After that, I admitted, “It’s always been you.”
“Fuck, now I gotta fuck you again,” he murmured, but his murmur was jagged.
I smiled against his mouth and slid my hands up his back.
Ham slanted his head, took my mouth with his, and proceeded to fuck me again.
Chapter Nine
“What ’cha need to take you there?” Ham growled.
“Oh God,” I whimpered.
“Baby, hurry, I’m close,” Ham grunted.
We were in the living room. My panties were dangling from my ankle. My back was to the wall. The bottom of my wraparound dress was gaping open because my legs were wrapped around Ham’s hips, my arms around his shoulders, and he was powering deep.
Suffice it to say, when I wandered out of his bedroom in a clingy dress that showed cleavage, spiked, high- heeled sandals, hair out to there with soft curls and sweet flips, and sultry makeup, Ham liked what he saw.
Thus me against the wall getting it from my guy.
“Keep going,” I begged.
“Fuck, should have dropped to my knees and ate you before I fucked you,” he groaned.
That did it. My head flew back and hit wall, my hands slid up and clenched in his hair, my legs squeezed him hard, my sex squeezed him harder, and I cried out as I came hard.
“Thank fuck,” he muttered, shoved his face in my neck, thrust his cock inside again, again,
I pressed my face into his, held on tight, and started sliding my lips on his skin and nuzzling his jaw and ear with my nose when his cock started gliding in and out of me.
He kept gliding as he whispered against the skin of my neck, “Just in case you hadn’t noticed, glad to have you back, cookie.”
I smiled against his skin when I replied, “Glad to be back, bruiser.”
I felt his smile as he clarified on an inward glide, “All the way back, babe.”
“All the way back, darlin’.”
He slid in and stayed there but lifted his face out of my neck so I tipped mine to catch his eyes and saw his brows raised.
“Bruiser?”
“You run on nothing but coffee,” I explained.
His raised brows lowered but drew together in confusion as he asked, “What?”
“Only a bruiser who could kick the ass of a cage fighter named Butch Razor can run five miles on nothin’ but a cup of coffee,” I expanded my explanation.
Ham stared at me.
Then he threw back his handsome, dark head with messy hair I’d delightfully made messy and he burst out laughing.
I saw it, heard it, and felt it, the last in very, very good places.
And I loved every bit of it.
We both had the day off, as Ham always arranged, and we spent nearly all of it in bed, taking a long, happy trip down memory lane.
Seeing as we woke up after noon, we had to make up for lost time before dinner at The Rooster. Ham made us some eggs and toast. We had the annoying errand of taking a trip to Carnal Hotel to get my stuff (my fault). Ham helped me drag my stuff from my room into his and then we showered together before Ham left me to get ready.
The trip to The Rooster was long, an hour, but we didn’t talk about anything important on the way there. I was too busy being happy that first, Ham held my hand while he drove; second, he always looked hot but in dark denims and a black untucked, straight-hemmed tailored shirt that he left open at the collar, he looked
I’d been there seven times, all of them with other guys, four of those times with Greg pre- and during marriage. It had fabulous decor, with Cotton prints hanging on the walls, so many windows you could see through it, it was high up on a mountainside, you didn’t go there unless you dressed up, and its menu was pricey. Mostly steaks. Everything good.
It was the perfect place for the celebration of Ham and me being back,
I was riding a happy wave the likes I’d never felt
Ham had bought a TV.
Ham had talked about settling.
Ham had talked about having a family.
Ham had come back to Gnaw Bone for me.
Thus I wandered into The Rooster in the curve of Ham’s arm around my shoulders, mine around his waist, my head tipped to the side and resting on his shoulder, my face, I was sure, wearing a goofy but gleeful smile, thinking that nothing could pierce this happiness.
At the same time I marveled that, not a year ago, I had been at what I thought was my lowest, only to sink lower.
And now I was here.
Ham muttered, “Graham Reece,” to the hostess. She murmured, “Right this way,” back, I came out of my bubble of happiness, focused on the room, and my bubble burst.
I also tripped over my feet.
This was because, in the far back corner, sat Greg, his eyes on Ham, his face pale, his company clearly business associates.
And in the front corner was Kami Maxwell, Max’s sister, a woman I’d known years who had always been slightly bitchy and constantly in a foul mood but had mellowed a bit when her brother’s girlfriend had faced imminent death and bested it. Still, she was unpredictable, and right then, her eyes were sharp on me in a way I didn’t like. In a way I worried Cotton or Arlene had got her ear. And if Kami Maxwell had something to say, whether you wanted to hear it or not, she said it.
And last, at the back wall sat my aunt, my father’s sister, a woman I hadn’t spoken to in nine years, a woman I detested, a woman I never wanted to see again in my life. Which was an impossible feat since we both lived in the same town. She was also sending a venomous stare my way.
“Cookie, you good?” Ham asked, his arm giving me a squeeze and I tipped my head to look at him.
“This is a disaster,” I whispered.
His brows shot together and the hostess announced, “Here we are.”
I looked at her, motioning to a booth and declared, “We have to go.”
She blinked.
“What the fuck’re you talkin’ about?” Ham asked under his breath.
“Greg’s here,” I told him.
His head jerked, his eyes scanned, they narrowed when he caught sight of Greg, and he muttered, “Fuck.”
“And Kami Maxwell,” I went on.
He looked down at me and asked, “Who?”
