Dead Over Heels

“Actually, Ms. Nosy Parker, he’s back in the hospital.”

“Completely massively dead! Wait. What?”

“He got out today. So I went to have a chat with him about how not to treat people I’ve secretly been in love with for twenty-five years. He disagreed.” Saul touched his left eye, puffing and a hideous greenish brown. “Vehemently. But, as the saying goes, you should see the other guy.”

“You went after that guy? By yourself?” She threw up her hands and he flinched. “Sorry. But Jesus Christ, Saul! What has gotten into you this week?”

“I have no idea,” he said dully.

“If you had that big a beef you should have gone to the Pack leader! Or let me handle him!”

“Ha! Not likely.”

She ignored that. “Not picked a fight with someone like that. God, he could have broken your stupid neck.”

“So? That would solve a lot of problems for you, wouldn’t—aaaagggghhhhh!”

She’d punched his bad leg again. “Now you’re just sounding like a jerk. A pissed-off jerk.”

“Which is,” he admitted, “usually your job.”

“I just cannot believe you went after him!”

“I felt guilty,” he admitted. “Really, really guilty. You—I can count on one hand how many times I’ve seen you cry and he made you—he—y-you—and your shirt w-was all torn and he’d h-hit you a-and—a-and—”

She kissed him to shut him up.

Chapter 15

She kissed him as gently as she knew how, delicate butterfly kisses on his mouth, his cheeks, his swollen nose, his bruised eyes, his forehead, and he brought his arms around her with shocking strength and pulled her onto his lap. She gently parted his lips with her tongue and he sucked it greedily into his mouth, making her gasp.

“Wait,” she said, pulling back. “Not to sound like a cocktease, which I’ve already been accused of this week, but you’re awfully banged up. Maybe this isn’t such a good—”

“Are you kidding?” he said, heaving himself off the couch with her in his arms. “And let this chance go by?” And with that he actually ran with her to his bedroom, dropped her on the bed, then started pulling off his clothes as quickly as possible.

“If you don’t quit,” she said, trying not to laugh as a sock sailed past her ear, “you’re going to hurt yourself again.”

“Shouldn’t you be naked by now? No, wait. I want to do it.”

“Bossy.”

“It’s been a weird week.”

So she let him ease her shirt off, pull her shorts off, divest her of panties and bra. Then he was on top of her, his broad chest settling against hers as he kissed her, sucking her lips into his mouth and gently nibbling at the tender flesh. She groaned into his mouth—it had been two years—and arched against him when his big warm hands covered her breasts.

She ran her hands down his broad back, feeling the smooth muscles beneath the skin, praying Geoff the asshole hadn’t cracked a rib or worse. She ran her fingers through his black pubic hair and grasped his cock, feeling the velvety length pulsing against her hand. He was—my, my.

“Saul, you are hung like a horse.”

“Stop that,” he groaned, “if you don’t want to be done before we really get started.”

“I had no idea.”

“Please stop talking,” he begged.

“Yeah, that’s not really my style. It’s—” He kissed her, effectively shutting her up, and she wrapped her legs around his back as he eased into her, inch by delightful inch. He was panting, harsh gasps in her ear, and moving with maddening slowness. She beat his back with her fists but he ignored her obvious urgency and sucked a nipple into his mouth.

“Saul, for Christ’s sake,” she groaned.

“Please s-stop talking.”

“Saul, please!”

So he obligingly slammed into her and she screamed at the ceiling as sparks exploded in front of her eyes, as he thrust and shoved and pushed, as she tightened her grip on his hips and grabbed his ass and sank her fingernails into him.

Her orgasms were like fireworks—one, two, three, much better than anything she’d been achieving on her own in the last twenty-four months—and still he thrust, still he pushed inside her and withdrew and pushed again, and the sweet agony exploded through her again and she shrieked his name.

“Oh, God, Cain!” he cried, and then he shivered all over and she could feel him pulsing inside her, filling her up, warming her from the inside out, and she shuddered once more in answer to his pure male need.

They lay locked together, gasping.

“Oh my God,” she said at last.

“Please don’t spoil it,” he murmured into her neck.

“Saul, where have you been all my life?”

“Wherever you’ve wanted me to be.” Pause. “Idiot.”

She laughed. “Ooooh, love the sexy pillow talk. I may melt.”

“I actually don’t love you; now that I’ve had you I think I hate you.”

“Oh, you liar.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, and kissed her again.

Chapter 16

Now, don’t go getting a swelled head,” she told him at breakfast. He’d woken her up twice in the night, once to take her from behind, once to lick every inch of her body.

He peered at her over the paper. “No, not at all.”

“Just because you’re the most fantastic lover ever doesn’t mean I’ve magically fallen in love with you overnight.”

“Oh, you love me,” he said casually. “You’re just a little slow on the uptake.”

“That is just what Darrell said,” she muttered.

“What?”

“Never mind. Eat your eggs, you’ve still got two black eyes.”

“My eggs,” he commented, “are runny.”

“You think I cook for anybody, you ungrateful ass? Eat!”

“Runny and you put too much milk in them.”

“Shut up!” she howled, and threw an English muffin at his head. He handily dodged. She tried to calm down. It was difficult, when all she wanted to do was rip his clothes off and fuck him on the kitchen table.

Saul.

Saul, of all people! Who’da thunk it?

“What I am trying to say,” she managed through clenched teeth, “is that we should date.”

“I was thinking more like getting married.”

“Date,” she continued doggedly, “and on or around my birthday, if we think it’ll work out, we can get married.”