arm.
We started to move to my car but Zander glanced back and I stopped when he muttered, “Just a sec,” and moved to Xenia’s tombstone.
The bouquet of blood-red roses that we brought, the newest one since we always brought one to Xenia when we came, had tipped to the side. Zander went down to his knees, righted it, shoving it into the snow and mounding more around it to keep it steady.
I swallowed against a tingle in my throat as he jumped to his feet and came back to me.
“We can go now,” he told me, his head tipped back to catch my eyes.
“All right, darlin’,” I replied softly, lifting a hand to squeeze the back of his neck before I let it drop away.
We walked side-by-side to the car and it had been so long, I had searched for it so often and never got it, I gave up on trying to feel it.
So I missed the light, cool, gentle breeze that followed us to the car.
“Love that, baby,” Ham growled, his hips moving faster, harder, driving deep. “Love
At that, I lifted my head and shoved my face in his neck, my limbs tightening around him, my orgasm searing through me, and with his words came a warmth after the burn that had nothing to do with my climax.
And everything to do with love.
Reece stood alone at the bar in the function room at The Rooster, his eyes aimed at his wife.
Zara Reece.
Fuck, Zara was his wife. Something he never thought he’d have again. Something he thought he never wanted to have again. Something, in having, it being her, that day Zara taking his name, something he thought was the most precious gift he’d ever received.
Zara was laughing with Nina and a now-showing Mindy. Always damned pretty, today, no doubt about it, his new wife was beautiful.
The ceremony was small, this party the same, but she’d pulled out all the stops when it came to her appearance.
She’d bought a strapless ivory dress that was covered in lace and had shimmering flakes that caught the light. It skimmed her curves and fanned out in a kick with a short train at the back. Her soft hair was curled and pulled up away from her face and neck. Her makeup highlighted every pretty feature on her face. She wore pearls at her ears, neck, and wrist, borrowed from Maybelline, who’d worn the same on her wedding day.
Since his bride was fancy, Reece had bought a new suit and worn a tie.
The tie was long since gone, his ivory shirt opened at the collar, a beer in his hand.
Zara had divested him of his tie in the back of the limousine that took them up to The Rooster and she’d done this about ten minutes before she’d yanked that lacy, shimmering skirt up her hips and climbed on his lap, slid down on his cock, and rode him slow and easy, then hard and rough until they both found it.
The Rooster was damned good food and worth the long, one-hour drive to get there.
Still, that night in their limousine, his wife riding his cock, wearing her wedding gown, smelling good, looking better, feeling fucking great, and bearing his name, Reece wouldn’t have minded that drive being a fuckuva lot longer.
Zara might be ticked off, but although there were arrangements of red and ivory roses on the tables, a three-tiered wedding cake they’d eventually get to cutting, and a DJ, this was not a formal reception.
This was a party.
None of that traditional stuff, speeches, special dances, and bouquet and garter throwing.
Just booze, food, good friends, good music, and good times.
Easy.
Reece watched and felt his lips curve up as he did so when Nina said something that made Zara laugh. His lips curved deeper when Wilona approached and, without hesitation, still laughing, his wife slid her arm around her aunt’s waist and pulled her close, Wilona returning the favor and smiling at her niece.
Tearing his eyes from her, they drifted across the room to see Zara’s maternal aunts chatting and smiling with Zander. Zara’s mother wasn’t there, wasn’t invited, but when Zara had called her mother’s sisters, told them Amy Cinders would not be invited but asked them to come, they said they wouldn’t miss it for the world.
He looked back at his wife.
His girl lost her sister, never had a mother or father to speak of, and it might have taken her a while, but she finally got herself a family.
“Took a gol’ darned long time but does a body good to see that.”
Reece’s head turned at these words and he looked down at Jimmy Cotton who had his eyes aimed Zara’s way.
“Agreed,” Reece murmured and Cotton looked at him.
“’Spose congratulations are in order,” Cotton grumbled in a way that said he’d give them but he didn’t like it. Then again, the man grumbled out of habit so Reece took no offense.
“Seein’ as I’m wearin’ this fuckin’ suit and my woman’s in a dress that cost a shitload more than our TV, yeah,” Reece agreed.
Cotton’s lips twitched and, his fingers wrapped around a bottle of beer, he settled in beside Reece.
Reece stayed silent and waited. Maybelline and Wanda had given their approval of his being in Zara’s life. His girl had told him so. Arlene did the same, showing it grumpily but still hilariously.
In the past few months, not around often but around, Cotton had not. And now the man, who never looked in a good mood and rarely acted like he was in one, seemed the same.
“Hear things are still a bit tied up,” Cotton noted, and if Reece knew where Cotton was going with this comment, he also knew Cotton wasn’t wrong.
Nina had been able to get a judge to schedule a hearing so they could unfreeze the accounts in order to access some of the money to continue to give Wilona the funds to keep Zander and to pay his tuition. But they hadn’t yet had a judge hear their full suit.
Seeing as Xavier’s case was weak, he had no money and was currently out on bond, awaiting trial for assault and trespass, and he was a jackass to boot, he’d been unable to find legal representation. That and the fact he had no leg to stand on meant he’d eventually lose. They just needed to wait it out. But the trial was now scheduled and although it was several months away, Xavier’s criminal trial coming fast on its heels, their wait had an end.
And even if he was stubbornly declaring his innocence for whatever twisted reason the man would do that, considering the number of witnesses he had to the acts he perpetrated in the home Reece gave Zara, Xavier was going down. This meant, in the coming months, he’d see jail time. Even if it wasn’t much, it was something.
And he’d lose everything.
Nina was not backing down and she was going after everything they owned as well as Dahlia Cinders, who’d put her house on the market but left town, whereabouts unknown until Nina’s investigator found her living in an apartment in Denver.
As a recipient of stolen funds she fully knew were stolen, Dahlia had been named in the lawsuit.
And she might try to escape but Nina didn’t let any shit slide. She wasn’t getting away.
And she’d be going down, too.
In other words, Nina Maxwell did as asked. It hadn’t happened yet but when all was said and done, Xavier Cinders would be broken, homeless, cleaned out, an ex-con, and lucky if he landed in an unsafe studio apartment. And she’d one-upped this by making moves to bury Dahlia Cinders, too.
Absolutely worth every cent of their monthly payments to Nina’s firm, the balance of which would be easily
