I drive through Youngstone, down Main Street, nodding and waving to people as I go. A few of the old-timers salute me and I toss a salute back, nodding in respect for our service.
Angela texts me with the address for her hotel and I vow to check it out when I get home, making sure they’re putting her up somewhere safe and comfortable. If not, I’ll wire her some money so she can find something better.
She’s right when she called me paranoid, but how the fuck could I not be?
I saw some shit overseas and even Stateside when I did a brief stint with a security firm.
Life is rough and hard and it’s up to people like me to keep the bad away from the innocents.
Liquid fire moves through me when I think about somebody making a move on my family… not just on Angela, but on Tessa and the children we’re going to have together too. I imagine another man trying to touch her and my heart almost explodes out of my chest.
I’d tear any motherfucker foolish enough to try that to pieces. I’d bust them open and let all their stupidity spill out.
I might be civilized with my lady – or as civilized as a man like me can be – but there’s a monster inside of me, a monster I’ve tamed and put to good use. But it’s a monster all the same. And now I’ve charged it with protecting Tessa above all costs.
Shit, I need to calm down.
Nobody’s out to get Tessa.
But that doesn’t matter.
It’s the thought of it that drives me crazy, making my body pulse in a desire to do something—run or lift or fuck or fight.
My mind returns to the way my princess looked when she was bent over in the cabin, sticking her flushed ass cheeks out, her pussy looking, pink and hot and tangy and tempting.
I grip the steering wheel harder, fighting the urge to grab my enflamed cock.
Tonight can’t come soon enough.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tessa
I stare down at the dress, laid out on my bed, my heart pounding through my body like a jagged taunt.
It’s a golden piece with a frilly hem, reminding me of something a flapper girl would wear in the 1920s, but it’s the cut that really gets me.
It’s low-cut, the sort of dress, attractive, thin, billboard women wear. It’s the sort of dress I can never imagine wearing, and yet Trent included a note with it.
I’ll pick you up at sunset. Wear the dress or I won’t be very happy.
I know he was probably smiling – smirking – as he wrote this, but even so, his words shimmer around me.
I hope you will be very happy…
What will he do if I upset him?
Will he spank me?
Emotions grip me at the thought, nerves, and lust warring with guilt. The guilt springs from the fact that I got off the phone with Angie barely two minutes before the courier delivered my outfit for the evening. She was ecstatic with this new development, almost singing down the phone to me in her happiness, giggling and laughing and generally being the happiest woman alive.
“I’m sorry I’m leaving you in a lurch with diner.”
I giggled. “That place is overstaffed as it is. I’m sure I’ll manage.”
I’ve got work tomorrow…
But that seems a lifetime away.
After all, that’s happened with Trent today, time feels like it’s doing funny, magical, impossible things. It’s like a day has become a week or a month or even a year, stretching and letting me experience a myriad of emotions I never could’ve dreamed of before.
I move my hands over the soft fabric, biting my lip far too hard, telling myself firmly that I can wear this, I can be sexy.
Usually, a mean inner voice would rise at this sort of thought, taunting me, calling me all the names the bullies in high school did. But after Trent lustfully claimed me in the cabin, moving his hands over me and then his throbbing manhood, it’s like I can finally start to believe I might be beautiful.
I flinch and almost let out a silly cry when somebody knocks on the door.
“Hello?” I call.
“I tried calling up the stairs,” Mom says. “Do you want anything for dinner?”
“Oh.”
“Oh?” Mom chuckles. “What sort of an answer is that?”
I find myself on the verge of blurting it all out right now, about me and Trent and the mess I’ve made of my life, of all the complications I’ve brought into my friendship with Angie.
“No,” I say instead. “I’m fine. I’m having dinner out, actually… with that boy, that man, we talked about.”
“Can I come in?” she asks.
“Just a second.”
I grab the dress and shove it back in the box, and then carry it across the room – the room still hazy with late-afternoon sunlight – and stow it under the desk.
I turn.
“Okay, you can come in now.”
Mom opens the door and smirks her way over to me, a knowing glint in her eyes. It’s the glint I missed sorely when her illness struck when the light became manic and paranoid.
“So you’re having a date,” she says, clearly enjoying herself.
“You’re one to talk,” I banter. “You’ve been with Liam all day.”
Her eyes get even brighter at the mention of her boyfriend. “Well, yes… and I won’t tell you what we were doing for most of it.”
I shiver and toss her a sour look. “Please don’t.”
“Come here, Tessa. I want to talk to you.”
She sits on the bed and pats the spot beside her.
I laugh. “Are we going to have the talk, Mother? I might be a little old for that.”
“We’re going to have a talk,” she says.
I roll my eyes but walk over, all the same, dropping into the spot next to her. She turns to me with a serious expression,
“How long have you been seeing this man?”
“What? Why do you ask?”
She throws her hands up. “Because I know my daughter, that’s
