under her skin so deeply that she no longer remembered what her life was like before Patrick. Now, there was only after Patrick, and after Patrick was a rather exciting place to be.

  He tugged her nipple into the heat of his mouth, dragging his tongue back and forth over her sensitive flesh and setting off a firestorm that heated her entire body. In all her life, she’d never experienced the sort of craving desire that he aroused in her. The tiny part of her addled brain that continued to worry about this whole thing blowing up in her face urged caution, but her brain was quickly overruled by the rest of her that wanted anything and everything he had to give.

  “God, Mary, I could do this for hours and never get enough,” he whispered, his lips vibrating against her other nipple.

  “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.” She sounded frantic and needy. In her right mind, she would’ve obsessed over how desperate she must’ve sounded to him. But in her Patrick-addled mind, she couldn’t bother to care about such trivial things.

  His lips moved to her belly, leaving soft, damp kisses that made her crazy for more. Then she felt his tongue dip into her belly button, and she nearly levitated right off the bed. “Easy, Mary. I’ll take care of you.”

  Mary closed her eyes and focused on breathing, but was aware of him removing her pajama pants and panties. His fingers skimmed over her skin, which erupted in goose bumps. Then she felt his lips on her calf and the back of her knee and her inner thigh. Her body became one giant quiver with every nerve ending on alert. The surface of her skin had never been so sensitive.

  Realizing his intended destination, Mary sat up, uncertain of whether she planned to push him away or pull him closer. “Patrick…”

  “Shhh, let me love you.” He looked up at her with fire in his eyes. “Relax, sweetheart. I’ll make you feel so good.”

  Powerless to resist the overpowering desire he roused in her, she fell back onto the pillow as he used his broad shoulders to hold her legs wide open.

  Oh my God. I’m never going to survive him. This act had never been her favorite thing, but that was probably because she’d never done it with Patrick, who clearly knew exactly what he was doing as he spread her open and gave her his tongue and fingers. He knew just where to touch her to bring her pleasure unlike anything she’d experienced before. To think she might’ve never known that this was possible had she not met him… That thought made her inordinately sad for the person she’d been before him, before this.

  And then he applied the perfect amount of suction in exactly the right place as his fingers stroked her from the inside. Mary ignited, screaming his name as the orgasm powered through her, leaving her gasping in the aftermath as her body quaked with aftershocks she felt from her scalp to the soles of her feet.

  “Mmm,” he said, his lips vibrating against her belly while his fingers remained embedded in her. “I knew it would be amazing with you.”

  Mary was too busy trying to remember to breathe to formulate a coherent reply.

  “Do we need protection?” he asked.

  His question brought her back to reality. This was really happening, and she wanted it so badly. She wanted him.

  “N-no. I’m safe if you are.”

  “I am. I had a full physical two weeks ago. I can show you—”

  She reached up to place her fingers over his lips. “I trust you.”

  “That means everything to me.”

  Mary ran her hands down his back to the waistband of his pajama pants, helping him to remove them, her eyes bugging at the sight of his hard cock—his extremely large hard cock. “Really?” she asked. “That face, more money than God and that, too? You really are inordinately blessed, aren't you?”

  Laughing, he said, “Not always, but lately I have been. And by the way, are you complaining?”

  She eyed him with trepidation, hoping she’d be able to take him. “Could I let you know after?”

  His laughter lit up his handsome face.

  God, he is beautiful to look at.

  Propped on his elbows above her, he brushed the hair back from her face and kissed her with lips that tasted of her.

  Her heart pounded so hard, she feared it would burst through her chest.

  “We’ll go nice and slow,” he said as he took himself in hand and ran his cock through the wetness between her legs, nudging her clit and drawing another gasp from her. “Nice and easy.” He began to enter her in small increments, giving her a little before retreating and starting over.

  Mary clung to his arms, feeling his biceps flex each time he pushed into her.

  “Tell me how it feels,” he said in a tense-sounding tone she hadn’t heard from him before.

  “Tight,” she said. “Hot.”

  “Mmmm, those are good words. You feel so amazing. I want you so badly. I haven’t wanted anyone the way I want you in so damned long. I’d given up on ever feeling this way again, and then there you were. My sweet, sweet Mary.”

  His words were as powerful as the deepening thrusts of his cock.

  Mary raised he
r hips to meet him, drawing a groan from him as he gave her more. His chest hair brushed against her sensitive nipples, setting off a chain reaction of need that converged into a pulsating heartbeat between her legs. Sex had never, ever, ever been like this…

  He kissed her neck, her throat and her jaw on the way to her lips. “Wrap your legs around my hips, sweetheart. Mmmm, yeah, just like that.”

  The new position allowed him to go deeper, and Mary started to climb toward another peak.

  “So good,” he whispered gruffly against her ear. “So, so good.” He reached beneath her to grasp her bottom in his big hands, opening her even more to his deep possession.

  The word “impaled” took on new meaning as he continued to give her more of himself until she wondered how much more there could possibly be. Quite a bit, as it turned out. By the time she felt his belly tight against hers, she had been stretched to her absolute limit and her inner muscles were twitching and contracting in what felt like mini-orgasms.

  “Christ,” he muttered. “Being inside you has to be what heaven feels like.” He kissed her softly at first and then with growing urgency as he began to move in her.

  Mary held on for dear life, her hands sliding down his back to grasp his muscular ass, which flexed under her hands every time he thrust into her, touching places deep inside her that she hadn’t known existed until he showed her.

  An orgasm took her by surprise, exploding within her like a sunburst, making her feel more in that one instant than in any other.

  “Mary,” he gasped, pressing deep into her to ride it out with her before giving in to his own release. He came down on top of her, and Mary wrapped her arms around him, wanting to hold on to this perfect moment—and him—for as long as she could.

  His breath was warm against her neck as his heart beat hard against her chest. “Holy moly,” he whispered after a long silence.

  Mary laughed at the sense of wonder he conveyed in those two little words.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, raising his head to look down at her.

  “Mmm, much better than okay. You?”

  “Same.” He gazed down at her, his heart in his eyes as he kissed her softly and sweetly even as he continued to thrust into her in gentle strokes that quickly became more as he recovered in record time and started all over again.